Page 22 of Wicked Love

“Yes, we have so many and they love visitors,” Ruby says excitedly. “You guys are more than welcome to come over and visit.”

“I come to your house,” Becca says.

Poppy looks at me and the smile drops from her face. She turns back to Ruby.

“I can't turn that down,” she says. “It's not every day that I get invited to come visit emus. Count me in.”

The rest of the girls nod excitedly.

“I’m in too,” Elle says.

“You’re going to love them,” Sadie says.

“Dad. We go see emus,” Becca says.

“We probably need to head back to Silver Hills,” I tell her.

“We see emus,” Becca says, pounding her fist lightly on the table.

Now I don't just give Becca whatever she wants all the time, especially not when she has a meltdown over something. There are times I have to put my foot down. But today is not one of those days. Most of the people in this room know and love Becca, but I still don’t want this to escalateduring Weston and Sadie’s celebratory weekend. We have time to take a little detour. We don’t actually have to be back to Silver Hills for anything important. She’ll love the freaking emus. It'll probably make her whole week.

Just because Poppy might be going doesn't mean anything.

Keep telling yourself that, I think.

And that’s how I end up at Callum and Ruby Landmark’s ranch after brunch. It’s a beautiful piece of property with the mountains surrounding a stunning house and barn. As soon as we step out of the car, Becca starts laughing and I feel like a jerk for wanting to avoid this stop. A flop-eared goat and cow are the first to greet us, and then an emu comes running up like she’s late to the party.

Becca squeals when the emu stops right in front of her, half-terrified and half-delighted.

Ruby comes running up behind the emu. “Dolly, slow your roll! Sorry for that in-your-face greeting. Dolly really loves company. She won’t hurt you, I promise.”

Becca holds her hand up to pet the emu and the goat sticks its head in the way. Becca cracks up.

“Daddy, he pet my hand!”

I laugh. “He sure did.”

“That’s Delphine and she loves to hog all the petting time. And this is Irene,” she says, petting the cow.

Delphine and Irene realize there are more people arriving and go to greet them. Dolly stays near us, ducking her head.

“She likes you,” Ruby tells Becca. She points at the other emus roaming the property. “They’ll like you too, but they’re not as friendly.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Poppy getting the same star treatment from the cow and the goat. Her head falls back as she laughs, and Becca turns at the sound.

“Poppy, look! Dolly!” She points at the emu and Poppy’s eyes widen.

“I’ve never seen an emu in real life. Wow. That iswickedcool,” she says.

I snort and then frown, trying to play it off like that sound didn’t come from me.

But it’s too late. Poppy’s eyes narrow as she looks at me.

“What was that?” she asks.

“Hmm, what?” I ask, turning to look behind me.

“Was that a scoff I heard coming from you?”

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