“Like what?” Bryce asked.
“Why not name them after your parents? Carter and Molly.”
Bryce didn’t speak for a moment. He looked down at his now-sleeping son, trying to assign the name of his father to his firstborn. “You know, I didn’t say their names for years,” he whispered.
“I assumed that,” Kenzie said.
“While they were alive, I probably couldn’t say much to them. I was probably never able to tell them I loved them, or understand that they were anything more than the people who fed me and made me go to sleep. I suppose it’ll be like that for these guys for a while, won’t it? We’ll be the only other beings they know.”
“I think that’s the way it goes,” Kenzie said, laughing slightly. She saw a smile pass over Bryce’s face as he made peace with the names.
“Carter and Molly,” Bryce said again, with more certainty. “I’m liking it more and more.”
Baby Molly responded then with a bright cry. Kenzie fed her instinctively, feeling useful, certain, as if her hormones were guiding the way. She fed baby Carter afterward, and then Bryce put them both back in their bassinets. He checked on Laurie Smith, who he said was now conked out on the couch, her thin arms crossed over her chest like a mummy.
Bryce lay next to Kenzie, holding her tightly against him as they slept. They drifted off together, safe inside the thick walls of their cabin. Their babies slumbered for several hours, until the crack of dawn, when their cries woke the adults in the house.
As Kenzie fed the babies, comforting them, trying to juggle them, Bryce checked the roads, finding them to be drivable. He drove Laurie back down to her house, thanking her with another bottle of whiskey, and then stopped at the town store to buy Kenzie the supplies she needed, along with enough food for the next week. He arrived back to find both babies sleeping in their mother’s arms and Kenzie’s eyes on the horizon out the window.
“I have a feeling a lot of the next few months are going to involve me sitting in this bed, waiting for you to come back,” she said, laughing quietly, her face pale. “This is only the first day of their lives, and it already feels like the last day of mine.”
“Stay optimistic. Let me make you some breakfast,” Bryce said, laughing. He rustled around the kitchen, tossing bacon into a skillet and cracking eggshells with a fluid motion. Kenzie remembered her first morning at the cabin, when she’d listened to him making her breakfast. She’d been scared of him, of the love she knew could grow between them—and, of course, of losing him. She’d second-guessed everything. But the truth was, when two people fit together, you couldn’t tear them apart. Not for long.
Bryce helped her place the babies back in their bassinets gingerly, his large hands gentle with their tiny forms. He helped Kenzie out to the kitchen, where she sat up for the first time, stabbing a fork into the yolk of her egg and watching as the bright yellow oozed out.
Bryce sat across from her and they ate in silence, enjoying the peace after such a dramatic day. Kenzie smiled at him from across the table, imagining her future with this man. Bryce’s eyes, bright blue and gleaming, met hers. Kenzie shivered in anticipation.#p#分页标题#e#
“Do you think they’ll be movie stars?” she asked quietly, joking.
“Why not scientists?” Bryce said, challenging her.
“Or architects. I’m sure Carter will learn to chop wood like his daddy. That’s just a few steps away from building a mansion. Wouldn’t you say?”
“If you want to stretch the truth, sure,” Bryce said, laughing. “What about Molly? Think she’ll join the family real estate business? Learn how to lie like her momma?”
“Ha,” Kenzie said. “I definitely don’t want that.”
“Maybe they’ll just want to stay with us, up in the mountains,” Bryce offered. “Build cabins close by. Raise their kids up here.”
The thought of that made Kenzie’s heart grow warm. “We could rule the mountain,” she joked. “Just you and me and our dynasty.”
“Precisely,” Bryce said. “I was thinking we should build onto the cabin a bit this spring. We can add two bedrooms to the side, with a hallway beside the kitchen. That way the kids can have their own rooms.”
“You want to take on that kind of project with two newborns?” Kenzie asked, laughing.
Bryce shrugged. “It’ll be painful for a while, sure.”