3. Willa
THREE
Willa
I didn't know these people. I shouldn't have trusted them. But there was something about them that entirely disarmed me.
They just…felt safe. Forrest especially.
I walked out of the woods in borrowed boots, up to a big house with a wraparound porch.
We passed a little herd of pygmy goats, plenty of cattle, some grazing horses.
Forrest’s dog, Nickel, stayed right beside me for the whole walk back, and a woman about my age was waiting at the house when we arrived, her long blonde hair in a braid down her back.
“Hey,” she said. “I'm Haven. Stetson said you needed some help?”
I nodded. “I'm just a little scraped up. It really shouldn't be a problem, I don't want to impose—”
“You're not imposing,” Haven said. “Really. Now come on in…my mother-in-law’s making pancakes.”
I flashed her a hesitant smile and followed her in, the smell of good food hitting me right away. Nickel finally left me to go sit by the woman at the kitchen stove, tail wagging as she looked up and begged for scraps.
“You are too cute for your own good,” the woman muttered to the dog. “And you just knew I was saving you some bacon, didn't you?”
The dog's tail wagged harder.
The woman at the stove turned around then, and I got my first real look at her.
She was maybe sixty, soft around the middle, with silver hair pinned up loose and flour on her apron. Her eyes were blue and sharp and they moved over me the way a person's did when they were taking stock without making you feel like a problem to be solved. I’d rarely been looked at that way.
It felt…some kinda way.
"Well," she said. "Sit down, honey. You look like you walked all night."
I had, but I didn't say that.
"This is Peggy," Haven said, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table. "She's Forrest's aunt. My mother-in-law."
"Also Adam’s wife," Peg said. “Also baker of the best damn peach pie in Briar Hill.” She turned back to the stove. "You like bacon?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Good. Haven, get her some orange juice." She pointed the spatula at a chair without looking. "Sit."
I sat.
The kitchen was warm and cluttered—mail stacked at one end of the table, a coffee mug with a lipstick print that nobody had moved, boots by the back door in three different sizes. A calendar on the wall was filled with writing in every square—birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and parties.
Haven set a glass of orange juice in front of me, then dropped to the floor in front of me. She had a first aid kit open before I’d even registered it was there, gently wrapping her hands around my ankle.
“Is it okay if I take your shoes off?” she asked.
I blushed. “Oh…they’re not mine.”
Forrest came in just at that moment, and Haven eyed his dirty socks.
“Ah,” she said. “Should’ve figured you didn’t have Forrest’s shoe size.”
He laughed under his breath.
I took off the shoes myself, and Haven got to work. She checked out my feet with so much care that it almost hurt—gently turning them, eyes fixed on the soles.
“This one’s the worst,” she said, looking at a cut. “The rest are just surface stuff.” She glanced up. “I’m going to clean it. It’s going to sting.”
“Okay.”
She wasn’t kidding. I pressed my lips together and stared at the calendar on the wall while she worked—someone’s birthday circled in red marker, goat vet written on a Thursday in July.
“You’ve got a few on your knees too,” Haven said. “I’m gonna sterilize them, just to be safe. They shouldn’t sting quite as bad. Luckily, you don’t need any stitches.”
“I could handle it if I did,” I said.
My eyes darted over to Forrest.
He looked…I couldn’t really tell. Angry, I guess.
At who, though?
Peggy came over then and put a plate down in front of me: fluffy pancakes with a big pat of butter, bacon on the side. I thanked her with a smile and a nod, and she dished out food for the others a second later.
Haven took the seat on one side of me…Forrest another. Stetson had come in too, his dog in tow—
—then I heard laughter erupt down the hall…right before a completely naked toddler came running down the hall.
My eyes went wide as I saw a tall man come down the hall after the toddler, grinning as he scooped the kid up. The kid laughed hysterically as he carried her back down the hall, then I caught sight of a younger child being held in a short, plump woman’s arms.
She was the one who noticed me first of the four of them—looking from me to Forrest to Haven.
“Mornin’, Millie,” Forrest said awkwardly.
“Morning, Forrest,” she said. “Haven…Peggy. And we have a guest…?”
“This is Willa,” Haven said with a big, bright smile. “She’s joining us for breakfast. Maybe longer.”
I blinked fast, wondering if that was really enough of an explanation.
…it was.
Millie didn’t seem to mind at all.
Five minutes later, the whole family was seated at the big table—passing around the syrup, a carafe of juice, another of coffee, creamer. It was loud and raucous, and it threw me off when no one said grace.
And…I started to feel so out of place.
With my modest dress, no shoes, my hair a mess.
Forrest leaned in a little. “You good?” he asked. “You don’t have to stay here. We can get you help—”
“This is good,” I stammered. “I’m just. It’s a lot.”
He nodded. Didn't push.
Millie was watching me from across the table with warm, curious eyes — not prying, just aware. The toddler had made it back to the table fully clothed now, more or less, and was climbing into the tall man's lap with a piece of bacon in each fist.
"That's Gage," Haven murmured close to my ear, like she could tell I was trying to sort everyone out. "Forrest's cousin. And Millie's his wife. The toddler is Bea, and the baby, Blaise, is theirs too."
I nodded, taking it in. This whole family…talking loud, no one angry, no one chastising the girls for speaking out of turn. They acted like this was ordinary.
Maybe it was.
I wondered how everyone was acting back at the compound right now. If they were worried…if, more likely, they were angry.
If they were going to come and get me.
I looked at those babies, then I looked at Forrest.
“I shouldn’t stay here,” I said.
He nodded. “Right…okay, we can go. Do you want—do you want to go to the police—”
“No, not…not the police,” I said. “And I don’t mean going away from your family’s ranch, just…away from here. From the house.” I glanced nervously toward the door. “They could come looking for me.”
Forrest looked at Stetson. Stetson didn’t look at me…just shrugged his big shoulders.
“They come on this property,” he said, “that’s trespassing.”
“They won’t care,” I said. “They don’t—they don’t really recognize outside authority. That’s kind of their whole thing.”
The table had gone quiet; everyone was listening now. Gage in particular leaned forward, brow furrowed.
“Thought I recognized you,” he said. “You from the Daley place?”
Haven looked over at me like she wanted to take my hand. I was glad she didn’t…I would have flinched. Not because she scared me, just because…because of what had happened. What had been happening my whole life.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not going back—”
“No one’s sending you back,” Forrest said before I could even finish. “Right, Gage?”
“Absolutely not,” Gage said, sipping his juice. “Just—you’re not a kid, right?”
I shook my head. “I’m twenty.”
He shrugged. “Seems like adult women should get to do what they please. You don’t wanna be there…we’ll never make you go back.”
I let out a breath.
Peggy set down her coffee mug. “You need a place to stay, honey?”
I swallowed hard, my fingers twisting together in my lap. “I have money,” I said. “Not a lot, but—I can work—”
“No need,” she said. “We can make room for you here in the house—”
“Is there any way I can stay with Forrest?” I asked.
I didn’t know why I said it. The question was strange, completely inappropriate…
…I was a married woman.
In theory. Not by law, I guess, but in the eyes of the Lord—
“You sure you’re okay with that?” Forrest said. “There’s a spare room in the cottage, but it’s a little cramped.”
“I don’t mind cramped,” I said.
Forrest looked at me for a moment…then he nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
Peggy smiled. Haven finally reached over and squeezed my shoulder…and I didn’t flinch.
Stetson pushed back from the table. “I’ll check the east fence line today,” he said. “Make sure we don’t get any unwanted guests.”
Everyone just nodded along like it made sense.
I looked down at my plate. The pancakes had gone a little cold.
I ate them anyway, because they were still the best thing I'd had in months, and because it gave me something to do with my hands while I sat in the warmth of this kitchen that smelled like bacon and coffee and felt nothing like any place I'd ever been.
Forrest's knee was six inches from mine under the table.
I was aware of it the entire time.
When breakfast broke up—dishes cleared, Gage and Millie corralling the kids, Stetson and Buck already gone—Forrest stood and looked at me.
"I'll show you the cottage," he said. "Give you the lay of it."
I followed him out the back door into the morning, the fog burned off now, the Hill Country laid out gold and dry in every direction. Nickel fell in beside me like she'd been doing it her whole life.
And it struck me…a few hours ago, I’d been sleeping in a hunting blind.
Now?
I was free.