Page 35

“Bird,” I ground out, and it sounded like a warning even to my own ears.

He poked me in the chest. “Stop. Don’t worry about it. You’re ignoring friends.”

“I can’t just let it go, if something—oof.”

Something, or someone more accurately, had barreled into my legs. I peered down into the face of a very short Ziggy Stardust, complete with wig and makeup. Shiloh looked amazing, and though I was surprised by the costume, I shouldn’t have been. Mom had told me how Shiloh found my parents’ record collection and the three of them were slowly working through favorite albums when it was just them in the evenings. Clearly Shiloh had found some music he liked.

“Wow, Ziggy, lookit you!” I praised, but then his wide eyes and pale skin caught my attention. I thought it had been the makeup, but I was wrong. Instantly, I crouched down so we were at eye level. “What’s wrong?”

“I saw…I saw—”

“Breathe, kid,” I directed calmly. He was about to hyperventilate. Shiloh did as I directed and I took a chance and laid a hand on his shoulder. Immediately, Shiloh stepped closer into the space between my knees. “Tell me what happened.”

“Pay and I were doing the hay maze and we came out and...I saw my mom.” The last was said with absolute terror and I pulled him in. I didn’t squeeze him as tightly as I wanted to, knowing that he was still wary of touch, but he leaned against me and I took that as a good sign.

I was sure he’d been with an adult. Despite the ranch itself being safe enough for kids to run around, this was a whole different situation. I knew no one would leave the children unsupervised. But he’d gotten scared and he'd run to find me, because in his eyes, I was the safest.

“Okay. Where was she?”

He pointed a shaking hand to the left, where there were more food trucks, along with the wine slushie mobile and the beer tent. I had a guess where that woman was. I nodded.

“What do you want to do?”

Shiloh looked at me, his confusion all over his face, the wrinkles in his forehead making the lightning bolt crinkle.

“I get to say?” he asked, voice small.

“Absolutely.”

He took a deep breath, making his shoulders and whole chest move. “I wanna go hide with Papa, and I want you to make her go away.”

He’d taken to calling my parents by their “grandparent” names, and that made sense. Even though he was in this weird space of being me and my siblings’ foster brother, he was also friends with Payton and much closer in age to all the grandchildren. Honestly, I sort of loved it. In just a few weeks, he was settling in. And I got why he wanted to hide with my dad, who was up at the Barn 1 helping to get things ready for the ghost horses.

I straightened up. “Done and done. Wren here will take you to the barn and—”

“Oh thank goodness, you’ve got him.” Mal had appeared with a little wolf at his side. Pay tipped back his mask so he could see his friend properly, and Shiloh clung to me for a moment before taking yet another breath and stepping back. Everything in him relaxed, and I knew he finally felt safe again.

“What’s going on?” Shannon asked. I didn’t bother to respond.

“Mal, take the boys to Dad and stay there until I give you the all clear. Wren, you go with them.”

What I could see of Wren’s face turned a bit mutinous. “I’m going with you.”

“Not happening.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up. “You aren’t going alone. We have no idea what that…what she could do.”

I appreciated that he censored himself, since even though Laura Bennett had done a lot of horrible things to the kid standing next to me, she was still his mom. We had to be careful about what we said. It wasn’t fair to Shiloh to disparage her.

That was exactly why he wasn’t coming. I tried for playful, hoping he would listen. “This might be a costume, but I was actually a Marine. She’s not gonna…do anything to me.”

Wren glared. I stared back. And because it was him, and I was never on guard against him, when he snatched the two-way off my pants, I didn’t even react. He hit the button, never taking his gaze off me.

“Wren to Ville.”

A crackle, then, “Ville here, over.”

“Send Abi to the taco truck, please. Over.”