Page 18 of A Furever Home (Gaynor Beach Animal Rescue #8)

My little family. Really, I didn’t need anything more. I was a mess and Brooklyn would be busy for the foreseeable anyhow. My stomach twisted and I dry heaved, but luckily nothing else.

I heard Cheyenne come out of the main bathroom and go into her room. Heard a few thumps and sounds and then silence. Eb lay down beside me and agreed to pillow his big head on my ankle and not my aching thigh. Twain curled up against my hip.

Eventually, the bout of vertigo eased enough for me to make it to the bed and stretch out.

I should’ve checked my bandage, since I’d skipped it, falling asleep beside Brooklyn…

for a moment I ached for how sweet and hopeful that’d felt, lying warm and sated with a man I cared about close against me.

But reality had intruded. No surprise. I closed my eyes and tried to relax each muscle one by one. My leg could wait till morning.

* * *

I had my bandage changed, the fur-babies fed, the dogs let out into the yard, coffee brewing, and bread in the toaster when Brooklyn wandered into the kitchen next morning, rubbing his eyes.

“That alarm goes off way too early,” he muttered. He smiled at me, but only half wattage and he didn’t cross the room to kiss me.

Well, of course not. That’s not how we are.

I said, “You could sleep an extra half hour if you didn’t drive me to work.”

“But I’d have to get up half an hour earlier to make breakfast so it’s a wash.”

Cooking didn’t take half an hour, but I’d take that rationale.

I set juice, coffee, toast, and jam at two places and eased down into my seat.

Xandra stalked in and made a leap at the table.

I caught her with the ease of long practice and hid my face against her fur for a few moments before setting her down.

Once she was on the floor, I gave her a swipe of butter off my toast as a reward, then finally looked up.

Brooklyn eyed me and I saw concern cross his face, so before he could say anything, I jumped in with, “You look pretty tired. Didn’t sleep well?” It wasn’t a lie. We could’ve had an eye-bags contest and he might’ve won.

“Not really.” He rubbed his face, then sucked down some coffee. “God, that’s good.”

“Your coffee-maker.” Keeping the focus off me, I asked, “Do you have any idea why Cheyenne is here?”

“Sanctuary from my parents, I expect.” He sighed, then began nibbling his dry toast.

I kept quiet, because I knew all about not wanting to discuss family. I pushed the jam his way and got a sweet smile in return.

But somewhere around the fifth bite, he began talking down toward his plate, not looking at me.

“My parents are…weird. The little town where I was raised in upstate New York has a long history of preparing for the worst. The hills around us are riddled with caves, and as far back as World War Two, the locals stocked those caves to hide out in. For resistance, when the Japanese or the Germans invaded.”

“Not completely foolish,” I suggested.

“No. But then…” He sighed. “The enemy changed, but the town didn’t.

We were going to be the last bastion against communism, the last survivors when the USSR dropped the bomb.

Now it’s the globalists and Bill Gates, Soros, and the New World Order.

When the UN invades America, Piperston will be the loyal defense for truth, freedom, and the American way.

” He gave me a smile that held no real humor, bared teeth below sober eyes.

“And woe to anyone who doesn’t see the clear and present danger. ”

“From the UN ?” I had to say. “They can’t even manage to keep small ethnic groups from trying to wipe each other out.”

“Right?” Brooklyn ran a hand over his head. “But that conspiracy mindset is so ingrained, and there are a thousand online sites grinding out the propaganda. My parents and neighbors are true believers.”

“Like a cult?” I didn’t like the bleak look on his face.

“Yeah. With less God than most, though. I mean, everyone goes to the local Baptist church, but God only comes into it as a given, American as apple pie. What counts is how straight you can shoot, how well your women prepare canned goods, and how much you hate globalism and taxes.”

“So they didn’t kick you out for being bisexual?” I’d assumed that was why he was rejected.

“Oh, partly. Not because I was defying the Bible as much as because the queer kid was too much of a wimp to finish off and dress a terrified, gut-shot deer. Plus, me dating boys wasn’t going to add to the local population. That’s a bit of an obsession.”

“Sex? Population?”

“Adding to the local core families. Like most small towns, a lot of the young folk leave Piperstown and surprise, surprise, they don’t come back.

There are a few new folk who show up, some of them even crazier than the locals, but the core is third and fourth generations.

My folks expected me to marry a neighbor girl and raise them a bunch of soldiers for America.

As a queer, I was useless to them, and they treated me that way.

So, I left. For a while.” Brooklyn’s gaze went unfocused and distant, the twist of his lips suggesting his thoughts were not fun ones.

I didn’t press, and a moment later he shook himself and glanced at me, his shoulders relaxing. “I imagine it’s something similar with Cheyenne. She’s smart, smarter than me?—”

“Don’t put yourself down,” I told him.

Brooklyn waved a dismissive hand. “Nah, just the truth. She’s got so much potential, and my family would only see her as domestic labor and motherhood.

The question is, why didn’t she wait till she was eighteen, like I did?

Running while underage and without a high school diploma seems like a foolish choice, and while Cheyenne can be hotheaded, she’s never been stupid. ”

“Makes you worry,” I suggested softly.

“Sure does.” He stared morosely at the last of his toast, then popped it into his mouth. “Well, nothing I can do about that till she wakes up. Which, judging by how she looked, might be afternoon. I’ll get you to work, and then Poppy’s arriving at seven.”

“Oh good, goldendoodle zoomies first thing in the morning.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Might cheer Cheyenne up, though.”

“It might. I hope she’ll talk to me.”

“What if she doesn’t? Will you let her stay if you don’t know why? Will your parents be looking for her?”

“I don’t know. They were glad to see the backside of me, but she’s a girl and not queer. Well, as far as I know.” He glanced toward the bedrooms too. “This is a mess. I was gone, free and clear, didn’t owe them a thing, didn’t even have to think about them. And now…”

“She’s back in your life, but she’s your sister and just a kid, and you’re going to help her.” I was sure of that. Brooklyn hadn’t even let a grumpy stranger climb a flight of stairs without offering to help.

“I guess.”

“I know.”

He cleared our plates and mugs into the dishwasher. “Let’s get going. I’ll leave her a note in case she wakes up.”

“I’ll put the dogs into the outdoor kennels till you get back.” If Cheyenne hadn’t been around dogs before, I wasn’t going to leave her responsible for three, even while sleeping.

My lack of rest made the seat of Brooklyn’s old SUV less comfortable. The sun was just coming over the horizon as we drove, forcing us to squint.

Brooklyn dug a pair of sunglasses out of the door pocket and offered them to me. “Here. You want?”

I waved for him to put them on. “You’re driving.”

Gold and lilac streaked the sky as I looked away from the crescent of the sun.

At this point in the fall, up in Minnesota, six-thirty would still be pitch dark.

Folks would already be working on my father’s farm, though.

Cows didn’t wait for daylight to need milking.

Mom would’ve made a light breakfast and would be starting the full meal for after morning chores…

As if he’d followed my thoughts, Brooklyn said, “You never talk about your family, either.”

“Well, I don’t have any younger sibs who might show up on the doorstep,” I said lightly.

Nieces, maybe. Except I’d been gone so long, they’d no doubt forgotten about me.

Still, Brooklyn had given me some truth, so I owed him mine.

The easy version, anyhow. “Five older sibs. Minnesota farm country. Nothing like yours, though. My brothers and sisters stayed local, started families, but they’re good people.

I grew up only a little older than some of my nieces and nephews, and Mom sometimes babysat them with me. ”

I still remembered when I was seven and had a bad cold, Mom asked my cousin Rick to watch me because she was going to take care of my sister’s three and didn’t want me to make them sick.

Achy and feverish, I’d asked why Rick couldn’t watch the littles and let me have my mom.

But she said they needed her more. In retrospect, she probably didn’t want to saddle a teenage sitter with three toddlers, but at the time, I’d sat huddled on the couch, numb, as she headed out to be with kids who were more important than me. And it wasn’t the only time…

I shook off the mood. “I never really fit in, and my next older sister, Melissa, took up a lot of my parents’ energy and money.

” I remembered Mom crying at the kitchen table when Mel had been gone deep into the night again.

I’d tried to comfort her, but at thirteen I was just clumsy, and she sent me off to bed.

They’d paid for Mel’s rehab twice and an abortion I wasn’t supposed to know about.

That was Mel’s personal business, though, and I said nothing.

Brooklyn threw me a glance at a stoplight. “You sound sad.”

“I wish my folks and I were closer. I went off to college, and we kind of drifted apart.”

“Do you ever go home?”

“I used to. Long time ago, now. I just got tired of making all the effort. Like, my freshman year, I used to call or text home every single Sunday morning. Then one time, I was sick .” I gave him a crooked grin.

“Meaning hungover. I missed most of Sunday. I was going to call and apologize in the evening, but they hadn’t even texted me to check up.

So I decided to wait and see what they would do.

” Selfishly, I’d wondered if they’d worry about me like they did about Mel.

“And what did they say?”

“Five weeks later, I got a text from Mom. ‘We haven’t heard from you for a while. Are you okay?’”

“Five weeks ?”

“Yeah.” Thirty-nine days, to be exact. Days I’d counted first in curiosity, then with growing anger, and eventually with a thickening ache in my chest. I hurried to add, “They were busy, of course. It was planting season, and my sister Mel was having some kind of crisis.”

“But still.”

“I was over eighteen and on my own. I was fine. I didn’t need them hanging over my shoulder, but I guess I found out they just weren’t all that interested in the kid that never fit in.

” I’d still texted now and then through college, but those five weeks broke something in me that bound me to family and home. Something I’d never found again.

Brooklyn reached across and set his hand on my knee. The warmth of his palm reached me through the denim. My throat tightened and I kept my eyes on the road ahead, but I didn’t nudge him away either. He kept his hand there till he had to make the sharp turn into the shelter parking lot.

When he pulled up out front, I turned to him. “Thanks for the ride. You really didn’t need to.”

He waved me off. “Hey, it gave me a peaceful, extra twenty minutes before I have to deal with my sister.” As I opened the door, he said, “I’ll see you tonight, right?”

I pushed to my feet, balancing with the crutch, and peered back in.

Brooklyn sounded hopeful, not like I was an additional burden in his home.

But then, he was a generous soul. I couldn’t be sure what would be best. Still, moving out would be an effort I didn’t want to make tonight, and if he and Cheyenne had a rough day, maybe I could be there for him.

“Yeah,” I said, closing the door and giving the roof a little thump. “We’re good. See you tonight.”