Page 16 of Spark
“I guess,” I say, suddenly nervous. I don’t know anything about his house or where it is. Honestly, I don’t even know where we are now. I’ve walked the main stopping streets of this town dozens of times, but I’ve never ventured much outside of the hub of tourists and shops. Traversing the winding streets in a car is a completely different experience, and I’m worried that I’ll never find my way on foot again.
I’m so lost to my inner thoughts that I don’t notice Warrick getting up and moving toward me, until his hand is held out infront of me. Eyeing it, I wonder why he keeps trying to hold my hand. Is it a man thing, or a Warrick thing? I’ve never had a boyfriend. No one has ever wanted to hold my hand, not even my dad when I was a kid. His parenting method was keep up or get left behind, so I learned to keep up at a really young age.
When I don’t reach for him, he reaches for me, curling his huge, callused hand around mine, gripping me firmly and not giving me an opportunity to slip free.
“Let’s go home,” he says, his voice low and gruff, but somehow soft and sweet all at the same time.
Home. It’s been months since I had one. Years, really, since anywhere has actually felt like home, like permanence. I doubt this town will become that for me, but something about the sentiment makes tears prickle at the backs of my eyes.
I don’t speak, but I let him gently pull me to my feet and guide me to his car. I let him open the door for me, then wait while I slip into the seat, closing my car door before he climbs into the seat beside me and we pull out onto the street.
It takes me almost ten minutes to realize that instead of there being more buildings, the road we’re on seems to be heading toward less and less, until the only things around us are woods and fields and nothingness.
“Where are we?” I ask, the fear that had been missing since he held out his hand to me surging back.
“My house is up the mountain,” he says calmly, like it’s totally normal and not at all remote and isolated and terrifying.
“The mountain,” I repeat, sounding like an idiot.
“Yeah, we have amazing views,” he says, like it’s a selling point.
“How far would it be to walk down to town?” I ask.
Keeping his eyes firmly fixed forward, he drops a bomb. “Oh, it’s too far to walk to town from there.”
Panic, fear, and debilitating terror make me freeze in my seat. The deputy and his sister both told me I was safe with this man. But they must have known he was bringing me halfway up a freaking mountain, and they never said a thing. Is this all a trick? Was that even the sheriff’s office, or was this all just a setup to make me believe it was okay to go with him? Did I run from becoming a prostitute and end up putting myself into an even more dangerous situation?
Hope blooms to life as I remember that Cora said I could leave and go to her home or someone else’s place. She told me I was safe, and her words didn’t feel like a lie. Was I wrong? Did I convince myself that she was being truthful because I wanted her to be?
Time passes as Warrick drives us farther and farther away from safety. In the bustling, tourist-filled town, I was simply another person passing through—a visitor, there but not memorable.
Only I’m not anonymous anymore. Warrick knows me. Two of the deputy sheriffs know me, and Cora knows me. She said she was going to come and see me. But this is insane. I shouldn’t have gone with him. I should have packed my stuff up and left. I should have caught a bus to the next tourist-filled town and done what I’ve been doing for the last two months, only somewhere new.
Being homeless isn’t ideal, but I’ve been coping, and sooner or later I’ll find a job and then an apartment and maybe even put down some permanent roots. If I’m not dead in the next few hours, I’ll stay the night at Warrick’s. I’ll sleep against the door so he can’t come in, and in the morning, I’ll find a way back to town, and I’ll catch the next bus that turns up.
The slowing of the car catches my attention as Warrick turns off the road and onto a gravel driveway, through an entranceway that welcomes us to the Williams Ranch. When the road splits,we bear left, and instead of his house being a creepy shack in the middle of the woods, he slows to a stop in front of a cute home halfway around a circle of well-maintained and mostly occupied identical houses.
“Not what you were expecting?” Warrick asks, turning to look at me for the first time since we started driving.
“No,” I admit.
“Hal offered the entire team houses when we first moved here. We weren’t sure if we’d get the funding for more than a year, but we just secured the budget for our team to stay in place for another five years.”
“Oh,” I whisper, feeling stupid for not having asked any questions about the man whose house I’m about to sleep in.
“The chief, Buck, and his wife, James, live there,” he says, pointing to the first house. “His brother Nero and his girlfriend Tori are next.” He indicates the second house. “Then Oz and Etta, Danny and Parker, and Anders and Henry, are over there.” He points to the next three houses. “Those houses”—he gestures to several houses further around the semi-circle—“are the guys from the B team. We work a rotating shift pattern, so they’re at work when we’re on our downtime and vice versa. We don’t see them much, but they’re all good guys. The house beside mine is empty at the minute. Knight used to live there, but he bought a parcel of land and built a place for him and his wife Octavia just over the hill on the other side of the Barnett property.”
I nod, like I know who he’s talking about, even though I have no idea.
“And then this is our place,” he says, motioning to the house we’re parked outside of.
Our place. Why does that sound so good? It shouldn’t. I can’t stay here, so why is my heart actually hurting at the idea that I’m going to have to leave and never come back?
Looking through the window, I stare up at the house beside us. Unlike some of the others on the street, there are no window boxes full of flowers or lawn ornaments. There are no children’s toys, or even signs that anyone lives here. But it’s clean and tidy, the grass is a little long, but it’s not disheveled, and there are blinds half covering the windows. This looks like a home, and I don’t know why that thought is making my throat thick with some kind of emotion I absolutely should not be feeling.
Smiling at me, Warrick slips from the car, appearing at my door while I’m still staring at the house and wondering if I should refuse to get out and insist that he take me back to town. I jump when he opens my door and holds his hand out for me to take.
Touching him in this moment is a huge mistake, but I do it anyway, placing my hand in his. Carefully tugging me from the car, he grips my fingers tightly as he closes it behind me and leads me up the path to the front door.
