Chapter 27

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

“ R oad trip,” Bryce yelled as he came into the farmhouse kitchen, where he lived with his wife and two dogs.

Codi worked at the counter, her back to him, as she fed their dogs their special breakfast. When she turned to look over her shoulder at him, she said, “We’ve been on a road trip before. You don’t need to be so loud.”

Bryce grinned at his wife of the past eleven months and drew her away from scooping green beans out of a can and into a dog food bowl. “We’ve never flown anywhere before,” he said. “Besides our honeymoon.” He grinned down at her and kissed her gently.

Codi was not a morning person, and Bryce loved everything about a new day, including the way the sun rose and painted the mountains and hills to the east in golds and oranges, and the Tetons to the west in blue and white.

“Plus, we get a few days off the ranch together,” he said, as he moved away from her to set his toast for breakfast.

No sooner had he pushed the lever down when Codi said, “Can I say our prayer today?”

“One-hundred percent,” he said, and he put his arm around her waist and bowed his head. He prayed every morning while his toast browned, the habit becoming something he and Codi had done together since the day she’d moved into the farmhouse after becoming his wife.

“Dear Lord,” Codi said. “Bless us with safe travel to Jackson today, that the roads will be clear and other drivers will be mindful of us. Bless the pilots and those working on the plane to have clear minds and that all will go well. May we be able to arrive in Nashville with willing hands and helpful hearts, ready to help Harry and Adam make their move from Nashville to Coral Canyon.” She paused and swallowed, and Bryce thought she might not be able to say much more before his toast popped up. That was the beauty of the toaster prayer. He couldn’t go on and on, and he saved his nighttime prayer for that, where he knelt down by his bed and poured out his heart to the Lord.

“Bless Bryce that he won’t start crying when I tell him that we’re going to have a baby before Thanksgiving. Amen.”

“Amen,” Bryce bellowed. And then everything Codi had just said caught up to him. He sucked in a breath and turned toward his wife. She was already crying .

“Bless Bryce that he won’t start crying,” he echoed. His hands moved to her belly, which was still flat as ever. “You’re gonna have a baby.” Wonder and awe overcame him as well as another wave of pure love from God.

Codi nodded and sniffled. She wiped her eyes and pushed her pure white hair back and said, “ We’re going to have a baby, Bryce.”

Bryce didn’t start crying. Instead, he pumped both fists into the air as he whooped and hollered. He grabbed onto Codi and held her tight, spinning her around right there in their kitchen.

“This is so amazing.” As he calmed and the adrenaline bled out of his body and his pulse quieted, yes, the tears came. Bryce had shed a lot of tears over babies in the past, some of them happy but most of them not. But this morning, when he and Codi would only be doing their morning feeding and then loading their already packed suitcases into his truck and heading for the airport, Bryce cried some of the happiest tears of his life.

When he and Codi disembarked from the plane in Nashville, she said, “I mean it now, baby, you’re not to say a word to anyone. It’s too soon for them to know.”

“But you think you’re due in November,” he said.

“I haven’t been to the doctor yet,” she said, something she’d told him a half-dozen times since the toaster prayer that morning. They talked about names, and if they wanted a boy or a girl, and which bedroom they would use in the farmhouse for a nursery.

His daddy, Uncle Otis, and Uncle Trace had taken an earlier flight and should already be here. So Bryce hadn’t had to keep his voice down so that his father wouldn’t overhear about the pregnancy.

“Yes,” Codi said, “I think I’m due in November. My period is a little weird, Bryce, remember? But I took a pregnancy test yesterday morning and again this morning, and they were both positive. I haven’t had my period since February, so I think November.” She gave him a look as they approached baggage claim. “I’m maybe six or eight weeks along. It’s too soon to tell people.”

“Okay,” he said. “I got it.” She threw him another severe look and then stood there and waited while he went to get their bags. Bryce had such fond memories of everyone who had come to help him move from Louisville to Coral Canyon when he’d made his triumphant return, and he’d wanted to be there when Harry did the same.

Not that Harry had run away because he’d gotten his college girlfriend pregnant and couldn’t face the family. But it still felt like a significant, faith-filled move to leave behind an enormous country music career in favor of a small-town Wyoming life.

Codi had called a ride, and they arrived at Harry’s downtown apartment only half an hour later. When they climbed to the second floor and turned the corner, the door stood open to Harry’s apartment, and laughter came barreling out of it .

Bryce’s heart warmed and his smile ticked up. He hurried toward the apartment, where he found his uncles and his father, Harry and Adam, and a whole heap of boxes, takeout containers, and guitars propped against the couch in the living room.

He let Codi enter the apartment first while he stood in the doorway and watched them all welcome her to their fold. His daddy gave her a hug, and Uncle Otis put his arm around her shoulders.

Bryce’s tears pricked at his eyeballs again. He pushed them away, because his father would know instantly that something was wrong. And while having a baby this time wasn’t something bad or wrong, Bryce still couldn’t give it away by crying over it.

He thought of that morning’s toaster prayer, and he doubled down on it as he entered the apartment and hugged Uncle Otis. “You guys look like you’re having a jam session instead of a packing session.”

“Well, Harry got hit with some inspiration right in the middle of cleaning out the kitchen cupboard,” Uncle Otis said. “Then Trace said he was hungry, so we had to order food. And you know how things kind of spiral from there.” He laughed, and Bryce did too, as he moved over to Uncle Trace.

He hugged him and pounded him on the back. “Are we going to survive this move?”

“I think this will be our easiest one yet,” Uncle Trace drawled.

“That’s because we have Adam arranging every single little detail,” Bryce said. He grinned at Harry’s assistant from over his father’s shoulder and then stepped over to hug Adam too.

Harry’s assistant always tried to shake his hand first, but Bryce did that and pulled him straight into a shoulder-to-shoulder hug. “I’m so glad you’re moving to Coral Canyon with him, brother.”

“I am too,” Adam said, and he sounded a little bit surprised. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m going to do there, but I’m excited about something new.”

“You’re going to do the exact same thing you do now,” Harry said.

“But you might not need someone to go pick up sour cream in small-town Coral Canyon,” Adam said, and it sounded like a discussion they had had many times before. They probably had.

Adam said nothing more, and Harry pressed his mouth into a tight line. When Bryce came face to face with him, he played the grumpy cat while Bryce salivated and smiled like the golden retriever.

“Hey, brother,” Bryce said, pulling Harry into a hug. “Did you get me anything to eat?”

“It’s my dad,” Harry mumbled into his shoulder. He pulled back, and his grumpy smile came onto his face. “Of course we ordered something for you and Codi, and some for Abby and Georgia and all the cousins who are over the age of fifteen back home. There’s enough for all of them.”

Bryce tipped his head back and laughed, releasing some of the tension in the apartment, in his chest, maybe way down deep in his soul. Then he moved over to Codi, who stood in the kitchen with Uncle Otis as they chatted. “Looks like there’s enough for everyone,” he said. “What do you want, baby?”

“I want some of that spicy chicken,” she said, pointing to a half-empty container of brightly sauced chicken. “And the noodles with lots of sauce, and as many mushrooms as they have in there.”

“I picked out all my mushrooms and tossed them back,” Uncle Otis said. “So there should be plenty.”

“I told him not to do it,” Daddy said as he joined Bryce in the kitchen. “But I guess it’s good for something.” He gave Codi another squeeze. “How are you, my dear?”

Codi shot Bryce a look and said, “Doing just fine, sir.”

“How was your flight, Dad?”

“Oh, you know, it was a flight.” Daddy grinned at her and then at Bryce. He didn’t seem to notice anything was off about either of them. His momma would have, and Bryce silently thanked the Lord that she had stayed in Coral Canyon with the little kids instead of joining Daddy to help Harry move home.

Bryce dished up the food that Codi wanted and put the plate in front of her and then got his own. He sat at the bar too, while conversations went on and Harry led everyone into his music studio to show them what he needed help boxing up.

Just the two of them now, Bryce leaned over to Codi. “When we tell everyone about the baby, can we have a party at our house instead of just using the family text? ”

She looked at him, her blue eyes blazing. “You told me we wouldn’t have to have a party for everything.”

“We won’t,” he said. “But this is a really big deal to me.” He stayed sober as he said it, and Codi searched his face. She had to understand much more of what he wasn’t saying than what he was, as she had in other important conversations.

Relief pounded through him when she nodded knowingly, smiled, and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Of course, we’ll have the best party in the world,” she said. “When we tell everyone that we’re going to have a baby that we get to keep and raise.”

He grinned and nodded and said, “Thank you, Codi.” And in his mind, he added, Thank you, dear Lord , as well.