Page 12 of Their Secret Hideaway

“And it’s not like you don’t have excess amounts of it right now, big boy.” She gives me a playful little spank.

I raise my brow. “I figure you’d want to hold out before we got to that. I don’t think this is the ideal location for it.”

“Oh, I’ll hold back.” The tips of her grin curl. “For now.”

We keep our stroll through the forest going. The places I’m showing her aren’t as majestic, but I feel like they still have value. The littlest of things can mean so much to people, even if most look at it and see nothing of worth. Even those wonderful places Tabitha showed me, I think most people would just see as a bunch of trees, or another piddling little pond.

Hand in hand, we continue through the forest. Everything’s so serene with her. Everything’s so lovely. I yearn to spend the rest of my days alongside her, relishing everyday the same as the next. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before.

I just don’t know if it can happen. Nothing lasts forever, especially nothing good.

Our worlds collided through happenstance, and soon they’d break apart, and continue into the deep night sky.

I hated to think about when that time would come.

SIX

fox

“You need to hurry up and finalize the details of the Wagner project,” Dad says, pointing over the map of Evergreen Valley. “It should be easy enough. He was pretty clear in what he wanted.”

Dad isn’t lying. The terms are clear. Five acres, a massive mansion, and nine holes of golf on the field.

I guess I should be thankful he didn’t think he needed the full eighteen.

“I’m working on it. You know we need to make deals with the locals and how to clear cut the forests for the project. Then getting the builders in.”

“This isn’t that big of a project, Fox. You should be able to handle it. If you dawdle too much longer, I'm going to have to step in, and that’ll look terrible for you in the eyes of the family.”

The family. It’s always about appealing to the family with him.

I didn’t want to hate my father. I don’t think I did.

But our philosophies of life have greatly drifted apart. I guess for him, it’s all a matter of being dirt poor until he was in his mid-forties, and now that a chance at true financial success has shown up, no matter how unscrupulous it might be, he doesn’t want to botch it, and doesn’t want to botch it for me either.

If only it all had come purely from hard work and gumption like he pretends it does.

“Chin up. You got this. You’re going to be a big player in the future, Fox. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I say, not knowing what else to respond with.

He leaves me finally, and I look at the proposed plan. I had been deliberately approaching it glacially. I could have gotten this done three weeks ago, after an afternoon of hard work.

My time with Tabitha had brought what I had always known, but was too scared to admit.

This career of mine was going to destroy Evergreen Valley as both of us know and love it.

All these big time rich folks are rolling in, wanting a more rustic home, forcing out the old residents, cutting down the forests. The forests that contained the treasures that Tabitha and I had been reveling in all this time.

The doorbell to our home rings, and I get up to head down to answer it.

When I see who’s at the door? I am simultaneously pleased and ashamed.

It’s not like our family lived in some ludicrous mansion. Dad isn’t that self-indulgent. It is a good bit nicer than the cabins that Hunter, Hawk, and Bear had, and even those were fairly nice homes all things considered.

Tabitha though is there, in some red and blue dress, the colors swirled together, It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, probably because it’s her own creation. It all blends together perfectly with her purple purse, and she’s looking as beautiful as ever as she smiles my way. “Hey there, you.”

“Uh, hi,” I say, scratching my head nervously. How did she even get my address?

---