9
Ember
Cobwebs and Dust Bunnies
“How long are we supposed to let her stay in there?” Riley asked.
“Should we do a welfare check?” Willow was quiet for a moment. “We should’ve checked on you more often. I wish I’d forced you to move in with me when Ember did.”
“Can we please not focus on my problems?” Riley groaned. “Ember is the one hiding in her old childhood bedroom.”
“You know I can hear you guys, right?” I leaned my head against the door. That was the problem with small houses. There wasn’t anywhere to escape. “Give me a minute and I’ll be out.”
“You sure?” they asked.
“Just one minute.” That’s all I needed.
A moment to pull myself together as best I could and then I’d live to fight another day.
The knots in my back were so tight, they were growing knots of their own. I’d been running high on adrenaline and caffeine for the past fifteen hours and I didn’t want to admit that there’d been a few times I wasn’t sure we’d even make it here .
It was my fault. I’d procrastinated and made all the excuses for why we couldn’t leave yet. We should’ve come much sooner.
I didn’t want to think about what might have happened if we’d waited longer.
My eyes went to the window covered in a layer of dust and grime.
A bitter taste filled my mouth.
Who did this Kieran guy think he was? People can’t just go around building houses on other people’s land.
I hadn’t been following the town politics since I left, but I was damn sure the sheriff of Christmas would not take too kindly to this. It was illegal. A disaster. Not at all what I was expecting.
I thought I’d have to come home and face my ex-husband and the whole town who laughed behind my back, but not this.
Tears filled my eyes and I blinked them away as I looked around my old bedroom.
Everything was exactly as I left it when I moved out at eighteen. My dad hadn’t touched a single thing. And after he passed, it all sat here like a shrine to the girl I once was, slowly disintegrating and gathering dust.
Cobwebs clung to the ruffles of the rose-pink bed skirt and gold-painted metal bar frame of my old bed. The vanity mirror and dresser still had the remains of stickers under the layer of dust.
Yellowed posters curled against their tacks on the wood panel walls, detailing the various rodeos that I’d raced in. One worn flyer announced me as rodeo queen for the county fair.
I was once so young.
My knees popped as I pushed myself up off the floor and went to pull the flyer down.
I clearly remembered the angsty years I’d spent in this bedroom, back before I really knew trauma.
Oh, sweet summer child. I laughed at myself as I took down the posters. If only you knew how much worse it would get.
Noise in the yard caught my attention and I parted the dusty blinds, clearing a spot off the window to peek through it.
The monstrosity of a building with its landing pad-type roof was an eyesore on the otherwise open and beautiful horizon. It blocked out the view of the creek and valley below. Of course Kieran had taken the better view.
He had to be lying.
That was the only rational explanation.
It wasn’t like Portland around here. You could go months not seeing another living soul. Maybe no one from town had noticed him building or they’d minded their own business and assumed he had something to do with me.
Fat chance . I snorted. It didn’t matter how hot he was or how sexy a voice he had, I did not have a thing for trespassers. I wanted him gone.
Come Monday, I’d head straight to City Hall and get this whole mess sorted out. Then Kieran—whatever his last name was—would meet a bulldozer as I forced him off my land.
∞
“How do you light this thing?” The empty click of the burner ignition came with Willow’s frustrated sigh.
“It’s not going to work,” I said as I walked back into the fray.
“She lives.” Riley tilted a wine bottle in my direction as she sat on the old flannel couch, stroking a scowling Dobby perched on her lap.
Harper was playing with dolls on my dad’s old bed. Their suitcases were half open, ready and waiting to be unpacked and settled in.
“Do you know how to turn on the stove?” Willow poked her head out from the kitchen.
“We don’t until I can get the propane hooked up.” I turned off the burner on my way to the back door.
“How are we supposed to cook?” Willow wrung her hands as she followed along behind me.
I pushed open the screen door to the back porch, silently counting my blessings that the wood stack was still full under the awning. “We’ll use the wood stove for now.”
“What happens when the power goes out? Will the well work for the plumbing?” Willow grew a bit paler with each worry she stated.
“We get power outages all the time up here,” I smiled to reassure her, feeling a sense of pride at the measures we did have in place. It wasn’t like the city where everything was hooked up to electric. “The hand-pump feeds directly from the creek in the laundry house and we have the generator to power the well pump. We’ll keep using the wood stove for now so we can save the propane for emergencies. ”
“And what happens when the food runs out?” Willow whispered, standing next to me as we looked at the overgrown plot where the garden used to be.
We’d gone over this all before, but I knew she worried and needed to talk things out to ease her racing mind.
“The creek is full of trout.” I purposefully turned my back on the eyesore property, hoping Mr. Trespasser wasn’t a sport fisherman who’d fished out my honey holes. “I’ll go hunting if I have to. We’ll start a summer garden.”
I grabbed Willow’s hands in mine. “Everything is going to be okay.”
“I know.” She nodded, looking over her shoulder as Riley pushed open the kitchen door. “I just want to get started fixing this place up. It’ll help me feel more in control.”
“Then let’s go.” I released her and walked to the shed.
There was an extra bit of lightness in my steps. Despite the earlier drama, being here brought me a sense of peace I hadn’t realized I was missing. It felt good to be able to address all of Willow’s worries about the future.
We would be okay.
Things were coming back to me fast. I’d need to flush the pipes and check the septic tank. The wood wouldn’t last all winter, but we’d get some cut from the mountains soon.
I had this.
The padlock and chains rattled on the shed door as I tried to open it.
Anger flushed my skin as I tried again .
“If that jerk thinks he can lock me out of my own—”
“Do you need the keys?” Riley called from the back porch.
Oh.
The keys.
I’d forgotten they were always hanging on the hook right by the kitchen door.
“Yes please.”
I was bound to make a mistake every now and then. None of us were perfect.
Riley brought over the keys, still nursing the bottle of wine. “Are we getting started on the garden?”
Willow nodded. “The sooner the better.”
I unlocked the shed, mentally making a to-do list.
So much for relaxing when we arrived. My book would have to wait until tonight.
But the work would be good. It’d keep us all busy and our minds off things. The weekend would fly by quick until I could get the sheriff’s office out here with a notice to vacate for the trespasser.
The rusted hinges squeaked on the shed.
Old air whooshed out as I moved the door open. A rotted plank fell to the floor with a crash, causing a cloud of dust.
The scent of mold and excrement filled the air as something scurried across the ground.
“It touched my foot!” Willow screamed.
“Save the wine,” Riley cried, fumbling for the bottle Willow almost knocked out of her hands.
Willow was still scrambling backward. “Burn it all to the ground. Kill it with fire. ”
“It’s just a mouse.” My smile felt too big and a little deranged as I turned to face my friends. They were clutching their hearts from the burst of excitement. “It’s a good thing you brought seeds.”
Whatever organic material was left in the shed had not fared well beneath the sands of time. I could already see how rusted the wheelbarrow was. The tools would need some work.
It looked like an animal or two had burrowed their way inside the shed, leaving an exposed hole in the roof that widened with the wind and the rain.
“We should just ask him for help,” Harper’s little voice made the three of us scream. She’d snuck up behind her mom during the commotion. Kids were terrifying. They moved so quick.
Willow was the first to recover, having been exposed to this particular brand of heart attack before. “Ask who for help, honey?”
Harper shook her head at us as if we were crazy, pointing beyond the shed to the other side of the trespasser’s building where a giant domed greenhouse sat, filled with flourishing plants and strung up with glow lights. A pond glimmered beside it with the fenced barnyard of grazing goats and pigs.
How had I missed all this?
He’d taken my home and made it his.
I wanted to cry.
“Mr. Handsome,” Harper explained. “He’s got a garden. Maybe he can teach us how to grow things.”