“Is TJ awake?” she asked.
“He wasn’t when I left,” Trey said, continuing into the bathroom.
Beth left, annoyance singing through her, and went down the hall past her son’s bedroom. He and Trey had begged her to make a blanket fort in the living room, where they’d slept last night.
“They obviously didn’t sleep,” she muttered to herself, her heels making sharp clicking noises once she’d left the carpeted hallway and arrived in the kitchen. When she’d gone to bed, the two of them had been giggling about something underneath their tented blankets.
Then, she’d found them both adorable. Now, she wished she’d told them they could have an hour in the fort and then put them both to bed where they could get a full night’s sleep.
“TJ,” she said, using her motherly authoritative voice. “Time to get up, son. We have church today.”
If waking Trey before he was ready wasn’t pretty, doing so for her five-year-old was akin to torture. She couldn’t even see him, and she pushed back the blanket draped over the barstool to try to find him.
“TJ,” she said again, her voice coming out like a bark. “I mean it. Time to get up.”
He groaned, and she knew what that sound meant. It meant they were going to be late for church.
Beth suppressed her sigh and got down on her knees, thinking through what Trey would do to get TJ where he wanted him. She’d watched him deal with TJ, and the fact was, he got on TJ’s level more than Beth did.
She was the taskmaster. The one who nagged TJ to get his shoes and backpack. The one who told him four times to eat his toast before school. The one who made him brush his teeth and wash his hands when he didn’t want to.
Trey took TJ out to the ranch and let him work with horses and dogs. He picked him up and ran him out of the SUV when Beth left him behind because they were late. Trey grinned at TJ and listened to him talk and talk—and talk—about the things that had happened at school. Trey read to him at night when Beth was too tired. He held TJ on his lap while he let TJ watch his cartoons.
Beth never did any of those things, and therefore, her relationship with her son was a lot different than Trey’s.
She found him curled into a ball amidst a pile of pillows, pressed back into the corner where the loveseat and the couch met. If she wanted to get back there, she’d have to crawl through all the blankets.
“Or I can rip them down.” They were hosting a huge luncheon after church that day for all of the cowboys who’d been working at Dixon Dreams the past several weeks. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day, and with all of their individual family parties and dinners, not to mention the training Somebody’s Lady needed over the next couple of days, things were hectic.
“Come on,” Beth said, straightening and then reaching to start taking down the blanket fort. “Get up, TJ. You have thirty minutes before we need to leave for church. I want you to go brush your teeth and wash up. I’ll get your clothes out and come do your hair.”
Her son didn’t appear, and Beth finished folding the first blanket and reached for the second one. She pulled it down, then another and another. She could fold them later. She needed TJ to get up right now.
Her frustration grew with every passing second, until she finally realized she was one moment away from yelling. She paused and took a deep, cleansing breath.
“TJ,” she said as calmly as she could. “Time to get up.” She kicked off her heels and stepped over the blankets and pillows on the floor to her child. She stooped and scooped him into her arms. “Baby.”
She sat on the couch, mostly because she couldn’t stand on the uneven floor and hold TJ. He curled into her chest, and Beth took a moment to appreciate him for the little boy he was. She’d never have this moment again, and she breathed it into her memory and held it before she whispered, “It’s the holiday sermon today, buddy. Remember how they pass out the candy canes at the end?”
He lifted his head, his eyes suddenly open and wide.
She smiled at him, proud of herself for pausing and trying a different tactic. “Teeth,” she said. “Wash your hands and get your hair wet like Trey showed you. I’ll get your clothes and come help you with them and your hair.”
“Okay, Momma,” he said.
She dropped a kiss on his forehead and set him on his feet to go do what she’d asked him to. She sighed as she looked at the mess in the living room.
It didn’t matter. She, Trey, and TJ lived in this house, and it looked like a family lived here. Sudden emotion lodged in her throat, because she hadn’t had this life in so long.
“Babe,” Trey called from down the hall. “Have you seen my brown boots?”
“Which pair?” she muttered, pushing herself to her feet. “No,” she called louder. “You had that pair you left on the front porch.”
He came striding down the hall, his hair damp and a cloud of cologne following him as he grinned at her. “That’s right.”
“You’re wearing those to church?” she called after him as he continued through the kitchen and into the front room.
“They just need to be cleaned up,” he said.