The Babysitter

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "What?"

  "I guess I was in, I don't know, shock or something. But I didn't realize it was gone until I was in the motel room."

  "What was gone?"

  "My grandfather's wedding ring. I always, always wear it on a chain around my neck. It's nothing fancy. Just a silver ring, worn and even blackened with age in spots. But it has a lot of sentimental value. He and my grandmother were elementary school sweethearts. She died when they were just twenty-six. But he never looked at another woman again. He loved her and missed her every day until he passed. He left me that ring in his will saying he hoped it would bring a man like that to me one day. And it was gone," she added, blinking tears away.

  "So you went into the woods at night to find it?"

  "I, um, I was still in shock, I think. It was at the motel that I started to remember some things. Not all of it. But a little bit. And I guess I wasn't handling it well. All I could think about was getting that ring back. I mean... I don't even know if I had it on in the woods. Or if someone... or if it was taken before. I guess I might never know."

  "You'll know," I assured her, tone brooking no argument. But, well, this little slip of a woman with cracks in her heart did what most of the scariest men I had ever met wouldn't in this situation. She argued.

  "Logically, I probably won't," she told me, shrugging one of those slight shoulders. "I won't lie and say that doesn't bother me, but I'm... accepting it."

  I hadn't told her about the team, about how they were doing what they could to look into things. They weren't investigators. There was another crew in Navesink Bank that handled that shit. And, if need be, I would reach out to Sawyer and his crew to look into it. But my team had connections. Especially now that there was a hacker on the team. And because Bellamy brought with him a very odd, very diversified list of associates who could help if he needed to reach out.

  I was going to find out.

  Who had done this.

  Why.

  And where her fucking necklace was.

  Case closed.

  There was no room for doubt.

  There would be no accepting of impossible circumstances.

  I'd figure it out.

  She deserved to know.

  But she didn't need to know any of that right then.

  The next morning, I woke up to her clutching Gadget to her chest under the covers like a favorite toy to a night-scared child. Captain was still nestled at her feet, keeping watch over both of them now.

  And there was the warm feeling again.

  The following night at dinner, I did the nearly unthinkable.

  I started a conversation.

  Me.

  Someone who loathed small talk, who valued the silence of the world I had created.

  Yep.

  Me.

  I broke the silence that was only punctured by the occasional scrape of a fork or bleat from Gadget.

  "So, what was your old life like?"

  It took a long moment for her gaze to raise, and there was a long time that I figured she was going to refuse to answer.

  Not that I would blame her, of course.

  I knew all about guards.

  "Average, I guess," she told me eventually, her hand absentmindedly stroking Gadget's head where it peeked from inside his backpack. She kept him close to keep him warm, but had also made a makeshift pen earlier out of various moveable items she'd found in the cabin - wooden crates, chairs turned on their sides, a stack of cardboard boxes I had from trips into town that I never got around to bringing back to my truck.

  "Haven't been in that world in a long time. Not sure I know what is considered average anymore."

  Yeah.

  That was me inviting even more conversation.

  The wonders would never fucking cease.

  "I worked in a bank. Made enough to pay my bills, have a little spending money, but I wouldn't say I was worry-free. I was always one idiot light on my dashboard away from not having a savings. But it worked out mostly. I spent my days in the bank, then usually hit the grocery store, ran errands, watched some TV in my free time."

  "No friends? Family? Boyfriend?"

  "I had coworkers who were like distant friends. We'd go out sometimes. I was raised by a single mom. She passed three years ago. I didn't really have any other family. Maybe some distant aunts or cousins somewhere, but no one I ever really knew growing up, so it seemed weird to try to forge bonds just because we shared some strands of DNA."

  "Fair enough." And, still, I pressed. "No boyfriend?"

  "Not for a while, no."

  "No hobbies?"

  "I know it is lame to admit this, but no. Do you have any hobbies? What?" she asked when my gaze fell, clearly not wanting to answer the question ."You can tell me. It's not like I have anyone to tell," she added, shrugging.

  "Make soap."

  "Wait... that soap bar in the bathroom? You made that?"

  "Yeah. Could just get a pack of natural soap when I hit town, but I have a lot of goats. They produce more milk than I need. I didn't want it to go to waste. So I figured out how to make soap out of it."

  "It's the best soap I've ever used," she told me, and I found it almost hard to believe the sincerity in her tone. With the boatloads of chemical-laden shit that most women have in their showers and under their sinks, it was hard to imagine mine stacked up, let alone surpassed. "Can I make a suggestion, though?"

  My stomach tensed a bit, but my head nodded. "Sure."

  "Maybe consider replacing the rosemary next time? It's not bad, but it can be a little overwhelmingly strong on the skin after. You could try mint. Or lemon verbena if you grow any of that. Rose petal or chamomile might be nice too. Sorry," she said, shaking her head at herself. "I'm getting carried away."

  "Don't have anything like that, but Finn can bring some seeds. You can help with the next batch if you want."

  I absolutely shouldn't have been offering her that. Making the soap, at first, had just been an experiment, to see if I could put the milk to good use. But, over time, it had become a way to unwind, something almost meditative. And here I was, inviting her to join in.

  "You can even dry the mint and lemon and chamomile to make herbal tea. I mean, not that you really drink tea. You could sell it at a farmer's market though. I mean... you probably don't need the money. It's just a good way to make sure it doesn't go to waste is all."

  She was right.

  I didn't need the money.

  Quin charged his clients exorbitant amounts to clean up their messes. And when one of the crew members was needed for a task - negotiation, being a middle man, tracking, hacking, and lately... even executing - they got a big chunk of what Quin got from the client. I didn't take many cases on, but when they did come my way, they often stayed for quite a spell. And I got paid for that inconvenience. Well.

  So while I didn't work as often as most of the others, I made more per client when I did work. And since I didn't exactly pay rent or utilities, my biggest expenses were feeding the animals and stocking up the pantry when it ran low.

  I had an almost obscene amount of money in my account. From Quin. From my life before. You didn't exactly spend a lot of your money from the government when you were on deployment for almost the entire length of your career.

  It was all sitting there, some of it in checking, some in savings, gaining a meager interest. For if I ever needed it. For what, I wasn't sure. Quin provided health insurance I didn't use, but it was there if I ever sliced off a limb or some shit. Retirement? I would lose my shit sitting in a La-Z-Boy watching TV while my body withered away.

  But it was there.

  I didn't need more.

  That said, I liked her enthusiasm over the idea.

  "We'll see what kind of harvest we have," I told her. "Then we can decide how to use it after," I added, watching as a slow, sweet smile spread on her face, stealing away the sad for one too-short moment.

  And I realized in that moment, that I would do whatever it
took to get more of those smiles.

  And that, well, that was pretty fucked, now, wasn't it?

  SIX

  Meadow

  "Heya buddy," I murmured to the little brown creature nuzzling into my bare ankle.

  He'd been with us about a week and a half.

  And he already had about half my heart.

  The other half, of course, belonged to Captain.

  For all that it was worth - all scarred and bleeding.

  But them being around managed to staunch the flow some days. And that, well, I guess that was the reason people liked animals so much. They didn't care if you were happy or sad, beautiful or hideous, motivated or lazy. They were just there, happy just to be near you; nothing but bottomless wells of love and affection.

  It suddenly seemed unfathomable that I had spent almost all of my life with no animal by my side.

  I mean, sure, Gadget was a lot of work. He had to be bottle fed, he went to the bathroom indiscriminately all over the house - and his backpack sometimes - and he liked to nibble at things that he most certainly should not be nibbling at. But it was a true labor of love.

  Captain was decidedly less work. And he took off with his buddies for hours at a time to tumble and play.

  My war with Red raged on daily, though I hadn't been nipped to pieces since that first day, so I was going to call it an overall win even if he did still chase me, did still seem to want to be put in his place all the time.

  The chickens - or hens as Ranger insisted on calling them - were sweeter, following me around as I gathered the pastel rainbow of eggs they provided daily.

  The donkeys and the goats sniffed at me, but didn't seem to have eyes for anyone but Ranger. Which, well, I guess... who could blame them?

  Once the instructions had been handed out, and I had been lent a permanent marker to scratch Xs into the trees on the way, so I didn't get turned around, Ranger left me to my own devices with the greenhouse.

  I found a certain kind of peace there, harvesting fruits and vegetables, watering, occasionally trimming off dying parts of the plants. Gadget hung around by my feet, warm and content in the sun-soaked space.

  Maybe I should have feared the woods.

  I read a story in a magazine once while waiting in the office of my dentist about survivors of terrible events who could never go to the places where they endured their own personal hells. Kids who could never go back to school after a shooting, tellers at banks who couldn't go back to work after a robbery, etcetera. And it made sense, really, never to want to be in a place that triggered those memories.

  Somehow, though, in this place that held some of my ugliest memories, all I felt was comfort.

  Maybe it was Ranger. And the dogs. The safety they offered.

  Or, possibly, it was this. Fingers in dirt, muscles aching from work, the fresh air, the sun on my skin, the quiet.

  I never realized before how loud life was, how noise permeated every moment of my world before. The chatter of people at work, the low hum of the radio, cars engines, horns, neighbors, the TV that I left on all night long.

  There was also a sort of freedom in never seeing another living soul save for Ranger. It didn't matter if my face was free of makeup, if there was nothing to mask the bags I sometimes got from too little sleep or too much anxiety. My clothes didn't matter. My shoes didn't matter. How dirty I got simply didn't matter.

  And there was a sort of detox from the false comfort of social media.

  Most nights in my old life, when I was curled on the couch watching TV, or in bed before sleep, my cell was out, I was scrolling endlessly through Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest - watching the lives of people I barely knew, occasionally envying things they had, feeling inadequate in comparison to their perfectly filtered, carefully modeled lives.

  I once caught myself being jealous over some girl I went to high school with of her tour of Asia.

  I didn't, prior to that moment, ever even think of visiting Asia. If I dug deep, I would realize that I didn't have any actual interest in going.

  But that was what social media could do to you.

  I found myself occasionally still going to reach for my phone. When a question arose that I wanted to research. Or when Gadget was doing something cute, and I wanted to snap a picture.

  But snap it for what?

  To share on my feed?

  It was suddenly very clear to me how hollow that was - to search for validation in the form of likes and comments.

  I didn't need the reassurance of near strangers that he was cute, that caring for him, bringing him up was rewarding and emotionally intense, that this new life was suiting me, freeing me.

  "It was my turn," Ranger's voice broke into the quiet of the house. For someone so big, he could sometimes move almost silently. It was odd and off-putting the way he could sneak up on me.

  I grimaced down at the green bean I had snapped in half, shrugging, tossing it into the pot. "What was your turn?"

  "Cooking dinner," he clarified, putting another pitcher of goat milk into the fridge. Gadget may have been small, but he had the appetite of a goat ten times his size.

  "I didn't have anything else going on," I told him, turning to find him leaning against the fridge, arms folding over his chest.

  "What are you making?"

  "A stir fry," I told him, trying not to shift around under his gaze. He had a tendency to watch. Not in a creepy way. Or a critical way. He almost seemed curious. To see another person, to know what it looked like when they went about mundane daily tasks. It didn't bother me necessarily, but it made me incredibly aware of each of my movements.

  And, if I were being completely honest, I almost liked the attention. His attention. This man who didn't like most people, who for some reason found me interesting, worth his time.

  "Want coffee?" he asked, moving to make it before I could even answer. He was half-standing behind me, having to reach around me to put the pot of water on the stove. In doing so, his entire front brushed my whole back, pressing close enough for a long moment for me to feel the warmth that always seemed to radiate off of him.

  Everything in me seemed to freeze. My heart, my breathing, my thoughts.

  His body shifted again, the button of his jeans grazing across my lower back, a sensation that made a shiver course through me.

  And not one of those inside shivers, either.

  Nope.

  This was a full-body shiver.

  And with how close Ranger was, there was no way he hadn't felt it.

  His body seemed to tense too, then suddenly jerk away, stalking off and out of the kitchen.

  He didn't come back to make the coffee.

  All through cooking dinner, my stomach was twisted, a knot of unease in my core, worried I had screwed things up, made him second-guess me staying here.

  Not that it was my fault

  I couldn't control it if my body had responded to him a little.

  It certainly hadn't been intentional. I wasn't interested in that. The idea of intimacy made my skin feel itchy, uncomfortable.

  But there was no controlling a knee-jerk kind of response.

  Not that I could blame my body for doing it either. If ever there was a man who could muster something innate, primal in a woman, it was Ranger. This giant, bearded, muscled specimen of a man who also happened to be strong, smart, capable, who made a life off the land, who could be both a hard and a soft place at the same time.

  It would almost be ridiculous if my body didn't respond to him.

  Even though my brain wasn't involved.

  Of course.

  That would be ridiculous, after all.

  "Is it done?" Ranger's voice barked, making me jump from where I was dishing rice onto two plates.

  "I, ah, yeah. I wasn't sure if you were eating."

  "I'm always hungry," he told me, taking his plate so I could load it up with the vegetables.

  "This was the last of the rice," I told him a few minutes later durin
g a long silence that had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat. We never talked nonstop during dinner, but usually, Ranger would ask a question, would make a comment, would start some form of conversation.

  "Okay. Finn should be here tomorrow, I think. He will load us back up for a while."

  Again, another awkward silence.

  "What about you?" I blurted out when I couldn't take the silence a moment longer.

  "What about me?" he asked, brows knitted.

  "You asked me about my life before. What about your life before?"

  "Life before what?"

  "This," I said, waving an arm around.

  "No... I mean before I decided to live here, or before that, when I was in the service, or before that when I was just a kid..."

  "Um, well, all of it," I decided. He wasn't exactly an easy person to know. And he was so tight-lipped about anything outside of the Pine Barrens. Of course, I was going to take him up on an offer to know more if it was hanging there for me to grab.

  "Alright. I grew up in North Carolina. My dad had been in the Army. My mom was a homemaker. Though when times got tight, she would take odd jobs around town that she could bring me with her. Babysitting. Or elder care. Even some occasional house cleaning gigs. It was a normal life, I guess. A little slow. I spent a lot of time just being a boy - getting dirty, getting into trouble. When my old man would come on leave, he gave my mom a week of undivided attention, and then I got one. And we would go camping deep in the woods, live off the land. That was how I learned a lot of what I know now."

  "You were close with your dad?" I asked, feeling a small twinge of longing as I always did when someone had a kind, loving relationship with a paternal figure, never having known my own father. Which was likely why I clung so hard to the memory of my grandfather.

  "When I was young, yeah. The older I got, the further we drifted apart. I loved him, sure, but I think I feared him more. He was the kind of person who demanded respect, who wanted near perfectionism, who didn't have any soft in him at all."

  "But you followed in his footsteps?" I asked, brows knitting. Usually, if you didn't get on with a parent, you tried to rebel from all the things they held dear, not do exactly what they did.