Chapter 6
Yesterday felt like a hundred years crammed into one day.
Junie napped in my lap outside her mom’s hospital room while the doctors and social workers spoke in whispers and passed me clipboard after clipboard to sign. By the time they let me take her home, Violet was gone and Junie was placed in my care.
Watching my favorite little girl cry herself to sleep on my couch at Copper Ridge nearly broke me. Sure, I’d been preparing for this exact scenario for months, but jumping through hoops to get foster certified didn’t do shit to prepare me for the fact that Junie had just lost her mom.
I carried her to bed and stood in the doorway longer than I should have, memorizing the rise and fall of her breathing, promising myself I could hold her world together.
This morning, that felt like a daunting task.
Tom Petty drifted from the ceiling speakers while I worked the griddle.
Junie sat at the island in a one-piece blue pajama set covered in rainbow-colored kittens.
She had her chin perched on her fist, glasses a little crooked, and her blonde hair sticking up in a dozen different directions.
Rowdy lay under her feet, tail thumping in time with her breathing.
“Behold,” I said, sliding a plate in front of her. “Your favorite Mickey pancakes.”
She pushed it back toward me, not bothering to sit up straight. “They smell weird.”
I pressed a hand to my chest. “That’s the smell of culinary greatness. Disney sent me an offer letter already this morning, asking me to come work for them.”
A twitch pulled at the corner of her mouth. Not a smile yet, but the start of one.
“You gotta eat something, Junebug,” I said. “Last I checked, cowgirls loved pancakes.”
She poked one with her finger, eyes dull and tired in a way no eight-year-old’s should ever be.
“Tell you what.” I pushed the plate back toward her again. “If you help me feed Uno after breakfast, I’ll let you give him the good hay.”
Her head lifted a fraction. “The green hay?”
“The very one. Premium llama dining.”
She pushed her glasses up her nose, sitting upright. “I think he likes me better than you.”
“That’s because you have two eyes,” I said. “He respects that in a person.”
That earned a small snort.
“Okay.” She grabbed the pink fork I’d set out for her. “But you also have two eyes.”
“Mm, yes, but they’re not pretty blue like yours, are they? Mine are more like Uno’s poop brown than the brightest Colorado sky.”
She giggled for real this time, the sound small but enough to crack something loose in my chest. “Maybe like the wood chips in the chicken coop.”
“Hey, that’s an upgrade from poop. I’ll take it.”
She took a bite of the pancake, and I finally let my shoulders drop.
The next few days would be full of court hearings, caseworkers, and a dozen things I couldn’t control, but right now, in this minute, she was eating. Breathing. Looking a little like the little girl who’d stolen my whole heart.
“Attagirl,” I said. “Uno’s waiting.”
She shoveled another bite into her mouth, then hopped off the stool, Rowdy close behind. The fact that my dog had decided it was time to never leave her side gave me hope that somebody in this house knew what they were doing. It just wasn’t me.
I rinsed her plate, letting the warm water run longer than necessary, listening to her little footsteps thump down the hall. “Put your rain boots on and let’s go,” I called.
“Okay!” she shouted back, voice lighter already.
I’d spent the past few weeks reading everything I could find about children and grief—stacked books on my nightstand, dog-eared pages about honesty, stability, and routine. I’d even called my therapist for a last-minute session, wanting to make sure I was ready for this.
Ready.
What a joke.
Playing hockey was all about the pressure to perform, to defend my teammates.
My family life wasn’t that different—eldest child to two parents who weren’t that interested in being parents meant I’d spent my whole life trying to be good enough to make them notice me, then making sure my sister never felt the same way I did.
At least I knew what I didn’t want to be as a dad, so that had given me a false sense of security.
Turned out being a parent—even a temporary foster parent—was fucking hard.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel and followed her.
“All set?” I asked as I turned the corner into the foyer. The old hand-scraped floorboards creaked under my feet, worn smooth by decades of boots and dogs.
Junie zipped her pajamas to her chin and tugged on her boots, hood with little cat ears half-swallowing her hair. “Ready.”
I opened the door, and the crisp air swept in, smelling of dew and pine. “Then let’s go see the boss.”
She took off the second I stepped aside, Rowdy bounding after her, the screen door banging shut behind them.
The yard was still slick with morning dew, each blade of grass catching the early light like glass.
The chickens erupted in a flurry of feathers and indignant clucks as Junie ran through them, arms flung wide, laughter spilling into the cool air.
Cooper Ridge had been in my family for generations, leaving the Hudson legacy on the little town of Linwood.
These lands used to be a fully operational cattle farm with land stretching up into the Gore Range, but that went by the wayside when my grandfather opened the hardware store in town.
My parents had spent their years here growing the business in every way they could, letting the barn and all its glory days disappear.
I hadn’t intended to bring this all back to life after I retired, but then Rowdy was dropped in my lap, a rescue puppy in need of a home.
Then came the misfit crew of animals that occupied the barn now, one after the next, almost always at the begging and pleading of the little girl running through the yard.
The sun was just cresting the ridge as I stood on the front porch, the scent of damp earth mixing with wildflowers and cut hay. The fields beyond the barn shimmered green, still heavy with shadow, and my newest rescue, Uno, grazed lazily by the fence line.
Junie crouched low in the grass, whispering to my newest hen. “Come here, Chickira. Don’t let that big bad rooster push you around.”
“Oh, it’s Chickira now?” I asked, biting back a smile.
“I know you said we should name her Henrietta, but that’s very unoriginal,” Junie said matter-of-factly. “Did you know it’s the most common chicken name in America?”
“I did not know that.”
“There are fifty-two thousand chickens named Henrietta,” she added with the deadpan expression to tell me exactly how she felt about this. “Google says so. So I went looking for other pop culture names for her that fit the theme you have going here.”
I brushed a hand across my mustache, hiding my grin. “I like it. Chickira it is.”
She shrugged, not looking away from the hen now eating corn from her open palm. “I think we should start keeping a list of names for new animals we could get, now that I’m living with you.”
The unspoken reasoning behind her words hit like a stick to the ribs, my heart hurting for her. Did I want more animals to take care of? Fuck no. But I would do anything to make this little girl smile, no matter how long she got to live with me. “That sounds like a great idea.”
Rowdy barked once, agreeing with me.
Junie slipped her hand into mine as we started down the dirt path toward the barn, her fingers small and warm against my calloused palm. “So,” I said, “what’s on the agenda today? Chickens? Uno? Hockey replays?”
“Uno first.”
“Good idea. He’s got a busy schedule. My people had to call his people just to set up this breakfast meeting.”
The barn waited in the soft sunlight, red paint peeling at the edges, the smell of hay and dust curling out from the half-open doors. Junie helped me tug a bale toward the fence line where Uno stood, one ear flicked forward as if he’d been expecting her.
“Hi, Uno,” she whispered to my one-eyed llama, reaching up with a fistful of hay.
He leaned forward and licked her cheek. Junie giggled, bright and unguarded, too full of life for a girl who’d lost so much. The sound cracked something open in my chest.
She wiped her cheek on her sleeve, still petting Uno’s coarse white wool. “When’s Dizzy coming?”
Dizzy. Even the silly nickname for this mysterious aunt filled me with dread.
I’d only ever heard of her in stories, and I didn’t like the idea of Violet’s sister never once coming to see them in the three years they’d been my neighbors.
I grew up with parents who sometimes forgot I existed, and that was the last thing I wanted for Junie.
“I don’t know, kiddo,” I tossed another flake of hay over the fence. “As soon as she can.”
Junie’s mouth curved, just a little. “She drives fast, so I bet it’ll be soon. Did I tell you about how she used to sneak me candy when Mom said no? She’d come in to tell me the best bedtime stories about the moon that ate donuts and burped stars, and we’d eat our sour cherries under the covers.”
I smiled, though something heavy settled low in my chest. That all sounded great through the eyes of a kid, but where the hell had this woman been the past few months? Not at the hospital. Not when Violet got sick. Not when things got bad. “She sounds great.”
Junie nodded. “She’s the best. You’ll see.”
I hoped she was right.
The early sun climbed higher while we did the rest of our morning chores, and Rowdy flopped into the shade of the fence, one ear twitching at a fly. I tried to take comfort in the familiar quiet, but the faint rattle of an engine pulled my attention toward the two-lane highway.
A little red Volkswagen zipped past, going way too fast for a road that could chew through suspension like nothing. I watched it disappear behind the trees, then turned back to Junie as she patted the weirdest llama I’d ever met.
“Did you know llamas have three stomach compartments?” Junie said, still focused on Uno. “One’s called the rumen, and it makes gas.”
“Is that right?” I said, folding my arms on the top rail of the fence. The car passed again, this time heading back toward town.
She nodded while playing with Uno’s ears. “Llamas hum when they’re happy. Or nervous. Or lonely. Or mad.”
“Is Beckett a llama then?”
Junie grinned at the mention of my best friend. “He hums a lot, but I don’t think so.”
She hopped off the fence, tugging my hand as we headed toward the side of the barn where the barn cat had stashed herself and her kittens. Junie crouched down, whispering something only cats and eight-year-olds understood, lifting a tiny gray kitten to her chest.
The car passed a third time, slower now, and I turned my attention to it. I was far enough outside town, cars didn’t just show up. They belonged, or they didn’t.
When the little red Bug turned into the shared gravel drive between my house and Violet’s, Junie looked up too.
“Who’s that?” Junie asked, clutching the kitten closer to her chest.
The unease that had been simmering since breakfast climbed higher when the car parked. “No idea.”
The driver’s door opened, and a blonde woman stepped out, shielding her eyes against the sun with one hand as she looked around. She squinted at Violet’s house, turning a slow circle like she was trying to figure out where the hell she’d landed.
Junie gasped. “Dizzy!”
The kitten hit the ground as she tore off down the driveway, rain boots kicking up tiny stones.
I rushed after her. “Junie—hey, slow down!”
“Dizzy!” Junie belted.
The woman dropped to her knees on the gravel driveway, arms out. Junie collided with her at full-speed, arms wrapped tight around her aunt’s neck.
She stayed on her knees, arms wrapped around Junie, her face hidden against the top of the girl’s head as they clung to each other. All I could see was sunlight catching in her blonde hair and the tremor in her shoulders as she held Junie close.
I slowed as I neared them, my heart pounding in my chest. Something in me pulled toward her, sharp and instinctive, forcing me to take notice.
When she finally looked up, the world stopped.
Blue eyes. That same impossible blue that had once looked at me over a basket of fries in a dim Chicago bar.
Blonde hair. Those same messy waves that had whipped around her face on the windy beach at sunrise.
Full lips. They looked different, not tugged into a mischievous smile, but the same ones I’d almost kissed years ago.
Suddenly, I wasn’t standing in my gravel driveway in Colorado. I was back on a cracked city sidewalk, watching a woman choose joy like oxygen.
Three years fell away in a heartbeat. The noise, the grief, the distance—gone. All that was left was the shock and the rush of memory, the sting of every what-if I’d buried and the one night I’d never been able to forget.
Dizzy wasn’t just some aunt who’d be stopping by.
She was Daisy. My Daisy.
My pulse stuttered once, hard. The same pull I’d fought that night slammed back into place, unwanted and unstoppable. And under it, the slow realization that this time, I couldn’t walk away.