Niro (Henchmen MC Next Generation 1)

I had always enjoyed the diversity of lifestyles, the way I could be on the beach in just a few minutes, could roll out a towel, slather on some sunscreen, and enjoy a mini-vacation, then still be able to make it home for dinner. But the beach wasn't the only natural wonder in an area that was framed in farmlands.

I had spent many a summer in my youth at a peach orchard, picking downy, ripe peaches off the tree, eating half a dozen of them before even making it out front again.

In the fall, we would all pack up and go to another farm where we picked apples, or took a hayride through the woods where we would be chased by actors wearing horror costumes and carrying actual chainsaws. I was a chicken at heart, but Niro had always managed to convince me to go, laughing when I screamed and clung to him even though I knew that nothing was actually going to happen to me.

Navesink Bank was the biggest small town in all of New Jersey. Which meant there were a lot of people, but without ever feeling crowded or disconnected, without actually losing that personal touch that came with familiar faces all around.

On top of all of that, pretty much everyone I knew and loved was there. Even friends that had gone off to college had long-since gone back, missing their family, their friends, that old way of life that had always been so appealing to all of us.

There was nowhere else in the world like it.

Sure, I knew why I had left in the first place.

The college I needed to get my veterinarian degree from wasn't in Navesink Bank.

I couldn't, though, as I drove back into town, figure out why I had stayed away. When so much of myself was here, with these sights, with these sounds, with these people.

My parents lived in a more rural part of the suburbs in an old Victorian that had been in my mother's family for generations. There was a sprawling garden out back, and a multitude of animals hanging around on any given day.

As I drove up, I spotted a couple of Silkie chickens pecking at the weeds in the front flowerbed. A tortoise was making his slow way up the drive. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn't get out of my way in time, so I parked on the street, grabbing Nugget's leash and my smallest bag, then headed up the front path, anticipation bubbling up inside.

"There's my girl," my father greeted, giving me the warm smile he reserved only for my mother and me, wrapping me up against his assuring arms. "Happy to have you home," he added, pulling me in as the dogs became aware of my presence, yipping and running and attacking me and Nuggs with love. "Mom is out back collecting... some shit or another," he said, waving a hand, having given up on trying to remember all my mom's little herbal remedy ingredients long ago.

"I'll go help her with that...stuff." Yes, stuff. I never could get comfortable cursing in front of my parents. Who was I kidding? I never cursed much to begin with.

I moved through the house, stopping to coo at the four-day-old kittens in a pen in the kitchen along with their very tired-looking mom. Apparently, the mama had been a stray with a wicked dental infection and removed dewclaws who would never have survived on her own. Some heartless owner who hadn't taken the time to spay her had likely just kicked her out when she became pregnant instead of doing the right thing.

My mom was where I learned my love of animals. I'd helped her wean and nurture young babies, was taught by her side as she rehabilitated strays so they could find forever homes. I'd helped her mend wild animals then set them free since I was still a baby myself. I had many little scars to prove it.

I also learned at her apron strings how to create my own custom herbal teas for any sort of malady. Peppermint for bellyaches. Raspberry leaf and nettle for lady issues. Chamomile, lavender, and passionfruit for anxiety. Ginger, echinacea, elderberry, and green tea for colds. My mom's teas had gotten me through every malady I'd ever suffered.

I guess I had been away so long that I forgot what it was like to be around people like my mother who shared my common interest in animals, in plants, in the ways of old. Coming home felt like pieces of myself that had floated away little by little over the years were coming back together, making me whole again.

I found my mother where my father said she would be—bent over a raised bed overflowing with chamomile plants, snipping off the flowers, and putting them into a white enamel basket I'd gotten her for her birthday when I was a teenager. I had a feeling a restock of my depleted chamomile tea stock was on my way soon. I'd started going through so much of it because of the stresses of school and then work that she'd told me she planted an extra bed full of the annuals just so she could try to keep me calm from several hours away.