Page 3 of Homesick, Lovesick (Harper Valley Witch #3)

They arrived at just past ten o'clock on a spare tire, and Ronan did not want to fucking talk about it. But whatever asshole had dropped a box of nails from the back of his shitty F-150 and just left them scattered across the road was going to be hearing a lot of choice words from Ronan the minute he found the stupid bastard.

He also didn't want to talk about the construction, or the other stupid asshole who'd thrown a soda at his car for some imagined slight Ronan had never puzzled out. His poor car. He'd just gotten the tires changed a couple of months ago too.

"Hey,"

Match said, winding around him in a tight hug.

"We made it in one piece, mostly because you're a damned good driver. Not some insecure asshole who loses his shit over the slightest inconvenience."

Ronan mustered a smile he didn't really feel and kissed the top of Match's head before pulling away to stare at their destination. The whole project was headquartered at an old summer camp closed for the season. Apparently the cabins had been fixed up to accommodate a pair of adults in each instead of four to six kids.

They were cabin number four, and it did not look promising. Well, it wasn't like he'd been expecting the Ritz.

They were supposed to have arrived between six and seven, sat down to dinner and met the whole team. But the kitchen was long closed, and everyone was dispersed, if not asleep. The key had been left in their mailbox, though he wasn't clear why a summer camp had mailboxes on every cabin. Summer camp wasn't really something Ronan's family did. His parents would consider that slumming it, except their phrasing would be even uglier.

"Lemme grab the key, then I'll unload the car,"

he said, trying to shove down his bad mood. They were here, the ordeals of traffic were over with, that stupid asshole would continue on to make more people miserable, and there was fuckall he could do about it.

He climbed a set of creaky steps on to an even creakier porch that featured rocking chairs older than god, and opened the mailbox—and jumped a mile up and back as a giant ass fucking spider crawled out.

"Jesus fuck this fucking day. What in the goddamn hell is that.”

"What is— Oh, that's just a wolf spider. They're harmless."

"They're not harmless to my soul or sound sleep,"

Ronan groused, leaving his beloved to coddle the stupid spider while he finally secured the key, unlocked the door, and threw it open.

Thankfully, it did not smell like young boys still learning proper shower habits. Mostly it just smelled of pine trees and some sort of cheap air freshener. Match hated those things. By tomorrow it would be cleared out and replaced with sachets made of whatever he found in the forest.

"What is that god awful smell?"

"If I had to guess,"

Ronan said, suppressing a grin, "I'd go with 'Spring Meadow.' One of the plug-in ones. Yep, right there, I see the culprit."

He strode over to the little kitchenette area, if it could be called that when it was just a fridge, a sink, a hotplate, and the world's oldest coffee machine, and reached under the half-assed sink to pull the plug-in from the socket. Because an electrical socket right beneath what amounted to a glorified bucket and a table with the middle cut out, was a brilliant idea. Forget bears and snakes and spiders; they were going to die from dubious home improvements.

"Remind me tomorrow to do some furniture rearranging and also find the breaker box."

"Noted,"

Match said around a yawn.

"Where's the shower and bathroom? Oh, wait, maybe that's it."

He opened a door at the back of the cabin, then sighed.

"The shower and toilet are outside. Like I guess technically these count as walls, but one good storm, and we're gonna be arrested for public nudity."

Ronan groaned.

"How are kids allowed to stay here?"

"I think when it's kids they probably use a communal shower, and this was all just added on for us. The plywood walls look brand new. Probably all vanish again when we're done. I'll, uh, clear out a few spiders, then you can get a shower."

Ronan whimpered and put his attention to emptying their luggage into the single dresser and the rack shoved into one corner that was all they were getting for a closet. At least instead of bunk beds or whatever, there was one large queen bed. That took up most of one wall. Near it was the door to the Shower from Hell, and opposite was the Kitchen of Electrical Fire Waiting to Happen and the dressers.

When the luggage was empty, he shoved it under the bed.

"Shower is now safe,"

Match said.

Resigned to his fate of spider jumpscares, Ronan stripped off his clothes, grabbed his towel, and went to face his demise.

The shower situation was even more desultory than promised. There were multiple pieces of plywood forming the world's most out-of-code lean-to he'd ever seen in his life. No roof. It was probably held together with staples rather than nails. One side had a toilet that hopefully had actual plumbing and wasn't some sort of white trash, hovering over a hole in the ground situation, and the other side had a shower stall that had probably been bought used and spritzed with bleach. Hopefully. The showerhead looked like the standard locker room kind.

Making sure his hair was covered so it didn't get wet, as tonight was not a wash night, he turned on the water and waited. To his enormous relief, there was both good pressure and steam. Take the win.

He showered as quickly as humanly possible, mourning that the space was too small for shared showers, then grabbed his towel and fled back to the relative safety of the cabin.

"So this is hell on earth."

"No, it's not,"

Match said as he climbed off the bed and stripped for his own shower.

"That's going to be next week when you have to shower in a freezing cold creek."

Ronan closed his eyes and whimpered.

"I'm too spoiled and entitled for this shit."

Match giggled before kissing him briefly. As much as Ronan loved having a naked Match pressed up against him, it was getting chilly, and it was nearly midnight at this point. So he stole another kiss and reluctantly let him go, then pulled on sweats and a t-shirt before locking the door and double checking the two small windows. Not that windows and a door would do much if they were attacked by grizzlies in the night, but swords and magic would handle that, though he wasn't actually in a hurry to hurt any bears. They weren't doing anything wrong in their eyes, after all.

He climbed into bed, sighing at the hard mattress. At least the blankets were nice and heavy, though they smelled of those shitty laundry beads. Another thing Match would address with vigor at some point. There'd be lavender and rosemary sachets everywhere.

"There's no heater that I can see,"

Match said as he slid into bed.

"This room is going to turn into an icebox without a heater."

"I'm sure they'll provide space heaters once the chill really sets in. Probably from the 190s with frayed wires."

Match laughed, rolling over to half-sprawl across him.

"Hopefully we'll get tomorrow to make this place a little better, so we don't dread the breaks between rounds of hiking. I'm starting with that damn fake scent."

Ronan caressed his back idly, kissing him softly, until Match drifted off with a soft sigh.

He stared up at the ceiling, where he could just see a fat spider weaving a web in the corner of a pair of rafters.

After all of this, if he didn't get to propose in front of a beautiful waterfall in a field of flowers, he was gonna burn the forest down.