by Amelia Gates
“You like it?” he asked, seeing the look on my face.
“I love it,” I breathed, trying not to look all doe eyed and crap.
“I always thought you would.” Kash pulled up closer and parked the car in front of the wide front porch. One of the huge double doors hung at an odd angle, leaving enough space for a full-grown adult to squeeze inside. Reaching back, he grabbed a flashlight out of the back seat but didn’t turn it on.
“Truck lights are one thing,” he said even though he was shutting them off. “I could be water maintenance for all anybody knows. But you can see flashlights on this hill for miles, and someone would get curious.”
“So why bring it?”
He grinned. “The windows are boarded up. There’s a whole haunted house to explore. You ready for this?”
“I was born ready,” I said, tossing my hair back.
Even under all the layers of dust and leaves, the foyer was impressive. Gilded trimmings glinted under the beam of light, hinting at a rich and exclusive patronage. Somewhere above us, a door creaked. I grabbed Kash’s arm and froze. Okay, so maybe ‘born ready’ was a bit of an over exaggeration.
Kash chuckled. “It’s a bathroom door on the third floor. There’s a hole in the roof there, any little breeze will make that thing wiggle.”
My heart thudded in my teeth. “You’re sure?”
“You aren’t afraid of ghosts, now Daisy, are you?” He was teasing me, but I didn’t care. It bothered me even less when he put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed comfortingly.
“No! No. I’m not scared of ghosts,” I lied. “But what if there’s a squatter or an animal or something?”
Kash shook his head. “How would a squatter find this place? And, I mean, there might be birds or bats or rodents here, but nothing big enough to hurt you. Don’t worry, babe. I got you.”
I looked up at his face and saw shining nostalgia. For a moment he looked just the way I remembered him, young and filled with the thrill of exploration. I snuggled close to him and syphoned some of that brazen confidence.
“Okay,” I said. “Show me around.”
Rooms opened into rooms, with more rooms beyond. The kitchen filled one entire wall, with prep and service rooms flanking the main cooking area.
“I looked into it once,” Kash said after I had exclaimed over the pair of double ovens. “And it’s possible to buy this place. I mean, whoever bought it would have to pay to move the security gate and would have to put down a deposit with the county to guarantee restoration—but with enough money, it’s salvageable.”
I looked up at a rotted crack which ran across one corner of the ceiling. “A whole lot of money,” I said. “And time, and work. A project like this would suck up years of someone’s life, and what would they even do with it then? It still isn’t in a good spot to be an active B&B.”
“Not a traditional one,” he admitted. “But they’ve got those apps now. I bet someone could make a killing here.”
I slid him a look. “Is that what you want to do?” He didn’t look happy about the idea, and I knew how he felt about people being in his space. Running a B&B was the last thing I could picture him doing with his life. But he shrugged and bobbed his head.
“I like money,” he said. “And this is right here. Easy access.”
“Easy access for my dad, too,” I said wryly.
“Oh. Yeah, there is that.”
Still, the place was kind of magical. There was a big, curved staircase which led up to the rooms, one of which had been sealed tightly enough that it was barely even dusty. The bed was made, though the comforter was stiff. Kash pressed on the bed, making the springs squeak, and raised his brows at me.
“Want to give the ghosts something to talk about?”
I grimaced at the bed, but then he winked at me. He whipped a blanked out of his jacket and flicked it out over the bedspread. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You planned this!”
“You bet your ass I did,” he said with a grin. “You said you wanted it in a bed, right?”
“I mean, yeah, but…this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.” Even with his blanket on it, I was leery of the bed. How many rodents had made their home in there over the years? I shuddered at the thought of squishing a mouse’s nest accidentally. Or having one try to make a surprise entry mid coitus.
Kash grabbed my hands and kissed them, one after the other. “We don’t have to,” he said, but I could hear his disappointment. “I just wanted to give you what you asked for, that’s all.”
I looked around the dingy room and smiled at him. “I did want to see this old place,” I said. “And it is wonderful. I’m not sure it’s as haunted as you two made it out to be—but it’s nice and creepy and beautiful. And I did want to make love to you on a bed—but not that one.” I held his face in my hands and kissed him. “Thank you, lover.”
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tight against him. “You are welcome, my love.”
We spent a few more hours exploring the nooks and crannies of the house (though I refused to go down into the basement). I fell in love with the space exactly the way it was. I liked the fact that nature was beginning to reclaim it, breaking up the flooring and pulling down shutters. Squirrels, owls, and mice had left their mark throughout the house, and at least one band of coyotes had been through there recently. It was a bittersweet notch in mother earth’s bedpost.
“I’m glad nobody’s tried to restore it,” I said dreamily when we were back in the car. “It’s perfect.”
Kash smiled at me, his eyes soft and warm, and squeezed my hand. “I love the way you see things,” he said. “I don’t always get it, but I love it.”
I snuggled up to him and kissed him. The car was still full of our scents from the night before, weaving a sensory spell which drew us irresistibly together. I was out of my clothes in moments, straddling his thighs and pressing against his soft, warm chest. Mouth pressed tight against mine and his hands venturing lower, Kash slipped my panties to the side. His cock had come alive, teasingly pressing against my dripping center. I didn’t hesitate to push up and angle myself just the right way to make it easy for him to slide inside of me. Our breaths hitched, our mouths fighting for each other, our bodies slippery with juices of pleasure, exhaustion and lust, we rode bliss into the darkness of the night.
We made love at the top of the hill, under the shadow of the old house, across from the water tower. Over the next weeks, we did the same at the drainage ditch, under the defunct railway bridge, out in the desert beyond the last set of tire tracks, everywhere in town I always wanted to go but could never find on my own. I was addicted to his touch, but I was also reveling in the closure. Our outings were a long goodbye to my hometown, one stop at a time, closing the doors on the last bit of intrigue and curiosity this town held for me.
It seemed to affect Kash oppositely. Everywhere we went, he would reminisce about being a boy here with Hunter, exploring abandoned mines and other spaces that humans had lost interest in. One night, when we were lying on top of his truck watching the stars, he took my hand and smiled at me.
“Imagine coming out here like this five years from now with a flatbed trailer and a pile of blankets. We could build a bonfire over there—we’ll bring marshmallows and hot dogs and let the kids roast them while we teach them about all these constellations.” He sighed—maybe it was supposed to be a happy sigh, but it sounded melancholic to me. “What do you think, two boys and a girl?” he asked, his thumb carelessly stroking mine.
I thought about it for a moment. “I guess if we live close enough we could take a day trip out here, but I like to think we’d be living somewhere with plenty of sky to explore anyway.”
He sighed again. There was no question that this one was melancholy. “Think about it, Daisy,” he said softly. “If we move somewhere else to start our family, how will we know what’s safe? They could go out in the wilderness alone and find something we would never even dr
eam of. Bear traps or land mines or something.”
“Land mines?” I laughed. “Where do you think we are, the middle east? They won’t run into land mines no matter where we live. And there’s no reason you and I can’t go exploring alone before the kids come along.” I walked my fingers up his chest as I rolled over to kiss his cheek. “There will be plenty of new places for us to christen, after all.”
I kissed his ear and his throat, moving my body until I was pressed against him, until my heartbeat thundered against his. He hesitated for a moment, then gave in. We made love under the stars, my head full of hope and plans for the future.
Chapter 15
I was getting anxious for a plan, but Kash had been dodging every attempt I made to talk about it. Still, I’d been squirreling my own pay-checks away, not spending anything except what I needed to for the sake of the household. My measly three hundred dollars in savings had turned into eight hundred. At this rate it would still take me a year to save enough to leave on my own, but I was sure that Kash was working on something on his end, even if he wasn’t ready to tell me about it yet.
I had been prepared to be patient for as long as it took for him to come to me—until I came home to find my mother furiously scrubbing tears from her face, tears which refused to stop flowing even though she kept an iron-fisted control over her breath and expressions.
“Mom! What happened?”
“Allergies,” she lied weakly.
I took her hands and made her sit at the table with me. I had all intentions of searching her watery eyes for the truth behind her tears, but she refused to look at me. “Momma, seriously. What’s going on?”
She sucked in a long, deep breath and blew it out slowly. There was a time my mother was filled with strength; a time where no one would ever feel like they had a reason to pity her. It wasn’t that she had everything, it’s just that she had her crap together. Now, looking at her, it’s even more obvious that she’s completely lost in this big, gaping world.
“Your father,” she finally said, “he’s been laid off for the season. It’s temporary, they say—just not enough work to go around right now unless we move to Asheville, and they won’t pay relocation expenses—so we have to be very careful about money for a little while.”
My heart sank. The last time the construction company did this, Dad was out of work for three whole months. Back then I’d had almost three thousand dollars saved up. It was all gone by the end of the dry spell. I could feel the trap closing over my head again, and all the hopelessness that came with it. If I didn’t get out now, I never would. I loved my mom, dad too, but…at some point kids had to live their own lives, didn’t they? Somehow it didn’t quite feel that way. Maybe if it was only my dad who’d grunt and groan about me turning my back, then it’d be alright. He was big and strong and bold, he could figure things out. My mom, though, as things were, she was barely hanging on by a thread.
I kissed her cheek and pulled her close, squeezing as tightly as I could manage. “Cheer up, Mama. It’s happened before and we survived. We’ll survive again.”
She smiled at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know how we survived last time, Daisy. I—can’t tell you not to spend your savings again, but—maybe I’ll start working. He can’t object to that now, can he? Not when he’s not making anything?”
He could and he would and we both knew it. But I squeezed her hands and gave her an encouraging smile. “Of course not. It’s the only logical thing to do. Heck, I can even pick up the late shift at the diner. It’s only four hours, that’s nothing.”
She huffed exasperatedly. “You’re already working full shifts or more at the library, Daisy. You can’t kill yourself over this.”
I winked at her. “I’m young and spry still. Don’t worry about me. We’ll get through this.”
I couldn’t make myself believe the things I said, though. By the time I snuck out my window to meet Kash in our usual place, I’d whipped myself into a panicked frenzy. I couldn’t stay. I’d take her with me if she would come, but I couldn’t keep living like this. We—I, at least—had to get out from my father’s thumb before my whole life passed by.
“Hey sexy,” Kash said as I climbed into his truck. He went to give me a kiss, but I was glaring under the weight of my thoughts and he pulled back. “What’s going on?”
“We need to get out of here,” I said.
He looked over his shoulder, brows furrowed with concern, and started the truck. “Somebody after you?”
I shook my head. “I mean out of here, out of here. Out of town. Dad’s been temporarily laid off again and it’s going to eat through my savings. We have to act now, or we’re never going to make it. Do you have anything saved?”
His expression was carefully blank as he navigated through the forest to the street and turned toward town. I slid down in the seat and put my hood up.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Somewhere I should have taken you from the beginning,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff I should have done already.”
I looked at him curiously, but he wasn’t in an elaborative mood. I kept my head down while he snaked through town, parking long before he should have. I peeked out the window and froze.
“Kash, this is the park! People are going to be here.”
He shook his head. “City ordinance says the park’s closed after dark.”
“That doesn’t stop anybody, and you know it. Also the walking path isn’t closed. That’s where people are going to be, so they can do the bridge thing.”
“Exactly,” he said softly.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You brought me here to do the bridge thing, didn’t you?” It wasn’t really a question.
He sighed. “It’s tradition, Daisy. A kiss on the bridge, it’s what everybody does. It’s good luck. God knows we need it.”
“It’s public,” I said. “You might as well propose to me in front of the market if you’re going to kiss me on the bridge.”
He shrugged. “Okay, let’s do that.”
I gasped. “Kash! We can’t do that. We can’t do any of this, not here.”
He scowled and rubbed his steering wheel like he was resisting the urge to hit it. “Why the hell not, Daisy? I want to kiss you in public. I want to hold your hand in the grocery store and take you to the movies and buy you flowers. I want to kiss you on the bridge and in the library and take you out to fancy dinners.”
“So let’s do all that! After we get out of town. There has to be a way. Damn it, Kash, I’ll live in a fifth wheel with you if I need to. I’ll live in this truck with you! I don’t care what we live in, we just can’t live here.” I sighed, making peace with a backup plan I’d been holding off on. Calmer now, I tried again. “You know all those dolphin collectibles Hunter bought for me? I’ve got twelve of them. They all have semi-precious stones for eyes. I got them priced last year when things got really bad—I can get two hundred a piece for them. That’s twenty-four hundred dollars. I have eight hundred saved already. That’s enough to get us out of here and into a little apartment somewhere else.”
“Daisy, don’t do that.”
“I know, I know,” I said, pressing a hand to my belly. “I don’t want to. When I look at them, I kind of feel like Hunter’s still with me somehow. But then I think, what would he really want for me? Would he want me to hold on to presents he gave me if it means being stuck here forever?”
Kash shook his head. “He’d want you to be happy.”
I nodded. “So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll sell the dolphins and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
“Daisy. Don’t do that. Seriously, don’t do that.”
I raised my hands and let them fall. “What then?”
He didn’t answer. A muscle jumped in his jaw and he rubbed a hand across his chin.
“Damn it Kash, what’s holding you back? Why won’t you make a plan with me?”
He ground his teeth, started to say someth
ing, then stopped himself. Then he reverted to shaking his head and pressing his lips together.
“What, Kash? Talk to me! You don’t tell me what’s going on. All we ever talk about is the past, or our feelings right now. We never talk about the future, why is that?”
He didn’t answer me, but his breath deepened and quickened.
“Why, Kash? Talk to me!” I was louder now. Impatient. Angry. Sad. Every single emotion bundled up into one.
“I can’t leave town, okay?!” He tensed like he was going to punch the dashboard, then deliberately unfurled his fingers and patted it instead.
I stared, frozen. “What do you mean, you can’t leave town?”
“I mean… I can’t leave town. I have a parole officer who’s an absolute dickweed. I’m on parole for the next ten years unless I can prove that someone else killed Hunter, and that I’m not profiting from drugs. Which means the money that Hunter and I stashed is untouchable even if I was allowed to take you out of town, which I’m not.”
Hot, frustrated tears prickled at my eyes. “That—that’s not fair!”
“Don’t tell me, tell Breaker. I’ve checked with the judge, I’ve checked the laws, and it isn’t the usual way of things but there is precedent for it. Apparently I’m dangerous, and they want to keep me contained so I don’t…I don’t know, go on a murder spree or something.” He shoved a hand through his hair, glaring through the windshield.
I stared out the window, seeing nothing except the images of my potential future crumbling to pieces. Everything was upside down now. Maybe Kash and I just weren’t meant to be—it certainly seemed that way. No other relationship has to go through this many hurdles before it’s even managed to get one foot off the ground.
“So—you can never leave?” I asked.
“Not for ten years. Or until I prove that I didn’t kill Hunter, which could take just as long. Or longer.”
Ten years. I closed my eyes, succumbing to the boulder of helplessness which had grown exponentially over the last few minutes. There was nowhere to go and no way to stay without sacrificing my future to save my family. Ten years of sneaking through my window stretched before me. A dark desire rose in my mind. The way Dad drank, it was only a matter of time before his liver failed him. Cruelly, I wished for it to happen sooner than later.
