CHAPTER 111
DAKOTA
It takes another week for Samir to declare Dottie almost fully recovered.
She stays at the fort and in bed the entire time, and Samir (and Rabbit) monitor her constantly.
Dottie fusses the entire time, but she gets a lot of her knitting done, and by the end of the week, she’s cracking jokes and demanding people entertain her, and I think she secretly enjoys the attention.
Since she’s bedridden for a full week, we bake her birthday corn-cake one night, wrap her presents, and bring the celebration to the fort the next day.
She loves all of it, but most of all, the tiny, ridiculous antique teacups.
“Reminds me of my mama’s good china,” Dottie tells us, clutching one of the cups close to her heart.
“It makes your tea taste better. You watch.”
I don’t know about that, but I was able to haggle for a few coffee beans from Melina’s store in exchange for a bunch of books for the fort library, and several haunches of fresh meat.
I’m going to crush those beans and add them to my grounds, and squeeze a bit more life out of my sad supply of coffee when we get home.
By the end of the week, while I’m thrilled Dottie is better, I’m tired of the fort. It’s too many people. It’s dirty because so many live there. I’m ready to get back to our daily life and spending time around the fire with the cats. I’m ready to sleep in with my mate at my side.
I’m ready for Rabbit to take some time away from Jonah. They’re now holding hands furtively, and he calls her by her real name, Everleigh. The mama in me thinks it’s less cute now and getting a little too serious too fast. It’ll do them good to spend some time apart.
It’ll do me good to see them apart, too.
We just need to go home and back to our regular schedule.
My plants at the bookstore aren’t thriving.
They’re wilting under the chilly air. It’s been unusually cold for North Texas, and they’re suffering.
Maybe plants aren’t meant to grow in potholes.
Maybe they need real dirt. Who knows. Stella is missing us, too.
She whines for attention when we get home, abandoning her puppies to snuggle with Aggie.
Even the cats have been more needy than usual, and when we come back from the fort every night, we’re greeted with an angry chorus of meows and demands for food and petting.
We leave the door to the bookstore cracked open all day so the animals can go in and out without us there, which means that when we get home, the store is drafty and cold, and there are piles of leaves in the doorway.
I’ll just be glad when things settle down, I tell myself for the millionth time.
We’re heading back to the fort today, on day eight.
Samir says Dottie can go home tomorrow if her urine remains clear and she continues to show no issues with the antibiotics.
I repack my backpack to add in Rabbit’s favorite sweatshirt and a warm sweater for Dottie, as the day is cold and blustery and it might rain.
As I pull out ivermectin and dried meat, I pull out a book, too. Introduction to Homesteading.
And I pause, gazing down at the cover with a cow on it.
In the last week, we’ve given a ton of books to the fort in exchange for a few things.
Children’s books and schoolbooks, romance novels and classics.
For some reason, I haven’t been able to part with this particular book.
I’ve held onto it, and I haven’t mentioned the herd of cattle we found, either.
The area where we found them was a series of pastures near the big barn.
I’m sure they’ve spread out a bit, but something tells me they’re still in the same vicinity.
It’d be easy to find them again. Easy to go back to that barn and repair the roof.
And where there’s a farm, there’s a farmhouse.
“Ready to fly?” Murr asks, coming into the “room” we share together. He leans against one of the empty bookshelves. “Need anything?”
I glance up at him and really study our surroundings.
At the bookshelves that make up the “walls” of our room, and the pictures we have tacked onto them, the objects set on the shelves themselves.
At my mattress on the floor. I think about the giant broken window at the front, held together by duct tape and hope.
I think about the broken asphalt outside and my plants that aren’t thriving in the spots in the broken pavement we’ve tried to squeeze them into. This isn’t home. This is existing.
I’m tired of just existing.
I glance up at my handsome husband. His expression is calm and cheerful, but I worry he won’t like what I’m about to ask. “What if we lived somewhere else, Murr?”
“Where?”
“The place where we found the cattle?”
He considers this. “Not long flight. We take cats? Dottie?”
“Of course. We’d take everyone. Dogs, cats, ladies, whatever we want to bring with us.”
He shrugs. “Then we go.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Dakota home,” he says simply. “Murr home with Dakota, with cats. Dakota with cows, Murr with cows.”
“Well, not directly with the cows,” I say, stifling a giggle.
My heart fills with love for him. “And it doesn’t have to be there.
If there’s somewhere you’d rather be that’s more comfortable, we can go there.
I just want to think about the future for a change.
I’m tired of living day to day. I want to settle down and stay somewhere. Really stay.”
He pauses. “But not…fort?”
“No, not a fort. God no.”
“Good.” He looks relieved, and I laugh all over again. “Fort smell terrible.”
“I thought you said you could live anywhere,” I tease, getting to my feet and moving into his arms.
Murr pulls me close and nuzzles at my throat. “Murr live in fort with Dakota, if Dakota want,” he murmurs. “Cut off nose, too.”
I snort with amusement. “Guess we’ll just have to find somewhere else. I like your nose.”
“Murr like Dakota nose, too.” And he kisses the tip of it.