Mickey gets to his feet and pulls me to standing. He hugs me once, quickly, a strong clap on my back. He drives behind me all the way to the ranch, turning around after I make the right under the massive Hayden Cattle Company sign. He waves at me from his open window and disappears from sight.
31
Jo
I'm so relievedWyatt isn't angry with me, I'm nearly floating. He's still sleeping, and I have no plans to wake him. He carries such heavy burdens on those wide shoulders of his. He deserves to rest.
I'm the only one awake right now, so I take my coffee and make my way out front. I knew when I was ordering furniture I'd have to include chairs and a table for the porch, and I'm so glad I did. I think this is going to be my favorite spot in the whole house. Except the bathtub.
The morning sun is just strong enough to warm my skin, and a slight breeze pushes through the overgrown grass. I raise my coffee to my lips, and through the steam spot a flash of red.
The male cardinal dashes across the open sky, settling in a tree. It's always amazed me how incongruous the red feathers are with the desert landscape. As if, upon creation, God asked the bird if he'd like to blend into his environment the way most birds do, and the cardinal refused.
I watch the male chase a female, this one colored a grayish-brown. She hops from branch to branch, making his pursuit a little more exciting, and then they both fly away. I'm assuming his advances were accepted. Lucky guy.
"Hey you," Wyatt rasps, stepping from the front door. His hair sticks up in the most perfectly adorable tufts, and as if he's read my mind he reaches up and runs his hands through his hair. With one eye open, he trudges toward me and settles in the chair beside me. I hand him my nearly empty coffee and he takes the final sip.
"More," he groans.
"I'll bet you need it," I answer. "We both do. Come on."
He gets up and follows me in, but not without kissing me first. The look in his eyes is captivating. He looks lighter, like overnight he let go of a weight he'd been carrying. And in a way, he did.
I pour us each a fresh cup of coffee. Wyatt reminds me we don't have food yet, not anything substantial we can make for Travis.
Travis.
I can't believe he's really here. With me. Living in my house.
It takes him another hour to wake up, and I use the time to go out to the future camper's building and measure rooms so I can get the beds ordered.
Travis finds me in one of the rooms, sitting on the floor and pouring over different beds on a website. "So this place is going to be a camp, huh?"
I look up. "Yeah."
"It's a little small for a summer camp."
"It's going to be a special type of camp."
"Like what?"
I tuck the phone in my back pocket. "A wilderness therapy camp."
"Therapy? Like physical therapy?"
"More like emotional therapy."
Travis crosses his arms and leans back against the wall beside the open door. He wears a nondescript white shirt and black jeans. "A camp for bad kids."
"No."
"That's what it sounds like."
"That's not what I said." I climb to my feet and dust my hands on the seat of my jeans, waiting for him to say more.
"Did you buy this place and build all this because you think I'm a bad kid who needs your camp?" He says it like he's completely devoid of emotion, but I see all of it swimming in his eyes. How badly he needs to hear that he's not my reason for all this.
"No, because you're not a bad kid. But I am really happy that you're here, because I think you could be pretty useful around this place."
