Page 85 of Beacon

Mack keeps an arm around me as we walk into thehouse. It smells familiar and pleasant. Like pine and baked bread.

“You’re staying for a while, right?” Faith asks us, turning her head to look back at us as Molly has her father in an exuberant stranglehold. “You’re back for good?”

I let Mack handle that question.

He says, “Yeah. We’re home for good.”

It’s only a week later that we’re able to move into our own little house in Halbrook.

It happens much quicker than it should have. There are still plenty of unoccupied houses in town, but they’re all in varying states of disrepair. The normal routine would be picking out a place and then either fixing it up yourself or waiting until the construction crew has time to get to it. People sometimes wait three or four months to get into their houses.

But last week an elderly man in town died. He had no surviving family, and he had a very nice little cottage on one of the central streets. As soon as we explained we wanted to move there, the Halbrook leadership announced that house should be ours.

I was a little worried we’d knock some other folks off the list who might have wanted it and were here before us, but everyone insisted it should go to us.

They mean Mack, of course. It should go to him. Everyone likes me and is happy to have me as part of the community, but I’ll never be as beloved as Mack.

And that’s okay. That’s the way it should be. No one anywhere is as beloved as Mack is, and he deserves that much love and so much more.

So a bunch of people got together and cleared out the house of its former occupant’s personal possessions, leaving the comfortable furniture and even a few nice pieces of art on the walls. They cleaned it out and set a welcome basket on the kitchen counter for us when we got here this morning.

The place is small. Just a two-bedroom bungalow. But it has a front porch and a decent size backyard. I love it.

We’ve been in a flurry of activity all day as an endless line of visitors have come to see us, ask if we need any help, and welcome us to town. It’s been a good day, and I’m feeling much more like myself than I have in the three weeks since I was shot.

But still… I’m relieved when the sun goes down and it gets to dinnertime because it means that people have stopped coming over.

We’ve managed to unpack our simple belongings—mostly just clothes—and ate the vegetable soup someone brought over for our dinner. Then we both finally collapse on the couch side by side and smile at each other.

“How you feeling?” he asks.

“A little tired but good overall. Glad to have some quiet.”

“Me too.” He’s giving me a familiar, hot look. One that gets the blood pulsing in my veins.

“It’s not fair to look at me that way if you’re not going to let us do anything because you think I’m too feeble.”

“I’ve never thought you were feeble. You were getting better. It was safer to be careful. It’s not like we have antibiotics or hospitals if it wasn’t healing right.”

“I know. I appreciate you being so careful. But I really think it’s pretty much better now.”

“I think so too.”

I perk up. “Really?”

“Yeah. Can’t imagine anyone else would be doing as good as you are after jumping in front of a bullet three weeks ago.”

“Would you stop describing it that way to everyone? You’re making it sound more heroic than it was.”

He reaches over to brush my cheek with his knuckles. “It was damn well heroic. Don’t even try to argue.”

“It was nothing but basic instinct.”

“Well, it’s a good instinct to have.”

“Okay. Thank you. But can we get back to our previous topic?”

“What was that?”

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