9
MANIC
Cash had flownus deeper into the mountain to a landing strip that was nothing more than a bumpy-as-fuck track, and the old truck Dad kept here to transport him to and from the homestead had been there waiting, keys in the ignition as always. Thank fuck for that. If it’d been at the house, Addie and I would’ve had a long hike ahead of us.
“Okay?” Addie asked as we bounced along the dirt road toward my family home.
I glanced her way. “Yeah, I’m good, cupcake.” I shouldn’t be. I should be far from fucking okay. I was minutes away from seeing the old man for the first time in years. He wasn’t expecting me, and the old bastard did not like surprises.
I was going to ask him to get out of the way and let me build on my land. The conversation would suck, he’d get pissed, without a doubt. Still, I was okay because Addie was sitting beside me, looking at me with those soft brown eyes after coming apart for me last night like I never dreamed she would.
She was unraveling for me, showing me the tender parts she’d been hiding from everyone for so fucking long, and I couldn’t get enough.
I shifted gears and maneuvered around a deep pothole. We’d been driving for an hour, steadily climbing, but it was slow going. Thankfully, there’d only been a light dusting of snow so the road wasn’t too bad.
“Sorry we won’t make it to the cabin, baby. I really wanted to take you up there, but I need to get this shit with the old man sorted out.” I’d hoped dad and I could talk at the party over a beer, get past all this bullshit, then take Addie to the cabin tonight. That wasn’t going to happen now.
“It’s fine. It’s why you came home, right?” she said, then looked out the window. “I can’t believe you lived up here.”
She was right, of course, but this trip had become more about the woman beside me than my stubborn father. “If we’d come here in a few weeks’ time, we’d need ATVs to use this road. It’s only passable a couple months a year.”
Her brow scrunched. “What did you do for food?”
“We’d get most of what we needed for the year over those couple months. Mom baked a lot, and we’d fill the freezer with meat. We had everything we needed. We’d sometimes get deliveries flown in, but not often.” I could smell snow in the air. More was coming. I fucking loved it.
“I can’t imagine living that way,” she said. “And that’s what you want to do? Live isolated like that again?”
“Not year-round, just a month or two each year. I’d pay Cash to fly me in and out to save time, and that way there’s no chance of getting stuck here for months, but yeah, this is my home. This place is in my blood. I feel like something’s missing when I stay away too long.” I glanced her way again. “You wouldn’t like that, baby? Being so isolated?”
Her cheeks darkened when I called her baby, and I fucking loved it.
“I’m not sure. I don’t really like being on my own.” Her gaze darted away, then back, and she smiled. “I like people too much, I think.”
That wasn’t why she didn’t like being alone. There was something else, something that’d caused her to cry out in her sleep the last couple of nights and thrash when I pulled her into my arms to calm her. When she woke, she never mentioned any nightmares, and so far, I hadn’t broached the subject with her either. Not yet. Shit between us was still fragile. If I pushed, I got the feeling she’d push me away. “What if you weren’t alone?” I asked, and my voice was low and rough as fuck.
She blinked her big brown eyes at me, her throat working. “Um…well, I guess that would be different. I’d be worried I’d get bored, though.”
She sure as hell wouldn’t get bored. The thought of being up here with Addie, her, and me and no one else for weeks. Just eating and fucking and hanging out with her sounded like bliss to me. “You wouldn’t.”
Her breathing quickened, and it took all my control not to pull over and fuck her on the hood of the truck, and honestly, the only reason I didn’t was the house was only over the next rise.
“Hang on, cupcake.” I shifted gears, and we climbed the last bit, maneuvering around another pothole.
The house came into view and I stopped for a moment to take it in, to let the peace I felt when I was here soak into my bones. Before the old man walked out and everything went to hell. How many times had I walked or ridden this track? More than I could count.
“Oh wow. It’s so pretty,” Addie said.
It was. The house was beautiful. “The old man built it for Mom before I was born.” My father didn’t know how to tell people he loved them, but he sure as hell knew how to show it, with Mom at least. That house was a fucking sonnet, a poem, a love letter from the piles he’d dug into the hard, frozen ground to its peaked roof.
An ATV came down the hill opposite us. And there he was. He must’ve been out hunting. He stopped in front of the house, got off, and glanced our way. I lifted a hand. He turned away and stomped up the steps to the house and walked inside.
“He can’t have seen us,” Addie said.
“No, he saw us.”
Addison said nothing, but I could feel her watching me as I drove the rest of the way to the house.
We got out and walked inside. The TV was going.