The Babysitter Read online

  Finn, Gunner, and Miller had given her instructions on how to get back to the cabin? Why the hell, then, had Miller been texting me about how unhappy she was.

  Just a little last stab of guilt before she knew Meadow was going to show up at my door. "When... when did you decide to come?"

  "I planned to come every single day after I stopped crying," she admitted, lifting her chin a little at the admission, feeling vulnerable, worrying I would exploit that.

  "Did Miller know that?"

  "No. I mean... not until earlier today."

  "What happened earlier today?"

  "I saw Finn. I mean, I see Finn or Miller pretty much every day. They've been... watching me. Making sure I don't get more scars, I guess," she said, shrugging a shoulder as her gaze fell. "But I saw Finn, and I just walked to him instead of ignoring him. And asked him for directions. He remembers his way here by where the biggest brush piles are, you know," she informed me, lips twitching a little. When I said nothing, she shifted her feet a bit, uncomfortable, uncertain. "Miller knows the trees and rocks. Gunner was the one with the north and south and due east type of directions which, well, are completely useless to most people. Me included."

  Babbling.

  She was babbling in nervousness.

  My heart was stuttering in my chest.

  We were quite a pair.

  "Meadow... why are you here?" I asked. It was the question I really wanted to know. And, therefore, was the hardest one to ask.

  Her gaze fell for a long moment, her chest expanding as she sucked in a breath so big her lungs must have burned, then letting it out just as slowly as her head rose, green eyes finding and holding mine.

  "Because I think I love you, you idiot."

  EPILOGUE

  Meadow - 1 minute

  I was starting to worry he'd had a stroke.

  I mean, yeah, the "L" word was often shocking to the average modern-day man.

  Especially one who had just somewhat recently dumped you.

  Rather brutally.

  I guess we were in the 'crazy chick' territory now.

  "Ooo-kay, um... I'm gonna go," I told him, taking a step back. "And hope that the ground opens and swallows me up," I added, backing up another step. "Or a bear gets me. Or a coyote pack. There are coyotes in the woods, right? Or maybe Red can peck me to death. Really, anything would be preferable to..."

  "What did you just say?" Ranger asked, voice so low I almost couldn't hear it.

  "That Red could peck me to death."

  "Before that."

  "Um... bears? Or was it coyotes..."

  "Meadow," he growled.

  I never would have thought I would miss a growl.

  But, God, I missed him growling at me.

  "Yeah, well," I said, taking a deep breath. "I tried, okay? I really did. I went home. I broke down. I ate about fifty-thousand calories in each sitting. And then I tried. I went back to my job. I paid my bills. I even went back to my old coffee shop. I tried."

  "Okay," he said, seeming to sense I needed something from him.

  "And every moment of it felt wrong. My clothes, my food, my stupid single-serve coffee."

  "You weren't there long enough to acclimate."

  "You don't get to tell me if I tried hard enough," I told him, chin lifting. Never, never before had confrontational words come so easily to me. I couldn't claim it was comfortable to use them. The fact of the matter was, my hands were sweating. And, I mean, I didn't have a mirror, so I couldn't be one-hundred percent on this, but I kind of thought my upper lip might have been sweating too. My upper lip. "You don't get to tell me I didn't try hard enough. And you don't get to tell me that it is my trauma that made me want to be here. And, lastly, you don't get to tell me that what I am feeling isn't what I am feeling."

  "Meadow, listen..."

  "No."

  "What?" he asked, brows drawing together.

  "I said no. I'm not going to listen to you. At least not if all you are going to do is tell me I'm wrong."

  "I'm not trying to tell you that you are wrong. I'm trying to tell you that maybe you need help. Actual help."

  I wish I could say that those words didn't bother me, didn't hurt. But they did. Of course they did. Because having your trauma thrown in your face sucked. Because someone thinking they knew better than you did how you were handling a situation sucked. Because someone you genuinely cared about telling you that you were messed up in the head - you guessed it - sucked.

  But getting offended wasn't going to help us get anywhere.

  And I wasn't stupid; this was my only shot; I had to be careful here.

  "Why did you make me leave?"

  Ranger sighed, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

  "You want coffee?"

  "I want my goat. And explanations."

  "Do you want them while you drink coffee?" he clarified, lips twitching.

  I missed the twitch too.

  It was strange.

  He was right there, within touching distance, but the aching feeling in my chest felt stronger than ever before.

  "Yes," I told him, moving inside when he turned to walk toward the kitchen.

  I leaned down, throwing my arms around Captain, talking close to his ear, not wanting Ranger to overheard. "I missed you so much. Now, where's your brother?" I asked, voice louder as I got to my feet.

  "By the fire."

  There was no denying it - I flew across the room, scooping up the sleeping Gadget, clutching him to my chest like a kidnapped baby brought home, planting kisses all over his soft head as he woke and bleated happily.

  "Red has been taking out your absence on me," Ranger informed me as I walked over to the table, sitting down, trying to prepare myself for this conversation, knowing it wasn't going to be an easy one.

  It took everything I had not to say You deserved it. Instead, I went with, "Did he catch you?"

  "Most mornings," he informed me, scooping the grinds into the press.

  Somehow, I knew that we would not be having the conversation until the coffee mugs were in our hands.

  "Did Molly have her baby yet?"

  "Babies," he told me, watching the pot on the stove. And all I could think about was how my mother used to say that a watched pot never boiled.

  "Two or three?" I asked, excited, hoping I would get the chance to see them. Gadget was a pygmy goat. And therefore one of the cutest things on the planet. But Ginger was a Nubian. And from what I could tell from my Instagram search back in my apartment, Nubian goats were in the running for a first-place tie.

  "Two. One of each," he told me, proving my mother wrong when he pulled the pot off the stove and poured it into the press.

  "Did you name them?"

  "The girl is Ginger."

  "If you didn't name the boy Fred, you missed a golden opportunity."

  "I named him Fred," he told me, lips curved up a little as he reached for the mugs, putting sugar and milk into mine, then finally pressing the coffee. It was funny how used to the process I had gotten when living with him, but how it felt like it was taking ages. Or maybe it was just because waiting for it was prolonging the inevitable conversation.

  Finally, what felt like an hour later, he sat down, and his dark gaze held mine.

  "As soon as we started having sex, your nightmares came back, got a lot worse," he launched right into it. "Bad. Bad enough that I took Gadget off the bed some nights, slipped him back in when it was over."

  "You think that us being intimate was triggering something?"

  "It was the only connection."

  I wanted to rant, to rage, to tell him what a stupid assumption that was.

  Instead, I took a long sip of perfect coffee to make me calm down, stay rational. If I started losing control, he would win the debate even though his argument was weaker.

  "When did you graduate?" I asked, keeping my tone calm, even.

  "Graduate what?"

  "From college. You know, with the psycholo
gy degree you must have."

  "Meadow..."

  "I mean, it's the only explanation for your in-depth dream analysis. Is that Freudian? Jungian?"

  "Meadow, let me talk."

  "I get bad dreams. Newsflash, Ranger... so do you."

  "Wait... what?" he asked, looking taken aback.

  "You didn't know?" I asked, surprised.

  "I used to get nightmares. Not all the time, though."

  "No, not all the time," I agreed. "But you do sometimes. You grumble and curse and apologize. Sometimes you thrash around a little. So, if we are following your reasoning for making me leave, you should really start packing up all the animals, right? You must need to be in the 'real world' and 'get help' too."

  "I didn't realize I was having the nightmares when you were around."

  "They are usually short-lived, just a couple minutes and you go quiet again."

  "You should have told me."

  "It doesn't matter, Ranger. I know you've been through some things. I know that sometimes, your mind is still dealing with it. It doesn't mean anything."

  "You don't want to talk to someone?"

  "I'm not against it," I told him. "I just... I think I'm okay. Right now, anyway. If things change, get worse, I would go see someone. But that is my choice. I decide when my brain is an ugly place."

  "Your brain could never be an ugly place."

  There was a little fluttering in my chest at that. Because it gave me hope, made me think there was a chance.

  "So, do you agree you sent me away for the wrong reason?"

  "It wasn't just that, Meadow."

  "Then what was it?"

  "You deserve a life. A real life. With people and connections and a future."

  "So, this life is a fake life?" I asked, head shaking.

  "You know what I mean."

  "Okay, look," I said, exhaling, letting Gadget down onto the floor, putting my arms on the table instead. "I lived in that world. I lived in that world for a long time. So I think I am a little more of an expert on this than you are."

  "Fair enough," he agreed, shrugging.

  "I lived in that world. Every day. For years. And I never once felt more satisfied than I did here. And I never connected with anyone the way I connected with you. Or even Miller or Finn. I was happy here, Ranger. How is that not something to strive for, to want more of?"

  "What about your career?"

  To that, I snorted a little. "It was a job, not a career. It paid the bills. That's it. And it was never as rewarding as planting those seeds. And caring for them. And hoping they come up. Did they come up?"

  "They came up. The vegetables and the flowers."

  "Can you show me them tomorrow?" I asked, then my gaze fell. "Will I still be here tomorrow?"

  Ranger's hands moved across the table, unexpectedly taking mine.

  "So you think you love me?"

  "Well... no," I told him, but only let him sit in that misery for a short second. "I know I love you."

  This time, when his lips curved up, they went big, made little lines form next to his eyes, made a light dance around in his irises.

  "That's pretty convenient," he told me, squeezing my hands. "Because I love you too."

  Ranger - 4 months

  "The chamomile smells good," I told her, standing at the sink in the kitchen, washing my hands.

  "You don't think it's a little, I don't know, earthy?" she asked, running her hands down Fred's ears. Why the goats were in the house was beyond me, but they made her happy, so I wasn't complaining.

  "Well, flowers do come from the earth..." I reminded her, shrugging it off.

  "I just really want to get it right. Maybe some lemon essential oils with it? Do you think that would make it better?"

  "I think it's fine just as it is."

  "Yeah, but..." she started, gaze falling.

  "But?" I prompted, turning to look at her.

  "I was just thinking..."

  She did this.

  When something was important to her, she had this tendency to avoid eye-contact and let all her sentences trail off incomplete.

  "Thinking about what?"

  "About maybe doing what I suggested to you months ago. Back when I first came here..."

  "About the soap?" I clarified, watching her nod and clutch a reluctant Ginger to her chest. What the hell had she said about the soap? She'd made suggestions about trying different scents. Ah, right. "You want to try to sell the soap?" I asked, watching as she quickly glanced over, trying to tell if I was laughing at her or not. "I think that's a great idea if you want to do it."

  "I know it will be hard. I mean, it's not like we can get to town often. But, I figured, if I can grab a table at the farmer's market next summer, we could just haul the stuff in, sell it until it's gone. I'm not trying to make a ton of money or anything. I just... I don't know. I want to share this with people. It really is the best. You know... back when Miller picked me up when you kicked me out, she stole a couple bars for herself."

  "I thought I was losing my fucking mind about the stock going down," I scoffed, shaking my head.

  "And I was thinking about looking around online for some shampoo bar recipes. I think the soap needs a little something for shampoo..."

  "I've been using it for shampoo and conditioner for ages."

  "Yes, and your very short manly hair is very clean. But women want more than just clean. They want soft and manageable."

  "Do the research. And next week, we can head into town to get supplies."

  We hadn't left.

  Not since she came back.

  We were scraping the bottom of the barrel with the feed.

  I don't know why I was putting it off so long. I guess I just wanted her all to myself.

  But it was time.

  "Do they have a craft supply store in town?" she asked, shooing the goats back outside.

  They did.

  And we went.

  And she bought them out.

  That was how Meadow started Barrens Botanicals.

  Meadow - 6 years

  Gunner and Sloane had just picked up Nico. He'd spent a weekend with us, in the woods, with all the animals, so they could have a little time away, a little time to just be people, be a couple.

  It wasn't the first visit we had ever gotten from the kids. It didn't happen often, not with us living so far away from everything, but it happened.

  And it wasn't the trigger per se.

  Though, let's face it, it was a factor.

  I was younger than Ranger, but my body had a clock. His didn't.

  We'd talked about a future generation, about kids, especially after a visit from one of them, after we got to spend a weekend showing them how to ride the donkey, gather eggs, milk the goats, help harvest food for dinner they would help us make.

  We were good with the kids.

  And I had been feeling the pull for a while.

  Which was why I had a tablet in front of me on the couch in the living room. It had been a gift from a client a few years before, someone who decided it was blasphemous that we didn't have more reading material than we had. So he bought us the tablet and loaded it down with ebooks on every imaginable topic. Which had come in handy for some research, to be perfectly honest.

  I could also use Ranger's cell as a hotspot and browse the internet, check out Barrens Botanicals' social media pages.

  Things had grown over the years.

  It had started as a silly little need to feel like I was working. Blame it on my upbringing. But that first summer with my itty bitty table at the very big farmer's market had been exciting. Even when I only left with two-hundred dollars to show for it.

  Hell, two -hundred was better than what I had anticipated. I turned around and reinvested it all, coming back with three times the amount the next year. And, apparently, those who had taken a chance on the goat milk soap with the pretty flowers and lemony fresh scent and the low-impact shampoo and conditioner bars, well, they spread t
he word, they showed up in force and bought me out.

  Every year, I made more.

  And every year I sold out.

  Eventually, Sloane - Gunner's wife, a very self-made woman in her own right - helped me set up the social media, designed the logos for the company, sent out a newsletter about the farmer's markets I would be attending the coming summer.

  Living off the land, making a life from it was amazing. But making an income from it too? Well, that was just the cherry on the ice cream sundae that was our life.

  I took a breath, looking down at the tablet as Ranger opened the front door, his gaze going to me. "Doing some research?" he asked, going over to the sink to use the liquid soap I had figured out how to make a year before.

  "In a way," I told him, feeling my stomach twist painfully.

  I had no idea how he would react.

  Even just to the suggestion to think about it.

  And the idea of him thinking that I wasn't happy just how our life was, well, terrified me. Because nothing could be further from the truth. If he looked at what I had to show him, and simply said he wasn't interested, well, I would be perfectly fine with that. We could go on as we always had. I would continue to find comfort and bliss and peace in this world we had built.

  "Alright, what is it?" he asked, reading me too well after so long together.

  See, it was one thing to be with someone. In a normal, modern way. Where two people got up in the morning, spent an hour together, then scooted off to different worlds for eight hours, maybe having some after-school activities to handle with the kids, then come home, maybe spend a few more hours together, distracted by TVs and cell phones and life's other distractions. It was a complete other to be with someone the way we were together. Working side by side, sharing every up and down, brushing shoulders when we moved around the house, having nowhere to go to hide when we didn't want to share, when we wanted private thoughts or feelings.

  It meant we got to know each other inside and out. He couldn't keep anything from me. And me, well, I never could keep anything from him.