Page 67 of Hideaway Whirlwind
She snaps out of it, giving me a faint smile. “Right, you’re on waffle duty. I’ll meet you out there in a few minutes.”
“You feeling alright?”
“Yeah, I just…” Birdie passes me a hand towel to dry my hands. “There’s something we need to discuss tonight, ok?”
“Something good, I hope?”
“Mommy! Papa! Where are you?” Sydney calls, walking back down the hallway.
“Tonight,” Birdie says, pushing me out the door.
Chapter 26
Teagan
At bedtime, I tap Elliott’s hip to signal that the kids are asleep. I motion for him to sit at the table in the kitchen, but I’m too anxious to do anything other than pace a few steps back and forth while I chew the cuticle around my thumb, making it bleed.
Elliott turns his chair and grabs my hands, forcing me to stop and face him. “Say what you need to say.”
“I don’t want any more children,” I blurt, on the verge of hurling when the blood drains from his face.
“You want to give the baby up for adoption?” he asks, as distressed as when we had the blow-up before I left the cabin with Davis and Goldie.
“No! I-I meant after this one. I’m going to ask the doctor to tie my tubes.”
Elliott lays a hand over his heart before leaning forward with his head between his knees, breathing hard and fast. I rub his back, bending over to give him an awkward hug that ends when he straightens and wraps his arms around my legs, pulling me against his naked chest.
“You scared me something awful,” he says, his voice cracking. He blows out a long, shaky breath, laughing it off weakly. “Four’s a good number. Any more than that, and we’d probably have to move.”
“This is our home.” I may not have lived here long, but my roots are already burrowing deep into the dense soil of this land. “We’re never moving.”
Elliott’s eyes crinkle with a growing smile. “Good.”
“So you’re really ok with not having…you know…” I whisper the next part with a wince. “Not having any kids of your own?”
Elliott frowns, and yup, I want to hurl again. But then he says, “They’re all ‘my own’, Mama.”
“Damn you, Elliott. You’re always making me cry. I hate crying.”
He laughs. “I know, but I can’t promise not to do it again. But what I can do,” he says, lifting and carrying me back to our bed and sweet babies, “is make sure they’re all happy tears.”
* * *
It’s nerve-racking leaving the property for the first time since we moved back to the cabin. So far, with no sign of Mom, we’ve ventured out of the cabin, going a little farther each day with Storm, of course, trotting along beside us so the kids can play. There’s so much to explore, like the dirt track that Elliott wants to build and the makeshift shooting range where Elliott has started giving me lessons. The land is simply gorgeous, my roots growing deeper as Elliott and I have walked along, hand in hand.
As we drive to the nearby town that is larger than ours and hosts the hospital where I’ll be giving birth, Elliott and I keepa close eye on the cars around us, the kids in the back seat, since I declined Layla’s offer to babysit. I’m nervous enough as it is about being away from Dustin and Sydney when they start at their new school in two days.
Elliott and I are both stunned when the receptionist at Dr. Patel’s office pushes her blue glasses with a beaded chain up to wear them like a headband over her closely shaved, deep plum colored hair and tells us, “A donor has already paid the balance ahead of time.”
“Who?” Elliott asks.
“He asked to remain anonymous,” she says.
Elliott raps his knuckles twice on the counter. “Ahh, so it was Russell.”
The receptionist raises a brow, and her silver tongue ring clicks her teeth when she says, “I didn’t say that.”
He snorts. “Didn’t have to. I know my brother.” Then he asks, “Just the balance today or…?”
