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I loved it here. This was home. But as Aspen set the platter down and smiled, I knew she was my home.
“What’s planned out?” I asked.
“You’ll go next week to Spain and we’ll catch up to make the performance,” Momma told me as she settled onto the picnic bench across from me.
I flicked my gaze to Aspen, who picked up her glass of iced tea and took a sip. She didn’t seem bothered that my mother was doing some master planning.
“I thought that was the plan,” I said.
Momma nodded. “Yes, but Sierra is going to stay here with us. We’ll bring her to Spain with us.”
My eyes widened and I looked again at Aspen. “You’re okay with this?”
She looked to where the kids were playing. “She wants to stay. She asked… begged even, so I couldn’t tell her no because I selfishly want her with me at all times.”
I knew that feeling. I selfishly wanted Aspen all to myself.
“She’ll be fine,” my sister, Audrey offered. “She’s already planned a sleepover with the girls. They’re planning on sleeping on the trampoline in the back yard.”
That did sound like something Aspen would love to do.
Momma gave me a look. I realized she was offering me this time. A week with only Aspen. In Spain. No kids. No parents. Just us. And her practicing the hell out of her ballet.
Sounded fucking perfect.
“Now we just need to get you a job, son,” Pops said.
“You could be a hair model,” Matt, my brother, piped in as he stood to reach and grab a corn.
“You’re just jealous,” I tossed out.
“Damned straight,” he added with a grin. He had a receding hairline and kept his hair shorn close to the scalp. “But my face is so handsome it makes up for my going bald.”
“That’s right, baby,” Nicky, his wife, said, patting him on the shoulder and then leaning over to kiss his cheek.
“Actually,” I began. I looked to Aspen again. I couldn’t stop. She was mine. She was here in Nebraska with me. With my family. She was one of us now, blending in just as well as Sierra. “I was offered a job.”
Her eyes widened. “You were?”
Maybe I should’ve told her this first before announcing it to everyone, but I got the call while Aspen and Sierra were in the barn with Pops and the horses.
I nodded.
Everyone stopped eating and stared.
“Well?” Audrey asked.
“Another movie deal?” Matt asked.
I shook my head. “TV.”
“You’ll stay as Shep Barnes?” Aspen asked.
That meant I would need to be in LA for filming and that lasted most of the year.
“No. I have to finish out my contract, but that’s only for a few more episodes. Then they’ll kill me off.”
Natalie, my other sister, gasped. “No! Shep Barnes can’t die!”
