Page 2 of Wilder

“Did they just happen to be hiring at the vet clinic in Serenity?”

“Dr. Carl had been trying to handle it all on his own since it’s not a super busy clinic, but his wife told him he needed to hire someone to help now that he was getting older.”

“Perfect timing.”

“God’s timing,” Lee said.

Wilder wasn’t surprised by Lee’s response. In his family, God’s timing was definitely an accepted belief. Even he had experienced moments when it seemed that God had guided him to just the right place at just the right time.

“You didn’t bring your new girlfriend with you?” Wilder asked as he eyed the suitcases that were tumbling down onto the conveyor belt. “Afraid she might decide she likes me better?”

Lee’s laughter was immediate. “Yeah. No. That’s never going to happen.”

As he spotted his suitcase, Wilder took a step closer to the conveyor belt. “You seem pretty sure of that.”

“I’m not justprettysure,” Lee said. “I’m one hundred percent certain.”

Wilder grabbed the suitcase’s handle and hefted it off the belt. “I’m wondering if I should take offense to that.”

“It has nothing to do with the sort of man you are,” Lee said. “I would be as certain about her meeting Chris Hemsworth.”

After pulling the handle of the suitcase up, Wilder set his backpack on it. “That kind of makes me feel better, I guess.”

“Rori’s an amazing woman, and I know she is as devoted to me as I am to her.”

As they walked away from the baggage claim area, Wilder’s thoughts went to the woman he’d gotten to know during his stay in Thailand. Miriam was the daughter of the couple running the orphanage. She’d grown up there and had returned to the US to study nursing. Once she’d graduated, she’d gone back to Thailand to work alongside her parents.

Since they were close to the same age, and their parents had gotten along well, they’d ended up spending a lot of time together. For the first time, Wilder had seriously considered how a relationship might fit into his life.

Unfortunately, despite the connection they had as friends, the relationship hadn’t gone any further. There had been no romantic connection. Wilder had left Thailand with the promise that they’d keep in touch, but only as friends.

“Are you ready for the ski season?” Lee asked as he guided his car out of the airport parking lot.

“As ready as I ever am.” After spending several months in the heat and humidity of the tropics, he was looking forward to winter. His brief stop in Iceland had been a nice re-introduction to cooler temps.

“Kayleigh said they’ve built a big indoor ice rink at the resort.”

“Yeah. She mentioned that in one of our chats.”

“She didn’t seem one hundred percent sold on its necessity.”

“Neither am I. I don’t know that it’s going to get a lot of use, but it was Alexander’s call, and he was adamant.”

“I get the feeling that one doesn’t argue with Alexander,” Lee said.

“You’ve met him, right?”

“Yes. At Kayleigh and Hudson’s wedding. He appears to have a forceful personality.”

Wilder gave a huff of laughter. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Kayleigh did mention that someone would be hired to work there with people like you do on the slopes. She might even give figure skating lessons, which works out well because the woman that’s been teaching Layla and Amelia has recently moved away.”

Wilder was looking forward to seeing his nieces and nephews. He viewed them and the lives they lived in a different light after his experiences of the past couple of years with the orphanages. He’d gotten a good hard look at how their lives could have been, had they been born under different circumstances.

It also helped him view his adopted brothers and sister in a new light. He’d never really questioned why his parents had adopted kids when they had so many of their own. However, Wilder had seen firsthand where kids who lost their parents or who were abandoned could end up.

“You could give skating lessons,” Lee said. “If I recall, you enjoyed ice skating.”

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