Page 124 of Hunted
Tuning back into our surroundings, I realize we’re not on the highway anymore. I don’t recognize the area; there are a bit more trees here than the parts of San Francisco I’m familiar with.
“Where are we?” I ask as we turn down another road.
Up ahead, tall iron gates rise before a fence that stretches in both directions, vanishing into the trees. There’s another vehicle parked just inside the gates and as we slow down, a man in a suit gets out and presses something that makes the gate slowly swing open.
Weston pulls us to a stop and Reece jumps out, closing the door behind him. Nobody says anything and I decide not to ask. They’ll tell me when they want me to know.
I watch as he shakes the man’s hand, and they exchange a couple of words before they both head back into their vehicles. Silently we follow his car up the driveway and when I get my first glimpse of the house, I whisper, “Wow. Who lives here?”
Nobody answers, and I try to take everything in as we park and get out of our SUV.
The house sits on a heavily treed lot, with no neighbors visible and I can even hear the sound of ocean waves, so I think the house must be right on the water. The house is a mixture of rustic and modern. There are dark wooden beams on some parts of it, but it also has large glass windows facing the treed areas. Black accents are scattered throughout the siding and window trim. It’s a gorgeous home, about the size of ours from what I can see here.
“Darla?” I turn to Reece in question, wondering what we’re doing here. “We were thinking that our house isn’t ideal for all of us, not anymore. I’ve had my realtor here, Michael, keeping an eye out for any appropriate properties, and this one just became available.”
I turn my wide eyes back to the house in question. “You want to buy this place?”
He shrugs, watching me carefully. “Maybe. We haven’t seen it yet, either. We thought we could all look at it together and see if it will suitour needs. All of us have different things we’d like from a home, and we can guess at what you’d like, but it’ll be your home too, so we want to make sure it has everything you want.”
“Don’t forget we can renovate anything we don’t like,” Kingsley adds.
“What do you say, shall we take a look?” Bower asks, practically bouncing on his feet in excitement.
“Yeah, okay.” I nod, unsure what else to say. I haven’t even seen the inside yet, but I’m already loving the fact that it seems to be surrounded by a large fence and the whole rustic modern aesthetic is gorgeous. And by the sound of those waves, I’m hoping it has at least a partial view of the ocean.
Michael leads us into the house and I’m instantly in love. It reminds me of the house we stayed at in Madagascar. The back wall is floor-to-ceiling windows, looking directly out to the ocean. I quickly walk over and push the sliding glass door open, stepping onto the huge deck.
You could have a party on this thing, it's so big! It extends the whole width of the house and is at least twenty feet deep in some parts. I move to the railing and lean on the black frame, staring out at the ocean. I instantly feel a wave of peace flow over me.
“This feels like home,” I whisper to myself. I’m not sure if it’s specifically the ocean, or that combined with the design of the home and the security it’s already bringing me, but I know it’s true. I just hope the guys like it, too.
I turn around to ask what they’re looking for and find them all staring at me with varying degrees of smiles on their faces. I can’t help but blush from the intense attention they are giving me, and I bite my lip nervously. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s just good to see you look so happy,” Kingsley says with a smile.
“You look at home here,” Weston adds.
“I feel at home,” I admit. “Is that bad?”
“Of course not,” Kingsley rushes to reassure me.
“We haven’t even seen inside yet. What if it’s too small or… ugly?”
“We’ll renovate it,” Reece says with a shrug.
“Come on.” Weston holds out his hand for me to take. “Instead of talking about it, let’s go look at it. Maybe it’s already perfect.” I grab his hand, and he leads me inside.
Turns out, he was right. The home is perfect for us. It has six bedrooms, four bathrooms, and an open-plan kitchen, living, and dining room. Downstairs has a large movie theatre room that I can't wait to snuggle up in with my guys and some popcorn. There’s also a large gym that the guys were very enthusiastic about.
Out back there is a large hot tub, big enough to fit us all at once, and my mind starts to show me some naughty ideas for what we can get up to in there. There’s also a handful of trees that look like they’d be awesome to climb.
When we take the short wooden path through some tall grass to the beach, I find myself looking in both directions for signs of the neighbors. I can’t even see their houses from this spot, and the beach is completely deserted.
“The closest houses are about a mile in each direction,” Michael points out.
Wow, we might own more of the surrounding trees than I originally thought. Maybe there’s space there where I can try recording some survival videos. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past few days. I need to do something with my time, and the guys already pointed outthe fact that people already know who I am. I won’t be able to avoid fame anymore.
I may as well do something useful with that knowledge and teach some survival skills. A survival channel on YouTube seems like the best idea. It would provide the content for free to anybody that wants to see it. And I know the guys will help me record and upload it, as that sort of technology is still a bit foreign to me.
