“What?That’s whatyouused to say to me,” I teased.
Kendall snorted from my side.My mom had invited her over for dinner tonight.If my mom ran into anyone after three in the afternoon, you could just about guarantee she’d sweet-talk them into coming over.
“Jude was a good student,” Kendall said, setting her fork down.
“Of course he was,” my mom replied with a smile.
“Because you always told us that good grades, behavior, and things like that mattered,” I deadpanned.
“How are the goats?”Tommy asked Kendall, clearly bored with this topic.
“They’re good.You know as well as I do since you stopped by and saw them this afternoon.”
“You never know what could happen.How long do goats live?”Tommy inquired, thus launching a lengthy discussion about animals and lifespan.
As conversation meandered along throughout dinner, we checked in about the scheduling for trips for the resort.It had only taken a decade-plus, but our family’s wilderness resort had been rebuilt from the ashes after a wildfire burned it to nothing.It was going better than we could have expected, with the one downside being that we were all running to keep up with the pace.
“I think we need to hire staff,” I commented.
“For what?”my mom asked, her eyes whipping up.“So far, you boys are managing the various expeditions and so on.”
“But we have a waitlist,” I replied.
“I think we need to take the rest of the insurance money, build more guest rooms, and then hire some staff,” my mom countered.
Haven, me, Cole, Asher, and Grady collectively shook our heads.
“We could try to get Lincoln to move home,” I pointed out.That was a loaded topic, if there ever was one.
Lincoln stayed in touch, but he’d moved away once he finished high school.Our sister, Bree, had died from the burns later, and he’d been the one to carry her out.He didn’t like talking about it, but he’d dedicated his entire life to fighting wildfires since one had erased our family’s legacy and taken our sister along with it.
“He called the other day,” Chloe said from the corner of the table.Chloe was the new admin person my mom and Elsa had hired.
“He did?”My mom pressed a hand to her chest.
“Yeah.He wanted to know how things were going from somebody other than, in his words, a biased family member,” Chloe replied.
Haven snorted.It wasn’t like Lincoln didn’t stay in touch, but I could see the hurt flickering in my mother’s eyes that he’d called and she didn’t know it.“What else did he say?”she asked.
“He said he was finishing up a stint up near Fairbanks and that he was thinking about coming back,” Chloe said calmly.
Elsa deftly changed the subject when my mom looked like she might cry on the spot.Dinner wrapped up, and eventually, I walked out with Kendall since I was giving her a ride home.
“How’s Lincoln?”Kendall asked once we were in my truck and driving.“Your mom seems worried.”
“Well, she is.She kind of likes to worry.Takes it as her job.”
Kendall’s laugh was soft.“I know, but it’s been a rough few years for you all.”
“A rough decade,” I said flatly.
Our dad had passed when I was a senior in high school.It was only a year later that Heartfire Falls burned to the ground.
The wildfire had blazed through the outskirts of Willow Brook, Alaska, where our family’s wilderness resort was situated.It took years to deal with the insurance and get it rebuilt.Between our father and then Bree, their losses had felt like dominoes falling.Haven had been the most solid of all of us through it, and in hindsight, he’d paid a price for that.He’d stepped up and done the legal work to adopt Tommy.
“Families are messy,” I said, trying to lighten the moment.
“I’ll agree with you on that.”Kendall snorted beside me.
