Beard Up(24)

My brows rose.

"How did you manage that?" I asked him, stunned.

"One of the members there is a doctor. He's involved with the hiring process at the hospital, and the clinic is also his. So, either way, whatever you choose, you'll have a job waiting for you."

I sat there, still stunned, after he left. Was this my life?

Would it be okay to leave?

Then, after biting my lip, I realized that it would be.

There was nothing holding us here anymore. Nothing but memories and a grave that never really felt like my man was inside of it resting eternally.

"I'll be back in an hour with the rest of the ladies. We're going to get you packed up and out of here within the day, that way you'll have no excuse not to go tonight." 

He was right, of course. If I did it all myself, it could take me weeks, and by then Josh would catch on to what I was doing, and it wouldn't be so much of a surprise anymore.

"Okay, Silas," I said softly. "Let's go."





***


Nine hours later, I was parking my loaded-down Tahoe under the carport of what looked to be a brand-new house. It wasn't a grand house or anything, but you could tell it was new. There were still stickers on the window denoting the manufacturer. The grass was still in squares where they had taken the sod off of a pallet and rolled them over the dirt of the yard to grow.

Then there was the dumpster that was still on the street. A dumpster that was filled with so much crap that it likely needed to be emptied long before now.

"Mom, why can I see all the way inside that house?" Sienna asked worriedly.

My lips twitched. She was so much like her daddy that it was uncanny.

I saw Tunnel in her every single day, and the more she grew up, the more I saw it.

If I were being honest, it was sad sometimes. It made my heart break to see her do the same things as her daddy.

"Because it doesn't look like there are any curtains up, yet," I supplied the answer. "It was likely a very new house, and they just acquired it for us. It's pretty, isn't it?

"Yeah, I guess. You could plant some flowers in that flower bed right there," she pointed to the front walk where there was a flower bed, sans flowers.

"I could," I agreed, happy that she was semi-on board for this new venture.

Though she hadn't said as much. She was still upset about leaving her house, where her daddy had made her a bed and painted her room, to be overly excited about this new one.

My stomach clenched at the memory of that bed.

I'd helped with the bed, of course, but only enough as to offer Tunnel help where he needed it.

He'd made her an exact replica of a princess bed.

It had huge columns that represented turrets, and a peak on top of the built-in bookcase that resembled a roof. Then there was the paint-that was a masterpiece in and of itself.

It was painted gray, and Tunnel had painstakingly painted darker gray blocks on the entire expanse of the wood walls of the bed, making it look exactly like a castle would look if you were staring at the exterior.

And the icing on the castle-bed cake was the tiny flagpoles at the top of each bookshelf with pink streamers flying from them that blew in the breeze of the room's ceiling fan.

"Well, let's go inside already," Sienna grumbled under her breath, another thing she did like her father.

"Okay, honey," I agreed, fishing the keys out of my pocket.

My eyes lit on a tiny dot of pink on the top of the key, and my heart skipped a beat.

That had also been something that Tunnel had done for me.

I had a ton of keys. One to my house. One to my car. One to Tunnel's truck. One to the storage shed. One to the trailer lock. One to the trailer. And so the list went on.

After about the fortieth time that I'd had to go through all the keys on my key ring-and yes, I was more than aware that they were all different looking-Tunnel had put dots on all of my keys, color coding them to coordinate with the locks.

I still had the colors on my key rings, though I had to refresh them every couple of years since Tunnel had done it.

That had been a heartbreaking moment, and surprisingly, one that had sent me into a tailspin of depression that took a while to climb out of.


      ///
       
         
       
        

If it wasn't for my daughter, Tunnel's daughter, I'd be doing a lot worse than I was doing right now.

I heaved myself out of the car and walked up to where Sienna was waiting impatiently by the carport door, looking at me like her father used to: with bemused impatience.

"Sorry, baby," I apologized, slipping the key into the lock.

It turned easily, and I pushed the door open.