Page 37 of Awakening the Wild
The distinction mattered. A year ago, I'd needed the cottage to prove I could survive. Now I wanted it because it was mine—my family history, my connection to a grandmother I wished I'd known better, my choice to reclaim what was taken.
"Register me," I told Shane.
The next month passed in a blur of preparation. I verified my business accounts, made sure I had liquid funds available, researched auction procedures. Kevin offered to lend me money if I needed it, but I declined. This needed to be mine, bought with money I'd earned, a symbol of how far I'd come.
The day of the auction, Kevin insisted on coming with me. We stood in the county courthouse with a handful of other bidders—mostly developers looking for cheap land.
"Lot forty-seven," the auctioneer announced. "Fifty acres, Burke Mountain, landlocked parcel with existing structure. Minimum bid fifteen thousand to cover back taxes and fees."
"Fifteen thousand," I said clearly.
A developer in the back raised his paddle. "Sixteen."
"Seventeen," I countered.
The bidding continued. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. At twenty-two thousand, the other bidders dropped out, probably realizing the access issue made it worthless for development.
"Twenty-two thousand going once... going twice..." The gavel came down. "Sold to bidder number twelve."
I'd done it. Bought back my grandmother's property with money I'd earned myself.
The paperwork took two weeks to finalize. When the deed arrived with my name—Tonya Pike—listed as sole owner, I sat at my desk and just stared at it.
"You okay?" Kevin asked, finding me there.
"I own it," I said. "Really own it. No debts, no creditor claims, no one who can take it away."
"So what are you going to do with it?"
I'd been thinking about that. "Shane would grant me an easement, right? Since I'm family now?"
"In a heartbeat."
"Then I want to finish renovating it. Make it what it was always meant to be—a place that's mine, that I built with my own hands, that represents everything I've overcome." I looked up at him. "Not to live in. The farmhouse is our home. But as... I don't know. A retreat. A workshop. A place that's mine the way your maple operation is yours."
Understanding lit his eyes. "A place of your own."
"Not because I need distance from you," I clarified quickly. "But because—"
"Because you need something that's entirely yours," he finished. "I get it. I do."
That weekend, all four brothers showed up with tools and materials. We spent the day working on the cottage—replacing the damaged sections of roof we'd started a year ago, fixing windows, making it weatherproof for winter.
Standing in the space I'd fought for, lost, and reclaimed on my own terms, I felt something settle in my chest. Completion. Wholeness.
"You did it," Kevin said, coming up behind me to wrap his arms around my waist. "Built something lasting. Twice."
"We did it," I corrected. "I couldn't have gotten here without you. Without all of you."
"Maybe not," he agreed. "But you're the one who earned the money to buy it back. You're the one who built the business that made it possible. We just helped with the carpentry."
As darkness fell over our mountain, I thought about the journey that had brought me here. The broken-down car, the storm, the man who'd saved me. The cottage lost and reclaimed. The business built from nothing. The family forged by choice.
I'd come to Vermont running from one man's control, searching for independence I wasn't sure I could handle.
Instead, I'd found partnership. Built success. Reclaimed what was taken. Became the woman I'd always had the potential to be but never believed I could become.
The cottage sat waiting behind us, ready for whatever I chose to make of it. The farmhouse stood ahead, filled with the life Kevin and I were building together. And I had the freedom to choose between them, to claim both, to be whole in a way I'd never imagined possible.
"Ready to go home?" Kevin asked.
I looked at the cottage one more time—mine now, truly and completely mine—then at the farmhouse in the distance where our life waited.
"Yeah," I said, taking his hand. "Let's go home."
Because that was the real victory. Not the property or the business or the money in my bank account. But the freedom to choose. The strength to want instead of need. The knowledgethat I could survive anything because I'd already survived everything.
And the man beside me who loved me not despite my strength, but because of it.
That was worth more than any cottage could ever be.
