Page 94 of Adoring Delaney

Her smile faded and she put her hands on her hips. Damn, my poor brother. My niece was ten and she’d already perfected the teenage girl attitude. Which incidentally grew from there into grown woman attitude.

“No one will let me tell them,” she grouched.

“Come here, darlin’.” I knelt in front of her and turned my head so she could whisper to me. “Go ahead and tell me.”

“I’m gonna have a brother,” she sorta whispered.

“Are you excited?” I whispered back.

“Yes. But I want Mommy to have another one so I can have a sister, too.”

I clenched my teeth and tamped down the pain the conversation about having babies was causing.

“I bet she will,” I told her.

My brother would have ten more kids if that’s what Honor wanted.

“Me, too.” She smiled.

Carson was all Ethan. She looked like him, acted like him, but now that Honor was in her life she was taking on some of her traits, too. My niece had always been surrounded by love, but with a mom in the house, she beamed. I glanced over Carson’s shoulder and saw my uncle Clark coming our way so I stood to greet him.

“She suckered you, didn’t she?” he asked.

“Come again?”

“Carson. She’s been at it for twenty minutes, trying to tell someone. Everyone else told her to wait. She said that when her uncle Carter got here, he’d let her tell. Seems she was right,” Uncle Clark explained.

“I’m always right, Daddy says so. And Uncle Carter always listens to my secrets,” Carson said with more sass than I’d ever heard. “He says, there’s no secret I can’t tell him and he’ll always keep them, forever and ever. He pinky promised. And Uncle Carter never breaks a promise.”

I heard Delaney suck in a breath and I knew she understood what Carson had unintentionally said.

My arm went around her and I pulled her close.

Both Uncle Clark and Aunt Reagan’s eyes got big before they both smiled.

“Damn good to finally see that,” Clark commented, and Laney tucked her head under my chin and cuddled in closer.

“About time,” my uncle Levi walked up.

“That it is,” I returned, looking around the backyard full of family.

“You guys doing some new landscaping?” I asked Aunt Reagan.

Her body went solid and she gave me a funny look. I glanced back over at the new sapling that had very recently been planted and staked. Loose dirt was piled next to it and there was a second hole dug but nothing planted.

“That’s for you,” she whispered.

“Me?”

“Well, you and Delaney.” I still wasn’t understanding so she went on. “You know how we planted a new tree for every new…it just…everyone gets a tree.” Her eyes brimmed with tears as realization slammed into my chest. “There’s one for you, Ethan, Nick, Jackson, Jason, Delaney, Quinn, Adalynn, Hadley, Liberty, Carson, baby Nolan, Ariana, and now your baby. The other tree will be planted after Honor and Ethan have their little one.”

I was speechless and when a sob tore from Laney, Aunt Reagan jerked back.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“Means a lot, Aunt Reagan. More than we can tell you. Thank you for remembering.”

“Remembering? Sweet child, none of us will ever forget. Now she has a tree with the rest of you. She’s where she belongs—with family.”

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