Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(117)

“Got a group coming in,” the sentry announced. “Post One.”

“Huh. Haven’t had visitors in a while.”

He plucked up the radio, and with Arlys, Bill walked to the door of the shop, out to the sidewalk.

Arlys used the flat of her hand to cut the glare as she looked up the street toward Post One.

She heard the horses before she saw them.

“No engines. On horseback.”

Then she saw the girl on the white horse, short dark hair under a faded ball cap; a man, tan and lean, on a bay; a trio of boys. A couple of dogs, and … she knew a wolf when she saw one, but had never seen one as white as the horse. It distracted her before she scanned the group, looked at the woman.

A tumble of blond hair under a wide-brimmed hat.

It only took a moment, just a moment for her breath to catch, to catch and release. “Oh my God. Oh my God, it’s Lana!”

Tears blurred her eyes as she took off running.

Lana swung off the horse with tears of her own as she ran to meet Arlys.

Lana let out a watery laugh as they met in a hard embrace. “Arlys.”

“It’s really you.” Arlys drew back, laughed, then hugged Lana again. “It’s really you.”

“I’m so happy to see you. I’m so glad to be here. I missed you. I missed all of you, so much.”

“You look wonderful. Oh, you really do. I should hate you for it.”

“It’s Bill. It’s Bill.” Lana threw out a hand for his as he hurried over.

“It’s a good day. It’s a fine day. I radioed down. You’re going to have one hell of a welcome home party.”

“These are your kids?” Arlys dashed tears away.

“My boys, Colin, Travis, Ethan. My husband, Simon. Simon Swift.”

He dismounted. “Arlys Reid. I know your voice. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s beyond nice to meet you.” She held out a hand, laughed again. “Hell with it!” And threw her arms around him. “You brought her back.”

“I don’t know if I can claim credit for that.” He looked up at Fallon.

“My daughter,” Lana said. “Fallon. Fallon Swift.”

“Fallon.” Overcome, Arlys squeezed Lana’s hand.

“You have a good place,” Fallon said as she studied the street, the houses from Laoch’s back. “Good security. The posts knew me from the night of the ambush, and one knew my mother.”

“Fallon. Say hello.”

At her mother’s sigh, Fallon dismounted. “I’m sorry. Hello. I know your voice, too. You’re doing a lot to help.”

“We do what we can.”

“We’ll all do more.”

Simon put an arm around Fallon’s shoulders. “Not right yet. Is there a place we can rest and water the—”

He broke off because they were coming.

On bikes, in trucks, on horseback, on foot, on wing.

A damn parade, he thought, and it’d been a long time since he’d seen one.

One of those on wings—a mop of curly red hair and a baby in her arms—fluttered down in front of Lana.

“Queen Fred.”

Laughing, the redhead shifted the baby—another red curly mop—to one arm, wrapped the other around Lana.

“You have a baby.”

“I have five. This is Willow, the youngest. We have five, Eddie and me. Our oldest boy is Max.”

“Oh. Oh.” Lana dropped her forehead to Fred’s. “You and Eddie. You and Eddie,” Lana repeated.

“He was really slow about it, but I waited. I waited for you.” She turned to Fallon, curtsied. “I waited for you.”

Brakes squealed, a gangly man with shaggy straw-colored hair leaped out. His cap flew off as he came on the run.

He plucked Lana off her feet, swung her around, kissed her on the mouth, swung her again.

“Eddie. Eddie and Fred. Oh, Eddie. And Joe!” The old dog jumped out of the back of the truck, scrambled over for petting.

“We looked for you. Lana, we—Starr said—but we looked for you.”

“I had to go.” She rubbed Eddie’s damp cheek with her hand. “And I got to where I needed to be. Eddie, this is Simon. This is my husband.”

She needn’t have worried, as Eddie shot out a hand, gripped Simon’s, shook and shook and shook it. “I’m real glad to meet you. And to see you again,” he said to Fallon. “And, hey, you got yourself three dudes on top of it. And … Shit, somebody else has themselves a wolf.”

“Share.” Will stepped forward, enfolded Lana. “Welcome back. Will Anderson,” he said to Simon as they shook.

“Simon Swift.”

“Your girl saved our bacon, not once but twice. Let’s get these people out of the sun, and you’ll have plenty of volunteers to get your horses settled in, if that’s okay.”

But Lana was pushing through the crowd. She’d spotted Rachel, Jonah. And Katie.

“Hey, you boys hungry?” Eddie called out and got a universal “yes” from the three boys.

“How about I take the boys here down to the community kitchen, get them some eats? We can take the horses down to the holding paddock on the other side of town, if that’s okay.”