"We'll talk about that later, baby," Callie managed.
"But when later?"
"Later later."
"That's not a real answer, Mommy."
"I know."
The last image of the night wasn't the main house.
It was later. The party had wound down and the dishes were done and Momma had hugged me one final time at the door — long, tight, her hand on the back of my head the way she'd held it since I was small — and we'd driven home.
Not to the cottage. To the house.
The house I'd started building for us on Blackwood land. Just the frame so far — the bones of something that would grow. Timber skeleton and concrete slab, and the open sky where the roof would be. But the porch was done. I'd finished the porch first because the porch was the point. The porch was where the light would go.
We sat on the steps. The three of us. Maisie was asleep between us, her head on my leg, her boots still on, the glitter from her sign still on her fingers. Callie leaned against my shoulder, her hand in mine, the ring catching the porch light I'd hung that morning.
The valley was dark and quiet and the stars were out and somewhere in the paddock below, Starlight nickered.
I looked at the woman beside me and the child between us and the house rising around us and I knew. I'd spent thirty-one years not knowing who I was. Rodeo champion, bull rider, Blackwood son — none of it had fit. Not really. Not all the way.
This fit.
Callie looked up at me. The fireflies were out. Her eyes were soft and full and shining in the porch light and she looked at me the way she had on the ridge — like I was the colour in her world. Like I was everything. Like she couldn't believe we were here and also like she'd always known we would be.
"What are you thinking?" she said.
I kissed her forehead. Pressed my lips there and held them and breathed her in one more time.
"That I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."
She smiled. Tucked her head against my shoulder. Her hand tightened in mine. And my heart — my full, aching, impossible heart — had never felt so much like home.
Epilogue
Hunter
The carburetor was shot.
I'd known it was shot three days ago when the John Deere coughed twice and died in the south paddock, but I'd been putting off the teardown because taking apart a carburetor required patience and clean hands and a quiet barn, and lately quiet was hard to come by.
"Uncle Hunt."
"Yeah."
"Is that the manifold?"
"Intake manifold. Yeah."
"And that twisty thing is the fuel line?"
"Fuel line. Right."
"And the thing you said a bad word about is the gasket?"
"I didn't say a bad word."
