I’d been so exhausted this past winter, huge with my third pregnancy, that attempting to corral our sweet, busy little boys, Axton Clark, almost four, and Marshall Augustus, Junior, age two, proved almost impossible. Fortunately I didn’t have far to walk for help; our back deck was only a stone’s throw from Clark’s. While Marshall was at work on weekdays – he’d been hired four years ago by Montana Fish and Wildlife – Clark helped me mind Ax and little Marsh. The boys had been so excited for the arrival of their new brother, picking different names for him each day, and hadn’t we all been surprised and delighted when a baby girl arrived, instead. We named her Celia Faye.
“I gotta come…”
“Not yet!” I slowed our vigorous motion, clinging to his shoulders; the right bore a puckered round scar from the bullet’s passage through his body and I put my lips on it, inhaling a deep breath. The lake lapped our waists.
“Angel…”
“Now,” I gasped at last, shuddering against him, renewed beyond belief.
Marshall kept me wrapped in his arms and ducked us both beneath the surface. We erupted from the lake laughing, soaked and sated, to hear cheering and clapping from the bank; I squeaked and sank to my nose in the water while Marshall remained standing with arms lifted and widespread. He called, “Thank you, I deserve applause for that!”
Case snorted, laughing, already shedding his shirt. “What we saw was about five seconds of performance there, Rawley, nothing to brag about.”
“We just got here, we didn’t see anything,” Tish assured me, shaking out her curls, keeping her swimsuit primly in place until she’d entered the water. She threw it back to shore and then kicked off the lake bottom, swimming underwater until clearing the weeds, surfacing with a happy sigh and smoothing hair from her face.
“Are the kids still sleeping?” I asked, gliding to my sister’s side. We’d left the little ones in Aunt Jilly and Uncle Justin’s cabin under the watchful eyes of Rae and Millie Jo, who’d both turned fourteen this past winter.
“They were when we snuck out. The big kids are still playing Monopoly.”
By ‘big kids’ she meant Matthew, Nathaniel, Millie Jo, Rae, Brantley, Henry, and Riley. And Wy, who was visiting with Clark; the two of them had ridden from Montana with us, alternating between our truck and Case’s. These days the ‘little kids’ were Zoe, Lorie, and James; my little Axton, Marsh, and baby Celia; and Case and Tish’s Annie and Shea. Annie was almost four, same as Ax, while Shea, whose full name was Charles Shea, had just turned one.
“Make waaaay!” shouted another voice and five seconds later the dock shuddered as Mathias raced over it and leaped from the end, producing more noise than all of our kids combined. He surfaced with a roar, whooping and splashing, clearly hoping to incite a water fight; Case and Marsh were happy to oblige.
“This was supposed to be a private date,” I complained, flicking water at them.
Camille perched on the end of the dock and let her toes dangle in the lake, observing us with a smile. Her long hair hung in a loose braid and she wore cut-off jeans over her suit. It was only a matter of time before she joined us; the mosquitoes were atrocious.
“Are Mom and Aunt Jilly coming in?” Tish asked her.
“How come everyone’s at Shore Leave? I thought they were at Mom’s,” I groaned, watching as the cafe windows suddenly glowed with golden light; in the next second I heard Mom and Aunt Jilly laughing as they climbed the porch steps.
“They decided to make margaritas and needed supplies,” Camille explained.
I glanced toward my husband, who had Mathias in a headlock, both of them in water up to their armpits; Case leaped and took everyone underwater, displacing about half the lake in the process – and I witnessed my romantic date night disappear over the horizon. I couldn’t help but giggle at their roughhousing; the guys tended to revert to teenaged behavior when in each other’s company.
“Ruthie, what do you say? You in the mood for a margarita?” Tish swam to my side.
“That sounds great, actually.”
Five minutes later, back in our suits and wrapped in beach towels, we followed Camille up the damp shore. I heard the blender before we entered the cafe and hooked my arm through Tish’s, taking a moment to count my blessings; I never let a day pass without doing so. Happiness, contentment; the joy of a simple life. I would never again take these things for granted. It had been many years since I’d experienced a cold pulse at the base of my spine, a sickening twinge at the back of my neck – the sense that if I’d turned around a second faster, I would have spied Fallon behind me. Waiting. Biding his time. The first year home I’d suffered panic attacks and intense nightmares; Marshall’s love and patience were endless and I’d eventually overcome such anxieties.
Even so, there were still occasional moments when shards of fear pierced my heart and I would have to stop what I was doing and run to find Marshall; times when I would spy him coming my way across our barnyard, silhouetted by the saffron glow of sunset, his wide shoulders and lanky stride, his cowboy hat and easy grace, and gladness would rise so swift and potent in my heart it was half pain. In addition to Arrow and Banjo we kept two mares, Twyla and Tilly, gentle horses upon which Marsh was teaching our boys to ride; Celia, too, once she was old enough. I supposed that one day I would return to work at the law office with Tish, but not anytime soon. I loved being home with my kids and horses; Marsh and I joked about
