Wolf said, “Have you spoken to your mom, Camellia?”
“I have. She wants to come down and meet you all.”
“We’d love that,” Taylor said. “She’s up in Hobbsville, you mentioned?”
“For now, but she’s just decided to put the house on the market, so who knows? We’ve both been feeling the lure if greener pastures.”
“Maybe she’ll like it here and want to stay,” Taylor said with a glance at her husband. “Not exactly greener, but it does seem to happen to a lot of folks.”
“Happened to you,” said Wes, sliding his hand across hers on the table.
Camellia looked at Wolf. He was looking back at her. There was so much unresolved between them, and she was dying for some alone time with him. But he needed this time with his family first.
“I really would be happy to go to a hotel,” she said at length, and not for the first time. “You all need time as a family.”
Willow said, “Thereisno hotel, unless you count the rooms over the saloon. Boarding house is even closed now.”
“Even if you wanted to go, there’s no need,” said her mother, Taylor. “Willow’s cottage has been empty since she and Jeremiah bought a place together. It’s just a little farther along the driveway, and you’re welcome to use it Camellia.”
“That sounds nice,” she replied.
“There’s a bedroom and a hideaway sofa-bed,” Willow said with a knowing look at her brother. “You can both spend the night out there. Process some of this. A lot’s happened today.”
“Oh,” said Taylor, and there was disappointment in her tone, but she tried to cover it. “Yes, sure, that’s a perfect idea. This must be…overwhelming for you, after all you’ve been through.”
“It is a little,” Wolf admitted.
“We’ll pack you up some supplies, bedding and snacks and things,” she said.
“That would be really great.” Wolf spoke softly, watching his birth mother’s face and looking as everyone rose and migrated out onto the front porch.
Camellia said, “We could all have breakfast together though, and spend the morning just…talking.”
They’d done quite a lot of talking already tonight, and Camellia felt like the healing was almost visible to the naked eye.
Taylor brightened. “I’d love that, and I’ll count the hours. But there’s no need to rush. We have time now.” She looked at her son. “We lost a lot, but we have time now. I never thought we would.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek, and Wolf’s eyes got wet. “I’ll see you in the morning, son,” his mother told him.
Then she turned to Camellia, and reaching up, touched her face. “Good night, Camellia. There are no words to thank you for bringing him back to us. I hope you can feel?—”
“I can,” she whispered. “I do.”
Wolf
It had been a long, long day.
Wolf was sitting on the small front porch of what his mother had called Willow’s cottage. Willow had texted to let him know Ranger Dan was awake and he was going to be all right.
There were rocking chairs on either side of the small cottage’s front door, and he sat in one of them. Camellia was taking a shower.
The poor thing had offered to go to a hotel so many times he was beginning to feel like his family was holding her against her will. But he didn’t want her to go.
He sat there, feeling the cool, dry air of a West Texas night on his face. Horses grazed in a nearby meadow, and the scent ofhorseflesh was on every breeze. This was Brand land, his father had told him, as far as the eye could see. And he was a Brand. Wes and Taylor’s ranch butted up against the Texas Brand, where his father had been raised, where cattle still grazed.
From the outside, he’d have thought this family had it easy. But he’d seen the pain in his mother’s eyes when she’d said she was sorry for letting the river take him from her arms. And even though he was okay and had somehow found his way back to her, he didn’t think she’d ever get over it.
He’d carried in the four boxes his parents had packed hastily, bedding, food, bathroom supplies, and so on. There was a digital clock and a card with the internet password on it. He’d already unpacked most of it.
Eventually, he heard the creak of the screen door and felt Camellia’s soft footsteps on the porch. She was barefoot.
