Chapter 74

• Noah hung his head down and let the water run over him. The rest of the day had gone better than he could have anticipated. When he’d finally tracked down Cooper, he’d been outside the fence with a chainsaw. After the problems at Blair’s, he’d decided it was a good idea to cut back any branches or trees that were too close to the fence. Noah hadn’t thought of that, and he was glad that Cooper had. He had been worrying over leaving here to go out with the team, but Cooper had thought of everything, so his cat and he was more settled about going.
• Cooper enlisted the help of the three boys, Julian, Everett, and Liam to drag the brush out of the way. Then there was talk of a fire pit being put in the backyard for gatherings. Noah was all for the firepit, it was a great place to sit and forget things or overthink them—the gathering part he wasn’t too keen on.
• He glanced down at his arms, very proud of the fact that once Cooper had let him take over the saw, he hadn’t cut anything off or injured anyone. He couldn’t be held responsible for Liam being clumsy and tripping over things, that was all thanks to a growing body and learning how to navigate it. None of the boys had complained, not once, and they even smiled while working. It was good to see them settling into life here. By the time they were finishing up, Akira and a few of the women, whose names he still couldn’t keep straight had come out to haul the blocked-up wood inside the fence.