Mikael and Maxim took the teens to look at some heavy draft horses some five hours’ drive away on the twenty-first. That left the Americans, Sean, and the little kids on the farm. It felt empty like that, and for the first time, Sean truly knew they all were part of the large family they’d made for themselves.
Before it had always been the wolves as a pack and the rest of the family in the other house. Whole, but separate at the same time. Having so few people there, even for one day, made Sean see that if one of them was gone, it would be different. The dynamics would change, and eventually, gradually, everything would change for the farm. That was what was already going on with Zoya gone.
There was no Mom for the kids. That role had to be filled in by someone else some way, despite the fact that nobody other than Zoya could be Jude, June, May, and Jamie’s mother.