“Jenny, I really wish you would let us help you with that,” called Lou as she watched her closest friend struggle out the front door with a tray of fresh lemonade.

Jenny Thompkins Cross just smiled and shook her head. “Really, I’m fine. You ladies just sit.”

“Jenny, you shouldn’t be carrying on like this. You’re six months along now.”

“Rachel, I’m fine. This is my fourth baby, I think I’m beginning to get the hang of this.”

All of the guests on the Cross’ porch laughed. Lou looked around at her circle of friends and realized between them they had birthed 10 babies, with an eleventh on the way. Not to mention their big babies also known as husbands. “You’re right, Jen. We all have the hang of it by now.”

More chuckles made their way through the group as they settled into companionable silence. As the sun shined down on a lovely spring Sunday, together they watched their families play in the yard of the old Way Station with the weathered baseball set Teaspoon had bought for the riders in their early days with the Express.

“Teaspoon Hunter! You let that boy try by himself if he wants to,” Rachel called towards the yard. “I swear he just won’t let the boy have a moments peace.”

“He means well, Rachel,” observed Caroline Stevens, the wife of Teaspoon’s long-time deputy Andrew Stevens. “Andy’s the same way with Michael. They just want their sons to be the best at everything.”

“Even if they’re no good at it themselves,” pointed out Jenny. “Buck is determined that Noah and Isaac will learn this game when he can barely catch that little ball himself. Sally just isn’t interested because she’s so little, so he leaves her be.”

Lou looked out at her own family and watched Kid patiently teaching Mary Emma and Sarah how to throw the ball.

“Is everything okay, Lou?”

Lou snapped out of her reverie at the sound of Caroline’s voice. “Fine, fine. Why do you ask?”

“No particular reason, I just heard you sigh and you looked almost sad for a moment.”

Embarrassed that her friends thought she was feeling down when she was only fondly remembering her early morning activities, Lou dipped her head a bit in mock shame.

Rachel, having known the petite and beautiful woman since her days as a petite and beautiful woman-in-disguise while a rider for the Pony Express, knew her best and sensed there was something Lou wasn’t sharing. “Lou, if there’s something on your mind, you should just say it, you know there’s no keeping secrets with this group.”

Lou smiled coyly. “I know, Rachel. There’s nothing actually wrong. I just had a nice morning and now I’m having a nice afternoon with all my friends and family.”

The three women on the porch just looked at their friend expectantly.

“What! Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

”Lou, you’re being very evasive,” said Jenny, her faced scrunched as she analyzed her friend. “However, I have a feeling that from the glow about you, you had a very good morning.”

Leaning over the basket at her feet, Lou scooped Madeline into her arms. She tried to avoid the three pairs of eyes she knew were watching her every move. Rocking the baby gently, Lou could no longer suppress her giggles. “Do you always have to be so smart, Jenny?”

The women couldn’t help but giggle along with Lou. They shared everything with each other and when one of them was happy, they all were happy. The giggling and whispering got so loud that the men could hear them from the yard and stopped the baseball lessons.

“What do you think that’s all about,” asked Teaspoon out of the corner of his mouth.

“Beats me old man, but with those four women, you know it can’t be anything but no good,” replied Buck as he pulled his three year old daughter up into his arms. “What do you think is making Mama so silly, pretty girl?”

“Frogs?”

Buck looked down at his daughter with a questioning glance. “What makes you say frogs?”

“Maybe Auntie Lou is telling Mama how she tried to turn Uncle Kid into a frog today.”

Kid, standing nearby with Teaspoon’s son Avery, nearly choked on his own breath as he burst into laughter.

“What is she talking about, Kid?” questioned Buck.

Nearly doubled over in laughter, he turned to look at his daughters. They took off for the barn with squeals, knowing they were caught. “It’s not one for the children’s ears, trust me, but I’ll be speaking to my lovely daughters about what they repeat in front of the smaller ones.”

Buck set Sally down to chase after her cousins and the men scurried the other children away while Kid explained the significance of the frogs and the near miss he and Lou had with the girls catching them in a compromising position.

The men’s laughter floated towards the porch and had the women turning to look at their husbands.

Seeing Kid as the center of attention Lou buried her face in her hands in embarrassment. “You know he’s telling them all about this morning don’t you! I could kill him! Isn’t anything private?”

Caroline watched Andy slap Kid on the back as the men all postured and knew the morning tryst was most likely the main topic of conversation. Caroline took Lou’s hand in her own and patted it in a motherly fashion. Older than both Lou and Jenny, she loved both girls like Rachel did, almost like daughters and she hated when one of them was upset. “Lou, you can’t let them embarrass you, especially when we’re no better than them. It’s not anything you can control, God has blessed us all with the gift of gab and he didn’t discriminate when it came to our men. We’re all just happy for you. The private time between a man and a woman can be so wonderful; it’s terrible to be told to wait.”

“Tell me about it!” exclaimed Lou. I thought I was gonna die! Looking at Jenny and Rachel she stated, ”I’m surprised you didn’t hear us in your houses.” The three families shared the property of the old Sweetwater Way Station.

Rachel looked away sheepishly. “Not sure we would have noticed.”

“Rachel!” the three women exclaimed in unison.

“What? Just because we’re getting on in our years doesn’t mean we’re dead.”

“Well, we’re not the only ones enjoying ourselves,” commented Lou. I got two letters this week from friends with new babies!”

“Did Emma finally have that child? She was about ready to burst when Teaspoon and I saw her last month.”

“Rachel, I’m sorry for not telling you sooner! Emma made me promise in the letter to tell you right away as well as everyone else. She was just too worn out from the birth to write y’all separately and then I forgot to tell you.”

Rubbing her hand over her own bulging stomach, Jenny asked, “What did she have?”

“Another son. Now it’s two boys and their little girl. They named him James Robert, but they want to call him J.R.”

“That’s sweet. We have no idea what names we’ll use this time. Between all of us, we keep using the good ones.”

“Don’t worry Jenny, they’re still some good ones left. Have you thought about Rachel?” joked the old station mistress.

“It does get hard to find nice names, especially when you have to make them compliment the children’s names you already have,” explained Caroline. She was the most proper of their bunch. “We all have basic names in our family, that’s why Andrew and I chose Michael and Katherine.”

“Well, who was the other letter from,” inquired Rachel.

“Fallon. She and Connor had another boy, their third. Patrick Louis. They did the Louis for me because they don’t know if they’ll ever have a girl to use Louise for.”

“That was very sweet, it’s a nice name. Doesn’t that make three boys for them now?” inquired Jenny.

“Sure does. Talk about a handful.”

“Sounds like one of them for each one of your girls, Lou”

“Don’t even joke about that, Rachel Hunter! I don’t think even I could fathom that idea - each of my girls becoming an O’Shea! Oh my!”

Laughter returned to all the women as they thought about the wild bunch the O’Shea boys and McCloud girls would make as one big family. Sharing thoughts about their friends in far places, they spent the rest of the afternoon watching their families wear each other out and get themselves dirty. Supper was a noisy affair, just like it was every Sunday. It only got noisier with the arrival of an unexpected guest.

Chapter Three