Page 72 of Finding Home

“I don’t know. It’s nothing personal to Miranda, you know? I’ve always been a shitty everything to everyone. It’s like, the minute someone gets too close, I find a way to push them away. To prove I’m not worthy of their love, like I’ve known all along. Either that, or I get to drinking and smoking and simply forget where I’m supposed to be.”

“You think that’s because of the stuff with your father?” When I look at her blankly, Aubrey adds, “He beat your mother. He abandoned you. He convinced you you’re not worthy of love, so you’ve continuously proved him right.”

I’m floored. Rendered speechless.

“You disagree?”

“No, I . . . I was silent because you just blew my fucking mind.”

Aubrey runs a fingertip across my bare chest. “The great news is you’ve now got the chance to prove your asshole father wrong about you by becoming an amazing father to Raine.”

My heart is thumping. “Thank you for spelling it out like that to me. I’ve never thought about it like that.”

“You haven’t talked about your father in therapy all this time?”

“I haven’t taken therapy all that seriously.”

“Maybe it’s time to start.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Aubrey grins. “You’ve got this, Caleb. I have total faith in you.”

I can barely breathe. I pull her to me and squeeze her tight. I don’t know what I did to deserve this gift from the universe. This woman who’s teaching me new things about myself every day and helping me become the best version of myself; but, just like Aubrey said, I’ve got a huge opportunity here. One I won’t fuck up.

Aubrey touches my face. “The past is the past. Decide who you want to be and will him into existence. That’s all you’ve got to do.”

“I will,” I whisper. “Thank you, Aubrey.” I kiss her passionately, and soon, my cock has turned to steel, once again. I slide my fingers between Aubrey’s legs, getting her primed for round two, eager to get inside the woman who’s surely going to become the great love of my life.

Chapter 27

Caleb

Ican’t sleep.

Not because I’m lying here stressing or feeling shame, as I’ve done in the past. Not because Aubrey’s body is entangled with mine, and her body heat is like a furnace. Although it is. No, tonight I’ve got insomnia simply because I’m too damned happy to sleep. Because the honest conversation I had with Aubrey earlier tonight about Violet and Dax and my long history of being a selfish shithead blew me away and took the weight of the world off my shoulders. Add to that how thrilled I am to get to sleep next to Aubrey for the entire night for the first time, and falling asleep is a pipe dream.

A rustling sound from outside catches my attention. I’m not too worried, though. There are lots of animals that come out at night, so I’m sure it was?—

There it is again.Only this time, the sound strikes me as manmade. The movement of two human feet taking steps, one after another.Is someone walking out there in the bushes surrounding my house?

I gently disentangle Aubrey from my body and slide outof bed; but when I peek out my bedroom window, I don’t notice anything out of the ordinary. The moonlit lake is serene and the firs, black cottonwoods, and thick shrubbery in all directions are still and quiet.

A bush in the lower right of my vision appears to shimmy against the stillness of the night, drawing my attention.Holy fuck. Is that a man, dressed in black, crawling on the ground on all fours like a military operative, or is that an animal, scurrying to safety under cover of darkness?

My heart hammering, I throw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and shoes, and head to Grandpa’s gun locker in the hallway closet. I turn the combination lock left, right, and left again, hoping the numbers are still the same as always—the digits of Grandpa’s birthday; and to my relief, the lock immediately opens with a soft click.

I swing the door open and discover Grandpa’s three hunting rifles lined up on a rack, like always. I’ve never personally enjoyed hunting, but I’ve never once turned down the chance to shoot bottles and cans in a field.

Shit. There’s no ammunition in any of the three rifles and no box in the locker, either. It’s probably for the best. I’d rather not die from an old, misfiring gun tonight, while shooting at phantoms in a fit of paranoia.

Paranoid or not, though, it’s always better safe than sorry. I close and lock the gun locker, grab a flashlight from the kitchen counter, and head outside into the cool night air.

Slowly, I creep around the corner of the house, past the big, black cottonwood with my childhood carving etched into its bark, as leaves and pine needles noisily crunch underneath my work boots. Barely breathing, I turnanother corner, toward the spot where that bush seemed to ripple in the darkness. But I see nothing.

I stop and listen. Hold my breath.

Wind is whipping the green canopy of pines and leaves above my head. Insects are chirring. My pulse is pounding loudly. But that’s it. Other than those sounds, plus the ragged whoosh of my fitful breathing, I detect nothing. Either I’ve imagined danger lurking in the darkness, or whatever danger was actually here took off at the sound of my work boots moving toward it.

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