“She’s doing bobbing for apples,” Edith said. “For the kids.”
“And she said I might be able to help her.”
“That’s great,” Finn said. “I think Diesel’s going to be there too, Bubba.”
Link had a seven-year-old son as well, and a four-year-old and a two-year-old daughter, and while they lived on opposite ends of the town, a couple of hours apart, when they did their family nights, their boys got along great.
The next family night wasn’t until September, and Finn had been planning an outing to the Harvest Festival in the downtown park, where his friends and their families could meet and wander around, get food from the food trucks, get their faces painted, and whatever else they wanted.
It would give him a good excuse to take his family and spend time with his friends at the same time, and no one had to clean their house after or provide food. They had couples game nights too, where they left their kids with a babysitter and just spenttime as adults. Finn liked both kinds of outings with his friends and family.
“What are you going to do this morning?” Edith said.
“I’m going to do all the regular feeding here,” he said. “And I’ve got to turn that hay.”
“You’ll run the air conditioner, right?” Edith gave him one of her eagle-eyed looks.
“Absolutely,” he said, because he didn’t want any problems with the heat any more than she did. “Then I’ll probably putter around in the barn, as long as it’s not too hot.”
It would at least be shaded, and the barn was only fifty yards from the house. Finn took ice water with him everywhere, and he hadn’t been going out to the furthest reaches of his farm unless he was in an air-conditioned vehicle. The heat had been brutal this month, but the weather reports had been coming in at more normal temps for the next several days. Still, everyone in Three Rivers was on high alert about it, and Finn couldn’t have a single conversation without talking about the heat and someone who had been affected by it.
“We’re going to eat dinner with your parents at four-thirty,” she said.
“Yeah, I know,” Finn said. “I’ll be ready.”
Dinner wasn’t actually until five, and then the party started at six-thirty. He knew it was a long drive for a lot of his friends, and he made a mental note to get back on the group text and remind them that they didn’t need to make a two-hour drive if they had other things to do.
Because his friends had been texting as early as four-thirty, Finn knew they all went to bed plenty early, and he didn’t want anyone to lose sleep over him.
“All right,let’s get this party started.” Finn clapped his hands and headed out the sliding glass doors leading onto the deck of the house where he had grown up. His mother had told him that they had lived with her parents for about a year before she had married Squire Ackerman, and they’d moved out to Three Rivers Ranch.
Finn didn’t remember any of that. He’d only been four years old, and his earliest memories were of his momma or daddy making the long drive to Three Rivers and dropping him off at school.
Someone had already tied balloons to the entrance to the big barn, where the party would be held. Finn went down the steps and in that direction. He had to cross the yard and then the dirt road that led around and behind the barn and along the front of the cabin community, where a dozen cabins housed the cowboys and their families who worked here at the ranch full time. They had stables and bullpens and pastures, equipment sheds, tool sheds, and storage sheds, with a big administration building down on the end. Libby ran an office out of that building, and Finn’s uncle Pete ran Courage Reins, a therapeutic riding center also housed right here at Three Rivers Ranch.
“There he is,” Aunt Chelsea said, and Finn grinned at her as she stepped off the sidewalk at Courage Reins and toward him. She carried a huge blue gift bag in her hand, and Finn laughed as he reached her and drew her into a hug.
“It’s the birthday boy. How does forty feel?”
“Great,” Finn said with a laugh.
His boys darted ahead of him into the barn, and he and Aunt Chelsea entered after them. Two six-foot tables had beenset up right inside the door, and Aunt Chelsea put her gift next to the only other one there. They had cleared the main area of everything except the pillars, and the stairs up to the loft had been removed, so no one would have to worry about one of their kids going up there and getting hurt.
Charlotte Peterson stood at the back of the area with Edith, the two of them chatting as they set out food, and Finn headed that way. Charlotte was the wife of the foreman here, Beau, a man Finn had known for his entire life.
“Thank you so much, Charlotte,” he said, and he moved around the table and gave her a hug.
She smiled at him. “Of course. We love having your birthday party here at Three Rivers.”
The crunching of tires over dirt and gravel met his ears, and Finn turned back toward the other side of the barn, where people would be entering. Out of him and Edith, he was definitely the people-person. Giddiness galloped through him as he headed back toward the entrance, so he could greet every person who came to his party.
They were serving sliders and chips, along with birthday cake, ice cream, and apple cider. Which meant one of the first men through the door was Colt, carrying a huge keg in his arms.
“Where do you want this, Finn?” he asked, almost in a grunt.
Finn quickly looked to the right, as that was where they had put drinks before. Sure enough, two tables stood there, and Finn said, “Over here,” and quickly dodged to his right and Colt’s left. His momma had already set up the lemonade station with flavored syrups in cherry, grape, and strawberry.
Colt put the keg on the ground and groaned. “I’ve got another one, and they can stand on top of each other.” He turned to leave, but Finn grabbed onto him and pulled him into a hug.
