“Is there a library?” I ask.
He looks inquisitive. “There’s one an hour away, I think,” he says. “But it has strange hours. If you like to read, I’ve got a tablet you can use. Download whatever you like. Or you can order books online. I drive down to the mailbox every few days.”
So he has internet access then. That’s good. But also a mailbox far enough away he has to drive to it.
“If you’d let me drive your truck,” I say, “I could get the mail for you.”
He looks surprised—whether that I’d offer to do that, or that I think for a minute he’s going to let me have the freedom to drive, I’m not sure.
“Get a look at my driveway first,” he says. “If you’re comfortable with it, that’d be great.”
I smile. “It’s the busier roads I’m worried about. We drive on the other side.”
Hunter smiles. “There’s not a lot of traffic up the mountainside, that’s for sure. Though you do have to watch out for deer.”
Deer. I’ve never lived where I might see deer grazing, and I let myself romanticize what it might be like to sit on the back porch—assuming he has one—and watch a herd of deer wander by and nibble at grass. It sounds like a quiet life, and God knows I could use some quiet after the last few years.
I look out the window, staring at the trees we’re passing. The area is so wooded, something I’m not accustomed to seeing. I wonder if this is what my mother would’ve wanted for me, if she would’ve liked Hunter, or if she would’ve been happy living in a cabin in the woods. She wanted me to be comfortable, I know that. So I suppose it depends a great deal on what this cabin looks like.
Cocoa settles on the bench between us with her head in my lap, and I pet her head as she closes her eyes. To quiet my fears, I let myself hope this place will be lovely, like something out of a painting.
We’re both quiet as we turn off the main highway and onto a small, two-lane road with no shoulder. An hour or so up Hunter takes a sharp right onto a gravel road with a big sign that says “Private Property: No Trespassing.” Another few bends up, we come to a gate, which Hunter climbs out and unlocks, pulls through, and then locks again behind him.
“Do you get many trespassers?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Not many. A few hunters during deer season, which I don’t mind if they’re responsible, but some of those guys will shoot anything that moves. Sometimes kids looking for a place to camp—I usually find the remains of them.”
I cringe, and Hunter’s eyes widen. “Of their camps! The remains of their camps, I mean. Not—uh, well you know.”
I laugh, and he stiffly joins in. “So no Blair Witch Project out here.”
He shakes his head. “No. But if you want to take to hanging sticks from the trees to keep the kids away, I won’t argue.”
“Are you kidding?” I say. “That would only encourage them. I’m sure we could think of something though.”
Hunter grins, but my heart turns to ice. I’ve said we as if such a thing exists. As if I’m planning to stay here as if I’m insinuating myself into his life.
He clears his throat. “I like the way you think,” he says, and my heart melts.
That’s what I’m here for, after all. To see if the two of us can fit together, to see if there can be an us.
It’s good to know he doesn’t hate the idea, anyway.
The ride becomes bumpier, and I realize he wasn’t kidding about the dirt road. The truck bounces up and down so much that I can see my suitcases lifting off the bed in the back. Cocoa whines and hops off the seat and onto the floor—she’s obviously been bounced off the bench a time or two before. A glance at the speedometer tells me we’re going only ten kilometers an hour—oh, no, it’s miles. There were mile signs in Ireland when I was a child—I’m trying to reme
mber exactly what the conversion rate is.
Regardless, it’s slow. If it’s a thirty-minute drive, then the road is probably only five miles or so—ten kilometers, perhaps?
Walkable, anyway, if it came to that.
I’m starting to get motion sickness—and glad I haven’t eaten—when the cabin finally comes into view.
For a second I’m stunned, sure this can’t be the place that he meant. It’s enormous. Two stories, with several large verandas, and a wrap-around porch. There are so many windows, the walls are practically made of glass and all of them allowing the sunlight in. When Hunter parks the truck, I realize I’m gaping.
“Like it?” he asks.
I nod. “It’s beautiful.”