Page 19 of Run to Ground
Chapter 8
Four Days Earlier
Cliffs towered above them to the left and dropped away on the right. Jules tapped a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel, hating that she was going twenty-five miles under the speed limit because the curvy mountain road into town completely freaked her out. At least the sun was high in the sky, so everything was well lit. Vaguely, Jules recognized that the view was beautiful, the craggy mountains surrounding them furred with evergreens and aspens until the bare, blue-gray peaks poked out above the tree line. She couldn’t really appreciate the scenery, though. All she could do was concentrate on not driving her family off a cliff. Four or five cars were stacked up behind them, so Jules steered into a pullout and stopped to let them pass before entering the westbound lane again. To add to her humiliation, one of the vehicles that passed her was an extra-long RV. Another was a semi.
Ty snorted. “You’re driving even slower than—”
“I know, Ty. Thanks,” she interrupted, trying not to snap. Her sleepless night and driving marathon, capped by this treacherous mountain road, had drained her reservoir of good-natured comebacks and robbed her of her patience. Once she passed through a gap in the rocks barely wide enough for the two-lane road, houses and shops appeared, and the speed limit dropped to a much more tolerable twenty.
The kids were quiet as they looked around. “It’s small,” Ty said in a neutral voice.
Silence filled the SUV until Jules asked, “Is small good or bad?”
There was a silence as they considered the question. “I haven’t decided yet,” Tio finally said, and the others made sounds of agreement.
“Fair enough.” Jules was too tired and, at the same time, too wired to have any kind of first impression of their new town. “Sam, could you be my navigator?”
Sam picked up the handwritten directions. “T-turn right on B-B-Bridesw-well.”
“We passed Brideswell several blocks ago,” Tio said.
With a sigh, Jules flipped her turn signal so she could go around the block and head back toward Brideswell. She was pretty sure this road trip would never end.
After that first false start, the directions were clear, and they found the right street number attached to a crooked mailbox. The deeply rutted driveway seemed to go on forever, twisting this way and that, the pine branches reaching out to brush against the Pathfinder. The closeness of the evergreens dimmed the sunny morning, and Jules’s simmering anxiety rose to a boil.
As she turned left, avoiding exposed tree roots and rocks that threatened to grab the tires, the trees thinned, and the house came into view. The place had been white a long, long time ago, but all the exterior paint had faded to a wind-stripped gray. The front porch looked a little cockeyed, and the area in front of the house resembled a sparse hayfield rather than a lawn. A small, lopsided barn stood a short distance from the house.
Dee sucked in a breath. “There’s abarn, Jules. Can I get a horse?”
“Uh…” The question barely penetrated as she tried to take in the huge amount of work the house would require. Going from a shoebox of an apartment tothis…there was no way. She wasn’t handy enough for this house.
“Can I?” Judging from the increased excitement in her little sister’s voice, she’d taken Jules’s hesitation for actual consideration.
“Let’s try to keep ourselves alive for a while, Dee, before we start adding dependents, okay?” Parking in front of the sagging porch, Jules braced herself and got out. It was warm but dry—nothing like Florida had been. She slapped at a stray fly, managing to smack her own ear but missing the bug. As her siblings piled out of the SUV, she circled to the rear hatch. Movement helped. If she’d stood staring at the wreck of a house, she would’ve sat on the ground and burst into tears.
Tossing the computer bag strap over her shoulder, she passed the backpacks to their rightful owners, the weight of Tio’s bag almost taking her down. Sam reached past her to grab her suitcase, and she gave him a smile of thanks.
“I thought you said no computers.” Ty frowned at the case resting against her hip.
“This is just the bag,” Jules explained. “And instead of a laptop, it holds all our brand-new paperwork, plus”—she dug out a key ring and dangled it in front of him—“the house keys.”
Ty snatched the keys from her hand and ran to the porch steps, Tio close behind.
“Careful!” she called out, cringing as their shoes clomped noisily on the aged wood. “That doesn’t look too stable.” To her surprise, neither boy fell through the porch floor as they grappled to see who would be first inside the house. After watching to make sure the porch could hold her brothers, Dee made her careful way up the steps after them.
Sam kept pace with Jules, and she turned to him with a smile that was only partially forced. Dilapidated as it was, the house was theirs—hers and her family’s. This had always been her dream, and she wasn’t going to let a few loose shingles ruin the moment. “Ready to see the inside?”
His doubtful look was enough to make her laugh. Always-conscientious Dee had closed the door behind her when she entered the house, so Jules grabbed the doorknob. Straightening her shoulders, she patted the laptop bag holding their new identities and pushed open the door. The interior was dim after the bright, late-morning sunshine, and the kids’ excited voices echoed off the walls deep inside the house.
Taking a long, slow breath, Jules stepped into their new life.
The house was a wreck—and yet gorgeous at the same time. Jules took a step farther into the entry and tripped when her toe caught on an uneven floorboard. Unbalanced, she grabbed the ornate railing that edged the staircase, steadying herself. Voices and alarmingly loud squeaks from overhead told Jules that the three younger kids had made their way upstairs.
The dated wallpaper was peeling and gouged in spots, revealing sections of an even-more-dated pattern. Cobwebs and dust covered every surface, and dead leaves and corpses of miller moths were piled in corners. Through a wide, arched doorway, she could see what was most likely a living room, although the age of the house made her want to refer to it as a parlor. Living rooms were in modern homes, places for televisions and wall-to-wall carpet. This looked more like a room where they’d gather around the fireplace and knit.
Jules snorted. She’d never held knitting needles in her life. Glancing at her brother’s impassive face, she quickly sobered. “What do you think, Sam-I-Am?”
Instead of answering, he made his way down the hall, silently glancing through doorways as they passed a wood-paneled, shelf-lined room that Jules mentally dubbed “the library,” a bathroom with an honest-to-God claw-foot tub, and a room she assumed was the dining room, judging by its proximity to the kitchen.
