remember them until she and Will were in the SUV and halfway to church. When she brought it to his attention, Will turned the vehicle around right there in the middle of the road and went back to the house.
“You stay in the car, darlin’,” he told her. “With that big old belly, you can’t hurry.”
Kayla laid her hand on her stomach. “You’re probably right. I don’t rush too well anymore. When the babies get here next month, you won’t have to do so much.”
“Honey, I don’t mind doin’ anything at all. I still can’t believe I’m going to be a daddy and that I’m married to my high school crush.” Will left the vehicle running and jogged into the house. When he returned, he set a box containing small gift bags onto the back seat. “Do you think they’ll have your curly hair?” he asked as he got behind the steering wheel.
“God, I hope not.” Kayla groaned. “They can have eyes like mine and your good hair.”
“I hope they look just like you, right down to every cute little freckle on your face.”
“You are a sweetheart,” Kayla said.
In a few minutes, they turned into the church parking lot.
“Good grief!” Kayla gasped. “Look at that parking lot. The church is going to be packed this morning.”
“Don’t worry,” he laughed. “Mama will throw anyone out of our pew if they try to move in on her territory. I hope our girls have half her spunk.”
“I wish Miss Janie would have lived to see her granddaughters.” Kayla sighed.
After they’d found a spot and parked, Will opened the door for her and helped her get out of the vehicle. They spotted Dulcie and Thomas waiting for them outside the church and made their way over to meet them. Will then leaned over and laid his hand on her stomach and said, “Miss Sarah and Miss Marie, I can’t wait to carry you into church.”
“You could do that today,” Kayla sighed, “but the weight would break your back.”
“I couldn’t be happier than I am today,” Dulcie said. “And to know that y’all are naming the babies after me and Miss Janie is an honor that brings tears to my eyes. I always wished my mama would have called me by my middle name, Marie, rather than Dulcie, and now I get a granddaughter named that.”
“We do get to babysit for you once a week, don’t we?” Thomas asked. “I’ve already told all the folks at the center to expect to see babies pretty soon.”
“Of course.” Kayla nodded. “And thank you for the offer. I’m sure we’ll look forward to a little time each week.”
“Oh, honey,” Dulcie laughed. “You really do need time for the two of you. When we got Will, we made ourselves a promise that we’d always have date night, and even if we were tired, we hired a sitter on Saturday nights and went to dinner.”
Kayla still had trouble believing that Will’s folks had taken her into their family, that they’d insisted on paying for a wedding six months ago, and that they’d been delighted when they’d told them that she was pregnant.
A few minutes later, Noah parked his truck right beside Will’s SUV. As Noah opened the door and jogged around to help his wife out, Will hollered over to him, “You didn’t have any trouble finding the place, did you?”
“Not a bit,” Noah said. “We brought Sam with us, and he’s been here before.”
After Teresa, Noah, and Sam had joined the others, Teresa said to Kayla with a laugh, “Are you sure that’s just two babies in there? Looks like a litter to me. I just saw you yesterday, and you look bigger than you did then.”
“Oh, hush up.” Kayla shook a finger at her. “Your time is coming, and I fully well intend to make fun of you when you look like an elephant.”
“But you’re such a beautiful elephant.” Will slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “And we get a double blessing. Noah and Teresa might not get two at once.”
“I hope not,” Teresa said.
The preacher stepped up behind the lectern, cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t know that we’ve ever had a Sunday-evening crowd this big.” He chuckled before getting serious. “We are fortunate when we bring a new baby—or, as the case is with Will and Kayla, two new babies—into our church family. Our children are our future, and we need to remember that. Jesus said, and it’s written in red in our Bibles,