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It already felt like ours as we climbed into the clouds, thetrees forming a protective arch overhead, shutting out the light and the rest of the world.
Even the gate, sagging open like a mouth, covered in red spots of rust, was beautiful to me, that’s how much I was prepared to love everything about Ashby House.
But I still wasn’t ready for the way my heart lifts and my stomach swoops when the house itself finally comes into view.
I don’t see the sunflowers Cam had mentioned, but maybe that’s for the best because it means there’s nothing else vying for my gaze as I drink in the home in front of us.
The pictures I’ve seen on the internet don’t do it justice. It looked gorgeous in 2D, and I could tell it was impressive in scale, but those Google images can’t capture how perfectly the house seems to nestle into its surroundings. The way it looks eternal, immovable. A fortress on a mountain made of thick gray stone and tall windows, surrounded by trees on three sides and behind the house, nothing but treetops and clouds and sky.
The gravel we’d been driving on turns to stone, too, a smooth gray ribbon that makes a graceful arc at the front of the house. Wide steps lead up to a wraparound porch. I see a swing in one corner, rocking chairs lining the wall on the other side of the front door.
Big planters sit on either side of the steps, overflowing with dark purple mums, and I spot several hanging ferns in the shadows under the porch roof.
In the driver’s seat, Cam gives a sigh that seems to come from the very bottom of his soul, and I turn to look at him, hoping that maybe he’s realized he was wrong about this place after all. That he can see the beauty that is so plainly in front of him.
But he just seems tired. Wary.
He does smile, though, a little bit, when he meets my eyes. “Home sweet home,” he says, his voice flat, and I lean over to press a kiss on his cheek.
“Thank you,” I say. “For bringing me here. I know you didn’t want to, but––”
“I want what you want,” he replies, and if the words sound a little rote, I’m okay with that. We’re here, aren’t we?
I turn back to the house. The front door is actually two doors, big slabs of dark wood that look like they could withstand a battering ram.
Tall, narrow windows frame the entry, and I think I catch a flicker of movement on the left, the briefest flash of a face, too quick for me to see if it was a woman or a man.
As I open the car door and step out onto the drive, I keep my gaze on those doors, waiting for them to open. Someone’s there, clearly, and has seen us, and I move around to the trunk to get my bag, expecting to hear the clicking of a lock, a greeting.
Cam comes up next to me, reaching for his bag as well, and I nod toward the house. “No welcoming committee?”
He snorts, throwing a quick glance at the firmly closed doors. “I’d be less surprised to walk into a firing squad.”
“It just seems like they should be nicer to you,” I say, slamming the trunk shut, “given that you own the place.”
But Cam is already shaking his head. “First of all, you need to know that the word ‘should’ does not exist to these people. There are lots of things they ‘should’ do, but if they don’t want to do something, they don’t do it.”
“Like be nice to the guy who pays the bills.”
“Or tip,” he adds, and I bump my hip against his.
“Or pay taxes?” I guess, and he makes one of those amused sounds that isn’t quite a laugh.
“They do that now, but only because I hired a new accountant. And they also clearly don’t take care of sunflower gardens.”
He points, and now I see the brown, crunchy stalks that must have once been bright yellow flowers, tall enough to hide in.
Moving closer to him, I thread my arm through his. “We’ll plant new ones,” I promise, and he looks down at me, one blue eye, one brown, neither giving away what he’s thinking.
“We won’t be here that long,” he finally says, and starts to move toward the front door, my arm slipping through his and falling back to my side.
We’ve just reached the steps when there’s a rattling noise from behind us. A white Audi is tearing up the gravel drive, tiny pebbles spitting out from underneath the tires, and as it moves onto the pavement, I’m afraid it’s going to crash right into the back of our SUV.
But there’s a screech of brakes, the smell of rubber, and the Audi comes to a stop, a kiss away from dinging the heck out of our rear bumper.
Camden exhales noisily. “Well, here’s a welcoming committee for you,” he mutters.
The driver’s side door opens, and a woman gets out, chestnut hair shiny even under the cloudy sky. She’s wearing white jeans, and a floaty off-the-shoulder blouse, black with big multicolored polka dots on it, the kind of thing I wouldn’t look at twice in a shop because I’d think,Who can pull off Bozo Chic?
