Living off the land, making a life from it was amazing. But making an income from it too? Well, that was just the cherry on the ice cream sundae that was our life.
I took a breath, looking down at the tablet as Ranger opened the front door, his gaze going to me. “Doing some research?” he asked, going over to the sink to use the liquid soap I had figured out how to make a year before.
“In a way,” I told him, feeling my stomach twist painfully.
I had no idea how he would react.
Even just to the suggestion to think about it.
And the idea of him thinking that I wasn’t happy just how our life was, well, terrified me. Because nothing could be further from the truth. If he looked at what I had to show him, and simply said he wasn’t interested, well, I would be perfectly fine with that. We could go on as we always had. I would continue to find comfort and bliss and peace in this world we had built.
“Alright, what is it?” he asked, reading me too well after so long together.
See, it was one thing to be with someone. In a normal, modern way. Where two people got up in the morning, spent an hour together, then scooted off to different worlds for eight hours, maybe having some after-school activities to handle with the kids, then come home, maybe spend a few more hours together, distracted by TVs and cell phones and life’s other distractions. It was a complete other to be with someone the way we were together. Working side by side, sharing every up and down, brushing shoulders when we moved around the house, having nowhere to go to hide when we didn’t want to share, when we wanted private thoughts or feelings.
It meant we got to know each other inside and out. He couldn’t keep anything from me. And me, well, I never could keep anything from him.
“I want to show you something,” I started, clutching the tablet to my chest, screen in so he didn’t get to peek until I was done with my preface. “And I want you to understand that I am just showing you this as a suggestion. It isn’t a demand or anything like that. It’s just a…”
“Alright, enough of that,” he rumbled at me, grabbing the tablet, pulling it in front of himself.
“It is just an idea,” I told him, my belly sloshing around ominously as he just stared at the screen.
I’d been watching the market for ages in quiet moments when I knew Ranger wouldn’t see, just checking out the options, never finding anything even remotely acceptable.
Until I found this one.
This little cabin on a giant piece of land.
“I know one-hundred-and-fifty acres isn’t quite one-point-one million acres,” I kept talking, nerves sparking off as the seconds passed and he said nothing. “But it is a lot,” I went on. “And it has a pond and two rivers and tons of trees and really fertile land and… okay. I’m sorry. I, just, it was a silly idea,” I told him, reaching for the tablet, trying to pull it from his giant fingers.
“Take a breath,” he demanded, finger moving down the screen, looking at the specs.
“It’s fine, really, if you think this is just ridiculous. I was just… Looking around. It’s nothing.”
“Not nothing,” he countered. “How long have you been sitting on this?”
“Not that long.” Because I was terrified it would be snatched up before I even got a chance to make the suggestion.
“Longer than the half an hour since I saw you last?” he clarified, and I had to take a breath before answering.
“Yes.”
“Don’t like that,” he told me, never one to mince words. “Don’t want you to feel like you have to keep anything from me. Not after all this time.”
It was true.
We didn’t have secrets.
Six months after I came back to him and told him I loved him, he had sat me down, shoulders tense, and informed me of what he had done while I was gone.
About Vincent Westcourt.
In a lot of detail.
I should have maybe been disgusted, horrified at the act of torture and murder. Maybe I should have looked at Ranger differently because of it. But the fact of the matter was, it seemed like justice to me. I couldn’t be sad or regretful that someone who had tormented me ended up tormented as well.
It was fair in the justice scales of life.
And I had already known what Ranger had been forced to do back in his military days. I understood there was a darkness to him.
So it changed nothing.
And since we shared literally everything else, there were no secrets to keep. Except maybe the time or two I could tell he was holding back grumbles when I served spaghetti too often. Little, nothing things.