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Epilogue



“Sixteen.” Tate lifted the whiteboard with her answer from her lap, careful not to knock the tiny green John Deere cap from Ethan’s head.

The umbrella above them no longer blocked all of the late-afternoon sun from the sleeping baby and her arm, but Jim shifted his chair to the right, putting his body between the sun and their fair skin. Then he raised his own board as he leaned in to kiss her. “Nine and a half.”

Ellie’s yellow cap tumbled to the deck, revealing a fully awake twin smiling up at her daddy. The sight reminded Tate how lucky she was to have this kind, loving, and thoughtful man in her life. She’d never expected to find happily-ever-after a year ago.

“Correct.” Mrs. Crenshaw nodded at Fiona, who readied an eraser in one hand and a dry-erase marker in the other. “That’s another ten points for Tate and Jim, putting them in first place with one hundred.”

Hoots, hollers, and clapping came from the hog-roast audience seated at the picnic tables beyond the deck railing, Tate’s parents and her brothers and their families among them.

The retired schoolteacher raised her hand, bringing immediate silence to the adults and school-age children in the crowd. “Mr. and Mrs. Fenniman-Jeffries, you’re next. Riley, what is Deacon’s shoe size?”

Tate’s bestie looked down toward her husband’s feet from her perch on his lap. Then she wiggled her bottom against him as she raised her answer board. “Hmm. Based on his…recent need for new hiking boots, I can unequivocally say that he wears a size eleven.”

Deacon grunted and tightened his hold on his wife as she lifted a second whiteboard. “Because of the number of shoes in my wife’s closet, I know she wears a very sexy size six.”

Several chuckles came from the audience and from the next newlywed couple in their game.

Pursing her lips, Mrs. Crenshaw cleared her throat. “Correct, but keep it rated G please, Deacon, or I’ll have to deduct another five points. You’ve moved up to second to last place with eighty points. Try not to lose any more of them. Fee dear, add ten points to your mother and father’s score. Petra and Augustus, you’re next with a chance to stay ahead of Riley and Deacon.”

“He wears a ten.” Petra aimed a grin toward Auggie. “I discovered that little tidbit when I strung up his shoes with his underwear last fall.”

One of the younger Garden Club women cackled from her seat in the front row. “Does he ever wear the bananas?”

Petra’s grin widened. “Nope. Not the bananas, the hearts, or the devils, if you know what I mean.”

Auggie leaned closer to his wife and kissed her on the nose. “Are you trying to get us disqualified, Pet? Sorry about that, Mrs. C.”

The old woman shook her head, but not a strand of her teased-and-styled snow-white hair moved an inch. “Petra always was a handful. Your answer?”

“The size that fits on her feet.” He snickered, along with most of the audience. “Seven, I think? All I know for sure is I love her exactly the way she is.”

“Suck-up!” The heckler stood among a group of high school boys loitering near the dessert table.

Petra flipped him the bird behind Auggie’s back as Mrs. Crenshaw turned toward the scorekeeper.

“I saw that, young lady.” Without a backward glance, their game-show hostess frowned. “You earned ten points for having the right answers, but I’m taking away five for the inappropriate hand gesture. The Lochsley-Hofmeiers are now tied for last place with eighty points. Kriegers, you can tie for the lead if you answer the question correctly. Wallis, you’re first.”

Wally lifted the whiteboard from where it rested against the leg of her chair and shared a smile with the man who cradled their clasped hands. “Harry wears a twelve, unless he’s playing a character with much larger feet of course.”

Returning her smile, Harry raised her hand to his lips. “And Wallis wears a seven and a half, although her new dancing shoes are sevens.”

Mrs. Crenshaw consulted the top index card and then moved it to the back of the stack she held. “Well done. Ten points to Harry and Wallis. We’ll have a three-way tie for first place if Georgina and Oscar respond correctly.”

The baby on Georgie’s lap grabbed a corner of the top whiteboard resting on her husband’s thigh and pulled it toward his mouth. She waved a cookie in front of him, clearly hoping to distract her son. “Num-num. A cookie for you and the toy for Mommy.”

Oscar withdrew his arm from around her shoulders and scooped up the baby and then the cookie, freeing the inadvertent teething target. “Food is for eating, Ollie.”

Oliver’s semi-toothless smile vanished and his lower lip popped out. “Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma.”

The utter joy in Georgie’s eyes spoke volumes about how much motherhood agreed with her, even if it had started out a little bumpy. She held out her arms and caught her son when he dove toward her. “Cuddle time. Oscar, would you show Mrs. Crenshaw our answers while I warm a bottle?”

“I’ll get it.” Oscar propped the boards on his seat facing the audience as he stood and then headed into the kitchen. “Georgie wrote eleven and I wrote six and a half. I’ll be back in a minute.”

With a nod from her supervisor, Fiona changed their score.

Mrs. Crenshaw shuffled the cards in her hand again. “We have a three-way tie for first place going into the final round. This question is worth fifty points, which means all five of our newlywed couples have a chance to win or tie. The latter will result in a tiebreaker. As soon as Oscar returns, I’ll ask the question. The husbands will have one minute to write down their answers.”

Footsteps on the stairs brought Tate’s attention to her approaching niece. Corey’s curls bounced every which way and her over-sized Big Jim’s Itty Bitty Pig Farm t-shirt flapped against her thighs, giving an occasional peek at the pink shorts beneath as she skipped across the deck.

She stopped in front of Jim and perched her fists on her hips. “Unca Jimbo, are you done yet? I wanna go see the piggies. You promised. Dint he, Aunt Tater?”

Jim laughed and Ellie cooed. The sounds sparked more joy in Tate’s heart and soul than she would’ve thought possible when she’d moved back home to Wellington.

He leaned forward, putting him at eye level with their niece. “One more question in the game, Curlicue. Then we’ll go to the feeding pens. How do you like your new shirt?”

“It’s my fave-rit!” After a quick twirl, Corey brushed her fingers over Ellie’s shock of red hair. “I can’t wait ’til the babies are big enough to play. All they do is sleep ’n eat ’n make poopy diapers.”

“You used to do the same things not that long ago, squirt.” Jim gestured toward the sliding door with his elbow. “Here comes Uncle Oscar. Head on back to your mom and dad until we’re finished.”

“O-kay!” She trotted to the steps and jumped down each one, the thudding from her work boots drowning out Mrs. Crenshaw’s attempt to quell the chatter from the audience.

“Quiet please.” The old woman tapped the stack of notecards on her podium as Oscar handed the bottle to Georgie and sat. “Ladies, put your blindfolds in place. No peeking and no speaking until I say so.”

Tate donned the sleep mask hanging from the arm of the chair, blocking out all but a few slivers of early evening sunlight.

“Gentlemen, here is your final question. If your wife went on vacation without you—and the children, for those of you who are parents—what would she take with her? And keep it suitable for our audience.”

Dry-erase markers squeaked for twelve of Tate’s count to sixty, suggesting all five men had immediately thought of an acceptable answer.

“Time’s up, husbands. Put your markers down. Wives, you may remove your masks.”

At Mrs. Crenshaw’s go-ahead, Tate slipped hers to her forehead in time to see Riley slide her blindfold onto Deke’s head.

The gleam in her friend’s eyes warned Tate to expect a possibly disqualifying remark. “We get to keep the masks, right? You know, for hide and seek.”

Petra snorted, but she kept whatever she was thinking to herself—with a little help from a pair of Auggie’s fingers across her lips.

Mrs. C. cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow. “We’ll start with the Lochsley-Hofmeiers. For a chance to take over first place with one hundred thirty points, let’s see your response, Augustus.”

With his free hand, Auggie raised his board. “The book club.”

Laughter spread through the crowd, but Jim and the other men on the deck laughed the loudest and the longest. Then, as one, they showed their answers.

Mrs. Crenshaw smiled and swapped her stack of note cards on the podium for one from her skirt pocket. “Well, it looks like everyone agrees that the ladies will take along their book club friends. All five couples have earned fifty points in the final round, bringing their totals to one hundred fifty for Tate and Jim, Wallis and Harry, and Georgina and Oscar. Riley and Deacon finish with one hundred thirty, and Petra and Augustus have one hundred thirty as well. The tiebreaker—”

Corey thundered up the steps, drowning out the rest of the retired teacher’s words. “Come on, Unca Jimbo! It’s time!”

A cry came from Ethan and then another from his sister, setting off the telltale tightness of feeding time in Tate’s breasts. She shifted the waking baby to her shoulder, but his fussiness only grew louder. Ellie added to the stereo effect. “The twins are hungry, so we’ll need to take a short break.”

Wally popped up from her seat next to Harry. “Since the kids are getting restless, I think we’re content to share the bragging rights, Mrs. Crenshaw. Thanks so much for emceeing our game show today. How about a round of applause for Mrs. C., everyone? And help yourselves to more food and drinks. Big Jim, hand me Ellie so you can take Corey and the rest of the kids down to see the pigs.”

Amid the chaos, Tate’s husband passed the baby to Wally and swung Corey up to his shoulders. He kissed Tate as she stood, inciting the same flutter in her belly that had struck when he’d been towering outside the service door of The Homegrown Café a year ago. “Love you, Mrs. Cochon. Back in a little while.”

She tugged on the front of his shirt and kissed him again. “I love you too, Mr. Cochon.”

His smile promised her words still made him as happy as the first time she’d said them. Then he headed toward the steps and their guests gathered in the yard.

Riley hooked her arm through Tate’s free one and walked toward the doorway into the kitchen. “Deacon’s setting up a horseshoe tournament with the guys. Book club meeting in the living room while the babies eat.”

Ellie’s cries quieted behind Tate, and the muffled conversation announced the rest of her friends trailing her into the house she shared with her husband and children, the family she’d always wanted.

Riley and Petra sprawled out on the couch and Georgie cradled Oliver on her lap at the near end of the loveseat, each one obviously at home.

Settled in the recliner, Tate wedged a pillow beside her on the right and positioned Ethan to nurse. The Jim-sized chair allowed plenty of room for the second pillow on the other side. “Ready.”

Wally laid Ellie in place and then joined Georgie on the couch. “The babies are getting so big already. I can’t believe they’re already two months old, and Ollie’s first birthday is only three months away. He’ll be walking before we know it.”

Tate made a silent vow to treasure every moment—sleepless or otherwise—while their kids were little. “Speaking of birthdays, happy anniversary, everybody. Can you believe it’s been a year since our first meeting of The Homegrown Café book club?”

“I’m so glad Riley talked me into joining.” Georgie eased the bottle from Oliver’s mouth and raised the sleeping baby to her shoulder. “You’re the best friends I’ve ever had, and you’ve taught me a lot about how to trust people. I probably wouldn’t have given my relationship with Oscar a chance if I hadn’t seen how happy falling in love made all of you—once you got past thinking you didn’t want to anyway.”

Kicking off her wedge slides, Riley tucked her feet under her legs. “You better not apologize for your interference again. We all needed a kick in the a— Ahem. Behind.”

Petra’s laughter was a little quieter than usual. “Sperm donor contracts, unfiled marriage licenses, fake divorce papers. Even Wally needed a good talking to. How did you manage to have an uneventful engagement and wedding, Georgie? We should’ve been allowed to give you advice.”

Georgie cast a glance toward each of them in turn. “I wouldn’t say it was uneventful. Oscar and I… I suppose I can tell you the truth now that the case is closed. We pretended to be in love and engaged to convince the judge to grant him guardianship and permanent custody. And then we got married to help the cause.”

Wally’s mouth dropped open and she stared in their friend’s direction for several long and silent seconds. “You mean to tell me you two have been faking it all this time? No way.”

“Only at the beginning.” Georgie pushed to her feet and paced to the fireplace, lightly bouncing Oliver as she walked. “Despite our past animosity, we were attracted to each other, and circumstances dictated we spend time together. Things happened. And changed. Pretty quickly. We discovered we were much more compatible than either of us expected.”

Petra chuckled again. “Oh, so the sex was mind-blowing. That always helps, speaking from experience of course.”

A blush crept across Georgie’s face, but she didn’t deny the allegation. “We’re more alike than I thought we would be. He’s very sweet and considerate. And, honestly, his grouchiness was justified.”

Sliding the index finger of her right hand back and forth through a circle formed by the thumb and fingers of her left hand, Petra smirked. “Plus, hot nookie.”

“Okay. Yes.” The color in Georgie’s cheeks deepened. “Hot nookie. But we also love each other.”

“Of course. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Wally rolled her eyes and waved a hand toward Petra. “Ignore her teasing, Georgie. We’re thrilled that it worked out well for both of you and you felt like you could confide in us about how your relationship started. We’re here to support each other.”

Unsurprised by Wally’s ability to redirect the conversation, Tate raised an imaginary glass. “To friends and happily-ever-after.”

In synchronized motion, her friends mimicked her gesture and spoke in unison. “To friends and happily-ever-after.”