Page 94 of Gideon's Gratitude

What if I chose a different path? What if I walked away from Vancouver entirely and built a life in Mission City? Would Gideon want to be part of it?

Tiffany veered off into the woods as we approached the house.

“Lucky is off leash a lot as well.”

“She knows to stay away from the driveway and the parking lot. Our property is fenced in—which was a huge undertaking—but we still get bears who don’t see fences as impediments.”

“You’re not worried?”

She opened the sliding glass door.

Tiffany ran from the forest and ducked inside the house.

I followed after her, then bent to untie my shoes.

“You can leave those on. I wash the floors every night.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.” I hesitated.

“This is a working ranch, and I’m not asking clients to take their shoes off. You never know when they might want to make a quick escape.” She winked.

Yet I spotted the underlying seriousness. Sometimes people wanted to get out of my office as quickly as possible.

She removed her boots and, after a moment, I followed suit. If Gideon wanted to leave in a hurry then I’d just move quickly.

I followed her into the kitchen and sniffed. “That smells amazing.”

“My grandmother’s chili recipe. In the slow cooker.” She washed her hands, then removed a bowl from the fridge. She nabbed a baking tray and placed parchment paper on it. Within a moment, she was scooping out dough.

“Chocolate chip or raisin?”

“Oatmeal chocolate chip. Very healthy.”

“Good to know.” As I had last week, I hopped onto a stool at the island.

Tiffany plopped into her bed, sighed, and closed her eyes.

“She works hard, eh?”

“She does.” Rainbow checked the oven. “Perfect. I love that I can set it to turn on and it does. Our old one didn’t have that feature.” She put two trays in the oven. “I wanted fresh for you to take home. They’ll still be warm.” She rested her hip against the counter. “Tiff is the hardest-working creature on the ranch—and given my sister’s schedule, that’s saying something.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Tiff’s always up for the challenge, though. And she’s great with everyone, but she’s especially good with kids.”

“That’s tough.”

“Dr. Denise Lang is the psychologist we have up here entirely dedicated just to children and teenagers. We see a lot of kids up here. I’m sure you have some idea. On top of mental illness, of course, there’s all kinds of trauma. Some kids can cope, and some just can’t. We’re here for them.”

“Must be expensive for parents.” I winced. “Sorry, that was rude.”

She shrugged. “We have sliding scales. We have money coming from community services. We have benefactors. We just never have enough time to fit in everyone we could.”

“So, Gideon…?”

Her gaze narrowed.

“Right. None of my business.”

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