From out the window, I watch the llamas and alpacas run toward Simon at the fence line. Joseph, our youngest, is on his shoulders, and Hazel our oldest clutches Simon's free hand, and they're all grinning.

As the animals get closer, our kids squeal in excitement. There's something about the goofy, hopeful expressions of those animals when the kids and Simon turn up with apples and carrots to feed them that our children find utterly delightful. Truthfully, I do too. While the alpacas tend to be friendlier and less inclined to spit at people in annoyance, all of them love the fruit and veggie treats.

Beside them, Rex's tail swishes, not quite a wag. At fourteen, he trails the kids like a guard dog, but he's slowed down. Simon and I have been talking about getting an Australian Shepherd when the kids are a little older. Sometimes younger dogs give older ones a renewed sense of youth. Thankfully, Rex is in good health. He's just old.

My vet tech, Marley, peers out the window to the right of me. We're between clients, a rarity due to a cancellation, and I should be catching up on phone calls and journal articles. There's always more to learn.

"Your kids are hilarious. You'd think Simon didn't do this with them regularly," she says. "Also, the fact that your husband does this with them regularly is like..." She chuckles. "Are you swooning? I think I'd be swooning."

"He's a good dad." I smile and a softness spreads across my chest. He's actually an amazing father. Attentive. Loving.

"No shit," she says and heads back to the front desk. "Not a lot of men, even in this day and age, would quit their jobs when their wife says she's drowning under the strain of two small kids and a thriving vet practice. He was a nurse, wasn't he?"

"Yep." I turn from the window and consider going out to spend some time with them. But once I'm out there, tearing myself away from Joe and Hazel can lead to tears. "We knew when we bought the farmland we wanted to raise some sort of animal. I thought it might be sheep. Simon really took to them when we lived in Scotland. But the alpacas and llamas have been a good investment. Easy to care for and their wool is so soft."

"Also worth a good buck," Marley says, tapping away on her computer at the front. "Does Simon really enjoy farming and looking after kids?"

"He says he does." We've got a no bullshit policy which is what led to me finally telling him I wasn't coping with his shifts, my vet practice, and two kids under five. While I thought having them close together was a brilliant strategy initially, my vet practice took off a lot faster than I expected. Blessings all around, but when they're piling on top of you, they stop feeling quite so amazing.

We had a long discussion about options, but apart from hiring a nanny or trimming my blossoming practice, the only other logical solution was for Simon to quit nursing. I thought we were mulling it over for a few days when Simon came to me with the alpaca and llama proposal. A solution that benefited both of us. Simon loved farming in Scotland, and if he was going to quit nursing, he wanted something beyond the kids and house.

Once that was set, he quit his job, and here we were. Farming, vetting, loving, and living our best lives. Not sure how many people can say that, but I'm pretty freaking proud to be one of them.

They finish feeding the animals and then he takes the two kids into the barn with him for their chores. Simon includes them in everything—they're both at the age where they want to help. Cute, but not always as helpful as they think they are. The jobs take ten times longer, and sometimes need to be done twice, but Simon rarely complains. The videos he shares with me later of their funny comments or self-confident proclamations of being a 'big help' always put a smile on my face.

"He might go back once they're in school," I say. Hazel starts next year, but Joe won't go for another two years with the way their birthdays work out.

"He's not worried about losing his nursing mojo?" The phone rings, and Marley picks it up before I have a chance to respond.

If we can make the alpacas and llamas viable, Simon has been talking about expanding into other animals or creating some sort of tourist draw around the farm we have. At this point, I'm open to anything as long as we're all happy.

My next client comes into the front door, and I tear myself from the window to greet them.

~ * ~

One major advantage of having my vet practice next to my house, other than being able to ogle my hot husband as he does manly outdoor farm work, is the lack of commute. When my day is done, I lock the door to the clinic and I walk across the laneway, past the alpaca and llama fields, to our old farmhouse.

Yet another thing on our to-do list is to build a new house and tear this one down. Nothing inside is modern apart from our furniture. We stripped old, smoke stained floral wallpaper before we moved in and threw on a coat of paint. The house wasn't what sold us on this place—it was the lifestyle and the vast fields. Didn't hurt that we managed to get this place before it even went on the market. Aaron's numerous business contacts around the city came in handy when we put out the word we were looking for farmland anywhere within an hour of Grand Rapids.

When I open the front door, I'm greeted with the smell of slow cooked ribs and mac and cheese. It's a meal that's a favorite with our kids and a perfect way to start the weekend.

Did I mention my husband has also taken up the cooking mantle?

The kids must hear the door click shut because I'm greeted by a chorus of "Mama" and a stampede of feet. I crouch down, and they both hit my arms at full tilt. It's a greeting they've perfected, and I'm going to be pretty sad the day one of them doesn't run to me at the door. Closing my eyes, I squeeze them tight against me in a hug we've termed the Mommy Sandwich.

When I glance up, Simon is leaning against the entry to the kitchen, a tea towel slung over his shoulder.

"Good day?" he asks.

"The floor is hot lava," Hazel yells to Joe before dashing off back to the living room.

"No!" Joe cries and races after her. "Hot lava!"

Simon chuckles and watches them until they disappear in the other room. Then he turns the full weight of his attention back to me, and I loop my arms around his neck.

"My day was excellent. I even had time to watch my hot husband out the window as he fed carrots and apples to our livestock."

"A little bit of voyeurism, huh?" He nuzzles my neck. "I love it."

"I did too."

He pushes off the doorway to press me against the opposite side, his lips finding mine as we move. He tastes like smoky barbeque sauce and beer.

"You hungry?" he asks, his teeth grazing my earlobe.

"For something." I jump on him, looping my legs around his waist, and the kids scream about lava in the other room.

Simon chuckles and carries me into the kitchen to set me on the counter to watch him cook. My window with him will be short. Ruby, Dean, and their kids are coming for dinner, and soon our kids will remember they haven't seen me all day. They'll be keen to share all their newest tricks and accomplishments. The hot lava game, although surprisingly popular, can only last so long.

"How was your day?" I eye the mac and cheese cooling on the stove.

Simon takes the ribs out of the oven and slides them onto the stove beside the pasta. "It was a good day. Hazel and I spent some time going over all two hundred and six bones in the body while Joey was napping. She has an insatiable appetite for location, use, movement, and breaks. God she loves looking at x-rays."

I laugh as I pry a grape off the stem and pop it into my mouth. "She's your kid."

"At least she doesn't know yet about all the things people stick into various orifices. I'm not looking forward to answering those questions."

"I'll just be happy if we make it through without our own children sticking things in their orifices that shouldn't be there." I hold up my hand for a high five and Simon slaps it, and then gives me a quick kiss.

"Here's to no ER visits for dumb shit, at least for a while."

"Hazel would probably be in there telling them how to extract the crayon the 'right' way, anyway."

"We're raising one of those, aren't we?" Simon muses while he douses the ribs in more sauce.

"I think we are. I'm not mad about it. But kids change—people change. Who knows what she'll be like when she's older?"

"Still one of my most favorite people in the world," Simon says, and he gives me another kiss.

My heart swells, and I grin at Simon as the doorbell rings. "Today is one of those days where I just feel super lucky, you know?" I hop off the counter and pop another grape in my mouth.

"I know exactly what you mean," Simon says, following me into the front foyer to welcome Dean, Ruby, and their kids. "Ninety-five percent of my days are exactly that."

"And the other five?" I ask as we reach the door.

Simon raises his arms to the sky and pretends to tear out his hair. "Why, God? Why?"

I'm laughing as I open the door to Dean, Ruby, and their two kids who are close to our kids' ages.

"What are you laughing about?" Ruby asks as she passes me a bottle of wine, and their two kids vanish into the living room to another chorus of 'hot lava'.

"The five percent of the time when I want to rip my hair out as a stay-at-home father," Simon says. "If I walked into that living room right now, it might be a five percent day instead of a ninety-five percent day. I bet it's an absolute mess."

"At least you're not dealing with maggots and buttholes anymore," Dean says with a chuckle.

"Have you met our kids?" I ask while I lead them into the dining room. "Maggots and buttholes are their specialties."

"Please don't mention buttholes to Hazel. We'll be down the YouTube rabbit hole of appropriate kid videos for the digestive system."

"She's still that into the human body?" Ruby asks, tugging out a chair at the table.

"I never knew kids could get that fixated so early on something," Simon says over his shoulder as he goes into the kitchen.

"I guess Tristan went through that dinosaur phase," Dean muses.

"I feel like Hazel came out of the womb with an internal diagram in her brain of the human body that she's desperately trying to fill. Maybe once all the pieces are slotted into the puzzle she'll be able to let it go," I say.

"Call the kids or let the adults eat in relative quiet first?" Simon asks when he pops his head out the door to the kitchen.

"Quiet!" Ruby calls back with enthusiasm. "I knew there was a reason I liked coming here."

"I'm the reason you like coming here." I grin at her.

"Sure, sure. That's why." She winks at me.

"I'm just gonna use the bathroom before we get started," Dean says, excusing himself from the dining room.

"So," Ruby says while I open the bottle of wine. "How are things out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"Shockingly good." I pour us both a glass of wine, and then I splash a bit into Dean's. He'll be driving them home. "We've been out here, what? Four years now. Other than being in desperate need of a new house, everything else is coming together."

"This place isn't so bad. Very lived in."

I laugh. "That's code for too freaking old." I wave her off. "It's fine. We'll get there. Hopefully before the kids are in high school."

"Simon's still enjoying the Mr. Dad role? Child wrangler, alpaca whisperer, and culinary genius?"

"He is," Simon says, exiting the kitchen with two plates, which he presents to me and Ruby with a flourish. "My culinary genius on full display."

Ruby laughs and scoops the scent of the food toward her nose. "Smelling it is the first step, right?"

"Yes. Then you spin your plate. Taste a small bit and then tell me again I'm a genius." He disappears back into the kitchen to get his plate and Dean's.

Dean and Simon arrive back at the table at the same time.

"You're always making me look bad," Dean says and a grin tugs at the edges of his lips. "This isn't no heat, stir, serve."

Simon glances around the table, and our kids squeal in the background, oblivious so far to what's happening in the dining room. Once we've eaten, we'll call them in and the food will be the perfect temperature for them, and we'll have been able to visit in peace.

"What should we toast to?" Simon asks.

I lift my glass and make eye contact with him. "To happiness." Everyone raises their glasses. "Ninety-five percent of the time."

We all laugh and take a drink.

Author's Note:

We have come to the end, my friends. If you enjoyed the story, consider adding it to a reading list, recommending it to friends, giving a shout-out on your conversation wall...anything really to let other people know how you felt. It all helps! ♥ Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. I appreciate each and every one of you.

Looking for another read? Check out The Nanny.

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