T Novan - Exposure Season 4

If New Orleans were to suffer a power outage right now, we’d all still be able to see by the light of Kels’ smile. "Sweetheart, you tell me when and we’ll start trying to make a baby."

I lean down and capture her lips, enjoying the sweetness of this moment. "Practice makes perfect," I whisper against them when we finally part, not wanting to move very far away. Truthfully, I’d like to go home right now and start practicing.

"It certainly does. Harper, your Mama is never going to believe this. When are we going to make this grand announcement?"

I pretend to think this over for a long moment. "Sometime around the twins’ first birthday?" Kels slaps my arm playfully. "I don’t know, chér. I suppose we should talk to your cousins first and make sure they’re willing. I’d hate to raise everyone’s hopes if it won’t work out."

"Harper, sweetheart, even if they aren’t, there are other methods. But we’ll wait, and I think Brennan and Collin’s first birthday is a wonderful plan." Kels reaches up and caresses my cheek, and I lean into her tender touch. "Thank you so much."

"For what, Little Roo?"

"For wanting this. I wanted a big family and I felt … well, I felt … like maybe I …" She gives up and smiles. "It doesn’t matter now because we’re going to have one. One way or the other."

I bend my head down so that I capture her eyes. "Chér, what did you feel? Tell me, please."

Kels pauses, closing her eyes, I assume to work up her courage to speak. "I felt like a failure," she says at last, softly. "I wanted so much to give us lots of babies. When they said I couldn’t, I felt like I had done something wrong and that I wasn’t supposed to be a mother. I think that’s why I’m so protective of Collin and Brennan. After all we’ve been through, I couldn’t lose them. That’s why I ran home, why I came home to family."

"Oh, chér," I breathe, my heart breaking. How could I not have known this before now? What type of jerk am I? "Sweetheart, you are a fabulous mother. My God, you make it all look so easy. Our two babies love you so much. I can’t imagine doing this with anyone else." Even the thought of that terrifies me. "You haven’t done anything wrong."

She nods and sniffles. "I know that now, and I’m so happy. We have a wonderful family surrounding and supporting us, and we have the most beautiful babies." She nudges me playfully. Even if none of my brothers will admit it, we do have the best looking kids. "For awhile there, I was scared, but look at this." My girl gestures to the party which has continued around us unabated. Everyone on the dance floor has been gracious enough to let us have this talk in as much privacy as the forum allows. "This can be our future, Harper, and I am looking forward to walking every step of it with you."

That declaration deserves another kiss. "Will you still feel that way if one of our kids wants to run for the Louisiana state senate and the rest of them are also," I mock shudder, "lawyers?"

"The two things I’ve learned through all this, Harper Lee, are: one, you can always count on family to be there for you; and two, it never hurts to know several good lawyers. I’m telling you, though, I think you’ve correctly pegged Brennan ‘The Girl Who Wants To Rule The World’, and Collin is going to follow in my footsteps." My girl’s eyes shine with fun.

"Oh, he is, is he? Did you play quarterback for the Tulane football team?"

"No, and neither did you," Kels points out reasonably, forestalling any further argument from me. For the moment, at least. "But there is nothing better than being a multi-award-winning journalist who finds happiness and true love, and who gets to spend the rest of their life doing what pleases them." She leans upward and whispers in my ear, her breath sending pleasurable chills down my spine, "Including, but not limited to, spending lots of time trying to create little brothers and sisters."

Warmth infuses my body and it takes all my willpower to not take my girl home right now and work on this baby thing. Later tonight, however, we’ll have to make a few attempts. Maybe I’ll even buy a home pregnancy test to inspire us to greater heights. "So you’ll still love me when I’m big and fat, eh?"

"Sweetheart, I’ll even go out in the middle of the night and find whatever disgusting thing it is you’re going to want to eat when the baby starts getting all demanding. You’re going to be so spoiled no one will be able to stand to be around you. You’ll be like an old woman’s prized fat cat."

"Now there’s a terrific side benefit. So, how many are you thinking? In total, I mean. Four, five, six?" Six sounds damn scary, to be honest, since that would mean four for me.

"Mama and Papa did all right with five, but I could live with four. It’s a nice, round number."

"Think we’ll get lucky with another set of twins?"

This amuses my girl, and I’m so glad to see her so happy. "Anything is possible, Harper. I really think you’re going to be too cute for words when you’re pregnant."

I scowl. "I don’t do cute."

Kels ignores me and pats my flat stomach. "If you have twins the first time, we may just have to go for five."

"Need I remind you, the fifth is sometimes the best of the whole lot?" I wag my finger in front of her. "Where would you be if Mama and Papa had thought four was a nice round number and quit at that?"

"Lost. And very alone." Kels regards me seriously, looking into my very soul. "I love you, Harper. I refuse to think of my life in terms of you not being a part of it. There is a reason that the two most stubborn people on the planet were brought together and I intend to spend the next seventy years trying to figure it all out."

"I’m going to hold you to that." Whew. What a night. Who knew we’d be discussing my getting pregnant and us having a whole brood of kids at my parents’ anniversary party? "So do you want to go rejoin the party and mingle? Or do we go out on the balcony and neck for awhile?" I’m only half-teasing in my proposition.

"I think we should go out on the balcony and neck for awhile."

We immediate leave the dance floor in search of a quiet and secluded spot. I lean down and whisper the only words that come to my mind right now, "My God, I love you."

"I remember the first time I tried to pull something over on Mama." Robie has to shake his head in amusement. None of us were ever able to get away with anything for very long. "My friend, Bobby, attended parochial school with me. His mama made the best lunches. To this day, I remember the taste of Mrs. Boudreaux’s po’boys. So ol’ Bobby would bring his lunch and he and I would eat it during recess.

"Since we lived near the school, all us kids would walk home for lunch. I would bring Bobby along because he never had anything left after we got done at recess. Mama would feed him with us, and send us all back to school.

"I guess having Bobby over every day for lunch made Mama worry about the Boudreaux family. One day, she goes over there to speak privately to Bobby’s Mama and see if they need anything. That’s when she found out about Bobby’s lunches."

Robie laughs. "She must have figured out what we were doing, because the next day when we all came home for lunch, Mama made up her special jambalaya. I love that stuff. Ooo la la." Robie looks hungry just thinking about it, in fact. "We all sat around the table and Mama gave big portions to Gerrard and T-Jean and Luc and even Harper, who was just a little thing at the time.

"Bobby and I were given a half a sandwich each." He pats his trim waistline. "Thank God, Mama did that. I’d hate to see how big I’d be if I had continued that trend all the way through twelfth grade.

"Love you, Mama," he blows a kiss at the camera. "And I love that it was your heart for people that led you to discover our little scam."