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“Of course not,” she lied. “The subject hasn’t even come up. We don’t know if they’d even be interested in letting us stay.” She couldn’t help the rising hope that swelled within her, like floodwaters behind a dam.
“Right. And I’m going to have to do a good bit more looking around before I’m comfortable.”
“Certainly. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” Carly walked on her knees to where he sat and began to rub the tension from his shoulders. “You always do what’s necessary to keep me and Dagny safe. I know that, and I appreciate it.”
“I was worried you’d think I wasparanoid.”
“Not at all.”
He swiftly turned around, and before she knew it, she was lying on her back beneath him. Her breath caught in her throat at the heat in his eyes.
“Did you notice all of those young men today?”
“No...” She had no idea where he was going with his train of thought.
“They stared at you,” he said.
“Everyone was staring at us.”
He trailed a line of kisses down the side of her neck. “They’re going to try to steal you away from me.”
“That’s just silly, Justin. I’m a married woman with a baby.” She suddenly realized the hot light in his eyes was jealousy—jealousy over men she hadn’t even noticed. “Justin... Did you hear something while you were out there?”
“Yes.”
She took his face between her hands and forced him to look at her. “Justin, I’m not going anywhere. I love you. I don’t know what those guys said, but it doesn’t matter. You’re the one I want. The only one I want.”
He kissed her, his hands buried in her hair, a kiss of passion tinged with desperation. She couldn’t blame him for his fear. How could she? Everyone he’d ever loved had left him, from his mother leaving him in front of the fire station to the foster families who returned him like a broken toaster when he proved too difficult to handle. Trust would come with time, she thought, and when he started on the buttons of her pajama top, there was no more rational thought.
Justin wasn’t beside her when Carly woke the next morning. She sat up, pushed her tumbled hair out of her face, and glanced over at Dagny, who was contentedly chewing on one of her feet. She let out a happy little coo when Carly picked her up, and she checked her diaper, finding it dry. Justin must have changed her. Carly settled back on the bed and opened her pajama top. As she did, Tigger hopped up on the bed beside her to doze in a patch of sunshine.
One of the best parts about nursing, she thought, was the sweet intimacy of her baby looking up with trusting adoration in her eyes while Carly nourished her. Sometimes, she thought her heart might burst from the sheer amount of love it held for this tiny little person she and Justin had created.
And from the warm welcome they’d received, it looked like her baby might have a safe and happy home in a place that recalled the world she thought was dead and gone. In Colby, she could grow up normally, maybe have a husband and children of her own. Carly could picture that, sitting on the porch swing with Justin, both of them with silvered hair, watching as their grandbabies played in the yard.
There was a tap at the door, and Carly pulled the blanket up over herself for modesty’s sake before calling, “Come in.”
It was Mindy, and she carried a coffee mug in each hand. “Morning, Carly.”
“Good morning, Mindy. Have you seen Justin?”
“Yeah, he left a couple of hours ago with Tom. He wanted Justin to look at some kind of irrigation thing. I admit I wasn’t paying much attention, because when you start talking about ‘gravity-fed water line’ and ‘angles of descent,’ my eyes start to glaze over.” Mindy sat down on the side of the bed and held out one of the coffee cups. “Anyway, I brought you a cup of coffee.”
Carly accepted it with delight. “Thank you. Did Stan go with them?”
“No, he went with Cynthia to look over a pond on the other side of town. They want to try to use it for a fish farm, and Stan told them his dad used to work at a hatchery up on Lake Erie. He tried to tell them he didn’t know anything about it, but Cynthia still wanted to get his opinion on their setup.”
Carly sipped her coffee and sighed with pleasure.
Mindy stared down into her own cup. “Soon, there won’t be any more coffee.”
Carly winced. She hadn’t thought about that, but it was true. There wouldn’t be any imports from South America for a long time. Probably not in her lifetime.
“Chicory,” Mindy said, as though her thoughts were following the same line as Carly’s. “It may grow around here. My grandma said they used to use the ground roots of it as a coffee substitute during the Depression. No caffeine, though.”
“Do you know how to find chicory? Where it grows and what it looks like?”
Mindy shook her head. “I’m sure someone around here does or has a book on plants or something. Anyway, the reason why I came up here is because Tom asked you and Justin to come to a town meeting tonight.”
