“What do you think of it?” she asked.

Tressa looked all around as if she were measuring it in feet and inches. “It’s big enough.”

“For what?” Liz slipped an arm around each of them.

“Winter,” Marva Jo said.

“You are thinkin’ about changing the winter site to here? That would be awesome!” Liz swiped at a tear that escaped her eye and ran down her cheek.

“Not now. When you and Blaze take over the carnival. It would be ideal. Raylen could spend several months a year next to his folks and then y’all could travel the rest of it,” Tressa said.

“Keep dreamin’, ladies.” She giggled. “It ain’t happenin’. I wanted a cowboy for my Christmas present, not a carnie.”

“And what’s wrong with a carnie?” Blaze came up from behind and wrapped his big arms around all three of them.

“Not one thing,” Liz said, and went all misty- eyed again. “I love you all, but I’ve made up my mind. I’d be over the moon for y’all to change your winter place when Poppa is gone, but I’m staying right here.”

“That will be for the next generation to talk about. Blaze will oversee making decisions if you are serious, Lizelle,” Marva Jo said.

“I am very serious,” Liz said and yet there was a niggling little doubt still in the corner of her heart.

“That’s not for years and years down the road,” Blaze said. “Tressa and Marva Jo are still going to be running the big show when they are ninety. Now show me and Tressa to the kitchen. It’s been years since I had a big kitchen to work inside.”

Liz spun around, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered, “Thank you!”

“Is it this way?” Tressa pointed toward the tack room.

“No, it’s in my house where you two are sleeping tonight.”

Marva Jo shook her head. “We’ve decided that we’ll eat in your house and cook in your house and maybe even enjoy a bubble bath in a real bathtub, but we aren’t sleeping there. Neither of us would be able to get a wink of rest without wheels under us, and besides, look what sleeping in that house has done to you. Those roots might attack us in our sleep and never let us leave, and we’ve got a carnival to put on the road in four months.”

Liz was only mildly disappointed. This year, she’d talked them into staying three nights and setting foot in her house. Next year, she might get them into a real bed. One baby step at a time and she could be a patient woman—when it came to some things.

“Then lead the way,” Blaze said.

“I will, but you don’t get to play in the kitchen until after you round up some guys to haul a bunch of tables and folding chairs from Raylen’s barn to mine. I’m borrowing them for our dinner on Wednesday night,” she said.

Blaze gave her an extra squeeze. “I can do that. You show these two women your house and then come back and take me to Raylen’s barn. Can we make a side stop somewhere along the way and see Glorious Danny Boy and Major Jack?”