She looked at me steady for a moment, measuring again, running those calculations.
"Okay," she said.
I sat down in the leaves, putting myself below her eye level, giving her the height—and the ability to run away, if she needed to. I could see her relax from the set of her shoulders, the long exhale of breath.
“We don’t have to talk,” I said. “But…you got a name?”
She bit her lip, and I only caught sight of the scar then—a long pink line from her lower lip to her chin.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m Willa.”
“I’m Forrest,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Then…we sat. Didn’t talk.
Just waited.
And even given the circumstances…it was actually nice.
THREE
Willa
I didn't know these people. I shouldn't have trusted them. But there was something about them that entirely disarmed me.
They just…felt safe. Forrest especially.
I walked out of the woods in borrowed boots, up to a big house with a wraparound porch. We passed a little herd of pygmy goats, plenty of cattle, some grazing horses. Forrest’s dog, Nickel, stayed right beside me for the whole walk back, and a woman about my age was waiting at the house when we arrived, her long blonde hair in a braid down her back.
“Hey,” she said. “I'm Haven. Stetson said you needed some help?”
I nodded. “I'm just a little scraped up. It really shouldn't be a problem, I don't want to impose?—”
“You're not imposing,” Haven said. “Really. Now come on in…my mother-in-law’s making pancakes.”
I flashed her a hesitant smile and followed her in, the smell of good food hitting me right away. Nickel finally left me to go sit by the woman at the kitchen stove, tail wagging as she looked up and begged for scraps.
“You are too cute for your own good,” the woman muttered to the dog. “And you just knew I was saving you some bacon, didn't you?”
The dog's tail wagged harder.
The woman at the stove turned around then, and I got my first real look at her.
She was maybe sixty, soft around the middle, with silver hair pinned up loose and flour on her apron. Her eyes were blue and sharp and they moved over me the way a person's did when they were taking stock without making you feel like a problem to be solved. I’d rarely been looked at that way.
It felt…some kinda way.
"Well," she said. "Sit down, honey. You look like you walked all night."
I had, but I didn't say that.
"This is Peggy," Haven said, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table. "She's Forrest's aunt. My mother-in-law."
"Also Adam’s wife," Peg said. “Also baker of the best damn peach pie in Briar Hill.” She turned back to the stove. "You like bacon?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Good. Haven, get her some orange juice." She pointed the spatula at a chair without looking. "Sit."
