A Wonderful Fate for Warm Hearts – Extended Epilogue

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Josiah never thought about missing the heat of a Texas summer until it was too late and the first chill of winter had already set in, chasing the short fall away and wreathing the state in a hateful sort of limbo. The sun still shone, the grass still green, but the air held a nip to it that he tried his best every year to forget would come. 

Ashley made fun of him regularly, every time he dared complain aloud about the cold, promising him that winters here were nothing compared to the ones she’d grown up with in Chicago. 

After three years, she still poked fun at him whenever he bundled up in multiple coats in the morning to go and check on the livestock around the farm. 

He took comfort in the fact that both Lydia and Danny were quick to take his side in that disagreement, staring at Ashley as if she had grown a second head as she wrapped up in only a light jacket on the way to Sunday services. 

The bite of the wind against his cheeks as he jogged up the porch steps was a reminder of all of it, his grin fond despite how little he liked the cold already setting into his bones. Looking out at the farm as he shook the frost off of his jacket, it was hard to believe that it was the same place he thought he’d sunk too much money in a little over three years ago. 

The wildflowers that Ashley was so careful to cultivate and keep in bloom had long since withered in the passing of the season, the grass just starting to pale from the dropping temperatures. It was a colder landscape in more ways than just the temperature given the time of year, but there was no denying how far it had come. 

Gone were the broken floorboards that had made up the front porch, the peeling paint that had hung in strips down the house and the barn both. It had been a labor of love, a testament to how hard he and Ashley had wanted to build a better life for the children. 

When people drove by the farm now, they slowed to look on in admiration rather than sadness, and Josiah was proud of the fact. 

Almost as proud as he was of the door opening while he scuffed his boots against the welcome mat in front of the door to dislodge the compact mud from their soles. 

“Uncle Josiah,” Lydia called out, stepping back as if she were ushering him in. “I finished my chores before you this morning,” she informed him importantly as if he couldn’t have guessed as much from her opening the door as she had. 

“Did you?” Josiah asked, biting the amusement back from his tone as he stepped inside, relishing the warmth from the stove as he shrugged out of his coat and gloves, rubbing his hands together after hanging them up. “All of them?” 

“Not all of them,” Danny piped up from over by where he was stacking the wood by the fire. “I’m doing the wood she forgot!” He grinned mischievously from where he knelt, his eyes shining in a way that made the shyness he had exhibited as a toddler seem almost impossible to imagine. 

“Did not,” Lydia snapped, her eyes narrowing and her face flushing angrily. Her temper was like a lit wick, easy to ignite and hard to snuff out. At ten years old, she was a determined young lady and determined to make sure that everyone around her knew it too. 

“Did too,” Danny drawled. “Pa, I’m telling you, she forgot!” 

Josiah snorted, shaking his head. Danny had been too young to remember his mother and father all that well, reverting to calling Ashley and he ma and pa rather than uncle and aunt the way that Lydia did. It was an odd arrangement, to be sure, but it worked for them, and even three years later hearing the title made Josiah feel incredibly honored. 

“And you forgot to rinse your dish from breakfast,” Ashley interrupted from the doorway, her voice full of the same amusement Josiah felt as she stopped there smiling fondly at the three of them.

She was still just as beautiful as the day he had first set eyes on her, her golden curls tumbling down her back and her perfect porcelain skin only slightly goldened from her years in the Texas sun. 

“So you both forgot something.” She laughed, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and shifting her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other as she dropped her other hand to that swollen curve at the bottom of her belly. 

Josiah felt his grin grow as he crossed the room, stopping to put his hand over hers and bending to kiss her temple in warm greeting. “It’s a good thing they have you to remind them,” he teased, pressing into her swollen belly and feeling the little kicks that greeted him. 

He could never get over the feel of those little rolls and kicks against his palm, a reminder of the life that Ashley carried inside her now. She was mere weeks out from giving birth to their first biological child, swollen and flushed as a testament to the fact. Carol liked to joke that she would be birthing twins, just like she had only two years past. 

Ashley always bemoaned the teasing, though Josiah secretly hoped that Carol wasn’t wrong. As daunting a thought as two children at once was, he still hoped for it. 

“I know you’re teasing me,” Ashley murmured, pinching the skin at his waist through his shirt as she gladly leaned against him to help that balance she had lost since her belly had grown so much. “But I do have to remind the both of you,” she continued, looking past Josiah to Lydia and Danny, “that the eggs haven’t been gathered this morning, and if you wait too long to do so, you’ll be risking Javier the Rooster’s wrath at waiting for his breakfast.” 

Just that easily Danny and Lydia’s argument was waylaid, their ire replaced with worry at the mention of the temperamental rooster that plagued them so. 

“Ugh! It’s so cold outside already Aunt Ashley,” Lydia moaned, already shrugging into her coat despite her complaints. 

“And Javier is probably already up,” Danny chimed in, pulling his boots on with a grin. 

Where Lydia ran from the angry bird, Danny liked to test his limits, though more often than not it resulted in him running through the back door and slamming it behind him as if the thing might try opening it up and chasing him inside. 

“Javier is definitely already up.” Lydia sighed as she trudged past Ashely and Josiah in the doorway, grabbing the corn Ashley had left on the kitchen counter as she went. “He’s up and waiting with his sharp beak and his beady, little angry eyes.” 

“And a host of chickens at his beck and call.” Danny laughed, pausing by Ashley to put his hand on her belly before continuing, “I’ll race you to him!” 

He didn’t wait for Lydia to agree, running past her through the backdoor and cackling as he went. 

Josiah exhaled a laugh, wrapping his arms around Ashley in the blessed silence that followed the exit of the children. The room seemed to exhale with him, the house like a deflated balloon in the aftermath of the flurry of activity that was having a ten and a five-year-old. 

Ashley sighed, wrapping her arms around Josiah’s waist in return as she sank into him. “Oh, they’ve been at it all morning,” she said, even her complaint tinged with fondness. “It started before Lydia even came out of her room.” 

“How did it start before she was out of her room?” Josiah asked in surprise, swaying back and forth with her to help alleviate some of that pressure she always complained about in her thighs and lower back. 

“Apparently, she thinks that Danny took her drawings from her room last night or moved them, or something similar to it,” Ashley explained, leaning her forehead into his chest as he used the heel of his hands to push against her back. “I’ll be honest, I stopped listening after the third or fourth accusation and focused on defusing the situation instead.” 

Josiah chuckled, stepping back as Ashley pushed against his chest and allowed her to step back out of the circle of his arms. She smiled at him as she turned to go back to the kitchen, allowing him to trail after her towards the smell of another freshly brewed cup of coffee he knew she’d have waiting for him. 

“I know that I shouldn’t laugh,” Josiah admitted, leaning against the counter as she handed him his coffee cup. “But, I swear, the two of them will find something to argue over no matter how we try to prevent it.” 

“As long as they’re arguing with one another, sure,” Ashley muttered, flipping her curls back over one shoulder as she finished drying another dish and putting it up in the cabinets. “God forbid anyone else to dare to argue with one of them, though, else they’ll be facing the both of them for it.” 

Josiah hid his smile behind the rim of his cup, hiding it from Ashley’s knowing look over her shoulder. He knew all too well how that went. Even with their cousins, there was no hope of turning them against one another. Any time one of them got into a scrap with their cousins, the other was right behind them to back them up, right or wrong. The only time Josiah wasn’t amused by it was when it was him they were joined in arms against. 

“You laugh, but you can explain to your brother why his son has a bruise on his arm later this evening, not me,” Ashley pointed out, fighting her own smile as she put away the last dish and turned back to him fully once more. 

“This evening? I’ll be in town,” Josiah answered blithely, almost snorting his coffee at the way Ashley immediately narrowed her eyes. 

“You can’t be working tonight again!” she disparaged, exhaling in defeat as she said it. 

Josiah could still remember the months that had followed the burning of the mortuary and the lack of business that he’d had from it. It had taken almost a full year to build the mortuary back from the ashes, foregoing the apartment above it from lack of need and instead making it more functional for his work alone. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Ashley muttered, pouring herself another glass of water. “I know you need to work. You don’t have to look at me so loudly,” she cut off right after she said it, her lips twitching despite her best obvious efforts to bite it back. “It’s good that business is doing well,” she said more softly. 

“It’s good for us,” Josiah teased, watching the flush at her poor wording yet again. “The farm is doing well enough on its own, though. Another few years and I don’t think we’ll be dependent on the business at all.” 

“Not that you’ll stop working your job,” Ashley teased. 

Josiah wanted to argue the words, but he knew the truth of them as well as she did. He loved his job, not for the money, not for anything he got out of it. He loved it even more since that night three years before whenever the whole town had shown out to help them look for Danny and Lydia and the months following when they had rallied around them to help them build back both the mortuary and the mess Elwood had tried to make of their lives. 

 He liked being able to give back to the community, providing that peace that he felt everyone deserved at the passing of a loved one. 

“I wouldn’t mind taking off more often,” Josiah answered evasively, one side of his lips climbing higher than the other at the look Ashley gave him. “We could travel then, go to Chicago to see your folks, go and visit Aunt Fern there with the children …” 

Ashley still tensed at the mention of her parents, though far less than she had once. Josiah knew they were still sore over her decision to leave like she had and run out West. Their letters had been sparse in the first year after her arrival, her sisters and friend Maddie writing far more often than her father and mother combined. 

Over the last two years, they’d begun to write more though, especially in the months following her friend Maddie and her preacher husband’s visit.

Mrs. Villa wrote even more often since learning of Ashley’s pregnancy.  

“It’s good that you can take off,” Ashley said cryptically, not answering in the fashion that Josiah had expected. At his questioning look, she busied herself with cleaning off the countertops, a nervous sort of energy gripping her. “My father and mother mentioned possibly coming out in the next few months.” 

It certainly wasn’t what Josiah had expected, all the teasing he had planned to do leaving him with his exhale of surprise. “Out here? To us?” 

“I figured I would talk to you about it first before I wrote them back and planned the visit,” Ashley rushed to explain, clearly unsure how Josiah had taken the news. 

He almost felt guilty for making her doubt they would be welcome, though he reckoned it had more to do with her nerves with her parents than it did him. “You should know that your family is always welcome,” he reassured her. “I reckon they could stay in the bunkhouse if they wanted their privacy. Are your sisters coming with them?” 

Ashley put the rag back in the sink, laughing as she dried her hands off on her apron about her waist. “Lord, I know I’m making a mess of this,” she muttered. “I just hadn’t expected it, not so soon, although I suppose three years isn’t soon. Of course, my sisters are coming with them, their letters were full of excitement. I think they’re both under the illusion that just by coming out here they’ll find Western husbands to be promised to.”

Josiah could hear the disparaging way she said it, but he knew it was just as fond as whenever she complained about Lydia and Danny’s arguing. 

He wasn’t all that fond of the way she flinched after speaking, though, reaching down to rub her belly again as if she were hurt. 

She’d been doing that more and more lately. While Carol assured him that it was just the result of her being so near the end of her pregnancy, it still worried him more than he was willing to admit to her. Seeing Ashley in any sort of pain was worse than dealing with any of his own. 

“Is it your belly again?” he asked, trying to temper his concern as he finished his coffee and crossed the kitchen to set his cup in the sink. 

“It just … twinges,” Ashley said, waving her hand as if dismissing it despite the tension around her eyes even as she said it. 

Josiah hummed, moving to her and placing both hands on her belly like Carol had shown him how to, supporting the weight of it and pressing softly into the tender skin there. “Have I told you how much I admire you today?” 

“Admire?” Ashley asked teasingly back, closing her eyes and allowing her head to roll back on her shoulders. “Have I been demoted so quickly?” 

“Love, admire, respect,” Josiah listed them off as if they should have been expected. On their wedding day, he had thought he couldn’t ever love her more than he had then, that his feelings had reached their peak. She’d gone and proven him wrong every day since, though. He fell in love with her more and more with each passing hour.  

“I … oh.” Ashley cut off, her eyes suddenly wide as her head jerked up and her lips parted in surprise. 

“You oh?” Josiah teased, sweeping his thumbs across her belly and frowning as the skin seemed to tighten impossibly under his touch. The smile slid from his face as he looked down, staring at the way her stomach almost seemed to lift and swell as it hardened. 

“Oh, oh,” Ashley breathed, gripping his wrists as she let out what sounded like a strangled groan. 

“Ashley?” Josiah asked concernedly, his chest tightening as worry burned through him. 

“Oh,” she sighed in pain again. “Oh, get the children,” she whispered, her gaze jerking back to him as her features twisted in anguish. 

“The children? Ashley, are you hurting? Do I need to go and get Carol? The doctor?” He was already mentally planning to get her to the wagon and rush to town, but Ashley was shaking her head before he even finished. 

“No, I mean, yes.” She laughed, even that noise tight and tense. “I think … Oh, Josiah, I think the baby is coming,” she exhaled, jumping as that pain seemed to grow again. “I know the baby is coming,” she clarified, laughing again at his terrified expression. 

It was hardly the start of the morning Josiah had expected, his heart thundering in his chest as he straightened in anxiety. 

The baby was coming. 

It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once, his heart swelling in his chest. 

As much fear that filled him with the knowledge, there was an equal measure of peace with it. 

God had already shown his promise to Josiah to be true. He just had to continue to move forward in faith. Something that, with Ashley by his side, would never be a problem.

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