Her words made Chase’s eyes water. “I hope so.”
“I know so,” Mason said, his words as serious as ever, and Chase knew he was right.
Thirteen Years Later
MASON RODETALLY THROUGH THE WOODS, PASSING THE OLDpond where he and Chase had played as kids… and as adults.
He wasn't in a rush to get back home. He wanted to enjoy the scenery, take in the fresh air, and most importantly, relax.
It had been a fairly uneventful day in the parlor, everything running smoothly and everyone showing up on time and ready to work. On days like those, he felt like it was his job to just reflect on how goddamned lucky he was.
The years had been very good to Finley Dairy, and their upgrade thirteen years earlier had proven to be a lucrative business move that kept them in business. It included a major contract that gave them security that they had plenty of good years to come.
When he reached the stables, he put Tally up in Mercy's old pen, petting her chocolate-brown coat that reminded him of his old mare. They’d bought Tally just two years earlier after Mercy passed. It was hard for Mason and Chase to watch their beauty slip away. Like so many other things in their lives, it reminded them of how quickly life passed by and how quickly they could lose the ones closest to them.
Mason walked out of the stables and made his way home. Not to the home he used to go to—Pa’s home—but the one he and Chase had built together with the help of their family. It was a home of their own, a place for them to raise their own family.
The two-story construction with brick around the front door and light-blue siding was built behind a pond they’d put in for fishing and the occasional dip. It was the home they designed together—the home they dreamt of together for the life they wanted to spend together.
As Mason stepped through the front door, a shrill cry filled the air. Despite how the sound rang in his ears, his heart warmed.
Gwen sprinted through the short hallway between the kitchen and the entryway, her arms high overhead as she squealed, “Daddy!”
She tackled him with a hug.
“Hey there, kiddo,” he said, hugging her back.
Ten years old already, he could still remember the day he and Chase sat down with her mother, the woman who they arranged the adoption through.
“How was school today?” he asked before picking her up and lifting her high in the air the way she always liked.
She laughed as he put her back down, and she went on to talk about her day. He was relieved that it sounded like she hadn't caused any trouble, because Gwen’s chatting had a knack for annoying her teachers. And while she certainly did a lot in the way of disturbing the quiet of the dairy, Mason appreciated her for it. Hell, he would have missed the sound if she wasn't around to make it. In fact, ten years had gone by so quickly with her, and he was afraid of what life would be like in another six. They'd be different times, and she’d be a different person. He found himself far too uneasy about that day that shouldn’t have felt so near, but it only gave him a reason to hold on to precious moments even more and appreciate the time he had with the ones he loved most… for as long as he possibly could.
As Gwen continued to catch him up on her day, he walked through the hallway into the kitchen where Chase sat at the kitchen table with their other daughter Julie.
She’d turned eight in March.
Chase jotted something down in her notebook as he pointed to something in her textbook. Mason walked up to him, seeing it was her math book. He was helping her with some simple equations.
“Julie having some issues in math?” Mason asked.
“She got most of them right on her homework, but I'm just showing her where she messed up. That'll make it easier next time,” Chase explained as he turned and caught Mason's gaze.
Chase froze as they made eye contact, as though he hadn’t seen him for days when really it had been maybe a few hours.
Chase flashed that beautiful smile of his—the one that had a way of dissolving all Mason's worries and stresses. Not that there were many. There were the usual issues that arose on the dairy, but Mason managed them just fine and had done so even as Pa had relinquished his responsibilities. As Mason stepped up to the challenge and maintained the dairy even better than he ever thought he could, Pa took the extra time to lounge around the house, reading on his Kindle. Occasionally, he even traveled on his own.
There were a few grays in Chase's hair and a few more lines on his face. There weren’t more than Mason's, but every line reminded him of the years they'd spent together and the years that he'd hope they would continue to enjoy.
It hadn't always been that easy. In the beginning, there was a lot of commuting. There was more irritation on his part than he had believed there would be, but they both cared so much and wanted it to work so desperately that they found a way, and Chase was lucky that his company wanted to work with him so much that they didn't mind him working from Georgia in a mobile position where he could review everything from the office he set up in the old guest bedroom of Pa's house. They'd moved that office to their own home years later, but Mason felt incredibly fortunate that they'd come upon an opportunity that allowed them to have everything they both needed—the careers, the lives that they'd worked so hard for, and each other.
And with their daughters in their lives, they really did seem to have everything that they could have possibly wanted.
“Y'all gonna be about ready to head over to Pa's for dinner?” Mason asked. “I'm sure Kent and Leslie will be eager to see y'all.”
Julie laughed and clapped her hands as Gwen jumped up and down, doing a little dance.
Kent and Leslie were Emery and Jasper's kids, twelve and ten. It was a much bigger family than they'd had in the past, and Mason loved that.
