Page 79 of Silas's Sweetheart

“He’s not a horse,” Wilder pointed out.

“He likes bein’ petted.” Cassidy strolled closer to Bowie. “Hold out your arms.” When he did, Cassidy laid Bubba in the crook of Bowie’s arm, getting a shy smile in response. “See? He’ll stay in the crook of your arm all day if you let him.”

Cassidy chuckled as Bubba rested his hairy chin on Bowie’s forearm and closed his eyes. He made a snorting noise when Bowie stroked a finger down his back.

“Frey, do you need a place to shift and dress in private?” Hollis looked about as Frey sat next to his clothes, a few cobwebs stuck to his brush.

“He can use my cabin, if that suits?”

Frey walked up the steps that Cassidy indicated and waited at the door. Ziggy collected Frey’s clothes and followed him.

“Door’s open, we’ll wait here for you. Then I can take you up to the henhouse to meet my girls.”

“Your girls?” Lennon asked.

“Yep, my chicks.”

Wilder went to Bowie and gave Bubba a scritch behind his ears. “I like this when folks do it to my raccoon.”

“Don’t I know it,” Bowie moaned. “The last time you wouldn’t let me stop for over an hour. My arm felt like it didn’t belong to me.”

Ziggy waited outside the cabin for Frey and watched Cassidy give them an assessing look, which moved between his friends. When Frey came out of the cabin, his hair was a little messier than it had been.

“I never thought my first job was gonna be helping a stuck pig.” Frey grinned cheekily as he came down the steps with Ziggy at his side. “Wait till I tell Emmy I got to rescue a pig.”

Frey had worried how he was going to cope with the separation from Emmy, with everything still being so new. Lane and Derick’s assurance that everything was fine last evening had helped, but Ziggy knew it had to be strange to leave Emmy for a week. The little girl had captured all their hearts in the time they got to care for her. How would Silas feel about children? Did he want them?

See, you’re the one jumping the gun. All I wanted to do was bite him. You’re imagining babies!

I was thinking about Emmy.

Liar!

“Emmy?” Cassidy questioned, giving Ziggy a good reason to block his snake.

“My daughter. She’s at home with Derick and Lane.” His smile dipped a little before it brightened. “They’re having a blast with her from the number of pictures I’m getting. Do you wanna see?”

“Say no.” Wilder gripped Cassidy’s arm, feigning a look of horror. “Don’t let him drag you into that trap of cuteness. It’ll make your whole day disappear.”

“As Ethan would have my hide for that, what say we get started and then you can show me when we take a break?”

“Wise move,” Hollis muttered, giving Frey a look that suggested he should behave, which totally by-passed Frey whenhe pulled out his phone and flashed a picture of Emmy at Cassidy.

“She’s a cutie for sure,”—Cassidy started walking, herding them in the direction he wanted them to go—“and will be a real heartbreaker when she gets bigger.”

Frey showed him several more pictures, getting groans from everyone, though they all wore the same sappy grin as Frey. How could they resist when she was, in essence, a part of their family, too?

The rota idea that Lane had suggested to them had worked so well. They had all juggled their time to support Frey and now Lane had found a space within the building for creating a creche, so other workers could bring their children to work and know they could pop in to see them too.

Everything had changed in Ziggy’s life since he’d moved to Hazardville and met Lane Starling. Would he readily accept Ziggy into his family? Was it possible another family would want him? He shook off the thoughts when they took the shine out of the sun.

They stopped at the pigpen and Bubba was placed inside with the others, grunting and squealing his protest at losing Bowie’s arms, who looked equally displeased at having to put the pig down.

Ziggy moved back to his side. “We’re here for a week, I’m sure Cass would let you hold him again,” he murmured quietly, as they walked behind the others.

“Ya think?”

Ziggy nodded distractedly as they came towards a large fenced off area they’d walked past the day before that Ethan had pointed out. It was full of unusual looking chickens but when no one pointed out the strange little outfits some chickens wore, Ziggy had kept quiet. He didn’t want to say the wrong thingwhen he was clueless why chickens needed knitted outfits… unless it was some sort of breeding thing—maybe?

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