“Forget about KD,” Joss said. “She’d never get back in time for the baby, even if they’d let her come.”
“You’ll be too busy to care anyway. We’ll send her lots of pictures. It’ll give new meaning to crotch shots.”
“That’s disgusting.”
Raney agreed. “Glad it won’t be my crotch. But look on the bright side. You’ll be trending in an hour.”
“No way! You are not putting any pictures of me or my crotch on the Internet!”
“You sure? You’d be an instant sensation.”
“Raney! Stop it! You’re upsetting the baby!”
“Okay, okay,” Raney said with a laugh. She wondered what Joss would do after the baby came and she no longer had her pregnancy to hide behind. Her smile faded. “I hope Len is able to come.”
She had concerns about her older sister. Len hadn’t returned any of her calls or texts. Not that unusual, since her big sister was always headed somewhere—bridge at the country club, tennis league, PTA, being a docent at the museum, driving her kids around. She was a busy lady. But lately, it felt like her sister was brushing her off. It made Raney wonder if Len and Ryan were having trouble again. It wasn’t easy being married to a surgeon as career-focused as Ryan was. And with the kids getting older and becoming more independent, Len probably felt at loose ends.
“We should call her,” she said on impulse. “Make her come for a long visit. Maybe when Mama gets back.”
“Better call soon, then. You know how Len has to plan every move she takes.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Have you seen her lists?”
Raney had always been closer to her older sister because their age gap was shortest. Len was only three years older than Raney, while Joss was five years younger, and KD was younger by eight years. Raney had been an attendant in Len’s wedding, and being seventeen, had thought it was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen. She had also been in the waiting room when Jake was born two years later, then again when Len’s daughter, Kendra, came two years after Jake.
Then Daddy died a few months later, and she and Len both got busy and drifted apart, although their paths still crossed several times a year. But that separation had given Raney a new perspective. Over time, she had been able to see the subtle changes the years had brought to Len and Ryan’s marriage. Len had always been the golden girl through school. First in everything she’d tried. But once Ryan finished his surgical residency, she had dropped to second place in his life, behind her husband’s budding surgical career.
Since then, Raney had noted the restlessness, the poorly hidden anxiety that had honed her sister down to a thin shadow of the beautiful, vivacious girl she had adored. Raney missed that Len. It made her sad and cynical, reinforcing all her doubts about marriage being the key to her own personal happily-ever-after.
Although, with Dalton . . .
“I’ll call her tonight,” she decided, and reminded herself to make sure Len’s room was ready. “Thank goodness we turned KD’s bedroom into the nursery rather than Len’s. Lord knows when the army will give KD leave to visit.”
Joss sighed and pressed a palm against her back. “I really don’t care if either one of them gets here in time. I just want this baby out of me. And soon.”
“I don’t know why you’d want to rush it,” Raney teased. “You carry another person around inside of you for nine months, then go through shrieking agony to get it out, and your reward is to bring it home so it can cry, poop, pee, and puke all over you for the next three years? Seems like a bad deal to me.”
Joss planted both fists on her hips and glared at Raney. She looked like a winged whale coming in for a landing. “You’re horrible, Raney Marie Whitcomb! You’re going to be the worst aunt ever! See if I let you babysit.”
“Oh, please. You’ll be paying me.”
Joss let her hands drop. Her eyes teared up. Again. “Surely that stuff won’t last three entire years, will it?”
Raney relented. Joss was no fun to tease since she got pregnant. “Of course not. Your baby will come out with a mop of blond hair and singing ‘Amazing Grace’ in three-part harmony. She’ll be sewing her own clothes in a year.”
Joss frowned. “I wouldn’t want her to be hairy. But singing would be okay.”
Raney had no response to that.
Nor did she have to call Len. Her sister showed up that afternoon. And she looked awful.
CHAPTER 18
It was late afternoon when Dalton pulled the horse trailer through the main gate. The cutting show had been a small one with less than eighty entries, and since none of the other trainers had needed turn-back help, he and Alejandro and Uno had been able to load up and leave early. If they got the horses brushed down and fed quickly enough, Dalton would have time for a shower before supper. Maybe even a chance to tell Raney the news.
When he came around the corner of the house, he heard raised voices behind the screen on the veranda. He stopped and listened. He’d seen an unfamiliar, very expensive car parked out back and had assumed Grady Douglas had returned. But these were female voices. He recognized Raney’s and Joss’s, but the third was muffled. He couldn’t make out words, but it sounded like she was crying. Shit.
Dalton had no sisters, and his mother may have shed five or six tears in all the time he’d been aware of such things, so he’d been spared a lot of drama growing up. Yet in the Whitcomb household someone seemed to be crying all the time. Mostly Joss. He had
