March 20th 2023

Chapter 79
We Shine For The Summer

The Friars returned home just in time for the start of summer camps, which was exciting for them in many more ways than the one. Four of the girls were set to be campers themselves, while the ranch was about to welcome its own load of young riders and horse lovers travelling out to Austin to spend the next few weeks at Sullivan Stables. They would all have hated to miss the arrivals, but thankfully they made it back the day before. This left them time to reunite with Wyatt and Finn, reunite with the dogs, unpack, relax, sleep in their own beds again, and the next morning, they would be off to the ranch to greet the campers.

Wyatt had made it through those days alone with the baby well enough. He'd known and accepted that it would be hard, and it was, but he had made it to the other side feeling like he could be exactly the parent that his son needed and, for having several insecurities to cope with since before they'd ever set the boy in his arms, it meant a whole lot for him to know this.

The year's XCs, the Makovetsky siblings, had left their host families… but they were still in Austin. They had wanted to stay on and attend camp for part of the summer, and Lucas was more than happy to oblige, so they had already settled into two of the rooms up at the B&B which had been transformed and allocated to the campers. Today, they would be there to help and get the new arrivals settled, guiding them to their rooms, showing them the stables if they came with their horses. They would also be counselors to the campers sharing their respective rooms, along with a couple other of the older kids with them that year. One of them would be repeat camper and now fifteen-year-old Kimiko Matsuoka.

It was always so much so much easier to be surprised at how much the repeaters had grown when he would see them for a few weeks every summer. And when they would start off with them as one of the smaller campers, like Kimiko had, the transformation was that much more evident. She'd been eleven when he'd first met her, and now she was about to start high school in the fall. And speaking of growth spurts…

"Hey, Wolfy," Lucas grinned, spotting his camper's younger brother, Haru, at her side. The eight-year-old grinned back, hearing his nickname.

"Hi, Mister," he waved.

"So, I heard you were going to be staying with your aunt and uncle and your cousin while your sister's here this summer?" Lucas asked, and the boy nodded.

He was still too young to attend this camp with Kimiko, would have to wait another three years even though he'd been wanting to come for as long as she'd done it. Lucky for him, he had the means to meet the problem halfway: his mother's sister, Haruna Farrell. She was the whole reason Kimiko had even heard of the camp and started attending, and this year she and her husband had offered to host Haru. He was going to attend his own camp, the same as Marianne and the triplets soon would.

"Hey, Annie, come here!" Lucas called out when he spotted his daughter trailing after a couple of the campers, themselves following Mila Makovetsky and leading their horses. Marianne stopped and looked at him, looked back at the horses, conflicted about what to do before finally relenting and running back to her father. She felt a lot better about it when she spotted the girl standing across from him. She ran directly into Kimiko's arms, which almost sent her tumbling to the ground. Marianne had not forgotten meeting the girl that first year, and meeting her horse, Finch, in the process. Kimiko hadn't forgotten either and she was just as shocked by her growth as Lucas had been for her. This was not the little four-year-old she'd met out at Nando's Diner.

"This is my brother, you've seen him before, haven't you?" Kimiko asked, pointing to Haru, who had the hesitant look of a child who did not want to be put in the spotlight. For once, Marianne was kind of the same way. She wasn't sure, didn't remember. "Well, he's going to be here same time as me this year, staying at our aunt and uncle's."

"And he's going to be at camp, too, probably in your group," Lucas added, and Marianne's face opened up again. She could work with that, absolutely. Before long, she was questioning the boy, asking what he liked to do and telling him about what camp would be like. He unfroze, too, and they chatted until the Farrells finally arrived to take him home. They were both looking forward to meeting up at camp again the next morning.

With all the campers settled in, they were handed into the care of Cristina Vega. It had been one thing when Juliet still ran Sullivan Stables, when she lived on the property and in the very house where they would be staying. But now Juliet had retired, and he ran the camp, and he definitely did not live there. This was Cristina's second year already of having the campers in the house, and he knew without a doubt that they could not have gone on having them all in there without someone like her. The guests that came to the Bed & Breakfast were one thing, but these were unaccompanied minors taking up residence in her home, which essentially made it as though she had just inherited twenty-some more kids for her to be mother to alongside her Rafa. She ran that house very well.

"Dad, what about Mackenzie and Aubrey?" Marianne asked as they drove home from the ranch. He only had to think about it for a moment to know what she meant to ask. She was going to camp tomorrow, and so were Kacey, Lucy, and Remy, but the other two were too little and they wouldn't get to go, and she predicted – correctly – that they wouldn't like being kept out of yet another thing like school or the afterschool program that their big sisters all got to do.

"Oh, we have that covered," Lucas assured her with a grin, and he laughed when he saw her realize that they'd managed to keep something from her, and she hadn't caught on.

They had been well aware of the 'problem,' and they hadn't been alone. They weren't the only ones with smaller children, 'too little for camp' children. When they'd started talking about all that, one week at the Babineaux house for dinner with the turtles, they'd come up with the start of a solution. There were plenty of them that had jobs and some that didn't, or at least that didn't have them at the moment for whatever reason, so why didn't they alternate days where they got to see to all their tiny ones together?

"You made them shirts!" Marianne appeared at her mother's side, startling her. Maya hadn't even heard her coming along. Now she laughed, signalled for her to be quiet.

"Of course, I made them shirts, it's me," she pointed at herself, and Marianne's expression turned to 'oh, right, makes sense.' "Everyone's got theirs to give the kids, and your sisters are going to get theirs tonight. I might need your help to sell them on it…" Maya told her daughter even as she realized it. Yes, they would have their own mini camp, and it was going to be great, she was sure of that… They only had to convince the girls of that and not have them get stuck on the 'but we want to go with everyone else.'

Marianne could always be counted on for this, and she had the right tactic for it, too. All they had to do was to point out that there were three whole camps in total, not just one and the other, and that all three of them were going to be just as fun as the others… though possibly the mini camp was going to be the very best, and weren't they just so lucky that they got to go?

"You know, I don't think that's going to work on some of them much longer," Lucas whispered as they looked on, seeing Marianne's sales pitch land, and be received with curiosity. Maya reached out without looking, covering his mouth with her hand, and shushing him. Sure, yes, the triplets would be turning five in a matter of weeks, but they didn't have to reach too far ahead already, did they? They could keep them little a while longer, maybe even a few more whiles longer. And in the meantime, their littlest ones had many more whiles in their tiny girl hands.

Thanks to that, the next morning, it was the great camp kick off for all of them. Marianne had her new camp shirt – in a shade of blue she was very, very happy with – and Kacey, Lucy, and Remy had theirs – in red, which made them happy because it reminded them of their big sister and her bandanna – and Mackenzie and Aubrey had theirs – in a sunny yellow that complimented the others very well. That had been an important part for Maya and the other parents. They wanted their mini campers to feel that they belonged because they did.

"So, what are you going to do in three years, when you can come to camp at the ranch if you want to?" Lucas asked his firstborn after they'd dropped off the yellow shirts at their destination for day one, the Orlando house, and seen the red-shirted triplets off with their own group.

"I don't know," Marianne reflected, then, "Wait, do I get to stay in the house with the rest of them?" Going off that wide-eyed look on her, she hoped the answer would be yes.

"Well, you wouldn't have to because you live here, but… yeah, probably. Would you want to?" he asked her, already knowing the answer… or part of it.

"Yeah, yeah," she nodded, sounding like Aubrey, which made him laugh. "I want to stay in Granny's old house."

It took him by surprise at first, but then less so because… of course. The house had been Mel's B&B for a little while now, and it had been Juliet's house for a long time before that, but before all that it had been her great grandmother's house, Marianne the first's house, and for some time many years ago, it had been a young Melinda Sullivan's childhood home. They'd have to leave it to the likes of his Annie girl to see it through that connection and cling to it.

"Then we'll talk about it again in three years," he smiled at her, and the smile he got in return warmed his heart that much more.

"Hey, Haru's here!" she stopped after having spotted the boy coming along in his matching blue shirt, escorted by his uncle. "Dad, can I go? I promised I'd show him around."

"Yeah, go for it," he motioned toward the man and the boy. Marianne started to run but only made it about three steps before she stopped and pivoted, running back to her father to hug him.

"See you later," she looked up at him as he hugged her back. "Have a good day with your campers."

"Thanks, same to you," he smiled, kissed her forehead, and let her go, which was not a moment too soon, as his arms were barely off of her that she was turning and running to meet with Haru and direct him toward her friends in their blue shirts, Winnie, Harper, June, and Mosi, so they might become his friends, too.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners