“To take care of me?”
“Kind of. More like so we could all take care of each other.”
“Like a real family?”
“Yeah, bud. Exactly like that.” I was tempted to leave the conversation right there, but he deserved to know the whole truth about what it would mean to invite Calla to come back. “But also, I was thinking of maybe asking her to marry us. To be my wife and your mama if you’d be okay with that.”
“Really?” He bounced up and down on his seat.
“Would you like that?”
“Duh, Dad! Can we go ask her right now?”
Encouraged by my son’s total acceptance, I let out a laugh. “There are a few things I need to do first. She was pretty mad at me when she left.”
“We can make her a dinosaur at the library.” Lane clapped his hands together. “I’ll show you how.”
“I’d like that, bud.”
An hour later, with the help of the very patient librarian who’d been around since I was a kid, Lane and I had created a family of tiny dinosaurs out of nothing but a printer and some weird plastic stuff she’d called filament. Lane had been extremely particular about making sure the medium one had bright pink hair, and the biggest one had a bushy beard. He’d even asked the woman to help him make a box to put them in and hadn’t thrown a fit when it took a few tries.
I’d done a little snooping via Nellie and learned Calla was still at her grandparents’ place but was planning on heading back to Bozeman the next day. There was no time to spare if we wanted to catch her and try to convince her to abandon all of her plans and take a chance on the two of us.
“Don’t worry, Dad.” Lane squeezed my hand as I helped him out of the back seat of the truck. “I can tell she likes you.”
“Really? How?”
“Because she always smiles when you’re around.”
“Oh, yeah?” He’d always been extremely observant, but I hadn’t realized he’d been aware of anything happening between me and Calla.
“Yeah. And you like her too. Cause you’re only supposed to kiss girls you really like.” He kept walking like he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell in the middle of the driveway.
“What do you mean?” We’d been careful. I’d made sure he’d never even seen us hold hands in front of him.
He looked up at me and rolled his eyes. “I’m not blind.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, and I didn’t have a chance. As we approached the front door, Calla’s grandma pulled it wide open.
Lane let go of my hand and held out the box. “Is Calla here?”
Mrs. Smith pressed her hand to her heart. “Well, she’s in the back, but I’m not sure she’ll want to see you.”
“Who is it, Gran?” Calla came up behind her grandma, took one look at us, and backed away.
“Calla!” Lane pushed past Mrs. Smith and flung himself at her waist.
She looked up at me, tears already welling in the corners of her eyes as she bent down to gather Lane in her arms. “Hey, Laneosaurus. What are you doing here?”
He pulled away just enough to hold up the plastic box. “This is for you.”
“What is it?” She squatted down and took it from him.
“It’s us. I made it pink because your favorite color is pink.”
Calla lifted the lid and pulled out the dinosaurs one by one. “This is amazing. Is this one supposed to be me?”
“Yeah. And there’s the flag for our new camp.” He pointed at the flag he’d made me print in letters almost too tiny to read. “It says ‘Camp Braveheart, established now.’”
