Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Summoning a chuckle, she said, “I’m excited.
I am, it’s just a lot. I have to get Daisy home, that’s all, and it isn’t fair for us to leave a mess, and she had such a…
” Her lungs abandoned her, because her tears weren’t going to stay dammed where they belonged.
“Such a good time, I’m happy to clean up and—”
“If she had a good time, then why are you crying?” he growled, swiping a thumb under her eye.
God, she was such a wreck and whether he saw it or not, his life was so put together. He was turning out to be so good, despite whatever he said about himself, and she was the one bringing nothing but added trouble to his life.
“Is this because of Jack’s post?”
“No—yeah, I don’t know.” She paced away to the windows on either side of the fireplace, the real treat of this house, and gazed over the escarpment, a silhouette against the emerging stars studding the sky.
Imagined Daisy here, calling it home, getting to live like Charlie’d once done each summer.
“On a rare snow, I bet you glimpse the divine here…”
His hands cupped her shoulders, gently, then his arms came around and his chin propped atop her head.
“Baby you ain’t makin’ sense,” he said. “Did I, uh, do something?”
She shook her head. She was ruining his excitement. She couldn’t layer Jason’s faults onto Thad, unless he’d earned it.
“I used to dream of a place like this … and it’s right here, at your fingertips.”
Rustic. Gorgeous. Yet, it was plain too.
Only the couch and coffee table. Only his battered, sticker-smattered guitar case propped in the corner next to an amp.
Only a weight bench in the other corner, and a kayak laid across the rafters overhead traversing from wall to wall.
Only an extra pair of boots by the door next to a pair of men’s running shoes and a child’s sparkly unicorn backpack, propped there like it fit, like that was where Daisy always dropped it after school.
No books sat on the built-in shelves beneath the stairs by the bathroom.
No photos adorned the mantel, except for one. A young Thaddeus and four sisters, arms slung about each other, the lone boy in a sea of long hair and pretty eyes.
One regular plate, one bowl, and one coffee mug sat clean and ready to use in his small—albeit well-crafted—stainless steel and granite kitchen.
No evidence of home. Just a house, brimming with potential, as if waiting for a reason, for roots to take hold.
Come to think of it, outside had been plain too.
Aside from one Adirondack chair on the deck, the picnic table, and the lush lilacs, there’d been little else except the BBQ setup and the firepit.
Was he lonely on normal nights? Sitting here in the silence playing his guitar?
Don’t be a fool, Charlie. He might be chasing you hard, but Mr. Flirt of the century has game.
A man as charismatic as Thaddeus Rex McClintock, didn’t go to bed lonely unless he wanted to, and she eyed the loft, while nerves nipped through her that he’d had so much freedom.
Had Uncle Johnny’s place only seemed so wonderful because they had all been there? Had it turned into an empty void like this when everyone dispersed? Her attention settled on nicks in the wall.
Graffiti? No … growth measurements.
She moved to them, inspected them.
Temperance McClintock. Toby Dixon. Charity McClintock.
Travis Dixon. T.R. McClintock. Patience McClintock.
Tyler Dixon. Faith McClintock. His cousins and siblings, all scratched into the wood against a ruler climbing the corner, their ages marked beside their names.
Up the wall it went. Except after age fifteen, Thad’s name wasn’t recorded anymore like the others.
Because he was kicked out at sixteen.
She touched them. She’d tried to do the same thing for Daisy, but Jason had painted over it to sell the house, and she wasn’t allowed to make alterations to her house without university approval.
He came up beside her. “My cousins and me. My grandfolks built this for their kids with their families when we visited. It became tradition to mark how much we’d grown each summer.”
Hence the old playset that Daisy and Jack’s boys had played on that looked like it was as old as this cabin.
His eyes became wistful. “It’s the only place that ever felt like home.
Ty and his brothers and I used to sleep up here as teens when we’d visit.
Have bonfires out back, spin donuts, in general act like idiots.
” He smiled wistfully. “When Ty gave me the job eight years ago, I asked if I could live here.”
And that smile creasing his lips as he, too, touched the names.
“Why so empty then?”
“Ain’t had much when I got here but the clothes on my back and my granddad’s truck.
Never saw myself staying forever ’cause I hadn’t held a job since the—anyway, figured Ty woulda’ let me go by now so I didn’t want to fill it with stuff I wouldn’t be able to take with me, and I guess, I’ve always had my eyes on the horizon for a new start somewhere else because I knew I was never gonna get the farm, neither, until… ”
She listened, his arms caressing up and down her shoulders, but he said nothing. “Until what?”
“Until you opened your mouth and played that banjo on stage.”
Trepidation doubled. For all her doubts, he was depending on her. He’d found something to hold onto in her.