right side, and Cameron, their oldest foster child, held Chazzy on his hip. Kyle and Lynn completed the row in front of Cactus, and the children came toward her and Dawna first.
Lois kissed each one of them, holding them close and telling them she loved them, before she straightened to embrace Mitch.
She signed to him, I’m so happy you’re one of mine, and kissed him too. She held Willa tightly, and then embraced her son. Cactus knew how to pour his emotions into an embrace; how to let others know how he felt without saying a single word.
Lois’s eyes pricked with tears for her good son, and touched her fist to his heart before he stepped away to sit down with his family. He and Willa still didn’t know if they could adopt Cam, Kyle, or Lynn, but they should know in a few months.
Judge and June had a much smaller family than Bear or Cactus, and they’d already lined up. Lucy Mae held her mother’s hand, and Judge carried their son, Birch. Together, the four of them came down the aisle in measured steps, smiles on their faces, and Judge wearing that same cowboy hat as his brothers.
They must’ve found one together, because they literally were all the same. “Hello, Mother,” Judge said, kissing her cheek, then Dawna’s. He passed their son, who was growing up so fast, to June, and he cleared his throat as he moved to Lois’s side. He’d officiate the wedding, and therefore, wouldn’t be sitting with his family.
Preacher and Charlie stepped to the back of the aisle at the same time, immediately linking hands. She carried their darling daughter, Betty, who could’ve walked down the aisle, as she’d turned one at the beginning of the summer.
This son wouldn’t want to be in the spotlight for as long as it would take his daughter to get down the aisle, and in fact, he and Charlie moved quicker than anyone else. He kissed Lois, and she whispered, “You’re walking well.”
“Thank you, Mother,” he whispered back, and then they moved away. She watched him and Charlie for an extra moment, because while they were quiet and simply put their heads down and got the job done, Lois knew they hurt and healed the same way everyone else did. He caught her looking, and he pressed his fist over his heart as a way to say, I’m okay. Thank you for checking.
She did check too. She stopped by the farmhouse every single time she came to Shiloh Ridge, just to talk to Charlie for a few minutes alone. Just to find out how Preacher was truly doing. Her mother heart couldn’t help worrying about and praying for the two of them, and standing at the altar, the Lord told her they were okay.
Arizona and Duke Rhinehart stood at the end of the aisle now. He carried their daughter Shiloh in his arms, and Zona rested one hand on her very pregnant belly. She wasn’t due for another ten days, but everyone in the family had prayed she wouldn’t deliver early. She certainly looked like she could, despite her warm smile as she moved down the aisle.
Lois pressed her eyes closed when she hugged her daughter, because she’d only gotten the one. Zona was having another girl, and Lois had told her how blessed she was to get two girls, something she’d never gotten.
Arizona had grown a lot in the past few years, and she let her husband help her into her chair.
Mister and Libby stood at the back of the aisle now, and they didn’t have any children yet. He’d just announced his wife’s pregnancy at the family dinner last night, and he’d said he and Libby would be parents come April first. Lois couldn’t wait to see her wild son settle into his new role of father, as he’d come so far in the past two or three years as he’d discovered himself and accepted the kind of man he wanted to be.
She’d enjoyed watching him dote on his new wife, and he once again reminded her of Stone. They’d had children soon after marriage too, but for that first year, when it was just the two of them, he’d done the same types of things Mister did for Libby.
He’d pack her a lunch and take it to her without telling her he was coming. He’d change the wash without her asking him to. He’d order desserts and have them sent to her barn office.