Page 77 of Havoc's Fox

“I am not going to argue with you. If you want to go see it, come on. We’re spending the night there tonight. If you don’t want to see it, that’s fine, too. We can just go to sleep in the extra bedroom here.”

“I want to see it.”

“Then come on, girl. You need to pick out your room.”

“I want the biggest one!” she screeched, running past him to the front door.

“I got the biggest one! There’s two more, you can pick out one of them.”

“Does it have a fence? Can I have a puppy? Oh, or a kitty!”

“Kitties don’t do well with us, but if we decide to live here all the time you can have a puppy. That’s not a bad idea with that fence, though, either way.”

Harley came to a screeching halt right outside the front door of Poppy’s house. “Where’s our truck?”

“It’s at the house already. I went back over there when you went to visit Analise without telling me.”

“She didn’t mind, though.”

“I know I don’t have to tell you about why it was wrong anyway. And if we’re gonna live here, you will have to live by the rules, or you’ll be punished every single day. You know there are rules. There’s always rules, and those rules keep you safe.”

“Yes, sir. I do know.”

“Come on, then. Let’s go let you see our house.”

They walked through the darkness, talking and laughing, with Harley explaining exactly what kind of dog she wanted, as they walked all the way down the dirt road leading from Kaid’s property to the highway. When they got to the highway, they paused, while Havoc explained that this was a busy highway.

“Harley, this is a highway, baby. It’s not just a little country road. People drive down it fast sometimes. It is never to be crossed alone, and if ever there is an emergency and you have to cross it alone, you need to wait, look both ways, and look both ways again, and only then cross it. And that’s only for an emergency. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There are other houses by ours, Aunt Hellen lives down at the end of our road, and Barron and Brandt live over by the river.”

“We got a river?!” she exclaimed.

“That if I catch you by without me, you’ll get a spanking.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“You’ll get used to the area, though and be able to find your way around it. But most of the people who live on the other side work, so they might not be home. A lot of the people on this side are home a lot. So, you’ll usually find somebody home on this side. Hope you never need to, but it’s better to be prepared than not. So, if there is a reason, when you get to this side of the road, you’ll head straight up the road to Uncle Kaid’s house. If you’re afraid for whatever reason, you can stay away from the road and stay in the woods and nobody can see you as you run toward the houses. Just cross quick after you check it’s safe to cross, then stay in the woods, and be sure to keep the road behind you and you’ll run into somebody’s house be it Kaid’s or Avaleigh’s or Maverik’s or Bam’s or Bane’s. Matter of fact, you could probably stay in the woods pretty much the whole way from our house to everybody’s on the other side. We’ll practice that, using the road and using the woods, just so you’ll be familiar both ways.”

“Is that what you did when you were little?”

“No, we didn’t have the land that our house is on back then. But we knew how to hide, and how to run for help, and where it was safe to be and all.”

“So, it’s kind of like this.”

“Kinda. And you’re a smart girl, you’ll only need me to show you one time and you’ll get it.”

“Are we going in the woods tonight?” she asked excitedly.

Havoc chuckled. “No, we’re going on the road tonight.” He looked back behind himself. “You know how to get from here to everybody’s houses back that way?”

Harley looked in the direction he pointed. “Yes, sir. I do.”

“Okay, then, show me how you’d cross this if there was an emergency and I wasn’t here to cross with you.”

Harley stepped up close to the road and leaned over, looking first one way, then another. Then she closed her eyes and canted her head first in one direction, then another, before she looked in both directions. “Don’t see anything, and I don’t hear anything. So, nothing’s coming, we can cross.”

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