Ooh Baby, Baby

Power had been restored about six on Sunday morning. Traffic lights were on line and functioning. Gridlock had eased as mud-clogged roads were cleared and abandoned vehicles reclaimed. Grand Springs residents emerged to dig out and tally their losses. The blackout was over, but the effects lingered. The town itself would never be quite the same.

Peggy certainly wouldn’t. Her entire world had been transformed since Saturday. She was a mother now. A mother. The sacred word frightened her, but she cherished it all the same and prayed she’d be worthy. Her babies were so precious. They deserved every wonderful thing life had to offer, health and happiness and the joy of knowing they were loved.

And they were loved. Deeply. Desperately.

The cab slowed, swerved to the right. Peggy idly glanced out the window at a bustling group of chain-saw-wielding workers clearing storm debris. She paid them little mind. Every block swarmed with weary residents repairing shattered shingles, hauling broken tree limbs and dragging ruined carpeting to cluttered curbs. Neighbor worked with neighbor, a familial shouldering of shared crisis. Peggy admired that, envied it.

But she wasn’t really a part of it. Never had been. A community’s social fabric was knit too tightly to assimilate a person so flawed that she’d been abandoned by her own father. Or her own husband.

Or both.

“Ma’am?”

Peggy blinked up and saw Travis pivot away from the steering wheel to stare into the back seat.

“You feeling all right?”

A bit dazed, she realized that the cab was no longer vibrating, because the engine had been turned off. “Yes, I’m fine. Why have we stopped?”

“You’re home, ma’am.”

Frowning, she focused out the side window and saw several beefy workers marching toward the cab. “Home?” she murmured, eyeing the duplex, which was in the process of having its porch reframed by a construction crew. “Who are these people?”

“Just a few friends of mine.” Travis pushed open the driver’s door, flashing a grin over his shoulder. “Thought you might need a bit of help hoisting that big old tree off your porch.”

Tree. Of course, that’s what was different. Peggy scooted forward on the seat, peering over the headrest to stare out the front windshield. “Ohmigosh. It’s gone.”

Well, the fallen pine wasn’t exactly gone, but it had been sliced into manageable hunks and hauled into the yard, where it was apparently in the process of being chopped into firewood.

She gasped as the back door flew open, and cringed as a meaty, grinning face poked inside. “Whoo-ee! Look at those purty little babes. Ain’t they sweet.” A pair of china blue eyes crinkled at the corners, focusing on Peggy from beneath a hairy buzz of sandy-colored brows that matched the man’s military-style crew cut. “You must be the proud mama. Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. I’m James T. Conway. My friends call me Jimmy.”

Before she could withdraw, the ruddy-faced fellow had clamped one of her limp hands between two of the biggest, beefiest palms she’d ever seen in her life. “I, ah—” Her gaze darted toward the front seat. It was empty. She was trapped. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Conway.”

“Jimmy,” he replied cheerfully. Releasing her, the brawny guy reached beneath Virginia’s carrier and unsnapped the seat belt. Before Peggy could protest, he’d expertly unlatched and raised the padded plastic carrier handle and hoisted the carrier, baby and all, out of the cab. “You’d be little Ginny,” he said, holding the carrier up so his huge red face was inches from her daughter’s tiny button nose. “Just look at them big ol’ eyes. You’re a beauty, you are. Your poor mama’s gonna have to whack them boys off with a shovel.”

Horrified to see her precious daughter in the oversize clutches of a complete stranger, Peggy struggled out of the cab. “Mr. Conway, please—” Someone took hold of her elbow.

It was Travis. “Watch your step, ma’am. Wouldn’t want you to slip and, ah, skin nothing.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, glancing up at him. When she looked back toward Jimmy Conway, he’d been joined by a younger version of himself who was toting T.J.’s carrier. A stunned glance behind her confirmed that the back seat of the cab was now empty.

“That’s my nephew Ted,” Travis said genially. “You’ve already met his daddy.”

“They have my babies,” Peggy said foolishly.

Ted looked up, grinning just like his father. “They’re real pretty, ma’am. Real pretty.”

“Uh, thank—”

“That little Travis? Lemme see that boy.” Jimmy snagged T.J.’s carrier, which Ted relinquished without protest. “Well, danged if he don’t look like you, Travis.” Travis narrowed his eyes but said nothing.

Peggy hurried forward, hands extended. “Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Conway. I’ll take them. Mr. Conway…?”

James T. Conway—Jimmy to his friends—had hoisted both carriers to eye level and was marching across the yard making peculiar kootchie-coo noises at the tiny occupants.

Horrified, Peggy turned to Travis for help and found him with his head in the trunk. “That man has my babies!” she blurted.

Travis straightened and passed the tapestry valise and a fat package of complimentary disposable diapers to Ted. “Jimmy likes kids.”

Reaching back into the trunk, Travis retrieved the two stuffed elephants. Ted took them, too, then nodded happily at Peggy and followed his burly father into the duplex while Travis snapped his fingers at a slender, dark-haired teenager just beyond the cab’s hood. “Danny, come take this bag, will you?”

“Sure, Uncle Travis.” The boy leapt forward, snatched the tote of complimentary baby supplies and gave Peggy a shy smile. “Congratulations, ma’am. You must be very proud.”

The handsome adolescent was a younger version of Travis, with dark, puppy-dog eyes and a smile like a Texas sunrise. Peggy couldn’t help but smile back. “Thank you, Danny. Yes, I’m very proud.” Noting a few wood chips nested in the young man’s ruffled hair, she nodded toward the partially cut stack of firewood. “Did you do that?”

“Some.” Danny actually blushed. “Dad and Ted did most of the work. They’re the muscles of the family.”

Travis slammed the trunk. “And Danny’s the brains.”

Flushing wildly now, the boy peeked from beneath a fringe of thick, dark eyelashes that Peggy would personally have killed for. “Don’t let Mom hear you say that. She always claims that if brains were gunpowder, men still couldn’t blow their own noses.”

“Your mama’s right,” Travis said, chuckling. “Women rule the world, and that’s a fact.” He took Peggy’s elbow, escorted her a few feet toward the house, then stopped abruptly. “Oops.” He loped back to the cab, reached in the open window and retrieved the yellow rose bouquet.

A moment later, Peggy stepped onto the freshly laid planks of her porch, clutching her lovely flowers. Still dazed, she hesitated and glanced toward two smiling construction workers who were shuffling nearby, brushing sawdust off their sleeves and looking exceptionally pleased with themselves. “This is—” words nearly failed her “—wonderful,” she finished, feeling emotion clog her throat. “I never expected this. I—I can’t believe how much trouble you’ve all gone to for me.”

Travis lightly nudged her with his elbow. “Aw, shucks, ma’am, it weren’t nothing.”

When she stared up at him, he winked, reminding her of how she’d used the same words to tease him at the hospital. “Touché, Mr. Stockwell.”

He shifted, used a fingertip to push back his hat and furrowed his brows into a frown that couldn’t conceal the amused sparkle in eyes that reminded her of sun-warmed cognac. “There you go, using them fancy foreign words on a poor old country boy.”

Danny edged by them, pausing at the threshold. “Don’t let him yank your chain,” he told Peggy. “Uncle Travis turned down a mathematics scholarship and speaks three languages.” The boy swiveled aside to let his uncle’s booted foot kick empty air.

“Smart aleck kid,” Travis mumbled, swatting his hat against his lean, denim-clad thighs. “Young’uns nowadays have no respect for their elders.”

“Why did you turn down a scholarship?”