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“Let’s walk, yeah?” I started toward the back of the clearing and made the call.

It took a few rings, but then Milton answered. “Hey, Wren.”

“Hello, Milton. How’s things?” I smiled, responding to the fondness in his tone when he’d greeted me.

“It’s all good here. I just got the second half of my next album recorded, and I am in need of a vacation.” He’d been working on the album for a long time in secret and had no rush getting it out, because that meant going on tour eventually.

“Well, I might be able to kind of help with that, actually,” I started. “How does coming to the ranch sound like?”

“Colorado in the autumn? With the way you and Ville talked about the place? Sign me up.” We’d briefly talked about them coming over, after all, so it didn’t come as a surprise. “I assume you need me for something? What’s your schedule like?”

“I would love to have your thoughts on my future endeavor. I’m also going to call Merle to see if she can hang for a weekend or so. Hopefully before Thanksgiving?” I turned around to look at where the house had stood and Nyx butted her head to my thigh.

“I don’t know about Merle; I worked with Joshua Holt for this one, but we’re heading to California to meet some extended family for Thanksgiving, so you might be in luck.”

“Really?” I hadn’t really expected a man with a family to be able to just actually do this, but then I remembered all of the Wilkins kids were homeschooled and they traveled in a massive, very high end, very expensive RV whenever they could join Milton on the road.

“Yeah. The kids have been doing real well with school, so April’s gonna be fine with it. I’m pretty sure their teacher will give them some usual homework since you know, new things to see and experience, but that’s gonna be easy.” I heard him cover the phone and say something, likely to his wife. Then he got back on the line. “April says we’re good to go whenever you need us.”

I fistpumped, then was intensely glad nobody was there to see me do it. “I’ll let you know tomorrow when I talk to the demo crew. I want them out before we start planning for real. Feels better on a blank slate.”

“Fair. Let me know.” He laughed. “And be prepared for the kids. They’re going to flip getting to see all the animals and the ranch.”

“Don’t forget, yours might be older, but we have plenty of Harrington grandkids on the ranch, so it’s not just gonna be yours,” I reminded him, chuckling under my breath.

“True. I assume we don’t need extra security around?”

“Nah, Ville will handle it for you. He has his business up and running. He’ll assess the situation and such, you know how he is.”

Milton let out a fond chuckle of his own. “Oh, I know. I’ll let my guys know.”

“Sure. And I’ll email you tomorrow for the schedule at my end.”

“Sounds good! See you soon, buddy!”

“See you.”

I leaned down to hug Nyx, who allowed it. “You’re gonna love those kids. They’re a bit bigger than ours here.”

She didn’t mind the little kids and had a cow’s nervous system when it came to patience, but she preferred adults. Four kids between what, ten and sixteen? Yeah, she’d hang with them gladly if she could stop guarding me.

“Wanna go in the truck?” I asked her, and she immediately perked up. “Right, you don’t get to do that a lot. Well if you’re gonna make me your human, then I suppose there’s gonna be more truck rides in your future. Come on, girl.”

We walked back across the clearing where everything would sit, and I could almost see the blank slate already. Almost.

The Wilkinses arrived exactly one week before Thanksgiving.

I’d talked to the Harringtons about the family before they got there. I’d told them, with Ville backing me up, that they’d all fit in on the ranch well, and the kids were good ones who would want to learn. That was how the family lived their life.

The Harringtons immediately showed us what kind of people they were—not that we’d ever doubted that—by wholeheartedly agreeing to help in whatever way they could.

“Let’s face it, we’re all busy people, but we have our routines,” Hawk had said over Sunday brunch. “If they come and liven things up without disrupting anything, I say the more the merrier.”

Later that night, I was sitting with Ville and Emery in their cabin and Emery mentioned how far his brother had come after meeting Carter. Apparently Hawk was much more sociable now, not that he liked most people any more than he’d done in the before-Carter times.

Abigail had come over for extra security slash a little ranch vacation. There wasn’t a need to up the security really, but I also understood that Ville took his job seriously and Abi didn’t mind in the least.

I hadn’t seen the RV when we were in Tennessee, so my jaw dropped when it slowed to a stop in front of the ranch house.