Chapter 14 #2
It would give him a good excuse to take his family and spend time with his friends at the same time, and no one had to clean their house after or provide food.
They had couples game nights too, where they left their kids with a babysitter and just spent time as adults.
Finn liked both kinds of outings with his friends and family.
“What are you going to do this morning?” Edith said.
“I’m going to do all the regular feeding here,” he said. “And I’ve got to turn that hay.”
“You’ll run the air conditioner, right?” Edith gave him one of her eagle-eyed looks.
“Absolutely,” he said, because he didn’t want any problems with the heat any more than she did. “Then I’ll probably putter around in the barn, as long as it’s not too hot.”
It would at least be shaded, and the barn was only fifty yards from the house.
Finn took ice water with him everywhere, and he hadn’t been going out to the furthest reaches of his farm unless he was in an air-conditioned vehicle.
The heat had been brutal this month, but the weather reports had been coming in at more normal temps for the next several days.
Still, everyone in Three Rivers was on high alert about it, and Finn couldn’t have a single conversation without talking about the heat and someone who had been affected by it.
“We’re going to eat dinner with your parents at four-thirty,” she said.
“Yeah, I know,” Finn said. “I’ll be ready.”
Dinner wasn’t actually until five, and then the party started at six-thirty. He knew it was a long drive for a lot of his friends, and he made a mental note to get back on the group text and remind them that they didn’t need to make a two-hour drive if they had other things to do.
Because his friends had been texting as early as four-thirty, Finn knew they all went to bed plenty early, and he didn’t want anyone to lose sleep over him.
“All right, let’s get this party started.
” Finn clapped his hands and headed out the sliding glass doors leading onto the deck of the house where he had grown up.
His mother had told him that they had lived with her parents for about a year before she had married Squire Ackerman, and they’d moved out to Three Rivers Ranch.
Finn didn’t remember any of that. He’d only been four years old, and his earliest memories were of his momma or daddy making the long drive to Three Rivers and dropping him off at school.
Someone had already tied balloons to the entrance to the big barn, where the party would be held.
Finn went down the steps and in that direction.
He had to cross the yard and then the dirt road that led around and behind the barn and along the front of the cabin community, where a dozen cabins housed the cowboys and their families who worked here at the ranch full time.
They had stables and bullpens and pastures, equipment sheds, tool sheds, and storage sheds, with a big administration building down on the end.
Libby ran an office out of that building, and Finn’s uncle Pete ran Courage Reins, a therapeutic riding center also housed right here at Three Rivers Ranch.
“There he is,” Aunt Chelsea said, and Finn grinned at her as she stepped off the sidewalk at Courage Reins and toward him. She carried a huge blue gift bag in her hand, and Finn laughed as he reached her and drew her into a hug.
“It’s the birthday boy. How does forty feel?”
“Great,” Finn said with a laugh.
His boys darted ahead of him into the barn, and he and Aunt Chelsea entered after them.
Two six-foot tables had been set up right inside the door, and Aunt Chelsea put her gift next to the only other one there.
They had cleared the main area of everything except the pillars, and the stairs up to the loft had been removed, so no one would have to worry about one of their kids going up there and getting hurt.
Charlotte Peterson stood at the back of the area with Edith, the two of them chatting as they set out food, and Finn headed that way. Charlotte was the wife of the foreman here, Beau, a man Finn had known for his entire life.
“Thank you so much, Charlotte,” he said, and he moved around the table and gave her a hug.
She smiled at him. “Of course. We love having your birthday party here at Three Rivers.”
The crunching of tires over dirt and gravel met his ears, and Finn turned back toward the other side of the barn, where people would be entering.
Out of him and Edith, he was definitely the people-person.
Giddiness galloped through him as he headed back toward the entrance, so he could greet every person who came to his party.
They were serving sliders and chips, along with birthday cake, ice cream, and apple cider. Which meant one of the first men through the door was Colt, carrying a huge keg in his arms.
“Where do you want this, Finn?” he asked, almost in a grunt.
Finn quickly looked to the right, as that was where they had put drinks before. Sure enough, two tables stood there, and Finn said, “Over here,” and quickly dodged to his right and Colt’s left. His momma had already set up the lemonade station with flavored syrups in cherry, grape, and strawberry.
Colt put the keg on the ground and groaned. “I’ve got another one, and they can stand on top of each other.” He turned to leave, but Finn grabbed onto him and pulled him into a hug.
“Thank you so much.” They clapped each other on the back and parted grinning. “How much do I owe you for the cider?”
“I’ll bill you,” Colt said with a smile, and he dodged around Henry and Angel as they entered the barn.
Finn went to greet his cousin and the white-blonde, literal angel who had tamed Henry’s wild heart. They both carried a child, and Finn simply moved into all of them for a huge family hug.
Wrangler, their three-year-old, who could talk better than both Bubba and Dusty, said, “Happy birthday, Uncle Finn,” in the cutest little boy, high-pitched voice Finn had ever heard.
He burst out laughing and took Wrangler from Henry. “Thank you, buddy.”
“We bring you a present.”
“Did you? Well, I can’t wait to open it.
” He swept a kiss along Wrangler’s cheek, and then turned to greet Uncle Pete, who entered the barn with Finn’s parents.
The cowboys from Three Rivers started filing in from the back door, while Brynn and Ethan Greene came in the front with Ty and Winnie, who were set to be married in November, and their son, Bryan and his fiancé Ellie, who were set to be married in September, and their oldest daughter, Carolina, who had just married her husband Hugh in June.
Finn knew he wouldn’t be able to take Wrangler around as he greeted everyone, so he passed him back to Henry and called in a loud voice, “There’s food at the back, drinks over here on the left.”
“When’s the dancing gonna start?” Daddy asked, and Finn from twenty-five years ago would have groaned in embarrassment and spent the rest of the night hiding in the shadows from his over-exuberant father.
Tonight, he simply laughed and said, “You’ll have to wait until Mikey gets here. I asked him to be the DJ this year.”
As the barn filled up with people, the love in Finn’s heart overflowed again and again and again, and he sent up a blanket prayer that anyone and everyone here who needed something in their life could have it granted to them, because he wanted everyone to feel the level of love and joy he currently did.