Zoe favored a different brand of luck. She liked the sea, neighbors and the ability to drive to a grocery store without risking her life on a spine-jarring roller-coaster track that Rafe called a road. Wolves were not her personal cup of tea, and the mountains gave her vertigo.

“Wonderful place for the boys!” she murmured to Rafe. “All this terrific space, things to climb, open air…” As soon as the two boys tumbled outside, she started gathering their gear from the backseat. “I can’t think of a better spot on earth for kids to grow up.”

Perhaps after ninety trips, the Jeep would be empty. Two suitcases had taken care of the kids’ clothes, but then came the Play-Doh, books, X-Men action dolls, a sacred rock collection, approximately five billion unleaveable stuffed animals, Parker’s blanket…

“What are we having for lunch, Zoe?”

“We’re starving,” Parker reminded her, which she wasn’t likely to forget. He’d told her that at least fifteen times in the past twenty minutes.

She paused long enough to softly ruffle his hair. He could remind her another forty times about lunch, and she still wouldn’t care. Anything was better than that horrible moment on the plane when he’d suddenly started crying for his mommy. Rafe had miraculously come up with a pack of watermelon-flavored bubble gum.

If she could have guaranteed Aaron would never cry again, she’d have bought a life’s supply of watermelon-flavored chewing gum.

“Where are we going to sleep?”

“Where’s your sled?”

“Where’s the TV?”

Zoe’s quick glance at Rafe was filled with wry humor. Four-year-old boys never seemed to stop talking, and they excelled in asking questions that adults had no answers for. Still, her ready smile suddenly hovered in no-man’s-land. Rafe was slowly but surely tackling all the boy’s questions, but his eyes were fastened on her. On her mouth. On the sweep of a blush across her cheeks. On the yellow tam perched frivolously on her head.