Page 34 of Nave
I’d always been drawn to a take-charge man.
Sure, Ben had been very… prepared.
But it had been in a controlling way.
Everything Nave did was coming from a place of caretaking.
It was a breath of fresh air.
“The homestead is only about a fifteen-minute drive from the clubhouse,” he explained. “So, if you need me for any reason, I’m not far away. I figured you wouldn’t want a phone, but Kit and Ariah have my number. One text or call, and I’ll be here. And once we square your license thing away, you can drop in and visit if you want.”
“You’ve already done enough.”
“You’re making it sound like your presence would be some kind of burden. It won’t. It’s not. Come visit if you need anything. Or if you just want to see a familiar face. I hear you need a village for this next phase in your life.”
I took a deep breath, trying not to get too overwhelmed with the future. I had several months to prepare for that. I needed to focus on the next steps first.
“Yeah.”
“I’m just saying. I’d like to be a villager.”
“Do you like kids?”
“Got a million of ‘em around these days, thanks to all my cousins. Not gonna lie, the babies scare me a little. I’m always afraid I’m gonna hurt them or something. But when they get tothat belly laugh stage? That shit is priceless. Got a club full of grown men making faces and pretending to whack themselves with various objects.”
I had no experience with babies.
I had a lot to learn in a short amount of time.
But if Nave really did want to be a villager, it seemed like he was a resource I could rely on.
“This is it,” Nave said, gesturing to what barely appeared to be a driveway. You’d have missed it if you didn’t know it was there.
The driveway was lined with overgrown shrubs and old shade trees, blocking anything having to do with the property from view.
It wasn’t until we lost sight of the road behind us that the area yawned open to a clearing.
The driveway curved into a circle with three small residences set around it.
One was a sweet little wooden tiny house with pretty pink and yellow flowers spilling out of window boxes. Another was an all-black tiny home with white flowers lining the front beds.
And finally, there was the place that I figured was going to be my home: a lovingly cared-for motorhome with solar panels on the roof and large water catchment barrels on either side of it.
There weren’t any flowers or beds. But someone had clearly spent their morning hammering in a small fenced-in area with a gate around the front door, so I could easily let Edith out on her own.
“Welcome home.”
CHAPTER TEN
PAST
Lolly
“Welcome home,” Ben said, waving out at the glass house that mirrored the forest back at me.
I couldn’t explain the sensation of dread that had been flooding my system since we’d pulled off the highway and the cars and houses up and disappeared. Yet we kept driving. Kept climbing. Kept moving deeper and deeper into the woods, further and further from society.
I should have been over the moon.
