“What could you possibly want with that death trap?”
“I wanna fix it up and make a home of it.” Calum steeled his spine and prayed for the outcome he wanted. “How much will you sell it to me for?”
“You’re serious.”
It wasn’t a question, but Calum answered anyway. He was more serious about it than he could remember being about something inanimate. The only thing he was more serious about was Rett. He needed to do it for her—he needed to prove he wanted her forever by giving her a home they can grow old in. He wanted everything with her. A home, a life, children…
He wanted to be a better father than his was.
Malachi raised his chin, stared down his nose at Calum, then grinned. “Tell ya what, I ain’t been near that place since Hank died. You can have it.”
“Are you serious?”
Malachi shrugged and went back inside instead of answering. Calum gaped at the door. Had the conversation really gone better than he hadn’t dared to hope? Before he could overthink it—or worse, before Malachi could change his mind—Calum turned and jogged toward Cherry Lane. Miss Maudie grumbled when he ran past without so much as a ‘hello’, but he ignoredthe old woman. He had more important things to worry about, namely telling Rett he’d found them a home.
“What’s this?” she said with a laugh as she stumbled after him through the trees an hour later. “Cal, what are we doin’? What’s so important?”
Calum squeezed Rett’s hand and pulled her into his chest. She stared up at him with shining gray eyes, fingers of sunlight glinting off her glasses, and Calum ducked his head to kiss her breathless. She pressed closer, arm snaking around his waist, and he wanted nothing more than to spend the next countless hours kissing her just like that. Unfortunately, there was something else he had to do. So he pulled away with a soft gasp, called her a too-tempting she-devil, and resumed leading her through the woods.
They came to a stop at the edge of the clearing, and Rett frowned at the trailer. Calum stared between her and the mobile home, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. Finally, after long moments of blinking owlishly with a frown on her face, she turned to him.
“What’s going on?”
“Welcome home, Rett.”
“What?”
Her brows furrowed, but she let him take her by the hand. He guided her up the rickety steps, promising they wouldn’t always be so unsteady, then pulled open the door. The trailer was nearly just the same as it had been the day they explored. It smelled even worse, and an animal had taken up residence in a corner of what used to be the living room. Rett turned toward Calum.
“Calum, what do you mean, ‘welcome home’?”
He could never lie well to her. She was so good at reading his lies, so he didn’t try to do anything but tell the truth. He explained that the trailer had been Hank Turner’s, and his second-cousin had just given the trailer to Calum.
“For nothing, Rett! He didn’t want money. He just—justgaveit to me!”
“Cal…” Rett chewed on her lower lip and looked around them. When she faced him once more, her gray eyes held something he didn’t want to see. “We can’t live here.”
“Well, not right now, no. But think of it, Rett, we can fix it up together. We can make it a home for us.”
His hands gripped her shoulders, and he pleaded for her to understand. To be as excited by the prospect as he was. To want to start their lives together as soon as possible, and that meant working as partners. They couldn’t live with her parents or Georgie and Charles forever. It was unfathomable, unthinkable. Unacceptable. They were adults, after all, and adults paved ways for themselves. The trailer would be the first step toward that freedom.
“Rett—”
“Ya gotta admit,” she interrupted quietly, wiggling out of his grasp, “this is a lot to just spring on a person, Cal. We should have made this decision together.”
“I know. I know, and I’m sorry for not talking about it with you first. But I think this is gonna be good for us.”
Her eyes narrowed as she took in their surroundings once more. Her sneaker squished in a patch of wet, moldy carpeting, and she grimaced down at the floor. Calum didn’t blame her. He knew renovating the place would take uncountable hours of hard work to accomplish, and the starting point wasn’t exactly a shining beacon of ‘potential home’. But if anyone could do it, they could. Rett and Calum were both too stubborn to give up, he knew that.
After a long few minutes, she looped an arm around his waist and leaned into his side. “At least we won’t have nosy neighbors.”
thirteen
Rett
RETT STOOD OUTSIDE THE trailer, staring at the rusted metal. How could Calum have asked for the place without discussing it with her? She wasn’t mad, not really, but the mobile home wasn’t exactly in first place on her list of desired places to live. It wasn’t ready for inhabitants—she wasn’t sure it would ever be, no matter how much work they put into it. And it would take so much work.
It had always surprised her that the trailer was still standing, but now that it was theirs, she almost wished it had fallen apart at some point through the years.
