Page 14 of Penn

Hearth

“Now you’re starting to sound like a writer.”

“Am I?” asks Penn.

“It’s a thing,” I explain. “Writers are told all the time,show don’t tell.”

“So you’ll understand. There’s something I want to show you.” A feeling of déjà vu grips me. He said those exact words to me in a dream, and it wasn’t even that long ago. “But please don’t think it’s creepy or weird.”

He hadn’t saidthatpart. But I don’t know how to explain it, I trust Penn. I barely know him, if you really think about it. But I just do, I trust him.

“I won’t,” I reassure him. “Show me.”

“It’s just a short drive.” He corks the wine and takes me out to his truck, and I climb in. Standing outside the passenger side door, he reaches over me to buckle the seatbelt.

“That’s over the top,” I joke. “You already opened the door for me.”

“Gotta make sure you’re in there good.” He throws me a wink. “It’s a bumpy ride.”

Cheesy, but damn. I felt that straight down to my thighs.

And it hits me, I haven’t thought about my “new face” or the still-long recovery ahead or all the ways my life has changed and will change, all night. Not even when we were literally talking about it. I have only felt good, peace in his presence. Tinged with something else—a sweetness, asexinessI never expected.

And now, glancing over at him as he drives, that’sallI can think about.

When he said it was a short drive, he wasn’t lying. In five minutes we’re pulling up to a gate. A very closed gate, with a very locked lock.

Penn hops out of his truck and goes over to the gate and works the lock, then hoists it open. He drags the gate open enough to get his truck through.

“Are we allowed to be here?” I ask as he hops back into the cab.

“We’re not not allowed.” He throws me a smirk and starts down a long dirt and gravel drive.

“What is this place?” All I can tell through the descending darkness is the shapes of tall trees on either side and an unpaved road that stretches out into…more darkness. Is that a field, up ahead?

It must be a new moon because there doesn’t even seem to be a wedge of moonlight to help me out.

“Close your eyes.” That’s unnecessary this time of night, I don’t have great eyesight as it is, even worse at night, but I do it anyway.

I feel the truck park, then hear the crunch of boots on the ground as he comes over to my side. “Keep ’em closed.” He unbuckles me and then lifts me out of the truck as if I weigh nothing. Penn carries me for a few steps and then positions me in a seated position on the tailgate of his pickup. Jumping on next to me, he says eagerly, “Okay, open.”

I see nothing. It’s so dark. It’s not even that late but this time of year, the sun sets early. I squint. “Um, Penn?”

He chuckles, and the easy, lighthearted yet masculine way it rumbles from him turns my insides to jelly. “It’s better in the daytime,” Penn notes, sheepishly.

“Do you have a flashlight?”

“Yeah.” He shines his flashlight from his phone, and it gives the whole area a spooky quality that to be honest, I don’t hate.

“Kinda creepy.” So maybe he was telling the truth earlier when he said he never had a serious relationship—not exactly a lady-killer, this one. But whatever he’s doing to me tonight, it’s working. It’s for me.

“Here, let me show you.” He pulls up some pictures on his phone. Aerial photos of a beautiful landscape…and I do meanland. It’s been cleared just enough to build a gorgeous house, a shop, maybe a pond and a little garden and…I’m getting way ahead of myself. But there are still so many trees on the land, like his own personal nature preserve.

“You’re buying this?”

“Hope to. All twelve acres.”

“That’s your dream,” I mutter.

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