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Ezra walked into the house four weeks later and stopped. There were half a dozen large bags in the front entryway, and Mindie was lugging another one in his direction.
“Hey,” he said, with a curious gaze in her direction. “What’cha up to?”
“Time for a little spring cleaning,” Mindie said, as Belle came out of a backroom followed by Stormi carrying a mangled television tray.
“We are helping Mindie ready a load for the local drive that Troy is doing,” Katherine said, coming along from the kitchen area.
“Wonderful,” he said, looking around to find Hadley.
“Hadley stepped out with Avery to grab more bags at the General Store,” Belle offered.
“Thanks,” he said, heading that direction. He wasn’t quite sure what had transpired, but he was sure she was in a tizzy this morning.
As he walked up the street, Hadley and Avery were headed back in his direction, with Jayne hanging on Hadley’s finger. She was walking and chattering away as toddlers do, and Hadley looked wholly immersed in the conversation. She answered back like it was a grown-up discussion.
He grinned as he just stood and waited for the group to make it to his location.
“Hey, ladies,” he said, with a massive grin on his face.
“Aren’t you just the cutest,” he said to Jayne, crouching down to eye level with her. She reached out with a fruit snack in her hand, which made laughter gurgle up in his gut. “No, I’m all good,” he said, as she gave him a slobbery grin.
He stood up. “She is a sweetheart,” he directed at Avery.
“Oh, she is a handful. I remember all those days praying she would walk and be more self-sufficient, and now,” she rolled her eyes crazily. “I simply wish for a quiet non-moving moment of a day.”
“I bet you wouldn’t give her up for anything,” he said.
“Don’t tell her that,” she said with the funniest expression, “she uses my weaknesses against me.”
He laughed. “Don’t all kids?”
“True, I can’t tell you how hard a time I had controlling my class. I love watching all the mischief they try to get into when they believe you aren’t watching. The things kids come up with are amazing and so inventive,” Hadley interjected to the conversation.
“So, I was at your house, and it looks like moving day?”
She shook her head. “She and Belle have seen each other as you know, a couple of times at the Ranch. Last night we were sitting in front of the television, and she just brings up a conversation with Matthew. Something he said about keeping what is important and throwing out or giving the rest away. She said it was time and asked if I could arrange some help.”
“Wow!”
“I know. I figured this group would work with her lead. There have been a couple of tough moments, mostly around Thomas’s stuff. We are making some shelves in his room for trophies and decorations to help ease her tension, but overall, it has been great.”
Another woman came upon the group he didn’t recognize. “Hi,” she greeted Hadley and Avery.
“Hello,” she said, turning to him. “I bet you are Hadley’s Ezra.”
He looked at Hadley with a grin. She was a bright red shade.
“I am Hadley’s Ezra,” he said, extending his hand. “And you are?”
“Annalise. Stormi’s sister. I have been away with my fiancé Maxwell at some auctions, but normally work at the Ranch with Stormi and the animals.”
“I didn’t know Stormi had a sister,” Ezra said, recalling her birth story of being abandoned as an infant at the church. Stormi had been around the church a lot in the years after his father found her. “My father found her on the church steps as an infant.”
“Yeah, it is a wild story about how we met,” she said with a tiny bobble of her head. “I’m certain we can get better acquainted down the road, but I promised lattes,” she said, holding up the hot beverages in her hand.
“Oh, please do not stand in the way of the hard workers and their caffeine.”
“Talk soon,” she threw over her shoulder at Avery, Hadley, and him.
“Wow, Stormi found her sister?”
“She found Stormi by accident after being assigned to Living River Ranch as an intern for college credit.”
“Whoa. I have grown up with the miraculous stories of Living River Ranch and the people and odd occurrences of healing and the like. That one might top it, though.”
“Yeah, we really should catch up. I think the old Ranch decided these last two years to play matchmaker. So many new couples have come out of situations starting there,” Hadley said, and Avery nodded.
“I’m one of those success stories. I ended up giving birth during my first interview at the B&B. And then finding my fiancé Scout, whom I believe you worked with after he came to visit Belle’s husband for the first time.”
“Wow, seriously, we all need to write these stories and get them published.”
“I don’t think we are that interesting,” Hadley said with a loud chuckle. “I think we all better get a move on, or they will be out of bags and milling about with nothing to do,” she said, lifting the bag from the General Store.
They all turned to walk back to the house. Hadley reached out and laced her fingers with his. He glanced down and felt his shoulders go soft. This was the reason he came home and where he needed to be for the rest of his days. For that, he felt a sense of well-being settle on him as they went to help Mindie with her un-hoarding and to help her get her feet back into the town of Little Bend, and a world that she had been missing these last few years.
