Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
There was something beautiful about seeing the future, holding it in my arms. I already wondered about what all the kids would do in the future. If Duncan would ever try to look for his biological mom. If Agnes would go to school far away. What Shima and Nicolas would grow up to be.
Mostly though, I wondered if they’d choose to be the protectors of the ranch when they were older, or if they’d want a more managerial role like Henri. Or maybe they would go off and become big city boys and girls like their uncle Matti had done.
The only thing I did know somehow was that whatever happened, the burden of this place wouldn’t just weigh down one set of shoulders, like it had for Henri, but hopefully be spread out over several. Because I had a feeling, at the rate we were going, we’d probably end up with another four, on top of the four we already had. Just that morning, I thought I’d seen that ultra possessive glint that brewed in Henri’s irises right before we’d gotten pregnant the last two times.
Who knew though? Just wondering over it filled me with an unbelievable sense of joy. The future had never seemed like such a beautiful place.
I loved it here. I loved it with my whole heart. The way it smelled, the way the trees cast different shadows on the community throughout the year. The way the people worked together to keep this place going, just a little nook of safety in the world.
I had told Henri once that something in the air here told me that I was home. That the land tried to whisper in my ear that I belonged, its message mixed in the breezes that swept through. And I thought that the children held me down here with their little hands, tying me even more to this place than I already was.
And Henri had looked me dead in the eye and told me that I was supposed to be here, and everything and everyone around me knew it.
Including the best babysitter on the ranch, Franklin.
My uncle gestured in the direction of the bedrooms down the hall, his face tight. “See for yourself,” he warned Henri, his eyes a little wild for him.
That was… cryptic.
And as much as I wanted to smell the babies and their brand-newness, I could tell he meant business.
So we did go see, shooting each other confused glances as we leaned over the playpen to smile down at a snoring Shima. We stopped at Agnes’s room first. He cracked the door, and I shoved my head underneath his arm to peek in too. My mini wolf had sprouted up too over the years, and her blonde hair was spilled over her pillow as she slept surrounded by anime posters and merchandise.
He closed the door, and I followed him down the hall to the other room, but just as we got to it, it opened on its own, very, very slowly. Which wasn’t unheard of. We had tied a rope to the handle so Duncan could get out easily if it closed. He had outgrown the hellhound door he’d had when we’d first moved in. But instead of a sixty-pound, five-year-old pup who came out… a little boy stood in the doorway. In underwear and a T-shirt that was a little too big for him because I’d made sure to leave clothes in a dresser on the off chance he might ever need them. I’d guessed on a size when I bought it a year ago.
The boy had black hair so dark it was almost blue, eyes a shade of striking brown. His skin was pale. His body long and lanky.
I had never seen him before, and at the same time, I knew his face as well as I knew Henri’s. As well as I knew my own. It was small, and a little elfish….
I grabbed Henri’s hand in absolute fucking shock.
“Mom?” a croaky voice whispered, like he was trying out words for the first time… because he was.
HOLY MAGICAL SHIT.
I might have said it out loud, I might’ve not.
I barely managed to throw my arms out wide just in time to catch Duncan launching himself at me. The tallest five-year-old I’d ever seen. Those scrawny arms wrapped around my neck, and he hugged me with a strength that was too much for his age.
“Donut,” I gasped, hugging him so close, so tight. “What happened?”
He tucked his cheek against my shoulder, smelling every bit like the boy I’d spent the last five years of my life with. My ride or die, still. My sweet, even-tempered boy who had grown to communicate with me telepathically in sentences over the last couple of years. Every once in a while, Henri and Agnes had both mentioned they’d understood a “yes” or a “no” from time to time, but that had been the extent of his abilities with everyone else, other than his brothers.