When our daughter was born nine months later, we named her Hope.
Two years after that, we named our son Lou.
It didn’t take me long to realize that no amount of exploring the world would ever be as thrilling as the adventure of living life by Clara’s side.
She was the soul on earth I was made to find.
Epilogue
Clara
Twenty-three years later . . .
“Have you ever seen so many stars?” I whispered.
It was like someone had shattered a diamond on a blanket of the deepest blue velvet. The white whisps and swirls of the Milky Way streaked between them like dust.
This wasn’t our first trip to Montana, but the clear mountain nights never failed to take my breath away.
Karson circled his arms around me, pulling me closer as I snuggled on his lap with my eyes to the sky. “It’s something, isn’t it?”
“Maybe we should move to Montana.”
Aria laughed from her camp chair beside ours and shared a smirk with Brody at her side. “You wouldn’t make it one winter.”
“True.” I laughed with her, tearing my eyes from the heavens.
We were circled around a bonfire, the light from the flames flickering over familiar faces.
Londyn and Brooks.
Gemma and Easton.
Katherine and Cash.
Aria and Brody.
Me and Karson.
My friends. My family.
“When we were in high school, we’d come out here to party,” Cash said, tossing another log on the bonfire before he settled into his chair beside Katherine’s. “Sneak beer and girls onto the ranch.”
“Ugly girls, right?” Kat asked.
“Friends. Just friends.” Cash leaned over to brush a kiss to her mouth.
“And I’m sure our parents knew we were out here, just like we knew every time the kids thought they were fooling us.” Easton chuckled. “Jake built a fire so big one time his senior year we could see it from the house miles away.”
Gemma smiled from her husband’s lap, because like me, I’d opted for a warm embrace instead of a chair of my own. “When I told him we were coming to his party spot tonight, you should have seen the look on his face. Even though he’s an adult, it’s fun to remind him every now and then that his mother wasn’t oblivious during his teenage years.”
Their son was the spitting image of Easton. Jake had grown into a tall, strong man much like his father. Their daughter, on the other hand, looked a lot like Gemma. Hailey was beautiful, elegant and witty.
Lou had a massive crush on her, something he tried so hard to hide. But my youngest son hadn’t yet realized that his mother wasn’t oblivious either.
“Ellie’s boyfriend seems nice,” I told Londyn.
Brooks grumbled. “He’s too nice. I don’t trust him.”
Londyn rolled her eyes. “Someone is having a hard time accepting that his three children are no longer children.”
“Grandpa Brooks,” Gemma teased. “Wyatt’s twins sure are growing up fast. It feels like just yesterday they were three and we were giving them pony rides around the arena.”
“It was yesterday.” He chuckled. “Where is time going? When did we get old?”
“You’re not the only one struggling,” Brody said, sharing a look with Aria. “Trace told us on the trip up that he was offered a job in Dublin and is thinking of taking it.”
“Dublin.” I pressed a hand to my heart and looked to my sister. “That’s an ocean away.”
She shrugged, but the worry line between her eyebrows deepened. “Good thing we own an airplane.”
And I doubted Millie would ever stray far from her parents, especially now that she’d graduated from college and taken a job with Brody’s company. After he’d inherited Carmichael Communications from his family, he’d sold it and made a fortune. Then he’d turned around and started another mega-successful company with Millie under his wing. She was Aria’s best friend and worshiped her dad.
“Who needs another beer?” Katherine asked. Her chair was closest to the cooler we’d brought out. When hands lifted, she popped up and hurried to deliver frosty bottles. Cash put his hand on her thigh when she returned to her seat, drawing circles on her jeans with his thumb to show her his love. And to trap her in the chair.
I’d give it five minutes before she was up again, finding something else to busy herself with. Katherine was coping with her emotions through perpetual motion.
“Good thing we snagged that cooler when we did,” Easton said. “All the kids were congregating at the lodge and I saw the beginning of a party starting.”
That was typical. Years ago, the parties had been sleeping bags and hot cocoa and popcorn from the floor while they watched a movie projected onto a white wall. Then later, the parties had been games and teenage jokes until three in the morning. Maybe a kiss snuck here and there.
Our kids had grown up together. We lived in our own worlds and different towns, but at least once a year for the past twenty-three years, we’d come to Montana and spent a week at the Greer Ranch and Mountain Resort.
Now that our kids were out of the house, Karson and I came to Montana every few months. Arizona was home base, where we worked and lived, but the travel bug—Karson’s love of exploring—had infected us both.
We went to Elyria a few times a year. We loved Hawaii and New York and London and Melbourne. Though most of our trips were to see the kids.
Hope had moved to Phoenix after graduating from college to work as a trainer for the Arizona Cardinals football franchise. Lou still had a year left at Stanford and then he was planning on law school. He’d mentioned a few schools on the East Coast, and I’d bitten my tongue before I could protest.
Like Aria had said, they owned a plane, one that they insisted Karson and I use often.
That plane had taken numerous trips to Montana, and not just for the annual summer reunion.
August had decided to go to Montana State for college, and I’d known his freshman year we’d lost him to the mountains.
Then we’d lost him to Delilah.
Not that I was complaining, because I loved her too. I’d loved her since she was a baby.
This year’s trip to Montana wasn’t just the yearly get-together. This year’s trip was special.
In two days, August was marrying Cash and Katherine’s oldest daughter.
It would be a wonderful spectacle compared to the courthouse ceremony Karson and I’d had at the Welcome courthouse, when I’d been a month pregnant with Hope.
August and Delilah’s wedding promised to be a fancy affair. Hundreds of guests. A white gown. Five tiers of cake and a live band for the reception after the three-course meal.
Since we’d arrived earlier in the week, it had been nothing but wedding madness. August and Delilah were getting married in a meadow on the ranch. Cash and Easton had been working hard to get the field mowed and free of cowpies. Katherine, Gemma and the entire Greer family had spent months planning and preparing for the reception in the lodge.
It was all coming together but there had been plenty of work to do this week, leading up to the big day.
Tonight was the first time since we’d arrived that there hadn’t been a planned function. It was the first time we’d gathered, just us. The runaways and our loves.