“A spring baby.” Amber clasped her hands together. “That’s the perfect time to have a baby around here. You won’t have to sweat through the summer, you can eat whatever you want at Christmas, and by the time you’re recovered enough to want to go outside, it will be nice enough to do it.”

“When was Hunter born?”

“February. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the entire winter hadn’t waited until the week after he was born to show up. We had to take him to his first well-child exam in two feet of snow.”

We, she said. Bea had noticed Amber’s left hand was conspicuously bare. She didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but she wondered about Hunter’s father. It was hard enough for Bea to imagine becoming a mother and dealing with all that at her and Amber’s age. But if she had to do it without Jeremy by her side . . .

The lone waitress on duty appeared at the table with two glasses of water, wearing jeans and a Moose Creek Spuds sweatshirt. Unlike the servers at the restaurants in Ponderosa, this woman wore no makeup and gave no hint that she was trying to impress anyone or angle for extra tips. She just kept her gray-streaked hair out of her face with a ponytail and tapped the table with her little notepad.

“Are you ready to order?”

Neither Bea nor Amber had looked at the menu, but they were ready. The offerings hadn’t changed for as long as Bea could remember. The prices had gone up, but the Tuesday special was still the same.

“I’ll have the deluxe cheeseburger, please. With extra fries.” Amber tousled Hunter’s hair. “Hunter loves fries.”

The waitress jotted it down and turned expectant eyes on Bea.

“I’ll have the same. With a chocolate milk shake.”

After barely choking down half a bowl of cereal for breakfast, she was starving.

“Ooh, good idea.” Amber’s excitement made Bea happy. “We’ll have a chocolate shake, too.”

The waitress nodded and walked away. Bea could appreciate the lack of airs at The Baked Potato. It was the kind of place that never tried to be something it wasn’t. Two-thirds of the floor was laid with gray-speckled linoleum, and the other third had gray-checkered linoleum because when the owners had gone to replace the part of the floor that had been damaged by a small fire, they discovered the speckles had been discontinued and decided the checkers were close enough.

Amber patted her stomach. “I won’t be able to keep eating like this forever, but I’m still nursing so I think I can get away with it.”

Bea worked to hide her surprise. She was still nursing? As in, breastfeeding Hunter? But he was sitting up. He ate fries. He had teeth!

She had so much to learn.