Savannah tore her eyes from the closed shop door, and her gaze landed on the older woman at the end of the aisle. “Sorry,” she said, that word one of the first that always left her mouth.
With two busy, curious, bright five-year-olds, Savannah often had to apologize for something they’d gotten into they shouldn’t have.
The woman smiled. “It’s fine. Can I help you find something?”
Savannah blinked around the floral shop, trying to remember why she’d come inside. Maybe just because the wind had kicked up, and Gal threw a fit if any air blew in her eyes. Turned out, she threw a fit when Savannah told her no to buying a little tin doggy too.
“No, I’m just looking,” she said, and she herded the girls toward the woman. “Who was that?” She held up the rose. “The one who gave me this.”
The handsome cowboy hadn’t given it to her, Savannah knew, and she’d give the flower to Gal as soon as she could do so without making it seem like a reward for melting down in public.
The woman smiled. “Wilder Glover.” She said his name like everyone in town knew him. Well, Savannah didn’t know him—and she didn’t live in Three Rivers either.
“Thank you,” she said.
“He’s from Shiloh Ridge Ranch,” the woman said almost over the top of her. “A wonderful young man.”
Savannah gave her a tight smile, because she’d married a “wonderful young man” once. “Thanks,” she said, and she guided the girls out the door. Once free of the shop, she told the twins, “Let’s get in the car and head home.”
Thankfully, that happened without incident, and Savannah went through a drive-through to get the girls their favorite chicken nuggets and French fries for lunch. With any luck, they’d both take a cat nap on the way back to Pampa.
She normally didn’t mind the drive to Three Rivers for supplies, as the traffic wasn’t bad, and it gave her a chance to get caught up with her sister or listen to an audiobook. The twins had always loved a good road trip, and Three Rivers had the best organic grocery store and the largest IFA store in the area.
So, with her SUV fully loaded with the groceries they needed for the next few weeks—including an intimate Christmas Day lunch with just her, the girls, and her mother—and plenty ofextra feed for her chickens, as well as the beet pulp and cracked corn she liked to give the llamas in the winter, she headed south.
She’d had a load of hay grass delivered yesterday, and her llama farm should continue to thrive with her wintertime preparations.
Savannah kept the volume on the radio low as she drove, and it only took about twenty minutes for the twins to eat and then drift to sleep. A sense of relief washed over Savannah, and while she hadn’t ever imagined herself to be married, a mother of two, and then divorced before her thirtieth birthday, that was where she now stood.
She’d lost twenty-five pounds due to the “divorce diet,” and she’d never experienced such stress in her life. Now that she was free from that awful, abusive situation, the freedom she experienced in quiet moments like this reminded her of a loving Father in Heaven who didn’t want His children to suffer.
She’d be forever tied to Jack, of course, as he lived in their family home only forty minutes south of Pampa, and she had to take the girls to him twice every month.
But she’d managed to get the llama farm with the help of her mother, and Savannah had found a safe haven there she wouldn’t trade for anything.
“Not even for a handsome man who gives your girls roses,” she muttered to herself. She glanced in her rearview mirror, a habit of driving, and then focused out the windshield again.
She’d driven this road many times since the divorce a little over eighteen months ago, and she’d seen the various road signs and ranches. They’d become as familiar as breathing, but today, as the big, blue sign that readSHILOH RIDGE RANCHapproached, her heartbeat blipped in a strange way.
“Shiloh Ridge Ranch,” she said aloud, looking to the right, where the sign pointed. “Wilder Glover.”
A beautiful farm stood near the road, with two or three large houses, with smaller cabins and barns surrounding them. A dirt road cut right through the middle of those and continued through farmland and up into the hills, where Savannah lost sight of it.
“Which house do you live in, cowboy?”
Not that Savannah cared all that much. She’d lived in this area for almost six years, and she’d never run into anyone with the name of Glover. She had no reason to think she’d ever see Wilder again.
But if she did, she’d tell him Gal had straightened right up, and she’d given her the beautiful red rose that currently rode in the passenger seat of Savannah’s SUV.
And that would be that.
A half-hourafter passing Shiloh Ridge Ranch, Savannah put on her blinker and made the right turn onto her llama farm—Llama Mamas. The cartoon-like sign made her smile, and she veered to the left to go down the family lane to her house, while the agritourism side of the farm went to the right.
She gave tours to schools, held education days twice a year for people to learn about the benefits of having llamas on a farm or ranch, and four craft workshops per year to show and teach others about creating yarns and fibers from llamas and alpacas.
She had both here at Llama Mamas, and she sheared them once a year, spun her own yarn and thread, and sold that too.
It was a simple life, full of simple goodness. She generated enough income from the agritourism to pay for the farm and keep the girls supplied with clothing and shoes. She also usedher llamas as livestock guards for a herd of sheep and goats, which she used to generate additional income in the form of wool and milk.
