“You’re welcome.”

  Titus finished his food first. His manners were impeccable, but he ate like someone was about to snatch his food from him at any second.

  He grimaced in embarrassment as he got up from his spot and realized I was looking at him. “Remember, I have three older brothers,” he said apologetically. “And they were animals. If I didn’t hurry, I couldn’t get seconds. I guess I didn’t grow out of it.”

  “Daddy eats fast, too,” Flora said. “Mommy said he better slow down or he’s gonna choke.”

  “That’s good advice,” Titus said laughingly. He went straight to the sink to rinse his plate.

  Stuffing the last bit of my toast in my mouth, I stared as he started rinsing and putting dishes into the dishwasher.

  “It’s my turn,” I reminded him after I’d swallowed.

  “Finish your breakfast,” he ordered, not bothering to look at me.

  “You cooked,” I argued.

  “There’s only a few dishes.”

  I quickly ate my last two bites of eggs and gave my last piece of bacon to Diana.

  “Okay, I’m done,” I announced, carrying my plate to the sink.

  “Feel free,” Titus said, his lips twitching as he threw his hands up in surrender.

  The only things left in the sink were the spatula he’d used and a single fork.

  “Don’t touch that,” I warned as he reached for the clean pan he’d set on the counter. “I’ll dry it.”

  “I’m just standin’ here,” he protested.

  “You’re the one who insisted that whoever cooks doesn’t clean up,” I pointed out as I quickly rinsed and loaded the dishes as the big girls carried their plates over.

  “All done!” Diana yelled.

  “I’ll get her plate,” Titus said quickly.

  We’d made it into the living room and the girls were playing with stuffed animals, lining them up across the floor, when the front door opened.

  “We’re home,” Esther called.

  Flora raced for the door.

  “We brought you a surprise,” Esther said, kneeling down in front of her daughter as Flora realized what Otto was carrying.

  “Is that my brother?” Flora asked, dumbfounded.

  “Ansel,” Esther confirmed. “He’s very little, so you have to be really quiet and gentle, okay?”

  “You got a baby?” Ariel asked, running toward them. I reached out to grab her, but Titus was the one who stopped her from intruding on their moment.

  “Give Flora a second to say hello,” he murmured, lifting Ariel to sit on his forearm.

  “They got a baby?” Ariel asked, craning her neck to see.

  Diana was completely oblivious, still playing with the stuffed animals.

  “Yep,” Titus said, slanting his eyes toward me. “That’s the baby that was in Auntie Esther’s belly.”

  “She got him out,” Ariel replied, leaning toward them. She was so excited that she was practically vibrating with it.

  “How’d it go?” Esther asked, walking toward us.

  I was off the couch and in front of her before she could blink. “How are you? Did everything go okay? Sit down.”

  “I’m fine,” she said with a laugh, leaning in to hug me tight. “I’m tired and sore, but fine.”

  “I got a brother,” Flora announced as she led Otto and the baby into the living room.

  Esther scooted past me to sit on the couch and I moved out of the way so Otto could set the baby’s car seat on the coffee table.

  “Can I go look now?” Ariel asked Titus, squirming.

  I nodded and he set her back on her feet.

  “Not too close,” I warned, slowing her down as she tried to race past me.

  “He’s so small,” Titus murmured over my shoulder as Esther pulled Ansel out of his seat.

  “He’ll grow,” she said happily, laying him on her thighs so the girls could look at him.

  “He’s wearin’ blue ’cause he’s a boy,” Ariel said knowingly, pushing in next to Flora.

  “Girls can wear blue,” Flora countered. “He’s wearing blue because that’s the outfit that Gran got him to come home in.”

  Diana chose that moment to grow interested in the proceedings and walked around the other side of the coffee table to get an unobstructed view of the newcomer.

  “Baby,” she announced, poking his cheek.

  Titus laughed.

  “Don’t,” I yelped at Diana, a million terrible scenarios rushing through my head in an instant.

  Esther was far more calm as she wrapped her hand gently around Diana’s and moved it away from Ansel’s face.

  “He’s really small,” she explained, her voice soft and patient. “So, we don’t touch his face or his head, okay? If you want to touch him, you can touch his arm right here.”

  She guided Diana’s hand to Ansel’s arm and each of the bigger girls reached out, carefully touching Ansel’s other arm.

  “Or his legs,” Esther continued. The girls’ hands moved, touching his tiny knees and thighs through his little pants.

  “Or his feet,” Esther said with a smile, pulling off his socks so we could see his miniature toes splayed wide.

  The girls giggled as they poked at his toes.

  “He’s really lucky,” Esther said, her voice still smooth and calm. “Because he’s got a big sister and big cousins that love him so much and will be really careful to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

  “She’s good,” Titus murmured to me as the girls started talking about all of the ways they were going to protect Ansel from threats both real and of the monster variety. Diana was even in on it, repeating random scenarios that Ariel and Flora came up with.

  “I almost pooped my pants when Diana poked him,” I muttered back.

  Titus laughed.

  “Everything went okay here?” Otto asked us, carrying the car seat toward the front door. He set it on the floor and turned to look at us, his eyebrows high.

  “Pretty uneventful,” I replied with a shrug.

  “It’s been quiet,” Titus added.

  “Good.” Otto sighed. “I’m so fuckin’ tired I could sleep standin’ up.”

  “Long night?” Titus asked.

  “They have one of those chairs that turns into a bed,” Otto replied flatly. “My feet were hangin’ six inches off the end. Even if I’d wanted to sleep, the baby was wakin’ up every half an hour and when he slept I was still wakin’ up because my damn feet were goin’ dead.”

  I tried and failed to hold back a smile.

  “It’s good to be home,” he finished with a tired grin.

  “My bed was very comfortable,” Esther announced as she got up from the couch. The girls had moved on already and were back with their stuffed animal army. “Which is good, since I was the one who did all the work last night. Here—” She handed me the baby. “Since I know you won’t ask and you’re dying to hold him.”

  She was right on both counts. I lifted Ansel against my chest and bent my head, breathing in his new baby scent. There wasn’t anything else like it in the world. My eyes watered as I whispered to him, the same things that I’d told my girls the first time I’d held them. What I wished I could’ve said to Flora when she was born.

  “You are beloved and wanted and prayed for.” I sniffled, ignoring the eyes on me. “Welcome to the world.”

  Titus cleared his throat behind me and then he and Otto left the room.

  “He was a little early,” Esther told me quietly, resting her hand on Ansel’s back. “But they said his lungs are great and it shouldn’t affect anything.”

  “How big is he?” I asked, lifting my head.

  “Five pounds and fourteen ounces. Nineteen inches long.”

  “You are small,” I said to Ansel. “Small but mighty.”

  “He definitely didn’t feel that small on his way out,” Esther said ruefully as she went back over to the couch. I followed and sat beside her.

  “Did you get any stitches?”

  “No.” She shivered. “Thankfully.”

  “I was worried,” I murmured quietly.

  “Sorry I didn’t call you myself,” she said regretfully. “I know Otto was texting Titus so you were getting updates. My phone went dead on the way to my appointment and I was too distracted to even bother with it.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Everything went okay here? Flora wasn’t too freaked out?”

  “She was fine,” I assured her. “Missing you around bedtime, though.”

  “She’s only stayed at Heather and Tommy’s a couple times, but otherwise she’s pretty much always with us. I’m kind of glad that we were surprised by Ansel’s arrival or I would’ve been stressing out about leaving her.”

  “So, they just decided to keep you there?”

  “Well, I said I’d been feeling tired and my back was really achy,” she said, leaning into the couch. “So Andrea decided to check, and I was already seven centimeters dilated.”

  “You’d been in labor for a while and hadn’t even realized it,” I said in understanding and a little amazement. “Must be nice,” I huffed.

  “I know,” Esther said, widening her eyes. “I’m definitely not complaining. I think the end made up for it. I pushed for two hours.”

  I winced in sympathy.

  “I’m gonna head out,” Titus announced, walking back into the room. “I need a shower and a change of clothes. I’m gettin’ a little ripe.”

  Esther sniffed. “You’re fine. I can’t smell anything.”

  Titus laughed.

  “You want to hold him before you go?” Esther asked.

  I looked at her in surprise.

  “If Noel doesn’t mind,” Titus said, rubbing his hands together as if to warm them.

  I shook my head and then nodded, finally gesturing for him to take Ansel.

  His fingers brushed against mine as he took the baby from me, and I probably shouldn’t have been surprised at how expertly he held the newborn after seeing him with the girls and all his nieces and nephews, but I was. With one hand under Ansel’s rump and the other bracing his head and neck, he lifted the baby until they were face to face.

  My heart clenched.

  “I don’t have a speech prepared like your Auntie Noel,” he murmured. “But I promise not to drop ya. Oh, and look out for your Uncle Rumi. He’s mean.”

  “Don’t tell him that,” Esther scolded with a laugh.

  “Fine,” Titus said with a sigh. “Look out for your Uncle Rumi. He’s an idiot.”

  “Titus,” Esther snapped in exasperation.

  “Love you, little guy,” he murmured, ignoring her as he smiled mischievously. “Keep your dad awake as much as you can. He likes it.”

  He handed Ansel back to me and called out to the girls, telling them he was leaving and blowing each of them a kiss.

  “Thank you for staying with us,” I said, leaning back into the couch. My belly was like a little shelf for Ansel to rest on. I wondered if the baby inside me noticed he was there.

  “Anytime,” Titus replied seriously. His gaze roamed over me before meeting my eyes. “You look good with a baby. Bye, Esther.”

  “Bye,” she called as he left the room. She turned to me, her eyes wide. “Was he just flirting with you?”

  “No.”

  “You look good with a baby?” she mimicked his voice.

  “He wasn’t flirting.”

  “He was, too.”

  “I’m—” I gestured to myself. “Pregnant.”

  “So?”

  “Men aren’t attracted to pregnant women, you lunatic.”

  Esther looked around like she was searching for something. “Someone needs to tell Otto,” she mocked. “He’s going to be devastated.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Men are absolutely attracted to pregnant women.”

  “Not in my experience.”

  “You have very little experience,” Esther reminded me out of the side of her mouth.

  “Maybe men are attracted to women that are having their baby,” I conceded, even though I’d never seen evidence of that personally. “But not random pregnant women.”

  “You’re not a random pregnant woman,” she replied seriously. She tilted her head to the side. “And I wouldn’t be so sure of that anyway. I bet some men love pregnant women.”

  I wrinkled my nose and she laughed.

  “I still say he was flirting,” she said knowingly, closing her eyes.

  I held the baby while Esther fell asleep on the couch. She didn’t wake up even when Diana and Ariel’s argument over a little stuffed unicorn turned into screeching that Otto put a stop to before I could. He carried Esther up to the bedroom and I stayed where I was, watching the girls as they moved on to coloring while Ansel slept on my chest.

  The rest of the day was pretty full with Otto’s family members stopping by to meet the baby and check on Esther. It was a strange experience. The only people I’d seen for weeks after the girls’ births were my mom, Caleb’s mom, and the midwife. In Otto’s family, even the men were queuing up to hold Ansel, just as excited as the women to meet the newest member of the family.

  Their attention didn’t stop with him, either. All of the adults that came to visit doted on each of the girls, passing them around and playing with them. They also fussed over Esther. It was…nice. Really nice.

  “We don’t bring the kids on the first visit,” Emilia informed me, sitting down with me at the kitchen table. “They’re too germy.”

  “I was wondering where they were,” I replied, smiling at her. I liked Otto’s sister-in-law.

  “We’ll bring them around once Esther’s had some time to settle in and Ansel’s a little more sturdy.” She looked at the table in front of me. “What are you making?”

  “A blanket for Ansel,” I said ruefully, holding up the blanket that I’d worked on all night. I still had three rows of squares left to attach before it was finished. “I thought I’d be done before he came.”

  “That’s gorgeous,” she murmured, reaching out to run her fingers along the edge. “I bet Esther’s going to love it.”

  “She picked out the yarn, so I hope so,” I joked.

  “I bet she’s really glad to have you here,” Emilia said kindly. “I know she really missed you.”

  “I missed her, too.”

  “Plus, it’ll be really nice to have an extra pair of hands during the newborn stage,” she added. “I was living with my parents when I had Rhett, but Michael was there for Asa and Eloise.”

  I was curious, but didn’t ask why Mick hadn’t been there when Rhett was born. Rhett was clearly his son, the resemblance was so strong.

  “He helped,” Emilia continued. “But it was always so nice when Heather came over.”

  “I was on my own with the girls,” I replied, beginning to attach the next row of squares. “My husband worked, but he wasn’t much for, you know, baby stuff.”

  “That’s hard,” she murmured. “I got really lucky with Michael. He wanted to help with all the things, even when he had no clue what he was supposed to be doing.”

  I smiled.

  “Women are different,” she continued. “We just look around, see what needs to be done, and do it. Men have to be given explicit instructions.”

  “Are you complaining about me?” Mick asked, carrying Ariel and Flora into the kitchen hanging on his biceps.

  “Just telling Noel how helpful you were after the kids were born.”

  He looked at me and grimaced. “Don’t believe a word she says,” he said playfully. “I’m very helpful. She just prefers to do everythin’ on her own.”

  “I do not!”

  “You wouldn’t delegate a damn thing,” he countered, lifting the girls higher as they squealed.

  “See,” Emilia said, looking at me smugly. “Explicit instructions.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or hush her. Their family dynamics were unlike anything I’d ever known. If I’d said anything like that to Caleb, there would’ve been serious consequences.

  “I am yours to command,” Mick said happily, setting the girls back on the floor. He chased them back out of the room.

  “I hear Titus stayed with you guys while Esther was at the birth center,” Emilia said after a few moments. “How did that go?”

  “It was good,” I replied carefully. What exactly was she asking? “Otto didn’t want us staying here alone after my brother showed up a couple nights ago.”

  I forced myself not to cringe or sugar coat it. When I’d called Esther for help, I’d known that I was bringing potential trouble to their doorstep. She’d already escaped. She was already free of them. Ephraim hadn’t bothered them once she married Otto.

  The only reason they’d had to deal with our brother again was because of me.

  Guilt was a steady companion, but if I let it get to me it would be like throwing Esther’s offer of sanctuary back in her face. She’d made it clear that any repercussions we dealt with were far less important than having me back, and I hadn’t argued, because if the roles were reversed I would’ve felt the same way.

  “Yeah, Michael told me about that,” Emilia replied, scowling. “What a jerk.”

  “That’s a bit of an understatement,” I agreed.

  “Well, hopefully he came and swung his little dick around and now he’ll leave you alone,” she muttered.

  I choked on nothing and Emilia laughed.

  “Sorry, these Hawthornes have rubbed off on me,” she apologized. “I used to be sweet and innocent.”

  I nodded. “Esther swears now, too,” I replied. “I’d never heard her swear before.”

  “You should try it,” Emilia said impishly. “It’s really satisfying.”

  Eventually, the house cleared out and it was just the seven of us, quietly getting the big kids into bed. We could hear Otto’s voice while he read a story to Flora, but much to their dismay, I corralled the girls into our room. Flora needed a little one-on-one time with her daddy. We’d been horning in on everything since we’d moved in, and with a new baby her life was about to change even more.