Chapter 71

Friday came with a vengeance, as if it decimated the days before it and wiped out any extra hours I might have had to get anything done. What had been months in planning seemed to have snuck up on me like a thief in the night. In the long run, this was for the best. Hayden and Cash would still be here, but it was time for me to move on to start a new story.

"Hey, Callie?" Cash startled me.

I tipped my head to see his narrow frame. "Yeah, buddy?" I was going to miss him the most. In a lot of ways, he was an extension of me. I'd picked up where Hayden had left off since the day he was born.

"Mom wants to know when Davis will be here?" His voice was unusually deep for his age.

It made me giggle, and I wondered if that was what Josh Turner had sounded like as a child.

"Any minute. Tell her I'll be out in just a few. I'm throwing these last things in a box." Everything was packed with the exception of the stuff on my bed.