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Suddenly a small body threw itself at my legs, and I looked down to see Angel. I immediately picked her up and smushed her into me, not caring about the cookie dough on her hands. Everyone had assured me she was fine, but it wasn’t the same as seeing her myself. She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck. She prattled to me for a minute about everything she’d seen and done on the farm until she slowly quietened.
“I’m glad you’re done resting, finally,” Angel whispered as she beamed up at me. I guessed that’s what Maia had told her I was doing.
A shadow loomed over us, and she switched her attention to Wolf. As soon as she saw him, she reached her little arms out and half launched herself out of my mine. He caught her like he was born to do it. She grabbed him around the neck and tangled her fingers up in his hair. Squeezing him tightly. She then did the same to each of my mates, demanding hugs they were only too happy to give.
“Do you want to go see our new home?” Cary asked her while she was cuddled up in Ryder’s arms.
“Isn’t this your home?” She asked.
“No,” River answered. “We built a house next door for Ava, but we made it big enough for our pack before we even knew we had one.”
“Okay,” she said, quieter than I’d ever seen her.
forty-nine
Isatinthecar, feeling overwhelmed. We’d just spent an hour with River and Ryder’s parents, Helen and Alexander. The hugs had been amazing, as I knew they would. They’d been surrogate parents to me growing up, and they’d embraced me like a long-lost daughter. They’d embraced our pack, and Angel, too, in the same generous way. Their mother had been best friends with mine as teenagers and their close friendship had continued into adulthood, even after we had moved to the city. It had been a home-coming.
I’d seen my uncle’s farmhouse, too. While it had been nice, it hadn’t felt as much like home as I’d thought it would. The building was the same, but they’d been using it to house farm workers, so a lot of the furniture had been different. They had boxed everything in my old room up and there were practical twin bunk beds in it now. I hadn’t minded, despite everyone worrying that I would. I was glad the house was being used. Without my uncle in it, it was just that. A house. It would have made me sadder to see it sitting empty and abandoned.
After leaving my uncle’s place, we’d driven down a long forest trail alongside the river. We were now parked out the front of the house River and Ryder had built together. For me.
“Are you going to get out?” River asked me nervously from the driver’s seat. “We can come back another day if you don’t want to do it right now. I know today has been a lot already.”
“No, I want to see it now,” I said, taking off my seat belt and hopping out.
I rounded the front of the car, but I stopped again a few yards away from the bottom of the stairs, trying to take in everything in front of me.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
They’d built it in a black, modern A-frame style, with lots of enormous picture windows and a full length deck out the front. It had two main wings with peaked roofs, connected by a flat roofed area in the middle. It was all dark lines and weathered timber decking, surrounded by tall trees. At night, without the lights on, it would disappear into the shadows in the darkness.
The land fell away, down towards the river in the front. I couldn’t see the river from here. They had built the house further up the slope, to avoid anyone traveling on the river from seeing it, I assumed. But I could hear it. I leaned forward and looked above the tall trees to see a rocky outcropping behind it. We really were just on the other side of Maia and Lexie’s farm. I hoped there was a hot spring on this side too. It was a slice of heaven in the wilderness. Private and quiet, yet our loved ones were so close, on both sides. I loved it. I was in complete awe. It looked like something out of a movie that a reclusive, rich superhero would live in.
“How did you manage to build this?” I’d been picturing a little rough-hewn log cabin. This was an architectural marvel.
“We, uh, had help,” Ryder said with a chuckle. “River and I hired a contractor and paid him and his entire team enough to retire early, to build it and keep it off the books, as well as the public records. We gave them a hand when we were here, though. And we built a lot of the furniture inside ourselves.”
“Do you want to see inside?” River asked.
I nodded, lost for words. They each grabbed one of my hands and led me up the stairs. Inside, it was even more spectacular. It had exposed timber vaulted ceilings with black beams. The walls were cream colored, while the fixtures were black and timber. Yet there were accents of blue and blush pink everywhere, in varying shades, my favorite colors.
As they led me through every room, our mates trailing behind, I got even quieter. They’d filled the inside with custom timber furniture in a pale oak wood to match the ceiling. It was simple and modern, with clean lines, but it had been built with love. You could almost feel it in the timber. There were comfy couches, lots of soft rugs, and creamy sheer curtains that would stir gently in the breeze when the windows and doors were open. Sprinkled around were also loving touches their mom had helped add. Including some framed photos of my mom and uncle. She’d put them up for me this morning as a surprise, along with photos of the three of us as kids. She’d had them waiting for me, but had been keeping them close until now.
If I could have made a mood board for my dream home, it would have been exactly this. There was even a study at the back, with a full-length window looking straight out into the trees, and shelves filled with books. I could imagine snuggling up in there on a rainy day, maybe reading a book with one of my mates.
“What do you think?” Ryder asked when we got back to the main living area again.
I grabbed his hand, feeling choked up. “I can’t believe you built this for me. It’s perfect. I love it.” It was too easy to picture our whole pack living here and making it a home.
Both Ryder and River blew out deep breaths and grinned at me, before I pulled them both to me.
“What do you guys think?” I asked my other mates. “Could you all live here?”
“Oh hell yeah, it’s amazing,” Nick said. Cary and Wolf readily agreed, too. Their eyes were wide, and they looked as awed as I felt.
“I love all the light inside, and the views of the trees everywhere,” Wolf said simply. River and Ryder may have built this house for me, but it was so expansive and airy, it was perfect for Wolf too. Even the doorframes were taller and wider than normal. It made me wonder, not for the first time, just how deep our instincts went.Had River and Ryder somehow known, on a deeper level, what our pack would need?
“Is it completely off-grid? Does it still have water and power?” Cary asked. I’d seen him eyeing off the huge open shower in the bathroom. It looked like there was plenty of room in it for two or three people, and I couldn’t wait to test it out.
