“Come on. You’re going to be a new mom soon. You have to talk to Dana and Addison with me.”
Jill glanced at Zeke. He was smiling and gave her a little nod.
“They’re great. If you want to go. I think you’ll really like them,” he said.
Jill didn’t know how she felt about anything at the moment, honestly. So, she let Tori pull her toward the table where Dana and Addison had settled.
“I’m assuming you’re gonna want hurricanes?” Ellie asked them.
Addison lifted her long dark hair off the back of her neck and blew out a breath. “Absolutely.” She looked up at Jill with a smile. “Our husbands own a bar in New Orleans. They feel like they make a million hurricanes every week, so they won’t make them at home. But I can’t help it, I love them. So I have ’em every chance I get.”
“And honestly, Ellie’s are way better than Trahan’s anyway,” Dana said. “Don’t tell Logan I said that.”
“So Grace is yours?” Jill asked Dana.
“And a couple others in there too,” Addison said. She looked at Dana. “God, we have a lot of kids.”
“You’re not kidding,” Dana agreed.
“Four each, right?” Jill asked.
“Is that it?” Dana asked. “Feels like eight each.” Both women laughed.
“And I still can’t get enough of babies,” Dana said, reaching for Ella and taking her from Tori. She propped the baby up on her shoulder, patting her back. “Other people’s babies. Logan thinks we need to have another, but I am putting the kibosh on that.”
Addison rolled her eyes. “Sure you are.”
“I swear, if we’re in the same room and that man sneezes, I get pregnant,” Dana said. “But seriously. Four is enough.”
“Four is so many,” Jill said, without thinking.
“Trust me,” Dana said. “It really is some days.”
“I can’t imagine four,” Tori said. She looked at Jill. “We have Landry men, which means almost too much help sometimes, but these two started out on their own. Addison was a single mom in New York when she met Gabe, and Dana’s husband…” Suddenly Tori looked a little ill. “Dammit. I’m so sorry, Dana.”
Dana gave Tori a little smile. “No worries, honey.” She looked at Jill. “My husband was active duty Army. He was killed in action in the Middle East.”
Jill caught her breath. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. It was really hard. And I did do it on my own for a while. In fact, I intended to keep doing it on my own. Until Logan Trahan came along and knocked me up with that smile of his.”
Addison chuckled. “We don’t have to call it his ‘smile’. The kids aren’t around so we can use real grown-up language.”
They all laughed.
“So wait,” Dana said looking at Jill. “You’re with a Landry boy too? Which one?”
Jill nodded and swallowed. “Zeke.”
Dana’s eyes widened. “I love Zeke.”
Shocker. Everyone loved Zeke.
“Yep. We just found out earlier this afternoon that they pulled the Logan and Dana,” Tori said. “They’re having a baby.”
Addison smiled. “Oh, congrats.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“She is also the veterinarian who brought the penguins to town,” Naomi said, pulling a chair over to the table, and settling in.
“Hey, Naomi,” Dana said brightly.
Addison gave her a big welcoming smile as well.
“Hey, ladies,” Naomi returned.
“Penguins and a baby. That’s an amazing way to start your new life in Autre,” Addison said to Jill.
“Yeah. That’s one word for it.” Jill’s tone was dry.
Addison chuckled. “Not the word you would use?”
Jill shrugged. “It’s…just a lot.”
“Yeah, it is a lot.”
Addison’s phone dinged and she pulled it out and swiped across the screen. “Clearly we need to stay here and help the new moms with advice.” Addison turned her phone so Dana could see what was on the screen.
Dana groaned.
Addison then turned the phone so the rest of them could see their kids—and their husbands—in the goat pen covered in mud, holding goats, and grinning widely.
“Kids are washable,” Tori said. “That’s what Ellie keeps telling me anyway.”
“You know the only reason that we keep letting them come down here is because you all will let them use your showers before they get back in the car,” Addison said. “There was one time they came down to the petting zoo and didn’t shower before leaving. My car smelled like goats for a week.”
“And I did not know that a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance,” Dana said, reading a text from her phone now. “And no, I do not want to know why I got that text just now.”
“Do you want us to fill you in?” Tori asked.
Dana shook her head. “I’m certain it’s some big wild plan that Stella and Grace came up with, and that Sawyer is enabling, and that includes glitter.”
“Right on all counts,” Tori told her.
Jill felt her eyes widen. “That’s impressive.”
Dana rolled her eyes. “Our kids are loud and wild, but there are some things that are completely predictable…big ideas, Sawyer, and glitter being three of those things.”
Addison crossed her legs, clearly settling in. “We are definitely going to be here for a while. So tell us about you, Jill. You moved here with penguins. We actually heard all about that in the petting zoo’s newsletter. You met and fell for Zeke. None of us are surprised about that. So now what?”
Wow. That really pretty much summed it all up. It sounded a lot simpler than it felt. “I…” She looked at the four women she was sitting with and was suddenly struck by the urge to be completely candid. “I can’t do anything that doesn’t have to do with penguins. I can’t multitask at all. I can’t cook. Like, I can’t even boil an egg without boiling the pan dry. I’ve never changed a diaper or babysat, in spite of the fact that I have two younger siblings. And I’m pretty much freaking out about everything about having this baby.”
None of the women at the table looked particularly shocked by the fact that she was freaked out.
“Why no diapers if you had younger siblings?” Addison finally asked.
“My mom. She was a perfectionist. So she did everything herself.”
“I was a little bit like that,” Addison said. “When Stella was a baby, it was really hard for me to let anyone else in. Actually, even up to the time I met Gabe.”
Jill swallowed. There was something about these women and how they were so open and honest about the fact that their children were handfuls and that they weren’t out there doting on every moment with them at the petting zoo.
“My mom was a doctor,” Jill told them. “Well, she went to medical school. But she got pregnant right after she graduated and my oldest brother had some medical issues when he was a baby. She was too worried to let anyone else stay with him, so she quit and stayed home and proceeded to have three more kids in the next five years.