Page 102 of High Intensity

Jillian’s peal of laughter as we walk in has Marcela at reception lift her head. She cracks a smirk and raises an eyebrow when she notices my arm around Jillian’s shoulders. I shoot her a wink in passing.

Peanut immediately lumbers over to my mother when we enter her apartment and lays her head on Mom’s lap.

“Brrr, you guys are bringing the cold in with you,” she complains, but the sparkle in her eye tells me she’s anything but unhappy.

I don’t think she’d ever admit it to me, but I would bet Mom always held a spark of hope alive I would one day end up with a family.

“Look at this cool trick Mrs. Wolff showed me,” Hayley says excitedly.

“My mother was Mrs. Wolff, why don’t you call me Mimi?” Mom gently suggests, confirming my suspicions.

Hayley nods distractedly, she’s too busy showing us how to palm a card and slip it back into the deck.

“Mom?”

My mother bulges her eyes in a failed attempt to look innocent, which has Jillian burst out laughing again.

I throw up my hands.

“See? I told you.”

Thirty

Wolff

“Ready for your summer break?”

Technically summer won’t be here for another three or so weeks, but next week there are only three days of school left. According to Sully’s daughter, Carmi, nothing really happens the last week of school.

“Sooo ready,” Carmi dramatically declares from the back seat.

Hayley giggles in the passenger seat beside me.

I offered to collect the girls from school today because Jillian had something to do at the ranch. Since the girls’ schools are virtually side by side, Pippa or Sully drops them off in the morning, and Jillian or I pick them up in the afternoon.

Despite the age difference between them, they seem to get along really well. Sadly, it’s Hayley’s traumatic experiences that are the reason she may be more mature than most kids her age. But Carmi is a great kid who didn’t hesitate to take Hayley under her wing. Since starting school a few months ago, Hayley has been making a few friends of her own.

She is now officially Hayley Shaw, complete with all the paperwork needed. She named herself after Shaw Mountain, the site of the plane crash. I guess for her it was a way to stay connected to her parents. The symbolism almost goes deeper than that though; it’s also where her old life ended, and her new life began, when Jillian and I found her on that mountain.

A new life for all three of us, actually, and it’s been good. Not without hiccups or bumps, but nothing we haven’t been able to deal with or work through together.

It’s a different experience for me, I’ve not lived in a family situation since leaving home twenty-five years ago when I took off for college, but I’ve taken to it like a fish to water. I love coming home from work and being greeted by a rambunctious pack of dogs, and Hayley’s soft smile from the kitchen island where she likes to do her homework.

I love feeling Jillian’s hand on my back as she moves around me in the kitchen when we cook dinner together. I love waking up with her gorgeous red hair tickling my face and her tight butt pressing up against my morning wood.

Heck, I even love school pickup duty, listening to the girls’ chatter and witnessing a new Hayley slowly emerging from the broken little girl we carried down Shaw Mountain.

I fucking love my girls and the life we are building.

“See you Monday!” Carmi calls out when she hops out of the truck in front of her house.

I tip my hat at Sully, who is already waiting for his daughter with the front door open, before I back out of the driveway and pull onto the road.

“What are we doing here?” Hayley asks moments later when I turn off the road toward High Meadow.

“We’re meeting Jillian here.”

“Oh…”

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