His cousin, Douglas, who’d created so much havoc when he first arrived at Base Camp, had moved to California to work with Fulsom and now traveled with Fulsom the way Renata once had. It was his job to arrange the billionaire’s meetings and appearances, troubleshoot problems and smooth the way so that Fulsom could simply show up and do his thing. Douglas was making contacts in every industry and level of politics and couldn’t be happier. The rest of their family was happy, too. Angus had realized how much the part of his family left behind in Scotland had resented the opportunities won by those who’d made it here. Now Douglas was flourishing, and communications among them all had ramped up.
He thought almost every living member of his extended family had visited Base Camp in the last year. His mother and stepfather, John, came to see him every few months. At first he’d been suspicious of her attempts to reconnect, but now he welcomed them. Everyone made mistakes, he realized. Everyone wanted to be loved. Being able to depend on his mother—finally—had healed something he hadn’t even known was broken in him.
As for Win, she was thriving, too.
Angus reached down to kiss her when she approached, Iris laughing in her arms.
As “his girls” leaned against him, delighted in the bear hug he gave them, warmth filled his chest. At one time he’d thought he’d lost Win forever, and it had been too reminiscent of the way he’d lost his mother for comfort. Now she was here with him for good, his ring on her finger, her presence in his house a reminder every single day that she’d pledged her life to his and loved him the way he loved her.
These days he knew a peace that had always evaded him previously. He had someone he could depend on and knew that she depended on him, too. When he woke up in the morning and saw Win’s sweet face beside him, he fell in love with her all over again.
As part of a large community, they’d taken care to develop their own habits and rituals. They ate breakfast together every morning at home. Every other Saturday night was date night, made possible by swapping overnight child care with Savannah and Jericho. Once a month they drove into town to spend a few hours away from Base Camp altogether. It made coming back home to all their friends that much more special.
“Little girls should be in bed,” Win murmured against his cheek as he held her.
“Just a few minutes longer. Let’s watch the sun go down.”
“Sounds good to me.” She didn’t pull away, and he didn’t let go. This was what he loved best about his life now. Win in his arms, his little girl in hers. A circle of family that was all his.
As the sun went down, Win wondered how she could ever have considered returning home to California for good. Base Camp was her true home in every sense of the word now. She didn’t hear from her parents often, but she was okay with that. They were struggling to clear their names of wrongdoing. Sleeping in the bed they’d made for themselves. She didn’t worry that they wouldn’t be okay. They still had a fortune, after all, and could remake themselves a hundred times over until they found a new way to be happy.
She kept closer touch with Rosa and Maria and their daughters, the beginning of a new family of her heart, as she put it when she thought about it.
That family encompassed all her friends here at Base Camp, both old and new, a circle that kept growing bigger as Base Camp expanded.
In the past year, she had learned that her early interest in design wasn’t a passing thing, and it surprised her how long it had taken her to realize that’s where her talents lay. She had fooled around with the hand loom she bought in town until its limitations began to pinch and Curtis made her an even bigger one. It was fun to weave textiles. She classed that as a hobby, creating wall hangings and bedding for the home she’d made with Angus, but it was designing patterns that could be reproduced en masse that really brought her to life.
She was currently in negotiations with her parents to take over Manners Textiles, the original company her grandfather had founded, which had expanded wildly over the years. Her parents were more amenable than she’d expected to letting the division go, but they communicated with her through their lawyers, so the deal wasn’t bringing them any closer together.
Win was all right with that.
Since marrying Angus she’d realized she didn’t want any forced relationships. His love was all-encompassing, and Iris loved her with an abandon so wild it was healing all the little tears in her heart. Her husband would never allow someone to kidnap her for publicity. Iris would always adore her simply for being her. It put to shame the transactional love she’d known from her parents, and she had no desire to experience that again.
Her love of design had expanded to the gardens, too, where she was helping Leslie and Boone look at their setup in a more wholistic way. All three of them had participated in a permaculture design course the previous summer, and now they were putting a number of practices they’d learned into play. Boone had taught himself many of the principles in earlier years, but even he admitted he’d learned more than he’d thought he would from the experts who taught the class. Win liked thinking of Base Camp as a whole, linking all the different parts together, following the inputs of sunshine, labor, rain and so
