That answer appeased her for the rest of the ride as we held hands in silence, with Kacie checking the time on her phone every ten minutes or so.

A little while later, we pulled into my parents’ farm. The gravel popped and leaves crunched under my tires as I drove the truck all the way up past the house and to the left, where vehicles don’t usually go.

“What are you doing?” Kacie exclaimed.

“You’ll see.” I winked at her.

I steered the truck carefully around my dad’s shop and past some tall grass until the barn came into view. Kacie grinned when she saw it, still with Will You Marry Me? #30 painted in red on the side. While the rain had faded it a tad, it wasn’t gone completely. I hoped it never would be.

“What are we doing here?”

Parking the truck, I jumped out and went around to her side to open the door. “Come on out and you’ll see.”

Diesel almost knocked her over as he jumped out and chased a flock of geese into the lake, which was tinted orange from the setting sun. Kacie checked her phone one more time and took my hand. We walked up to the barn doors and I turned to face her. “I have no idea what it’s going to look like in here, but I had a crew come out the last two days. They’ve been cleaning out all the old hay and cobwebs and stuff.”

Kacie’s lips curled into a wide smile as she bounced up and down excitedly, clapping her hands.

Laughing at her reaction, I pushed the heavy door open and propped it so we had as much light as possible. The barn looked fantastic, better than I had imagined.

“Oh my God.” Kacie’s mouth hung open as she walked wide-eyed around the first floor of the barn. Every corner, every nook, had been swept and wiped completely spotless. Not one piece of hay or one speck of dust was visible. “This looks incredible.”

“It does.” I was pleasantly surprised as I wandered the first floor too. “They even cleaned the windows.”

“This is gonna look so pretty, Brody.”

I was happy to hear joy back in her voice. It was an added bonus that she hadn’t looked at her phone in a few minutes.

“It is. Where do you want to put everything?” I had no idea how this was actually going to work.

“I’m thinking the band will go over here in this corner so they don’t take up too much floor space.” She walked from the corner over to the far wall with the window above it, which was missing half its glass. “And I think the head table will look good here.”

“What’s a head table?”

“It’s where the bride and groom eat with their wedding party, but I’m pretty sure Alexa and Lauren are going to want to sit with Derek, Tommy, and Max, so we might switch it up and just have you and me. What do you think?”

“I’m thinking we make it a table for four and have it be you, me, and the Twinkies. What do you think?”

“Brody.” She tilted her head to the side as her eyes focused on mine softly. “I think that’s incredibly sweet. They’re going to think they are so cool sitting up front with us.”

“It’ll be our first official family dinner. We have to be all together.”

Kacie swallowed hard and sighed. “I still ask myself every day what I did in a previous life to deserve you, and I’m convinced I must have saved a bus full of children and puppies from falling off a cliff onto a senior citizen home or something.”

“Super Kacie. Got a nice ring to it, don’t ya think?”

“More like Super Brody.” She walked over and tucked her arms under mine, resting her head on my chest. Our hug didn’t last long as a loud chirp came from Kacie’s back pocket. She took her phone out and squinted to see the screen better. “Awww,” she cooed. “Look.”

She turned the phone my way. It was a picture of Lucy and Piper holding their new baby cousin.

“That was nice of him to send that,” I said sincerely.

She nodded, still staring at the picture. “Yeah, it was. He’s really trying, isn’t he?”

“He sure is.”

“Are you okay… with all of this?” She bit her lip nervously.

“Honestly, I was nervous at first, but he really seems to be making an effort with the girls and with you. As long as he keeps that up, I have no problem with him.”

“You know,” she murmured as she wrapped her arms around my waist again, “there is one big bonus to Zach taking the girls from time to time.”

“Oh yeah?” I reached down and grabbed her butt, squeezing gently. “I’m liking the way this sounds, Jensen. Go on.”

“It does allow us a little, uh, alone time in the evening. Something we don’t get often.”

“This is true, and if we can keep scheduling Zach’s days with the girls on my off days, that’ll work out real nicely.”

Hockey season was back in full swing, but Kacie and I had gotten very good at making use of the time we had together. Her and the girls had even started traveling with me every so often when they were off school or it was close enough to do a quick weekend trip.

She was rising up on her tippy toes, her lips less than an inch from mine, when her phone chirped again.

“Okay, if he’s going to text you every two minutes, I might have to kill him.” I groaned as she reached for her phone.

Kacie’s mouth fell open as her eyes read left to right quickly.

“What is it?” I craned my neck to peek over the top of her phone.

“It’s Derek. Alexa’s in labor—a month early. Come on. We gotta go.”

I drove as fast as I could back to Pine City. More specifically to Roger’s Memorial Hospital, where Kacie worked and Alexa was in labor. One perk of being engaged to a labor and delivery nurse was she knew right where to go when we got there. She practically sprinted through the halls and the double doors.

“Erica, what room is Alexa Harmon in?” she asked a woman in scrubs sitting behind the nurses’ station.

“Kacie!” Derek called out from the end of the hall.

Kacie didn’t wait for Erica to answer her, she just jogged straight to Derek. “How is she? What are they giving her to slow the contractions? Terbutaline?”

He put his hands up, halting her, both from running past him and talking. “They couldn’t stop it. He’s here. He came fast; she almost had him in the elevator.”

Kacie’s hands flew to her mouth as her voice cracked. “Him?”

“Yep. Joseph Derek Harmon. He weighed five pounds, three ounces. She’s holding him now, but he won’t eat yet.”

“Sometimes their latch is undeveloped this early. He’ll get the hang of it.” Kacie sniffed as a tear rolled down her cheek.

I held my hand out to Derek. “Congrats, Dad.”

He smiled as big as anyone I’d ever seen when he shook it. “Thanks. He’s pretty damn awesome, even for being an hour old. I think he’s a genius.”

“Ha! First-time dads.” Kacie rolled her eyes, playfully. “Tell her I’m coming in.” She pushed Derek back toward his room.

“Okay.” He laughed. “But the doc said no visitors until we’re in our real room.”

“What doctor?”

“Dr. Newman.”