He stopped what he was doing and pulled up an old straight-backed chair from the corner and sat down beside her. “I thought you had that part settled.”

“So did I. But am I just letting someone else run my life like Lucas did? Am I taking the easy way out? This is a gravy job, and I love it here at the Banty House, but will I regret making such a quick decision? I know they mean well, but I promised myself I’d never let anyone”—she paused and searched for the right words—“make all my decisions for me again.”

“Move in with me,” Sloan said.

She wanted to pop herself on the ears to be sure she’d heard him right. Had the trip he had just made rendered him totally insane? Surely he hadn’t just said that, had he? She stared at him for more than a minute, trying to figure out if aliens had abducted him and done something to his brain while he was gone. The last time a guy had said that to her, she’d wound up with more trouble than she could hardly handle.

“Think about it,” he said. “If you decide not to stay in Texas, it would ease you out of their lives. It will break their hearts if you leave suddenly. Betsy has adopted you as her granddaughter. I haven’t figured out why, but I think it has something to do with the past. This way, you can continue to work for them in the day and come home to my place at night.”

She almost pinched herself to see if she was dreaming. “I’m eight months pregnant,” she finally whispered.

“I can kind of see that.” He grinned. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me. There’s a spare bedroom in my house. It might not be as fancy as the one you’re in now, but I reckon I can drag the old baby bed out of the barn out back, clean it up, and fit it in there. You don’t have to make up your mind right now, but give it some thought. Not being here after you help get supper done would mean a little space between them and you. Then, when Betsy’s well enough to take over the kitchen, you’d probably be done by midafternoon.”

“Are you going to be mad at me if I say no and just leave on Monday?” she asked.

He covered her hand with his. “Ginger, I could never be mad at you. You’re the angel who brought me up out of a deep depression. I owe you my happiness, my peace of mind—you’re my saving-grace angel.”

Twice now someone had called her an angel. They must’ve gotten into Betsy’s weed and Kate’s shine to think that, Ginger thought. She certainly didn’t have a halo or wings either.

“So, will you think about it a day or two?” he asked.

“Yes, I will, and thank you for the offer, Sloan. You are a good man.” She started to get up, but he was on his feet before she hardly moved. His big hand cupped her elbow and helped her to her feet. “You’d better get on back to washing the car, and I should go inside to see if Betsy needs anything. She’s been taking a little hour-long nap in the afternoons, so she might want me to help her up the stairs.”

Sloan chuckled. “Nap, my butt. She’s probably having her midday smoke.”

“Oh!” Ginger stopped after she’d taken a step. “That’s it!”

“What’s it?” Sloan asked.

“Remember when I told you about us making some wacky brownies, and then Flora bringing doughnuts real early this morning, and Dr. Emerson telling us about the restraining order Edith had drawn up?” Her mind was running in circles.

Sloan’s expression was one of pure confusion. “You better back up and tie all that together for me.”

“When I got a pan of lasagna out for dinner today, I noticed the brownies were gone,” she said.

“Flora gets a pan full of them once in a while to help with her mother. The old gal won’t take prescription medicine, says it’s all poison, but she will nip a little moonshine or eat a funny brownie once in a while. She says that’s all natural and won’t destroy her insides,” Sloan explained.

“But when I was leaving the kitchen to come out here just now, I overheard Gladys say that Flora was bringing the snacks for the Sunday-school class tomorrow,” Ginger said. “When is Sunday school in y’all’s church? Is it before or after the church services that we went to? I thought we were picking Flora up to go to church with us in Hondo, so would she be goin’ to Sunday school in Rooster, and is Edith in that class? I’m confused.”

“Sunday school is before church here in Rooster,” Sloan explained. “Flora plans on going to that in our regular church, the one where you’ve gone with us. Soon as it’s over, she’ll hightail it down to the old post office and wait for us on the bench. We’ll all be in our car and we’ll pick her up to go with us to whatever church we decide on in Hondo.” Sloan chuckled, then laughed, then guffawed. Ginger couldn’t help but join him. They both had the hiccups when they finally got control. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his eyes, and handed it off to her.

“Our middle child is surely acting out, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. You sure you want to move away and miss all this?” he asked.

“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall and see what happens in church tomorrow, but that restraining order is for everyone who lives in the Banty House.”

“I don’t live here,” Sloan said. “I could go to church here in Rooster and report to you when we have dinner at the café there in Hondo. See what a nice guy I can be? I’d be the perfect roommate, and, honey, I do need help raising these old gals. What do you say?”

“I’ll sleep on it,” she promised. “But the sisters will be disappointed if you don’t go with us. They’ve talked about what they’re going to wear and how nice it’ll be to have you walk in with us when we try out new churches. Besides, I’m sure Betsy and Flora have everything covered.”

Sloan took a step forward, cupped her cheeks in his hands, and brought her lips to his in a long, lingering kiss that made her knees go weak. She leaned into him as far as her pregnant belly would let her when the kiss ended and splayed her hands out on his chest. She could feel his heart beating as wildly as hers and wished that he would kiss her again, but he just took a step back and said, “Think about that while you’re sleeping on it.”

“As if I could forget something that scorchin’ hot,” she said.

“So you felt it, too?” he said.

“Oh, yeah, I did,” she told him. “And I liked it.”

Sloan whistled all evening as he brought his old baby bed from the barn and cleaned it up. He washed and rinsed each section, then propped them up against the house to dry. When he finished, he took all the pieces into the house, rubbed the oak wood down with lemon oil, and put them together. The assembled bed fit very well in Granny’s old bedroom, over on the side with the window, so the newborn could get plenty of sunlight.

Babies change your life. Creed’s voice was clear in his head.

“Maybe I need a big change,” Sloan said.

Don’t jump into the deep end if you can’t swim, Bobby Joe said, joining Creed.

“Thanks for the advice, fellers, but I got this,” he said.

The next morning he parked his truck outside the Banty House, and the garage door opened. Ginger and the ladies were already waiting in the car. “Y’all sure look pretty this mornin’,” he said as he got in behind the wheel.

“Thank you,” they all said at once.

“First time in our entire lives we’ve been to a different church,” Connie said from the back seat. “We’re a little bit nervous.”

“I understand y’all are picking Flora up in front of the old post office, and I’m going to the church, right?” He started the engine and backed the vehicle out into the street. If Ginger was right and Flora really took funny brownies to Sunday school, then there might be some loud singing in the church services that morning.

“No. She changed her mind.” Connie had entirely too much happiness in her tone. “I went to see her yesterday, because we were down to our last dozen eggs. I got the last that she had. She’s sold her chickens and her cow. She said don’t have time to work, take care of her mama, and run out to her place at the edge of town to milk a cow and take care of the livestock. She’s going to our church in Rooster today, but she’s going to meet us for lunch at Mama Rosa’s Diner. She says they’ve got a chicken and dressin’ special on Sundays, and she said you’re supposed to drive us and go with us.”

Rats! Sloan thought. I was so looking forward to the circus. But the way Ginger was grinning, he was kind of glad he’d get to sit beside her in services that morning. He gave Ginger a sly wink and smiled when she blushed. They were sharing thoughts, and to him, that meant they’d make fine roommates—at least for a while, but he was already making plans for the future.