To his credit, he took Demi’s and my advice and we got out of our suits, took quick showers separately, and got dressed morecomfortably. Then I gestured at the door, and he harrumphed, but came with me anyway.
I went to the kitchen and saw the cooler by the pantry door. I picked it up, and led the way back outside.
“We’re taking Bluey,” I told him, gesturing to the UTV parked behind an SUV.
He clearly hadn’t noticed it, which was funny. Something else that amused me was that I hadn’t paid attention to Juanpablo at all, but I could see him peering at us from his paddock. I’d become immune to the donkey alarm, or hell, maybe he’d decided that the party atmosphere with all the extra humans in his territory was too much to yell about every time?
In no time at all, I had us on the road, so to speak. I drove us to the gate to the far paddock and hopped out to open it. Then I drove through and this time Emery got out.
“I’ll get it.”
When he came back, I could tell he had relaxed and was getting excited.
I turned the lights on so I could navigate safely in the dimming remnants of daylight. It was peaceful here, which was welcome after the whole day of people everywhere.
“Abigail’s with Wren?” Emery asked after a couple of minutes of driving.
I loved it that he cared.
“Yeah. Most people were gone anyway, and the boys are still around.” And Wren would never take any weird risks, not that I expected any here anyway.
All the guests had been told to not post about anything Wren-related online until after we were gone. That date was approaching way too soon.
Emery took my hand and I stroked his with my thumb as I drove us across the land to the spot. Soon enough, there wasa light from an electric lantern in the distance, and I felt the moment he noticed it.
He leaned forward, my hand forgotten as he tried to figure out what he was seeing.
Grinning, I drove us over to the small ridge where Hawk and Carter had come in the morning to set all of this up for us. Of course, it had been a group effort. It had been Demi’s idea, after I’d asked her what I could do to make things easier for Emery tonight. It hadn’t hit him yet, but it would at some point soon when he gave himself permission to think about everything.
“We’ll still be as close as we’ve always been,” Demi had confided in me last night before they’d hidden together in her room for their twin time. “It’s mostly the symbolism that’ll get him and hell, it’ll get me, too.”
So yeah. While this was for Emery and me, to get away a little bit, it was more meaningful than that.
“When did you have time to set all of this up?” he asked as I parked just under the ridgeline, not wanting to drive the UTV up the steep side of it.
“I did absolutely nothing. This was mostly your siblings.” I gestured at the glamping style tent and the lanterns hanging from poles around the immediate area.
The creek was making calming noises nearby, and that’s what clued him to where we were.
“This is where we came before,” he said, sounding awed in a way I hadn’t expected.
“Mhmm….” Except this time we didn’t have horses to worry about.
I carried the cooler up the incline and smiled as Emery let out a delighted sound when he peered into the tent.
“I don’t know exactly what they did. I had orders to bring you here for tonight and tomorrow morning. We have until brunch.”
There was another cooler in the tent, filled with drinks. Emery looked inside it and raised a brow.
“What’s in that one?” he asked, pointing at the one I was carrying.
“I don’t know that, either. Whatever Nick deems as evening snacks, I suppose.”
There was a genuine raised king size bed for us to sleep in. There were pillows and blankets and a mosquito net over it just in case.
The fairy lights that were hung along the walls twinkled in a way that was decidedly romantic.
“This is….” Emery looked at everything and then turned to me.
