Read Online And Baby Makes Five by Debra Clopton - Free Book Online Page B

operation needed supplemental income. Lilly had been configuring a cattle sales catalog for a cattle company out of Ranger for the past five years. She scanned the pictures into the computer and made certain all the pertinent information on each animal was correct, then sent it to the printer for her client. It was a good business and it helped her continue living on the ranch by providing the extra income she needed to survive on the land that had been in her family for generations.
    It also meant endless hours sitting at her computer staring at the screen long after most people had the good sense to go to bed. But the job had to be done.
    Glancing around the house, Lilly sighed. It was quitting time. She wouldn’t get any more done tonight. It had been a long day and was way past time for bed. Her steps were heavy as she padded into the rear entrance hall to lock the door. She paused to rub her throbbing back. Whew, maybe heat would help. Forgetting to lock the door, she decided to grab the heating pad from the pantry.
    Her back was throbbing like a jackhammer.
    Five hours sitting in front of the computer screen was entirely too much. But she had a deadline and it couldn’t be helped. Commitment was something she took very seriously. And she needed the money. She had a baby coming she needed to support. Alone.
    Jeff Turner intruded upon her weary mind. She tried not ever to think about her ex-husband. His lack of commitment to anything, especially her and their baby, always stabbed her with regret. It ripped at her determination to move forward and forget about the things she couldn’t change.
    Regret. Lilly forced it from her mind and heart. It wasn’t always an easy task.
    There had been a few very hard weeks in a marriage that fell apart as quickly as it had begun. A marriage that hadn’t really been a marriage, but more of a rebellion.
    Funny, optimistic Lacy Brown had helped Lilly gain perspective on trying to allow God’s timing and His will to take precedence over her past. Lacy had impressed Lilly with her brute determination to do God’s will. The joy that animated Lacy was contagious, and Lilly was trying to learn to renew her mind by replacing negative thoughts with positive. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Lacy had asked her to memorize the verse from Proverbs. She found herself quoting it often.
    She’d been raised by a band of grannies who had many takes on how life should be lived. Many of those ideas she was trying to rethink. It wasn’t always easy, but she was determined to be a positive-thinking, active, Christian mother to her child.
    Speaking of which, she remembered telling Cort that there had never been a Mr. Tipps. There hadn’t been a Mr. Tipps. She’d been Mrs. Turner before returning to her maiden name, but despite the legalities of the wording, she had misled Cort. She’d have to remedy that. He needed to know that she valued family. She’d just let her mouth get carried away while she was angry—her mouth did that quite often. One of the negative things about being raised by her outspoken grannies was that two of them believed it was okay to say whatever was on their mind.
    No matter whom it hurt.
    Mind renewing was hard work! But with the Lord’s help Lilly was determined to rid herself of some very odd ideas from a very odd upbringing.
    Suddenly realizing she was standing by the icebox lost in thoughts of her past, she focused. Did she need heat for her aching back or something cold? Granny Gab was the one who’d taught her to use a bag of frozen vegetables as an ice pack. Black-eyed peas happened to be her veggie of choice.
    Heat. She needed heat tonight.
    A noise at the window made Lilly close the icebox and walk over to peer into the darkness. An ice-encrusted Samantha stood staring back at her.
    “Samantha!”
    The little mischievous dear, whose neck she often wanted to wring, would be ill if this continued. But what was she to do? Cort had been right. She