Mav raised both hands in a praying gesture. ‘Please.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Sounds good.’ He turned to Poppy, said, ‘Why don’t you go put your jeans on, baby? I’ll drive you down to see the horses.’
Poppy did not have to be told twice. She said, ‘’Kay!’ in her sing-song voice and then bolted into the house to go and get dressed.
Mav waited for the door to slap shut behind her. ‘While I have you both here …’
‘What is it?’ Benji asked, immediately concerned.
Sierra watched her brother’s face closely. ‘Mav?’
‘It’s nothing serious,’ he hurried to tell them. ‘Nina wanted to delay our honeymoon, maybe do a family one once the baby comes …’
‘But?’ Sierra asked.
‘I don’t think she realizes, you know … How much changes, or how tough it’s going to be those first few months. And I kinda want her to have a little holiday after everything she’s been through.’
‘A surprise honeymoon?’ Benji asked. And when Mav nodded, he added, ‘I think that’s a great idea.’
‘Do you think I could leave Poppy with you guys after the wedding – just for a week? And Jenna will have her during the days,’ he added, referencing Poppy’s babysitter. ‘I’m gonna take Nina to Bali. Do the warm, beach vacation. And even though she’d want to take Poppy, I kinda want her all to myself for a little bit before the baby comes …’
‘Of course,’ Sierra said immediately.
Benji hesitated. ‘Ah, I have to be back in Utah soon after New Year’s, but I can help out while I’m here.’
The reminder hit Sierra out of left field. For just a moment, she’d forgotten … ‘Mav,’ she said firmly despite her aching heart, ‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after Poppy.’
Benji was eerily silent.
‘Thanks, Si. I appreciate you – both of you.’ Mav shucked his head in the direction of the truck. ‘Now get.’
Benji turned those green eyes on her. ‘You ready?’
Sierra passed him the picnic basket in reply, and then walked down the stairs towards his truck, leaving him to follow.
He still somehow beat her to the passenger door and opened it for her. Sierra climbed in and settled, and when he passed her the basket, she put it on her lap so that nothing toppled during the drive.
They started out in silence, and it was new. It wasn’t that old, comfortable silence. It was heavy with remnant grief from the reminder that Benji was leaving in just a few weeks’ time, and, at least on Sierra’s part, nerves. And by the time Benji manoeuvred the truck off the road and through the last thicket of trees, her stomach was a mess of anxiety. Her knuckles on the picnic basket were white.
When he parked the truck and turned off the engine, Sierra didn’t wait for him to get out and open her door. She hopped out, said, ‘I’ll help you pitch the tent!’ in a voice that sounded strange even to her own ears.
In an attempt to distract herself, she took in Wrangler’s Clearing after more than a year away. The little dell, between the hills off the main trail, had been the original Hunt homestead site, and although the trees had started to slowly creep closer, the valley remained despite the many years that had passed since any humans had lived there.
The ground was covered with soft fescue grass. The oak trees stretched, their canopies meeting high above in a hug that sheltered the clearing. The outhouse Mav had built many years ago sat on the very edge of the clearing about twenty feet from a hitching post for when they brought horses up, and in the centre, a stone fire pit had been hobbled together.
‘It hasn’t changed,’ she said to Benji as he lifted the canvas bag with the tent out of the bed of the truck.
‘Yeah, Mav and I come up here and do some light maintenance once or twice a year.’
‘Really?’ Sierra frowned. ‘I didn’t know that. I thought the homestead site was a scar that stopped the trees from growing.’
‘It did originally. But your dad started maintaining it about thirty years back, and Mav and I took over once he passed. We don’t do much – trim some branches, till over the clearing, that sort of thing. It gives us an excuse to ride up and spend the night drinking and gossiping.’
Sierra wondered why she hadn’t known that, even as she acknowledged that it was such a Mav and Benji thing to do – maintain something that was barely used simply because it had always been done. They might not have been brothers, but the fact that they had both been raised by James Hunt was telling. They nurtured. Theycared.
When he unzipped the tent bag, Sierra put the picnic basket down and went to help. In the summer, they could come up with nothing but a sleeping bag and food, but the winter weather made for a rough experience without a tent. Still, the tent that Benji had brought was a light all-weather one, and even with darkness falling, it popped up with very little inconvenience or cussing.
