Finding Home

27. Caleb

Chapter 27

Caleb

I can’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 out of 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 turn another 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.

Either way, this is a good reminder for me to remain vigilant. Keep myself on high alert. Even if I imagined danger lurking tonight, there’s still evil out there. A monster of a man who’s hell-bent on taking my daughter from me and then almost certainly doing to her what he did to his poor daughter.

I take a deep, steadying breath and start marching toward the house, as one thought plays in my head on a running loop: God as my witness, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my family from Ralph Beaumont or anyone else who tries to harm them.