Home Coming (The Survivalist Book 10) by A. American (ebook reader .TXT) 📕

up Little Bit and told the girls we were leaving. They were sitting with Jess and Fred talking and wanted to stay a while longer.

As we walked home, Little Bit said she wanted to feed Ruckus before going to bed. Mel said that was fine; he needed to eat. Mel fixed the formula while Little Bit ran and got the little rodent. He was still so small, and she asked when his eyes would open.

“I don’t know. Shouldn’t be too much longer. He’s starting to get fur on his tail. I bet it’s soon,” I replied.

She sat on the couch talking to him in a baby voice, then said, “I want to be the first person he sees! I want to be his mom.”

I rubbed her head, “You’ll make a good squirrel mom.”

Mel brought her the dropper and we sat on the sofa with her as she fed the little guy. He was hungry and took to the dropper eagerly, finishing it quickly. Mel refilled it two more times. By the time he was done eating, his belly looked as though he’d swallowed a ping pong ball. With a full belly, the little guy started to drift off to sleep.

“Don’t go to sleep Ruckus, I want to play with you!” Little Bit shouted.

“He’s just a baby, honey. All he does is eat and sleep,” I said. “But don’t worry. He’ll be full of play soon.”

“Yes, he will,” Mel added. “He’ll have more play in him than you’ll know what to do with.”

Little Bit had the little critter cupped in her hands and held it up to her face, “I can’t wait till you’re big enough to play with.”

“Alright,” Mel said. “Put him back in the box. Time for bed.”

Little Bit laid him into the shoebox and covered him with one of the rags we had lined it with. Gently rubbing his head, she said goodnight and ran off to get ready for bed herself. Picking up the box, I said, “I’ll put him away and then grab a shower.”

“Soon as I get her to bed, I’ll be there,” Mel replied.

CHAPTER 7

I stood on the back porch of Dave’s house looking out over a small lake. It was an odd sensation, smelling the grilling meat, seeing the kids playing in the water and hearing so many voices engaged in conversation around me. It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d experienced in quite some time, a genuine cookout. Walking over to the edge of the porch, I sat down in a well-worn rocker beside Sarge. He and Dave were in deep conversation.

“This is an impressive spread you have here,” I said.

Dave looked down towards the lake. “It’s home.”

“I can see why you folks didn’t venture out. No need to. You’ve got everything you need here.”

“We were blessed is all I can say. Family came together, and we made some good friends. We were fortunate. Much like you, from what Linus here tells me.”

“We got lucky too,” I agreed.

“Lucky hell,” Sarge snorted. “It’s been a hell of a lot of hard work to get where we are. And it ain’t over by a stretch.”

As we talked, a tall young blonde woman came out of the house. She was wearing a sheer wrap, the sort of thing you’d see at the beach. Dropping her sunglasses down over her eyes, she started to walk towards the lake. The wrap blew open to reveal the bikini she was wearing underneath.

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” I said in surprise.

“That’s Crystal. She’s one of my granddaughters.”

Sarge looked at Dave, “I bet that’s been hell to keep on the ranch.”

He laughed, “You have no idea. But Janet keeps a close eye on her. Crystal is her niece. Janet’s sister lives up north.” His voice changed when he added, “we don’t know what happened to her.”

“There’s a lot of that these days,” I replied.

I was watching the girl as she headed for the lake and laughed when Mikey saw her. He and Ted were down at the lake’s edge fishing and having considerable success. Mike lifted a bass from the water that had to weight four pounds. When he turned to show it to those of us on the porch, he spotted Crystal. He dropped the fish and lowered his sunglasses, doing a double-take. When he was sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, he held the rod out in Ted’s direction and dropped it as well. Ted rolled his eyes as Mike started towards her.

“This is going to be good,” I said.

“What’s that?” Sarge asked.

I pointed at Mike and said, “Mike just saw Crystal. This should be entertaining.”

“For the love of God,” Sarge grumbled. Leaning close to Dave, he said, “I’m really sorry, Dave. He’s a good kid, but if I had my way, I’d drown him.”

Dave just smiled and rocked in his chair. “It’s good to see young people find someone. Besides, I ain’t worried about Crystal.” He leaned back in his chair and with a broad smile, he added, “He’s got to get past Janet.”

I laughed at the image of Mike meeting Janet. “And they’re such good friends.”

“Good,” Sarge replied. “But I’m warning you now, he’ll give her a run for her money.”

“Maybe it’ll distract her,” Dave said. “She hasn’t been happy here. There’s no one around her age. I mean, there’s a couple of hands here, but I made it pretty clear to them what would happen to them if they started sniffing around.”

Sarge pointed down at the lake and said, “That one doesn’t take a hint. It takes something a little less subtle to get him to take notice…like a two-by-four.”

“Look at it this way,” I said, turning toward Sarge. “Maybe it’ll get him out of your hair some. Give him something else to focus on.”

“Focus? He couldn’t find focus on a telescope!” Sarge barked back, then pointed towards the lake. “And any focus he may have had just went out the window.”

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