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“It will be easier to rework the schedule once you know what hours you’ll be working,” Rusty admitted. “If you wind up going in when Charlie, Kale, and I do, we can carpool, since your car won’t do well on these roads once winter is in full swing. I only ride my 4-wheeler to work when I go in early to fix someone else’s mistakes.”
“No bull, that was my first thought when I hit that stretch of dirt and realized that was all the roads were made from up here. Out of curiosity, whose mistake were you there to fix yesterday morning?” Logan asked.
“Flame’s, and now I’ve got to thank him for it, since being there meant meeting you,” Rusty admitted with a long-suffering sigh. “He is going to gloat. He’s going to attempt to hold it over my head and claim I owe him, like he had a hand in us getting together, instead of pulling the engine of the wrong Tahoe.”
“Are you shi…kidding?” Logan said, sitting bolt upright, eyes wide. “Please keep him away from my baby.”
“I thought I was your baby, Papa?” Wren said, smirking at him.
“You are, and you know it, so don’t go giving your exhausted old man a hard time today, pup, or I will start sharing stories, starting with your feud with the old gray squirrel.”
Wren made a show of zipping their lips and went right back to talking to the pups, who were excitedly babbling back at them. Rusty could already tell that the boys were going to love having an older sibling.
“Flame won’t touch your car,” Rusty assured him. “Though in his defense, the SUVs are identical, and he wasn’t the one who rolled it into the garage. He just spaced on my warning him that there were two of them and to check the VIN numbers first. I swear he fell out of one too many trees growing up.”
“I fell out of a tree once, but Papa caught me,” Wren said.
“You scared a year off my life in the process too. I swear I woke up with my first gray hair the morning after,” Logan replied.
Wren studied their father, then whispered to the rest of the adults. “It’s invisible.”
The laughter around the table felt more vibrant today. Maybe because their family had just experienced one of the best changes imaginable. Was it too much to hope that the joy would never end?
Chapter Six
(Roark)
“Wow, I can’t believe we actually got them to go down at the same time,” Roark said as he flopped down on the couch opposite the one Logan was sprawled out on.
“Wren rarely takes naps, but it’s also rare for them to spend the morning romping in the snow,” Logan said.
“Bet they’ve never had pups trailing after their every step, either,” Roark said.
“Nope but watching them play today and seeing smiles on their face when they shifted back, I can tell that they’re thrilled to have siblings,” Logan declared.
“Well, I know you left Wren in their room, but when I peeked in on the boys, I saw one extra pup in the room. They were in fur and curled up in front of the crib,” Rusty said as he set a platter of sandwiches and tea on the coffee table.
“Doubt it’ll be the last time,” Logan said.
“No worries. I took one of the giant throw pillows in and laid them on it,” Rusty said. “Even with the padding, the floor is no place for a pup to nap.”
Logan chuckled, “I’d have done the same thing. I swear that pup brought out every protective instinct I didn’t know I had.”
“I was the same way when we got Bowie and Acer,” Roark said.
Rusty chuckled as Logan reached for a sandwich. “Don’t you mean we were the same?”
“You’re right. We blew up Mama G’s phone so many times I know she regretted giving us the number, but after a while, we stopped freaking out over every sneeze,” Roark said.
Laughing, Rusty leaned back, napkin under his sandwich, and scrolled through the movies in the streaming service. “Now we just freak out over every other sneeze.”
“I still hover over Wren whenever they try something new,” Logan admitted. “At some point, I know they’re going to beg me to stop, and I’ll have to back off.”
“But until then you’ll be right there just in case they need you,” Roark said.
“Exactly.”
“Oh man, what did you do to this turkey to get it to taste like this?” Logan moaned.
