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“Me and Daddy absolutely do not,” she said. “He wants to go to every high school football game, and Smiles won’t even start.” She folded her arms and gave him a glare. “I am not doing that.”

Link grinned, the idea of his momma sitting through every football game because Smiles was on the third string team grew into something hilarious. He started to laugh, and Momma gestured to him.

“Exactly,” she said. She returned her attention to helping Sunnie stir in the cereal, as well as a bunch of chips in a variety of chocolates. White, semi-sweet, dark, and milk.

“What are the rice crispy squares for?” Link asked.

Momma glanced at him. “End of Summer picnic in a couple of days.” She helped Sunnie butter up her hands so she could press this batch into a cookie sheet. “Link, if there’s anything I’ve learned since coming to Shiloh Ridge, it’s that every relationship will look and feel different.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m friends with all of my sisters-in-law, right? But not a single one of them looks or feels the same. I’m closer to some than others, but at the same time, I love them all. I’d call your aunt Oakley for anything, but when I want help with a recipe, I head down the road to Etta’s. If I need to know how to hang a new light fixture, I call Montana. If I need to complain about Daddy, I call Zona.”

“Or Uncle Cactus,” Link said with a smile.

Momma grinned back at him. “I try not to do it at all, but sometimes that man forgets he’s not twenty-five years old.”

“My boots are a mess,” Daddy called, interrupting the conversation.

Momma looked toward the back door and sighed. “Or the fact that he can take his boots off outside if they’re a mess.”

“Hey, Link’s here.” Daddy spoke with pure warmth too. “There’s a couple of muddy spots out there.” He leaned in and kissed Momma on the cheek. “Mm, you smell nice.”

“It’s marshmallows,” she said with a grin. “You left your boots by the back door?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I might have tracked a little on the rug there.” He looked over to Link. “What are you doin’ here?”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you guys if you’d have me and Misty for dinner one night.”

“Yes,” Momma said instantly. “When?”

“Hold on,” Daddy said. “You sure you want that?”

“She’s moving off the ranch,” Link said. “Tomorrow. And I don’t know, I feel like I might…like it might put a bunch of distance between us. Like, the physical distance will cause other kinds of distance too.”

Momma looked at Daddy, who looked back at her. “We managed to make it work,” she said.

“Yeah, and Uncle Preacher got in a car accident trying to bridge the distance between him and Charlie,” Link said. “I don’t know. I need to stop worrying so much, I think. I just don’t know how.”

He looked at his parents, desperate for them to tell him how to stop worrying. Neither of them said anything.

“When I’m worried about something,” Sunnie said. “Momma helps me make a plan. Then it’s easier to see how things are going to go.” She looked at Link with wide, bright blue eyes. “So, like, just make a plan with Misty, and it’ll be fine.”

Momma grinned from ear to ear. “Yeah, Link. Make a plan with Misty.”

Link loved his younger sister, and she did make things sound so simple. “A plan,” he mused. Yeah, he just needed to make a plan to keep Misty close even when she lived further from him.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mitch’s phone flashed as it rang, lighting up his room—and painting the backs of his eyelids with the bright light. He wasn’t really asleep, but he hadn’t gotten out of bed yet. He wasn’t in Three Rivers, on the ranch, anymore, and he didn’t have to be up by five-thirty and out on the ranch by six to beat the heat.

Here, he got to wake up at a normal hour, and work in a regularly air conditioned building, and be done at a decent hour that didn’t leave his shoulders bunched with tension and exhaustion. Here, at Whispering Paws, Mitch already had friends he could talk to. Really talk to.

Too bad he was terribly lonely, despite having made this choice, this move across over a thousand miles, and had plenty of what he’d thought he wanted.

You do want it, he told himself as the bright light filled the room again. You are happy here. He reached for his phone and tapped to answer the video call from Link. He’d left Three Rivers two weeks ago, and Link had called four times now. Mitch wasn’t sure who was lonelier—him or Link.

Hey, Link said, the word appearing at the bottom of the video on Mitch’s phone. He signed the greeting as well.