Page 91 of Nave
“Then we should have a nap, get some dinner, and spend all night doing more of this.”
“Sounds perfect.”
And it was.
Every moment with him was.
Partly because I was so blithely unaware of how close I was to losing it all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lolly
I didn’t sleep alone again for several days.
We found a sort of rhythm.
I would sleep over and spend the morning with Nave, usually with Edith, though occasionally she wanted to stay with her doggy friends. Then I would head back to the homestead for the afternoon—helping the girls with the garden, the animals, or learning fun new skills.
At the hottest part of the day, I’d move into the motorhome, thumbing through pregnancy, parenting, or baby name books.
Then, without fail, Nave would show up and take me back to the clubhouse.
Until, finally, there was a night when I couldn’t visit because of the weekly meeting known as “church.”
Nave insisted I could come afterward, but it would be late and I knew the party would just be getting started. It made more sense to just stay at the motorhome.
Even if, oddly, it suddenly felt very wrong to be alone.
Which was ridiculous, of course.
And I wasn’t alone, not really.
I had Edith.
And I had Kit and Ariah something like fifty feet from my front door.
“It’ll be good for us to have a night alone,” I told Edith as she worked on the chew that Kit had baked for all the dogs, something with yogurt and pumpkin that Edith thought was the best thing she’d ever eaten.
I felt like I was forever telling the girls that they could ‘make a fortune’ with all their little experiments around the homestead: dog treats, honey, tea, infused oils, breads, desserts, woodworking projects.
They were in the process of building a farm stand but weren’t keen on the idea of keeping it near the homestead driveway.
“We don’t want anyone knowing where to find us, you know?”
The girls, I found, were fiercely protective of their security. I didn’t want to pry, but I felt like they always shared a look when talking about stuff like that. Like there was something they’d been through, or something they were worried about.
“Luckily, we know almost everyone in town,” Kit said, quick to change the topic. “We won’t have any trouble finding someone who would let us put a stand up.”
I had to admit, the more time I spent with them, watching them love every moment of their days—even the hard stuff—it made me a little jealous.
I didn’t have that.
I never had that.
The closest I got to it was how I felt about Nave. And I wasn’t sure that counted.
I wanted to eventually find the thing that lit me up, that got me out of bed in the morning, that had me rambling on endlessly about my plans for the future.
