“So I’m asking for donations of any kind. Time, money, equipment. Anything that will help me get the solar power system set up and running.” She nodded as Brandon took his phone back. She sat back down, and Brandon smiled at everyone.
“Yeah,” he said, and he returned to his seat too. “All right. That’s it for us. We can keep talking about this stuff here, oranyone who has something can text me.” He grinned around at everyone. “And you can say something about me and Lenore now—as long as it’s about how amazing and beautiful she is, or how lucky she is to have me as a boyfriend.”
Finn pulled in a breath, his laughter bubbling to the surface. Link finished signing, and thankfully, Mitch filled the room with his laughter first, his hands flying.
Link laughed too, and Finn couldn’t stop himself them. He laughed along with several others as Link said, “Mitch says she must be farsighted.”
Brandon tipped his head back and laughed too, and Finn’s heart filled with love for such good friends—especially once the laughter died down and the volunteers to come help with the solar system started getting voiced.
19
Wilder Glover pulled out a case of Diet Mountain Dew only a moment before a knock sounded on the door to his suite. “Come in!” he called, his pulse blipping through his body.
Smiles entered the apartment, and the world righted for Wilder. He missed his cousin so stinking much, and he latched onto the taller cowboy and held him tight while Smiles chuckled and pounded him on the back.
Wilder sucked back on his emotions as they separated. Smiles would see it, so Wilder ducked his head toward the kitchen. “I got out drinks.”
“Who else is coming?” he asked.
“Robbie,” Wilder said. “Betty, Pearl Jo, Fawn, Chaz, Heather, and Sunny.”
“Really? My sisters are coming?” Smiles glanced toward the door. “I just left home, and they weren’t there.”
“They’re coming from Aunt Etta’s,” Wilder said.
“Ah, got it. She told me to stop by before I go back to school.”
“Yeah, because she’ll send you with enough groceries and freezer meals to make it to Christmas.” Wilder opened the box of sodas and handed one to Smiles. “You datin’ anyone at school?”
Smiles popped the top on his soda can, and well, smiled. “A girl here and there.”
“But no one serious,” Wilder said, relieved in a way that made no sense. He should be happy for his cousins who’d found someone they loved—and who loved them. But the need to do the same for himself gnawed at him in a terribly uncomfortable way.
Unfortunately, every woman he’d gone out with in the past few months—only two—hadn’t held his interest for more than a couple of dates.
“So Gun and Rock are going to get engaged,” Smiles said.
Wilder realized he’d moved into the living room and taken a seat on the couch. “Yeah,” he said. “Rock said he absolutely didn’t need any help from, and I quote, anyone on this ranch. But Gun is over here every day going over some new harebrained idea for how he can ask Camila to marry him.”
He grabbed his own can of soda and joined Smiles on the couch. “Pearl Jo is sick of listening to him, so she called this mastermind.”
Smiles nodded, then twisted as Wilder’s door opened again. Fawn entered first, laughing about something Pearl Jo or Betty, who came with her, had said. She faced him, and Wilder got to his feet to go greet his sister and cousins.
“Hey, guys.” He gestured for them to come into the kitchen. “Drinks here.”
“Hey, Wild.” Fawn gave him a side hug. “How you holding up?”
“Just fine,” Wilder said. “Harvest is over, and no one died, so.”
“You know who asked about you?” Betty took a can of soda and cracked it open. She wore a wicked smile and didn’t immediately divulge who’d asked about him—which meant no one had.
She was Uncle Preacher and Aunt Charlie’s oldest, and she’d just graduated in sound design. She worked for an audiobook company, mastering files and adding sound effects, but she could do it from home. So she’d returned to Three Rivers, and she currently lived in town with Judy and Georgia. The three of them rented a pretty house in a quiet suburb, and Aunt Ida’s daughter, Judy, worked as a makeup artist and Georgia, Uncle Bishop’s daughter, had just landed an online TV spot with Wildlife America, and she filmed three spots per week about the wildlife happenings around the country.
Georgia had gotten a dual degree in wildlife management and journalism, and the job really was perfect for her. Again, she could do it online from anywhere in the world, but she’d chosen to stay in Three Rivers. Together with Betty, they’d set up a sound studio in the house on Pheasant Feathers Drive, and they both worked out of the room in their own home.
“Smiles is here,” Pearl Jo said, and everyone rushed over to say hello to him. Wilder stayed out of the way, because he’d learned to rotate around the sun that was Smiles.
Wilder turned to the door as someone knocked, assuming that to be Chaz. Heather and Sunny would walk in the way the other girls had, so he wasn’t surprised to open the door and find Chaz standing there. “Howdy, Chaz.”
