As much as I wanted to help Tanya with Gramps, I could tell by the embarrassed look in his eye that he didn’t want my assistance. Tanya looked back at me gently as she helped Gramps into the house.

“It’s okay, Laurie. Why don’t you go ahead and get dinner going while I help your grandpa here?”

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I nodded tersely. While I didn’t know yet what all was wrong with Gramps, I’d find out soon enough. Forcing myself to sound chipper, I asked about dinner.

“Did you have anything in particular you are planning to make tonight? Or should I go forage and see what I come up with on my own?”

Gramps cleared his throat noisily as he muttered under his breath. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but his tone was clear.

“I’m not a guest here, Gramps. It won’t hurt me to fix dinner—now you go on and take your nap, while I get things handled in the kitchen.”

Tanya flashed me a wink as she helped Gramps into his bedroom. “Just fix whatever looks good, hon. I’ll be back in a bit to give you a hand.”

“Seriously, Tanya. That’s not necessary. Besides, don’t you need to run home or something pretty soon? I’d hate to be pulling you away from your own life.”

“This is my life, Laurie.” She said quietly. “I work here—I’m your grandpa’s live-in caregiver and home aid. Cooking is part of my job.”

They disappeared into Gramps’ room before I could answer, so I swallowed my surprise and headed into the kitchen. Later would be soon enough to ask the questions that were piling up in my mind.

I hadn’t missed the slight slur in my grandfather’s speech, or the way the right half of his face and body drooped slightly. I assumed that was causing the limp he had as well.

Knowing he’d suffered a stroke explained that… I’d also noticed a few instances of forgetfulness, such as when Gramps had asked me where my husband was or how long we were staying and if I’d brought the baby.

Shit, I had a sinking feeling that the baby he was asking about was Matty. If he had moments where he forgot my other two children, then seeing three kids running around who definitely weren’t babies would probably be confusing for him.

I blinked back tears as I opened the refrigerator and ducked in to see what my options were. Seeing a fresh package of chicken, and enough vegetables for a good salad, I got to work.

By the time Tanya came in to join me, I had the chicken cut up and my pan heating with Crisco. I was mixing some seasonings into my flour mixture when she stepped over to the sink to wash her hands. Looking over at where I stood working, she smiled brightly.

“Please tell me that you’re about to fry up that chicken. I swear on all that’s holy, I cannot fry a decent chicken to save my life. It either comes out raw in the middle, greasier than sin, or burnt all to hell.”

“That’s because you need patience, young padawan.” I grinned. “You can’t let your oil get too hot, that’s secret number one. If your oil is burning, your chicken is gonna taste burnt. It’s that simple.”

Moving to the microwave, I slid the bowl of chicken in and pushed the buttons before turning to Tanya with a wink. “And then there’s my number one secret. I precook the chicken just a little. Every grandmother in town would probably gasp in horror, but at least this way I know I won’t be giving anyone food poisoning.”

While the chicken pre-cooked in the microwave, I pulled some eggs out of the refrigerator and cracked them into a bowl to make my egg wash. After sprinkling in a touch of salt-and-pepper, I whisked the eggs while Tanya began pulling potatoes out of the bin.

“Baked or mashed, hon?” she asked, as she sorted out potatoes.

“I’m sorry, are you being serious right now? I mean, is there anything better than mashed potatoes with fried chicken?” I grinned and moved over to the beeping microwave to pull out my chicken.

“You know, I try to keep your grandfather on a healthy diet and this is going to be way more sodium than his poor old ticker’s used to,” Tanya confided as she began peeling potatoes.

I looked over at Tanya with a gasp. “Oh, shit. I wasn’t even thinking. Obviously, I don’t know much about my grampa’s condition—let alone his dietary needs. You’ll have to bring me up to speed.”

“Not a problem, hon. Tomorrow morning we’ll sit down over coffee and I’ll give you the rundown on his recommended diet. Don’t worry about tonight though. One night of good old-fashioned home cooking will be good for him—and you, I’m thinking.”

“You’re not wrong,” I admitted. “This dinner may be more about my own need for some comfort food than anything else. Normally I’d have been baking the chicken and potatoes. But if it helps, I was planning to make a fresh salad to go along with dinner.”

Tanya laughed. “Are you making gravy?”

“Naturally,” I snorted.

“Then don’t count on too much of that salad getting eaten by your grandfather,” she said.

“Ah, so what you’re saying is that I need to feed Gramps like I feed my kids? Because I’ll be having to force the salad on them, too.”

Tanya looked over at me gravely. “Honeybun, I hate to be the one to tell you this but thinking of your grandfather in the same light as you think of your children isn’t far from wrong these days.”

Before we could talk any further, the kids came running down the stairs with Dean right behind them. Oh, good. Dean and his helpers had carried our luggage upstairs for me. I took one look at their flushed, happy little faces and knew that I’d made the right choice in coming home.

“Looks like the fresh air is already doing wonders for you guys. Kiki, you and Chris go wash your hands while Matty helps Dean with whatever he needs to finish up before supper.”

Dean flashed me a grin. “If that chicken tastes half as good as it’s smelling over there, Matty and I better get a move on.” He looked down at my son. “Most of the chores are done for the day, but I need to feed the horses—unless maybe you wouldn’t care to help with that?”

Matty did his best to look nonchalant as he flipped a shoulder up in a shrugging motion. “Yeah, I can probably help with that, Sir.”

“Good man,” Dean said, clapping Matty on the shoulder as he led him out the back door.

By the time dinner was on the table, Gramps was shuffling in and the kids were all washed up and in their freshly assigned seats. Gramps looked around the table before glaring over at me with a disgruntled frown.

“We need to put the leaf in the table, boy. These youngins need elbow room. And what’s that girl sitting on? A stack of my old phone books you dug up from somewhere?”

I looked over at Kiki’s temporary booster seat with a shrug. “Yeah, I need to get Kiki something more permanent, but for tonight those will have to work.”

Gramps shook his head. “You comfortable over there, girl? Seems to me, your daddy could’ve at least put a pillow under your ass.”

Kiki and Matty giggled at Gramps’ language while Chris looked back and forth to see what he’d missed. Gramps’ bushy eyebrows drew together when Matty started signing an explanation to his little brother.

“What in tarnation is that youngin doing now, Laurie-boy?” he asked me curiously.

“Chris is deaf, Gramps,” I reminded him gently. “He can read lips to an extent, but it’s easier for him if we sign.”

My grandfather’s eyes widened in surprise. “Well, don’t that beat all? And the boy understands those hand signals as words? That’s how he talks and such?”

Matty didn’t miss a beat as he included his great-grandfather in the conversation, signing as he answered for me.

“Yes, Grampa Harry. This is called sign language and it’s how Chris communicates,” he explained patiently.

I was aware of Dean sitting beside me, quietly eating while watching and listening to our interaction. Gramps and Matty continued their conversation while Dean leaned over to talk softly in my ear. I schooled myself not to react to the once familiar tingle that ran up my spine when Dean leaned in closer.

“Not to judge you, since chances are he may have forgotten some of this even if you’d been a part of his daily life, but I have to ask why you’d allow your husband to keep you and the kids away from this man. Look at him, Laurie. The old guy is coming to life with those kids of yours.”

“You know, when we start a sentence with not to judge you—that’s the first sign of judgment.” I replied quietly. “Listen, it’s been a shitty week and I’m not in the mood to justify my marriage or my absence from home to anyone right now, not even you.”

“I’m not asking you to justify anything. But I’d like you to explain it to me because... I don’t understand, Laurie. I thought you were happy here and I’d like to know what changed so much when you left for college.”

My pulse raced as my stomach rebelled and I pushed back from the table. Jumping up, I excused myself and told the kids to keep eating while I rushed to the bathroom down the hall.

Just as I’d finished emptying the contents of my stomach into the porcelain bowl, I felt a cool cloth against the back of my neck and a firm, soothing hand rubbing a circle between my shoulders.

“I hope it wasn’t anything I said,” Dean apologized. “I hate that I’ve ruined your homecoming dinner, or could this be from the traveling? Want me to see if I can dig up some Pepto or something?”

I smiled bitterly as I stood to rinse out my mouth before turning to answer him finally. “You didn’t ruin anything, Dean. You were simply calling me on my shit as you see it, and I don’t blame you for that. In fact, I’m glad someone has Gramps’ back like that. But no, it’s not anything you said, the travels, or anything I ate—I’m fucking pregnant. Again.”

Dean looked like he was fighting frustration as he looked up at the ceiling and tensely worked his jaw from side to side while he idly scratched his stomach.

“Well, hell. You just took the wind out of my sails, and don’t I feel like the horse’s ass for talking shit to you over dinner back there.”

“You’re fine. There was no way for you to know, nobody knows yet.”

Dean looked over at me, concern filling those brilliant green eyes. “How far along are you? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes, I need a friend. And for the record, I am a little over six weeks along. The one time my husband touched me in the past two years, and of course, I ended up pregnant.” I chuckled bitterly.

Silently, Dean pulled me in for a hug. It was strangely familiar to hug my old alpha friend after a decade spent apart. I tried not to get too lost in the strength of his embrace as I reminded myself that this was about friendship—nothing more.

Pulling back, I patted him on the chest with a bright smile. “Let’s go finish dinner, if nothing else I can probably hold down some mashed potatoes if I leave the gravy off. I should’ve known better than to try for spices. We’ll talk later after the kids are in bed.”

Dean winked. “We already made plans for that, remember? Same bat time, same bat channel? Now tell me, are you sick like this all the time or is this a once in a while thing? Sorry if that’s nosy, I haven’t been around that many pregnant men before… or any, actually.”

I rolled my eyes as I pushed past him and headed back into the hall. “Pregnant is pregnant, Dean. But for the record, my morning sickness tends to hit me in the evenings. The rest of the day I’m pretty much fine unless I try to eat too much of something heavy.”

Gramps and the kids were already getting along great, I noticed as I sat down at the table. Tanya looked over at me with a concerned smile.

“Everything all right, hon?”

“Not perfectly, but it’s getting there,” I answered honestly as I took a tentative bite of mashed potatoes.

* * *

By the time I had all the kids in bed and settled for the night, Gramps was also asleep and Tanya had disappeared to her room. Suddenly having a five-bedroom farmhouse with a detached cottage where the workers like Dean could live didn’t seem so far-fetched. With the addition of me and my family, the old house would soon be bursting at the seams.

Quietly, I made my way out onto the front porch where Dean was already waiting on the old wooden swing—just like old times.

“Damn. I never thought we’d have this again,” Dean said quietly as I sat down next to him. “How many nights do you think we sat out here talking about our lofty plans for the future back in the day?”

“So many that our moonlight conversations are part of the fabric of my childhood,” I answered honestly. I looked over at his chiseled jaw, barely visible in the dim light of the new moon.

“It’s good to be home. I missed this more than you’ll ever know.”

“Then why did you leave us? And more importantly, why didn’t you ever come home again? Did you outgrow us?” Dean asked, tilting his head toward me as if to give me his undivided attention.

“I didn’t leave you, not on purpose anyway.” I leaned back against the comforting embrace of the familiar swing as I looked off in the distance at the twinkling stars in the clear night sky.

“You know, I’d forgotten how different the night sky is in the country than it is in the city. I don’t think I’ve seen stars like this in a decade.”

“Not to beat a dead horse, but they’ve been here. That’s the thing about stars, they’re always right there overhead—even when you can’t see them, they’re right there waiting for you when the sun goes down.”

I rolled my head to the left to look at him again. “You’re determined not to make this easy for me, aren’t you?”

Dean chuckled as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, his head turning to look at me.

“I’m sorry... I’m being an asshole. Harry said something several years ago about your husband? I take it things didn’t go so well when you brought him home the first time and Harry figured that was why you never came home again. He said you had a right to be mad at him when he’d been rude to your alpha.”

“Are you kidding me?” My heart broke as I wondered how Gramps would’ve thought that. “No, I’ll have to set that straight with Gramps the first chance I get. No, Tristan was supercilious, condescending, demeaning, and… well… downright fucking rude to Gramps. But Gramps was nothing but polite to him—too polite, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, in other words he killed him with kindness?” Dean grinned knowingly.

“Exactly. And the more that Tristan tried to act like he was above us simple country folk, the more aw, shucks Gramps acted. I only wish I’d seen Tristan for the asshole he was at the time, I could’ve spared myself a decade of pain. But then, I wouldn’t have my babies. So, I guess that’s the trade-off.”

“Can’t get any rainbows if you don’t ever have rain,” Dean said thoughtfully. “When you mention a decade of pain, he never… laid hands on you, right?”

I shook my head. “No, he never physically abused me. He made sure that every trip I planned back home once we were married got canceled. He cheated on me and pretty much spent our entire marriage telling me that I was an idiot country rube who was lucky to have him, but no, there was no physical abuse.”

“Damn. Mental cruelty is just as bad. I never asked, but how did you end up with him? I’m assuming you must’ve been starry eyed at some point, right?”

“It’s stupid. He was the first alpha to show interest in me, so yeah… I was starry eyed at first. I probably wouldn’t have even married him—except I ended up pregnant. I didn’t want to tell Gramps, so when he offered to marry me I jumped at it. Our marriage was okay until he graduated and he went to work for his father. That’s when our lives took a turn.”

“How’s that? What does his father do, is he a mafia don or something?” Dean joked.

“Worse,” I said dryly. “He’s a politician, and your typical blue-blooded rich bastard. He went to work in his father’s office, and that’s when the drinking, gambling, and cheating started—or as he called it, blowing off steam. But yeah, his parents are dicks. They’re the reason I’m home, by the way. I’m kind of on the lam.”

“Seriously? Or are you fucking with me?” Dean bristled protectively, as if indignant on my behalf.

“No, I wish I were.” I stopped, and took a deep, fortifying breath before continuing.

“I snuck out after the funeral with the kids and came straight here after I cleaned out what was left of our checking account. Thank goodness I’d just had a tune-up on my minivan. It’s not much, but it got us here.”

“What the fuck, Laurie. I’m gonna need more back story there, especially if you need me to have your back.”

I sighed. “The night Tristan died, he was driving drunk with one of his sex workers. I hadn’t seen him in at least three days, and the sheriff called his parents instead of me. I found out the next day when his bitch mother came to inform me that he’d died because I wasn’t capable of making him happy, and by the way, she’d be taking the kids, thank you very much. But if I went quietly, she’d give me a small allowance and allow me occasional visitation.”

“Yeah, I’d pretty much be telling that bitch to fuck off.” I smiled at how insulted Dean was on my behalf. I’d forgotten how good it felt to have somebody on my side.

“You have to understand though, I had nobody on my side back there. I never had time to make friends, I was too busy with the kids. I might as well have been a single parent, and with three kids, that’s not an easy proposition.”

“Well, hell. I guess that answers my next question. I was going to ask if he was at least a good father, although now that I think about it, the kids don’t seem like they’re grieving. And didn’t you say that you’d headed back here the day of the funeral?”

“Tristan was a kids are to be seen and not heard type of person. I don’t know if it was because of his upbringing, or if he just didn’t like kids. He wasn’t mean to them, but he was… I don’t know… I guess you could say, distant at best. When he was home, the kids knew to stay in their rooms and keep it down. But he usually tried to come home when they were in bed and left before they woke up. And now that I’m telling you about it, I’m hearing how shitty it was. Damn, that’s embarrassing.”

Dean leaned over and bumped his shoulder against mine. “You don’t ever have to be embarrassed with me, you should know that by now. Hell, you’ve seen me in how many embarrassing moments?”

I chuckled. “There’s a big difference between having your pants jerked down in the middle of the cafeteria, or forgetting your lines in the school play, or even puking on your prom date, and this lovely story that I’ve been telling you.”

Dean grinned broadly, his white teeth glistening in the dark. “Puking on Darlene wouldn’t have been a problem if she just hadn’t opened her mouth to scream. That was pretty memorable, right there. In fact, she was the first in a long line of people to make me their last frog to kiss before they found their prince.”

“What now? Why do I feel like there’s a story there?”

“Oh, hell no. If you want that story—you’ll have to ask my brothers or Tanya.”

“Come on, Dean. I told you mine—now tell me yours. It’s only fair.”

“The condensed version? Every girl I’ve dated since Darlene has left me for another guy, and ended up married to him. Hell, Darlene is married to the guy who took her home from prom after the puking incident. My most recent ex got knocked up by her boyfriend—the one I didn’t know she was seeing on the side, naturally. They’re in Reno as we speak, getting married. My brothers call me Mr.-Not-Quite-Right in the romance department.”

“Wow, the things you miss when you don’t come home for a decade.” I sobered suddenly, remembering Gramps. “So, tell me about Gramps?”

Dean nodded. “It’s been about two years now, I think—but Tanya could tell you for sure. I showed up for work one morning, and found him lying outside of the corral. He’d had a stroke, but was still semi-conscious, which was a good thing. Apparently he hadn’t been out there long, I’m just glad it didn’t happen on my day off.”

I wrapped my arms around my waist, hugging myself as if to hold in the pain. “He never told me. I can’t believe I came that close to losing Gramps and had no idea. So, he’s okay now—pretty much?”

“He has memory issues, obviously. And you saw the limp and the nerve damage to his right side, yeah? That slight slur when he speaks? It’s worse when he’s tired, that’s why he takes regular naps. He fought like a wildcat about having help, but they wouldn’t let him come home without a caretaker. I didn’t know he hadn’t told you, or I’d have called you myself. I hope you know that, Laurie.”

I nodded shakily. “Do you know if the doctors expect him to improve?”

Dean smiled at me sadly. “Laurie, he’s vastly improved. This is more than we’d hoped for, to be honest. That’s why I live on-site now, and Tanya works here full-time as well.”

“But, surely Gramps can’t afford that, right? You and Tanya aren’t sacrificing, are you? And, no offense, but I noticed that the road needs to be graded when I came in.”

“No, the state pays for Tanya. He’s barely under the income cap needed to qualify. As for me, the free room and board is more than enough to supplement my wages. I haven’t taken the liberty of giving myself a raise, because the farm can’t support it. Although, I’m hoping to afford a part-time farmhand for the summer. If I can get more done, the place will pay for itself more to help cover the winter. As for the road, I’ve been meaning to call someone in to smooth it out, it’s just… I’ve got a lot of balls in the air, you know?”

“Well, I’m here now and I’ll pitch in where I can. Is Grammy Lynn’s garden still out back?”

“Yeah, you can thank Tanya for that. That girl spends all of her free time out there,” Dean said with a soft smile.

I yawned loudly before I could stop it, making Dean chuckle. He reached over and patted my thigh. “Listen, we’ve caught up enough for one day. You’re back now, so we can do this every night if you want—just like the old days, right? But for now, I think you should go inside and get some rest.”

As another yawn hit me, I nodded my agreement—while managing to ignore the warmth of his hand that still rested on my thigh. “Yeah, I think the week is finally catching up to me, I’d better go on up to bed before I pass out right here.”

“Plus you’re pregnant, that can’t help matters,” Dean said. Standing, he reached for my hand to pull me to my feet. My heart pounded as Dean pulled me in for another one of his great hugs.

His stubble tickled my cheek as he spoke against my ear. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through, Laurie. But I’m not gonna lie–I’m sure happy to have you home again.”