I don’t know about that, but I was able to haggle for a few coffee beans from Melina’s store in exchange for a bunch of books for the fort library, and several haunches of fresh meat. I’m going to crush those beans and add them to my grounds, and squeeze a bit more life out of my sad supply of coffee when we get home.

By the end of the week, while I’m thrilled Dottie is better, I’m tired of the fort. It’s too many people. It’s dirty because so many live there. I’m ready to get back to our daily life and spending time around the fire with the cats. I’m ready to sleep in with my mate at my side.

I’m ready for Rabbit to take some time away from Jonah. They’re now holding hands furtively, and he calls her by her real name, Everleigh. The mama in me thinks it’s less cute now and getting a little too serious too fast. It’ll do them good to spend some time apart.

It’ll do me good to see them apart, too.

We just need to go home and back to our regular schedule. My plants at the bookstore aren’t thriving. They’re wilting under the chilly air. It’s been unusually cold for North Texas, and they’re suffering. Maybe plants aren’t meant to grow in potholes. Maybe they need real dirt. Who knows. Stella is missing us, too. She whines for attention when we get home, abandoning her puppies to snuggle with Aggie. Even the cats have been more needy than usual, and when we come back from the fort every night, we’re greeted with an angry chorus of meows and demands for food and petting. We leave the door to the bookstore cracked open all day so the animals can go in and out without us there, which means that when we get home, the store is drafty and cold, and there are piles of leaves in the doorway.

I’ll just be glad when things settle down, I tell myself for the millionth time.

We’re heading back to the fort today, on day eight. Samir says Dottie can go home tomorrow if her urine remains clear and she continues to show no issues with the antibiotics. I repack my backpack to add in Rabbit’s favorite sweatshirt and a warm sweater for Dottie, as the day is cold and blustery and it might rain. As I pull out ivermectin and dried meat, I pull out a book, too. Introduction to Homesteading.

And I pause, gazing down at the cover with a cow on it.

In the last week, we’ve given a ton of books to the fort in exchange for a few things. Children’s books and schoolbooks, romance novels and classics. For some reason, I haven’t been able to part with this particular book. I’ve held onto it, and I haven’t mentioned the herd of cattle we found, either. The area where we found them was a series of pastures near the big barn. I’m sure they’ve spread out a bit, but something tells me they’re still in the same vicinity. It’d be easy to find them again. Easy to go back to that barn and repair the roof.

And where there’s a farm, there’s a farmhouse.

“Ready to fly?” Murr asks, coming into the “room” we share together. He leans against one of the empty bookshelves. “Need anything?”

I glance up at him and really study our surroundings. At the bookshelves that make up the “walls” of our room, and the pictures we have tacked onto them, the objects set on the shelves themselves. At my mattress on the floor. I think about the giant broken window at the front, held together by duct tape and hope. I think about the broken asphalt outside and my plants that aren’t thriving in the spots in the broken pavement we’ve tried to squeeze them into. This isn’t home. This is existing.

I’m tired of just existing.

I glance up at my handsome husband. His expression is calm and cheerful, but I worry he won’t like what I’m about to ask. “What if we lived somewhere else, Murr?”

“Where?”

“The place where we found the cattle?”

He considers this. “Not long flight. We take cats? Dottie?”

“Of course. We’d take everyone. Dogs, cats, ladies, whatever we want to bring with us.”

He shrugs. “Then we go.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Dakota home,” he says simply. “Murr home with Dakota, with cats. Dakota with cows, Murr with cows.”

“Well, not directly with the cows,” I say, stifling a giggle. My heart fills with love for him. “And it doesn’t have to be there. If there’s somewhere you’d rather be that’s more comfortable, we can go there. I just want to think about the future for a change. I’m tired of living day to day. I want to settle down and stay somewhere. Really stay.”

He pauses. “But not…fort?”

“No, not a fort. God no.”

“Good.” He looks relieved, and I laugh all over again. “Fort smell terrible.”

“I thought you said you could live anywhere,” I tease, getting to my feet and moving into his arms.

Murr pulls me close and nuzzles at my throat. “Murr live in fort with Dakota, if Dakota want,” he murmurs. “Cut off nose, too.”

I snort with amusement. “Guess we’ll just have to find somewhere else. I like your nose.”

“Murr like Dakota nose, too.” And he kisses the tip of it.

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EPILOGUE

SIX MONTHS LATER

DAKOTA

I hum to myself as I put a log into the stove and heat the cast-iron skillet. The theme song from Little House on the Prairie plays in my head, and I’m tempted to pull out an apron and go full-blown pioneer. But breakfast is just eggs and tan coffee-water, so there’s not really a need to cover my clothing. I wait for my cast-iron skillet on the stove to warm up, and as I do, I crack eggs.

God, I love eggs.

Even more than the coffee, they feel like a daily luxury. The coffee is sad and watered down, a constant reminder of what used to be, but the eggs are fresh and delicious every day, courtesy of the chickens we now have on the farm. We have them for breakfast every morning, and I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of them. I don’t care how poopy the chicken coop gets or how many times they peck our hands as we pull out the eggs every day. Chickens are magical.

Our flock was initially small—three hens and a rooster that showed up at the barn a few days after we’d moved to the farmhouse. While Murr and I had worked on transporting cats slowly to the new house, Rabbit had worked on catching chickens and repairing the old coop. The chickens were easy to persuade with a bit of food and settled in. It was so hard not to eat the first eggs they laid, but after a few months, we had a flock. Last month they started really laying eggs like crazy and haven’t stopped.

We are currently in egg heaven.

I’ve pored through old cookbooks, trying to find recipes that involve eggs and no flour. I do miss bread, but having eggs makes things easier. The How to Farm guidebooks say that chickens stop laying in the winter (which surprised me) so we’ll feast while we have them and go heavy on red meat when they stop.

It’s nice to plan ahead for the future. I impulsively crack a few more eggs and then dice some summer squash into the mix. Maybe we can make a quiche? That’d be nice.

Rabbit cuts through the kitchen, a laundry basket in her arms. Kermit rests atop the folded blankets in the basket as my daughter sets it down. “Did you know the cats have been nesting in the guest room?”

“Have they? I didn’t check.” I pull a tiny tomato out of our veggie basket and chop it up, too. “Mommy nesting or just regular nesting?”

“Mommy nesting,” Rabbit says. “Shortcake had kittens in there. Four of them. All over the nice clean blankets.”

I grimace. Kittens have been a bit of a problem with so many cats. We’re in talks with a vet back at the fort to discuss what to do for the future, but for now, we keep getting more kittens. The fort has been taking some of the cats that have proven themselves as mousers, and Gwen has talked about taking some of the cats to Fort Shreveport, her home fort, because they have a rodent problem.