Chapter 37

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

K assie Avery glanced around the remodeled living room at Harry’s house. She’d been here before, of course. She’d come to welcome him home and had stopped by with a bag of her sugar cookies after his first concert last week.

Now, she took in the boxes and boxes of pizza—far too many for the eleven people who had gathered here tonight. Of course, Cole, who was seventeen, had a hollow leg for a stomach. And Boston, Bryce, and Reggie were no lightweights either, not when it came to meat lovers pizza.

Kassie caught her husband’s eye, her emotions immediately soaring toward the stratosphere. But this wasn’t her party, nor her house, and she wasn’t sure if Harry wanted to do any announcements or welcome speeches.

The doorbell rang, and he jogged toward it, saying, “ That’ll be the ice cream,” while everyone else stayed in the back of the house, talking and laughing.

Kassie wanted to join them, but her skin felt stitched on wrong. She wasn’t sure why, other than large groups of people made her nervous, especially the Youngs—which also didn’t make sense, as she’d been an honorary member of the Young family for many years now.

She attended everything with Bryce. In the eight years since they bought the Rising Sun Ranch and lived in Dog Valley with his family nearby, his grandmother brought her food, as did his mom and aunt. And whenever they needed help on the ranch, all of his uncles came right over, ready to step in.

Kassie loved them all, but they also reminded her that her family was not like this. So you’ll create one that is , she thought as Harry returned to the kitchen with at least a gallon of ice cream for every person.

“My word,” Codi said in that dry tone she had, and which Kassie loved. “How many people did you think were coming tonight?”

“I like ice cream,” Harry said with a grin, obviously determined to be joyful tonight. “Plenty of leftovers.”

She wondered if his door was as open as Bryce’s and if his family just walked through it all the time. Probably, as he lived in town, much closer to everyone than Bryce did. Kassie loved her and Reggie’s little red brick cottage out of the way. No one ever came there who didn’t mean to, and she always knew when someone was coming.

“All right,” Harry said after he’d heaved the gallons and gallons of ice cream onto his dining room table. “Welcome to our first cousin movie night.” He grinned, his enthusiasm for this event contagious.

“In the Young family,” he said. “We usually start with some announcements. And I don’t know if anyone has anything they want to tell us all tonight just for this crowd. I want you to know that whatever we do here is just between us, for this middle generation of Youngs.” He gave a half smile, as if he’d just come up with the label for their group. “I think my only announcement is that I’m obviously an over-buyer. So eat as much pizza and ice cream as you can while you’re here.”

Everyone laughed, and they all looked around at one another. Kassie was the oldest one there besides Reggie, who had a couple of years on her. The group ranged from the fourteen-year-olds like Rosie and Liesl, all the way to her and Reggie—who was nearing forty.

She understood what Harry was trying to do: take the cousins from all of their daddy’s first marriages and make them feel important, make sure they didn’t get lost or overlooked, make sure they felt like Youngs too.

Bryce had often felt left out, like he didn’t belong, like he was an add-on, like his daddy had started a second family and left him behind. Kassie understood feeling like a second-class citizen inside her own family, and she wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

But teenagers and twenty-somethings didn’t usually make “announcements” at any of the family parties. So she wasn’t surprised to hear only silence streaming through Harry’s house.

Then she raised her hand halfway and said, “Reggie and I have something.”

Her throat closed, but she swallowed hard against the knot forming there. She’d already called and told her mom, and the next step would be to tell Bryce and Codi, who stood right in front of her.

She could tell Reggie’s sister too, and then the news would go out to the entire Young family. She cleared her throat. “I’m going to have a baby in December.”

A beat of silence filled the house, and then Harry whooped. He started to clap, his smile as wide as she’d ever seen it on the stages around America. “That’s so great.” He came over to her and hugged her tight. “Way to go, Aunt Kassie.”

He loved teasing her that she was his aunt, and Kassie always returned the favor. She hugged him back, gave Belle a light hug, and then faced Bryce and Codi. They drew her into their arms at the same time, and she wept happy tears against her best friend’s shoulder.

She and Bryce still worked incredibly well together at the Rising Sun Ranch, but their relationship had definitely changed. It had to, because she was married to her best friend now, as was Bryce. They still needed each other. Their relationship was still special and one-of-a-kind, but it wasn’t the same as it had been when they’d bought the ranch and moved here together.

Sometimes Kassie mourned it, and other times she thanked the good Lord above that she’d been able to transition. Some of the things she used to tell Bryce and rely on Bryce for, she’d now take to Reggie. He wanted that just as much as he’d wanted to be a father.

While it hadn’t been easy for her to get pregnant, and God might only give them this one baby, Kassie was determined to devote everything she had to her husband. She stepped out of Bryce and Codi’s arms and moved right to Reggie’s side. They hugged him next, and no one else had anything to announce, so Harry said, “Let’s load up with pizza and ice cream and get this movie started.”

“I’ll come babysit for you,” Rosie said, coming to Kassie’s side. “I’m a real good babysitter.”

“I’ve heard that,” Kassie said. She smiled at the teenager who possessed so much spunk and spirit. “I’d love to have you come babysit for us.”

Rosie grinned. “I hope you have a girl. Girls are the best.” She immediately joined the fray to get food, because she never seemed to get enough to eat either.

Kassie grinned at her, though part of her feared having a baby girl. Or rather, a teenage one she couldn’t just carve a pumpkin with and then send home.

She told herself she had a long time before she’d have to deal with a teenager as she got in line and picked up a couple of pieces of pizza. She enjoyed seeing Rosie, Liesl, and Corinne be so close, and she noted that Boston and Cole didn’t get too far from Harry. From Cole to Boston to Harry spanned almost a decade, but the three of them got along great .

“You want meat lovers or supreme?” Reggie asked.

Kassie’s stomach swooped. “I don’t know if I can eat any pizza,” she said, looking at one of the boxes that held the all-meat pie. “It’s so greasy.”

“Ice cream then?” Reggie said. “It looks like he got about fifty kinds. I know what you like.” He grinned and went to get her dessert for dinner.

She watched him go and then turned back to Codi and Bryce. She caught Codi wiping her eyes quickly, and an alarm sounded inside her. But then Belle joined them and said, “Congratulations, Kassie.”

“Thank you.” She nodded toward the fridge. “I heard you say that pizza looks greasy, and I know Harry has some baked potato soup in his fridge. Would you like me to heat that up for you?”

Kassie’s first instinct was to say no. She didn’t typically like people fawning over her. And she was still getting to know Belle, so she definitely didn’t want to make her do anything. As she opened her mouth to say no, she was fine, Bryce said, “Yeah, she’d love that, Belle.”

Kassie glared at him.

“What?” He took her pizza’ed paper plate from her. “You love baked potato soup. It’s my grandma’s, and you were just complaining yesterday that you’d eaten yours too fast.”

“Okay, I’ll heat it up,” Belle said, and she glanced at Kassie and then Codi and Bryce as she walked away.

“You’re holding up the pizza line,” Bryce said with a grin, and Kassie fell back a step to let him by.

“The movie’s starting!” Harry called. He had two full- size couches, as well as beanbags in his living room, so there’d be plenty of places to sit.

“Here you go, baby,” Bryce said, handing Codi a plate laden with pizza. That had to be for both of them, and Kassie wondered why he didn’t just take a whole box over to the couch. Either she’d imagined Codi’s brief appearance of tears, or Bryce really was just that chipper. He was one of the more positive people Kassie had ever met and known, something she really liked about him.

“Pralines and caramel, sweetheart,” Reggie said, handing her a bowl. “I’m going to claim a place on the couch for us, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and she let him lead her over to it before he went to get his own dinner.

Belle brought her a bowl of soup, and everyone found a place so that they could watch about teenage vampires in Washington State. Kassie was nearing the end of her first trimester. The baked potato soup went down so much easier than a piece of pizza would have, and she prayed that she’d start feeling better soon.

But she knew that no matter what, no matter if she threw up every day, no sacrifice would be too great to bring Reggie’s baby into the world.