EPILOGUE
DEAN
FOREVER STARTS WITH CHOCOLATE PIE
“Poppy, come and get Miss Moo, you know she’s not allowed in the house,” I call, and a moment later her stomps sound along with Cuddles clip-clopping along the wooden floorboards. I shove Miss Moo’s head away from the bowl of whipped cream I’m holding just before her long pink tongue comes out, and thankfully, she catches only air. At twelve months old, Miss Moo is not that far off being full-grown in terms of size, and I’ll probably never know how she managed to squeeze into the kitchen past the dining table without me hearing her. This isn’t the first time, and no matter how many times I tell Poppy to keep her outside, I expect this isn’t the last I’ll be seeing this strawberry blonde cow in my house.
“Sorry, I thought she was in my room,” Poppy says, pausing for a moment in the doorway as I dodge another attempt by her cheeky cow.
“Your room is in the house, isn’t it?”
“Gunther is allowed in the house,” she pouts.
“Gunther sleeps with Houdini, and has done since the day he was born. Miss Moo belongs with her mom. Please take her out, she’s getting hungry.”
“Fine. Come on, Miss Moo,” Poppy says, grabbing the rhinestone collar she bought for her and leading her out of the kitchen door.
“My word, what is a cow doing in my kitchen?” I hear Sally-May ask, and I shake my head. I should have sent them out the front. Sally-May’s container home sits right behind the house, and of course, she picks that moment to come out.
“Sorry, Sally-May, I don’t know how she got in there. I’m taking her home now,” Poppy replies, and by some miracle, I watch out the kitchen window as Sally-May just smiles and nods at Preston’s mischievous child.
“Does Sally-May know you’re in here?” Preston’s smooth voice asks as he wraps his hands around my waist from behind and presses a kiss to my neck.
“Yes, she gave me fifteen minutes and told me to make it look like I was never here, so don’t distract me or I’ll run out of time.”
“What are you making?”
“No-bake chocolate pie.”
“Sounds yummy.”
“It better be. I’m facing the toughest critic there is.”
“Sally-May?”
“No, your daughter.”
“Oh.” He laughs and kisses me one more time in the crease of my neck, soft and slow.
“She already likes you; you don’t need to win her over now,” he whispers into my neck, the warmth of his breath caressing the soft skin and sending a shiver down my spine.
“Still, this is her first night here. You remember what it was like on your first night at your old place.”
“I remember you telling me you love me and then running away,” he teases.
“Excuse me, but I left to let you have a special night with your daughter.”
“I know. And it was special.”
“Exactly, and now you will both live here, and I want this night to be special, too.” Preston has been staying over on weekends ever since Isabel started art school, as that was the only time he didn’t have Poppy. Then, on one of Isabel’s weekend visits, I asked her if she’d have any issues with Preston and Poppy coming to live on the ranch. I was terrified, but she laughed and hugged me and said, “I sort of figured they were here most of the week, anyway.”
And it’s true. Poppy still goes to the clinic after school, but once homework is done, they both come here, and she spends time with Miss Moo, and Preston checks on the animals, and we have milk and cookies that Preston’s mom now brings over in giant batches. Thank you, Poppy. But this is different. This is them moving in, living here full time, and while Nial doesn’t seem to think having an eleven-year-old in the house is going to be much different from when Kelly and Alan visit, it will be. Case and point, the cow she let into the kitchen.
“You’re incredible, you know that?” Preston asks, nibbling my ear.
“I’ve been told once or twice, but it never gets old.”
The phone rings, and I shrug out of his arms and hand over the bowl of thick cream.
“Keep whisking that,” I say, and pick up the call.
“Beaker Brothers Ranch, Dean speaking.”
“Hi, umm, are you the farm with all the weird animals?” a woman’s soft voice asks.
“We have a few eccentric guests, sure,” I reply, and Preston raises a brow. “Did you find one of them? I swear, if it’s a black and white goat, just keep him. I’m out of ideas of how to keep him contained.”
“No. It’s, umm, it’s not that I found one of them. I was wondering. Do you have any animals that are…missing a leg?”
“Actually, we do. We just adopted a sheep that had to have a leg amputated when it was born. Oh, and we have a duck that has only one leg, but he was born without it. Hops around fine, why’s that?”
“My son was also born without one of his legs,” she explains, and my heart aches for them, but she doesn’t sound sad at all. “He’s four now, and loves animals, and just the other day he asked me if I knew any animals like him, and I remembered seeing something on social media about your ranch.”
“So you’d like to come for a visit?”
“It’s his birthday on Sunday, and I know it’s late notice, but I was thinking I could bring him up this weekend, if you have availability. If we can’t stay on the ranch and I need to look for a place nearby and we just visit the animals, he’d love that too.”
“Do you live far away?”
“Chicago.”
“Great. Umm, I’m sure we have a cabin free then, just let me check.” I leave Preston to the cream and jog to the library. We’ve set it up as an office and keep all the ranch documents in here, along with a bunch of books we inherited and have never read. I have to weave around boxes of Preston’s books, all of which he has read, to get to the desk.
“Great, we have Cabin One available, it’s the closest to the pool and the animals.”
I take down her details and say goodbye, then head back to the kitchen.
“New booking?”
“Yeah,” I reply, taking back the bowl and checking on his progress. The cream is full and thick, and perfect for topping the pie. I spoon it on in large dollops, and Preston comes over, linking his arms around my waist from behind and resting his cheek against my head.
“You okay?”
“I’m great. I just had an idea. Maybe.”
“Do tell.”
“The booking I just took was for a mum and her son, he was born missing one of his legs and she wants to bring him here.”
“Because you’ve got animals missing limbs?”
“Yeah, he loves animals.”
“You do have some of the best ones. The sheep, Juju, is just adorable, and that duck. Well, it freaks me out a bit, if I’m being honest. But the kids all love him.”
“I guess she feels the same way, and it made me think, maybe we could be doing more.”
“How do you mean?”
“We could block out cabin one to host families like theirs, on the ranch.”
“Like for free.”
“Exactly. And we can have a whole program planned for them, like private cuddle sessions.”
“Yeah, and horseback riding, and they can be the first to go through Nial’s Milking tour. They’ll even get to milk a cow themselves.”
“I still don’t think people will want to do that.”
“Sure, they will. People visit your ranch for so much more than the cow cuddles. You’ve got a whole experience going, let’s set this mom and son up with the works, and then we can plan how to put your idea into action.”
“Okay, but we’re not charging her, either. They can stay for free, and all the meals and stuff are on me too.”
“I know I told you that you’re incredible before, but the word really doesn’t do you justice. I don’t think I’ve met a more kind-hearted, caring man in my whole life.”
“I’m just taking my cues from you, Doc.”
He kisses my cheek, and I spot Nial through the window. When he sees us, he scrunches his nose and points our way.
“Hey, you know the rules, keep the canoodling to your room,” he calls, and Sally-May looks over then, too, shaking her head.
Preston continues to hold me, as I shave dark chocolate on top of the cream to finish the no-bake chocolate pie, and a few moments later, the front door opens and closes, and Nial’s heavy footsteps bring him barreling into the kitchen.
“Shouldn’t you be dragging Chewie out of the pool?” he asks, and Preston pulls away.
“Oh shit, yeah, I was on my way there, sorry,” he says, kissing me again, short and sweet. “Back soon.”
Preston rushes out the kitchen door and heads down toward the pool.
“Nice job palming off Chewie duty, how’d you manage that?” Nial asks, and I pump my brows.
“I have my ways. Do you really have a problem—”
“No,” Nial quickly interjects. “I’m just messing with you guys. It’s great seeing you happy. If you haven’t noticed, happiness is contagious. Ever since you and Preston got together, the guys have all been feeling the glow.”
“Not sure why.”
“Maybe cause you’re less cranky now and lay off the little stuff?”
“No, that can’t be it,” I say, and we laugh.
“So what about you, little bro?”
“What about me?”
“You’ve been out every night this week. I sort of figured maybe you’d met someone?”
His face grows pinker, and he pushes up from the chair and heads to the fridge.
“Nope. I’ve just been helping His Royal Highness learn a thing or two about goat farming. He’s convinced his parents to let him manage a small part of the land to give raising and milking a go.”
He’s been spending a lot of time with the Royal’s eldest son, Denver. Ever since I broke my leg a few months ago, he has come to help out on the ranch. I figured they’d become fast friends with them being close in age and maturity level and all. The first time I met Denver, he was giving the Bull run a go. It’s a risky game. The signs I post on the bull paddocks aren’t there for decoration, and I’ve been to my fair share of rodeos and seen what a bull’s horn can do to a man. But he made it across Nero’s paddock with time to spare. Nero’s a young bull, quick, but also really dumb. The thing ran in the opposite direction for a good five seconds before it turned around and made a start for him.
“Maybe he’d like to take three cheeky troublemakers off our hands?” I ask.
“Doubt it. By the way, one is on top of the chicken coop and won’t come down. I’m just leaving him there. He’ll find his own way back when he’s hungry.”
“Speaking of hunger, are you getting something out of the fridge or just looking?” I ask, and he closes the door and turns around, the pink still there, but no longer growing.
“Atlas is trialing a walk past the cabins today; how many calls do you reckon we get about someone finding a dead horse?”
“Only one, from Cabin Three. The others know about Loki and his…issues.”
“Did you see him the other day, he was on his back kicking his hind legs like he was riding a bike, funniest fucking thing I’ve seen in a while. At least when he was moving his legs, he didn’t look dead. I fully think he’s faking now. No way he’s still that spooked by people he has to go freezing and falling over like that.”
I shrug. “Maybe it’s his new normal?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, just so you know, I’ve booked cabin one.”
“Nice. Did they pay cash or by card?”
“When I said I booked, what I really meant was given away for free.”
He rolls his eyes and sits at the table. “This is why I’m the numbers guy. You do know that in order to feed and water all the weird and wonderful creatures we keep, we kind of need money, right?”
“Well, that’s the thing, they’re coming out specifically because we keep some weird and wonderful creatures.”
His brows pick up. “Do tell.”
“A mom is bringing her four-year-old out; he was born missing a leg and asked if there were animals like him. He loves animals, apparently, so we’re going to go all out for them. He’ll get to meet Juju and the hopping duck, but we were thinking we should do more, like everything, including your new milk tour idea. What do you say?”
“I say that’s brilliant.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, a few hundred bucks for the cabin can’t compare to the experience that kid is going to get.”
“That’s what I figured, and I don’t want it to stop with just this kid. I want to offer cabin one to people like them. I think we can make a real difference and bring some joy to people’s lives.”
“Did you see Preston’s smile earlier? I’m pretty sure you do that already.”
“I thought you hated all the mushy stuff.”
“Right, I do. Forget my last statement.”
“Nope, you said it. No take backsies.”
“Are we twelve?”
“You are.”
“You’re the one who just said backsies, but okay. You can count me in, the guys will all be up for it too. You just tell us what you need and we’ll get it sorted.”
“Thanks, Nial.”
“You got it. When are they coming?”
“Friday afternoon, and they leave Monday morning.”
“Perfect, that gives us plenty of time to get the word out.”
“Word out about what, exactly?”
“Movie night. We’ll set up the cinema and all the proceeds can go to them, to help pay for whatever he needs.”
“Now who’s brilliant?” I ask, and he looks around like he’s searching for someone, then points a finger at himself.
“Oh, you meant me. I guess it was time you heard that they also say I’m the smart brother,” he mocks, and I lift the spoon to flick him with cream, but he rushes out of the room.
“We’ll tell everyone at dinner,” he calls, jogging up the stairs.
“Okay, well, don’t be late. It’s Poppy’s first night, so it has to be perfect.”
“In this place, brother, you’ve got zero chance of that.”
I look out at the ranch. It’s so different from the place I grew up. And even more different from every other ranch or farm surrounding Bellerelle, or the whole country for that matter, but as Preston strolls towards the house holding his daughter’s hand as the sun sets behind them on our menagerie of madness, I know Nial is wrong. Because this place, here with him and the others, and now Preston and Poppy, it looks pretty darn perfect to me.