Chapter 153 Chapter 153

Chapter 153 Chapter 153
Kira’s POV

The snow was finally starting to clear out. Just two days ago the whole place was buried under jagged blue ice, but now dark patches of damp earth were showing through the melting banks. Water trickled down the drainage ditches along the side of the path, and up above the tree line, a couple of red-tailed hawks were just floating on the warm air currents, taking their time.

We walked side by side down toward the timber barn. Every few steps, our shoulders bumped against each other. The air was cold enough to bite a little, but it smelled completely different today, just wet dirt, pine sap, and crushed leaves thawing out after months of winter. Talon reached the barn first and shoved the heavy double doors open, letting a massive slab of afternoon sunlight cut through the dark interior. It was quiet inside, carrying that steady, familiar smell of old cedar, dry hay, and rusted iron. Over by the eastern wall, the wooden platform we built for our vows last month was still sitting right where we left it, illuminated by the light coming through the high windows.

I stopped right inside the doorway and looked up at the rafters. The fairy lights from the wedding were still hanging in loops across the beams, untouched. Talon noticed me trailing behind and stepped back to my side. He tossed an arm over my shoulder, pulling me against his side until I was tucked against his jacket.
"What's going on in your head?" he asked.
"Just thinking about standing right here a month ago," I said, leaning my weight into him. "It was freezing, and Mr. Gable was going back and forth with that county paperwork. Feels like ten years ago."

"It kind of was," he said, his voice dropping into that quiet, steady tone he gets when he's completely set on something. "That was the line in the sand. We closed out everything behind us and built this. Anything coming next is just adding to it." he said.
"Not a bad setup," I said, turning around in his grip to wrap my arms around his waist. His face softened out, losing that sharp, guarded look he usually keeps up. He reached up, cupping the side of my face with a warm hand, his thumb resting against my jawline.

"Every foot of this land, the barn, all of it..." he said, looking down at me. "I spent years running around without realizing this was the only thing I was actually trying to find."
I stood up on my tiptoes, pulling him down into a long, slow kiss. Once we finally broke apart, we got to work. We spent the next three hours walking the property lines. First, we checked the frame on the new greenhouse to make sure the timber hadn't warped from the freeze, then we pulled up the paper diagrams Marcus left on the workbench to figure out where the new irrigation pipes needed to run. After that, we took the long trail along the lower fence to scan for any spots where heavy ice or fallen branches had snapped the wire.

There were no security alerts going off on Talon's phone, no unexpected tire tracks on the access road, and no reason to look over our shoulders. It was just the crunch of wet gravel under our boots and the sound of runoff trickling through the woods. By the time the sky started turning a bruised shade of purple over the western ridge, we turned around and started heading back up the main driveway toward the house lights. Talon kept his fingers laced through mine the whole walk up. We made it back to the porch, kicked the thick mud off our boots against the bottom step, and pushed the front door open.

Talon’s pov

The rain hit early Friday morning around six, a heavy, driving downpour that finally washed out the last piles of gray snow and turned the lower pastures into a sea of mud. The steady drum of water on the metal roof was what woke me up. I lay there for a minute in the gray pre-dawn light. Beside me, Kira was still fast asleep under the duvet, her breathing slow and even. No emergency calls on my phone, no red alerts from overseas, no corporate bullshit to deal with. Just quiet.

I slid out of bed without waking her, pulled on a thermal pants, and my heavy rain jacket. I needed to throw more wood on the stove downstairs, and Marcus was already out near the lower greenhouse checking the drainage pumps before the runoff got out of hand. The house was warm down on the main floor. I threw a couple dry ash logs into the woodstove until the fire caught, then started the espresso machine. While it brewed, I pulled on my mud boots and stepped outside.

The rain was coming down hard, smelling like wet dirt, thawing grass, and pine. I walked down the path toward the utility shed to check the gullies. Water was rushing down the slope, but the stone channels Marcus and I stacked last fall were taking the weight, steering the water away from the house and the barn.
Marcus stepped out of the shed right as I walked up, wearing a yellow rain slicker with a tablet in one hand and a wrench in the other.
"Morning, boss!" he yelled over the rain. "First week of spring and the weather isn't playing around!"

"How are the pumps?" I asked, stepping under the roof overhang.
"Holding line," he said, showing me the screen. "North greenhouse pump cleared the first surge no problem, dry as a bone. If this is the worst of it, we're good."
"Keep an eye on the lower creek," I told him, looking off toward the ridge. "If it rises another couple feet, it's going to hit the edge of the access road."
"Already on it," he said. "Got sandbags staged by the tractor shed just in case, but your trenches are doing most of the work."
"Nature's practical," I said. "Saves more time than board meetings."

Marcus grinned, gave a quick wave, and headed off toward his place to monitor the main grid. I walked back up to the house, letting the rain hit my hood. Doing actual work out here, fixing pumps, hauling wood, building fence lines felt better than anything I used to do back in Manhattan. In the old life, everything was handled by ten different people. Here, if something needed doing, you did it yourself. Inside the mudroom, I kicked off my boots, tossed my jacket on the hook, and smelled coffee and toast right away. Kira was at the kitchen counter in a soft cream sweater, plating up eggs and avocado. She looked up when I walked in, instantly smiling.

"Morning," she said, handing me a mug of dark roast. "Did we survive the flood?"
"Drainage is fine. Marcus has it handled," I said, taking a sip before pulling her in and kissing the top of her head. "How's the soil analyzing coming?"