“Nope, but I bet you’re going to tell me.”
“That’s our gym,” I said. “Once you have your key card, you can go in or out whenever you’d like. There’s everything in there. Treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, stepping machines. Nights are my favorite time, because mostly everyone’s in bed by then. The only thing is that you can’t go into the pool unless there’s a lifeguard on duty. Safety issue, you know?”
Blinking hard, Delilah huffed. “There’s an indoor pool?”
“No use in having an outdoor pool in Montana.” A few hundred strides ahead, a small gravel road led to the apartments on the left. “And back there is where you live. Do you need me to show you around that area too, or are you ready to head back to the closet?”
“I think I know how to get back home from here.”
That warmed my heart. The way she called it home. “Then to the closet, we go.”
I tapped my thigh to get Honey’s attention. She spun around with me, romping through the snow in the field between the gym and the cafeteria.
“And I can just grab clothes?” Delilah asked. “I don’t have to pay for them or anything?”
“Clothes, shoes, household items. It’s basically a thrift store. We all donate to it, and we all take from it. You don’t have to pay for anything.”
“Crazy,” she said under her breath. “All of this is so beautiful, but so crazy.”
“It won’t always feel that way,” I said, veering closer to the right side of the road, to head toward the rec center. “I don’t know about you, but I grew up poor. My ex made more than me, so the money was always more his than mine. I had a couple hundred bucks to my name when I left, and even renting an apartment somewhere was just about out of the question. I just didn’t make enough money. But all of us, over a thousand of us,live on this ranch because of the way Rhiannon set up a hell of an inheritance. And that’s all it took.”
Delilah cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Some donor inherited a couple billion dollars, and they gave it to her. It’s been enough to keep this place running for a decade. And to help a lot of other charitable organizations. It just goes to show how far money can stretch when it’s in the right hands.”
“I didn’t think a billion could do all this.”
“A billion is a lot more than you might think,” I said. “A thousand million—that’s a billion.”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s just crazy to think about how hard I used to work for not even half of what everyone has here,” she said. “You know what I still don’t understand, though?”
Now at the rec center’s entrance, I held the door open for her. “What’s that?”
She stepped through, and I followed.
“How everybody just gets along,” she said.
Delilah glanced out the window, watching all the women walk past. Some were hand-in-hand, others pushed strollers beside one another. One thing in common among them all, though, was the energy that radiated from them. Everyone looked comfortable. Some happier than others, but no one would watch these women walk down the street and worry for them.
They were why the other night hadn’t been a mistake.
“With any group of girls I’ve been around,” she said, “there’s always so much drama.”
“There’s drama sometimes,” I replied. “Just like there is any time you put a large number of people together. But no one is fighting over each other’s man around here.”
She laughed. “I guess that’s fair.”
“And there’s just a different energy on the ranch.” Turning to face her, I raised my shoulders. “Out in the world, there’s so much stress. Here, we all know we’re safe.”
At least, we had been. Until the other night.
“No one’s worried about losing the roof over their head. There’s always food at the cafeteria if you’re hungry. We have access to therapy and doctors. There’s no other place like this. Maybe when everyone’s basic needs are met, there’s less to fight about.”
Ever so slightly, Delilah’s shoulders loosened, and she tilted her head to the side. I could practically see the light bulb flick on over her crown.
Still glancing out the window, she gave a slow nod. “Yeah. Maybe.”
