Chapter 3
Jaxon felt stress in areas he hadn’t expected from that shearing event, and his heart still raced from the physical effort he had expended, combined with the fear of hurting the animals.
Although he had done it before, it wasn’t exactly an easy job, and it took years to build up the kind of skills and tolerance to not hurt the animals, which was all he really wanted. He was just glad the job was over.
As he stepped into the bunkhouse, several of the men smiled at him.
“Hey, how did that go?” asked one of them.
“A little rough,” Jaxon admitted, as he rubbed his shoulder, his limp noticeable now.
Immediately their smiles fell away.
“Right, even though we’re recovering …” muttered another one.
Jaxon nodded. “Even though we’re recovering, it doesn’t mean we’re quite recovered, but, hey, if I can do something over here, let me know,” he offered, now rubbing his temples.
“Maybe go have a shower?” one suggested.
“I would love a shower, but the day isn’t done.” Seeing the smirks on most of their faces, he stopped, looked down at his watch. “Wow.”
“Yeah, exactly. The day may not be done, but it’s pretty-dang close,” one of the men stated, with chuckles all around.
Jaxon frowned, looked at his watch again, and shrugged. “Maybe I will just grab that shower then,” he said reluctantly.
“Get some heat on that shoulder and see about getting off your feet and taking off the prosthetic,” suggested one of the men. “It was a good thing you did, but it’ll also impact your joints.”
“I hope not,” he muttered. “I have to get in to see Kat in the next couple days anyway.”
“And she’s doing you a hell of a solid in terms of helping you out as it is. So she won’t take it kindly if you abuse her hard work.”
He looked over at him and smiled. “She knows the hardware gets abused. It’s just a fact of life when you’re up on your feet all the time,” Jaxon pointed out. “I don’t think very much would upset her.”
“And that is a huge plus,” Toby agreed, entering the bunkhouse, a smile on his face, “because she’s really been helping a lot of you guys, hasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she sure has,” Jaxon confirmed. “She’s good people.”
“Indeed, and that makes a big difference in terms of the work we do too,” Toby added.
“Are you sure?” Jaxon quipped, with half a smile in his direction. “Kind of seems you guys are just happy to have as much help as you can get.”
“Oh my God, we absolutely are,” he muttered.
“And you’re staying, right?” one of the other men asked Toby. “No running? By the looks of it, you’ve been on the run for some time now. It doesn’t help.”
“Yeah, Toby. What’s the deal with that?” asked another.
“For me, I’m just done trying to go anywhere else,” Toby shared.
“Here at the Haven, I found a place where I would really like to stay. So talks are on about building a house up on a small piece of land nearby. Same deal for Dwight. We’ve been friends for decades. Would love to settle down close by.”
The men stared at him, and Toby nodded. “This is home for me. I just need to get a piece of land and build on it,” he added. “I don’t know how much land might be available, but, if it’s something you’re interested in, you might want to talk to Timber about it.”
“Talk to Timber?” one of the men repeated, immediately stepping forward, looking from Toby to the others.
“I could sure use that. I won’t be much of a hand at building a whole house on my own,” he acknowledged, “but, if anybody wants help with theirs, and could give me hand on mine, I would be right there with it.”
“I think that’s what the plan is for several of us already,” Toby confirmed, with half a smile. “And hopefully, between those of us who are here looking to have a place to call home, we can end up with something that’s livable.”
“More than livable,” declared Timber, as he stepped in as Toby went out. “Just livable is what we were doing now,” he pointed out, looking from one man to the next, all around at them. “However, thriving is what we need.”
“How do we get in on that deal?”
“You already are. Anybody who is interested in land just needs to let me know. I don’t know how much will be up for negotiation, but it’ll all come from the original land owner.
The price could be right, but the agreement is, the land is not for commercial development.
Each is intended to be for a small plot of land to build yourselves a little home of your own, so you have your own space. ”
One of the men nodded. “That would be a huge opportunity,” he said.
“There’s still a price tag attached,” Timber reminded them all, “and again I don’t know what that’ll look like yet. We’re just really hoping that it’s something reasonable.”
“I’m in,” added one of the other men in the far back corner.
Jaxon turned to look at him and smiled. “I can see this would be perfect for you.”
“I think it’s perfect for anybody who’s still looking for a place to call home. So many of us have lost so much that just the promise of getting a little something back, to own and to be free from all the baggage, … that’s amazing.”
“Of course it is,” Timber agreed. “Again, no promises though. We’re dealing with the current owner on these plots.”
“Understood,” he replied, with a quiet smile, then went back to doing some high-quality woodwork.
“What are you building?” Timber asked.
“Built-in dressers and cabinets,” he said, without lifting his head.
“That’s a hell of a job.”
“Yeah, … it would be nice to do this work full-time,” he shared. “And maybe I’ll look at it on a more professional basis when I get there. So, if I thought there was a place I could call home and not get chased away, I would be there in a heartbeat.”
“I’ll put your name down,” Timber noted. He exchanged a quiet smile with another man and then looked over at some of the others. “Some of you guys have places to go to, right?”
“Some of us do, and some of us did,” one of the men pointed out, “until we came back to find that the places we thought we had weren’t as solid and secure as we had hoped.”
“Right, I hear you there,” Jaxon acknowledged, working hard to keep the bitterness out of his tone but failing.
“It’s hard when you come back and when you think you’ve got everything you could possibly want again, only to realize that you didn’t really have it in the first place.
” Just then the big bell for dinner rang, and he started over to the kitchen.
One of the men came up behind him and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to shower first?”
“If I take a shower, you guys will eat all the food,” he quipped, with a smile in his buddy’s direction.
“Well, … maybe,” he acknowledged, “but we might prefer it if you got a shower first.”
“Don’t really give a crap,” Jaxon muttered. “I’ll have a shower after I eat.”
As he entered the dining area, some of the guys were joking about the new animal in the woods. He ignored them and walked over and grabbed some food and sat down with the intention of eating, only to be interrupted by a sudden silence all around, as two women stepped into the dining room.
Most of the seating was already gone.
Tiffany walked over and sat down beside Timber.
He looked over at her and asked, “How are the llamas and alpacas doing?”
“Now that they’re sheared and cleaned up a little bit, they’re doing pretty well,” she stated, as she nodded at Jaxon. “Thanks for that.”
He shrugged. “I already told you there was no need to thank me. It’s all for the animals.”
“I know,” she replied, “but it was still appreciated.”
He didn’t say anything and just kept eating. When the other men started to shuffle ever-so-slightly, Jaxon looked up and realized that Keisha still stood there with her plate, not sure where to sit.
One of the men immediately pointed beside Jaxon and told her, “There’s room there.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “There might be room,” she said in a joking tone, “but that doesn’t mean there’s a welcome.”
Jaxon stiffened at that and glared at her. “Maybe not with that attitude.” And, with that, he shoveled the last of the food off his plate and into his mouth. Then he got up, took his dishes to the kitchen, rinsed them, and placed them in the dishwasher.
He thanked Dwight for dinner, and, without another word, he walked out.