Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

she said. “For once I’m glad the wheels of government turn as slowly as they do. But I’m sure they’ll be watching things closely and that if the opportunity arises to take control of Belle Haven, they’ll move far more quickly than they have so far. Which is why I want you to be ready when the time comes.”

Mr. Murdock stopped himself from shaking his head. He tried not to sigh. “You know you’re right when you say you could never afford much of the town.”

“No. But if I can buy enough key properties here and there to prevent them from obtaining a solid block of land, they might not try to buy any more than the few pieces where the threat from the fire might actually materialize.”

Determined to be sure that he understood her, and she him, Mr. Murdock said slowly, “But if the government says that the threat is real and offers to buy people out, and if you can’t afford to buy up all of their land, you do acknowledge that some people should sell to them.”

“You’re worried that I might become a rabble-rouser, organize some kind of protest?” She shook her head. “I won’t interfere with a legitimate plan to assist people at risk. But I don’t believe the majority of people in Belle Haven will ever be threatened by the fire. And if they aren’t convinced of a serious and immediate danger, most of them will never choose to leave. Never.”

Mr. Murdock looked at her carefully, his smile in check. “You seem to expect the government to exaggerate the danger in order to obtain land, Rachel.”

“I think such a thing is conceivable.”

“You don’t have a lot of faith in government.”

“If they had spent enough time, money, and effort on Belle Haven in the beginning when the fire was just getting started, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. As it is, they’ve spent far more than that in the past decade, playing catch-up. And they haven’t caught up yet.”

He’d asked good questions. She’d given him complete answers. Still, he was convinced that there was more to this than met the eye. Here was a young woman, a beautiful young woman, who had chosen to leave school a year shy of her degree and live on her own in a town too small and too remote to provide the culture or the excitement—or the opportunities, for that matter—that she might be expected to seek.

He didn’t know that she had isolated herself in other, even more unusual ways. He didn’t know that most of her friends—like Angela and Ian and Earl—were older than Rachel by years. He didn’t know that she had drifted clear of her childhood companions in favor of these mentor-friends, or that, with the exception of Joe, she’d felt close only to those who had known her parents well and understood the depth of her love for them. She had always felt different from her classmates, but she was now unwilling to overlook these differences. If old friends like Estelle were puzzled by her, so be it. She didn’t care.

Had Mr. Murdock known these things, he too might have found Rachel even more puzzling than he did. But she would not have cared about this either.

“You’re determined to stay in Belle Haven, then?” he asked. “Despite everything?” He was talking about her parents but could not bring himself to say so.

“It’s where I belong,” she said.

As Rachel was leaving his office, Mr. Murdock called her back. “You haven’t told me what you plan to do with all this land … if people are forced to sell it … if you buy it. Or haven’t you thought that far ahead?”

“That’s the easy part,” she said, smiling. “I’ll just keep it until they’re ready to buy it back.”

Of all the things Rachel had said to him that morning, this last was the part that troubled him most.

“Have a nice day,” he said, but she was already out the door.

After leaving Mr. Murdock’s office, Rachel went straight to the Randall animal shelter to get Joe a Christmas present. It was not easy for her to choose one: every puppy, seen through the bars of a cage, looked desperately in need of a home. A few of them were recognizable breeds in their trademark coats and bones, but most were un-apologetically mutts, cheap, their lineage uncertain, unique.

Rachel held each of them before finally settling on a young mutt, a female, who looked into her eyes with great confidence and laid her tiny muzzle against Rachel’s neck.

Rachel was afraid to keep the pup at her house for fear it would quickly come to think of it as home and Joe as some sort of substitute for her. So she drove out to Ian’s place on her way back from Randall and found Joe at the Schooner, fixing his lunch.

“Good, I’m starved,” she said, stepping inside. “What are we having?”

“Soup.”

“Perfect.” She lifted the lid off the pot and let the steam bathe her face. “What did you do this morning?”

“Helped fix a barn roof over in Jupiter.”

“Jupiter? How’d you get way over there?”

“Bike.”

“Holy cow! Ten miles each way? In this cold? Are you out of your mind?”

“The Schooner gets touchy in this weather. And Ian went off early in the truck. But it wasn’t so bad,” he said, smiling, his teeth still chattering as he boiled water for their tea. “Better than walking.”

It was at times like this that Rachel felt uncomfortable about her money, his lack, and the impossibility of offering to help him. She suddenly realized how difficult it might be for him to feed a dog, especially if the pup that waited out in her truck grew up to be a big one.

“Before we eat,” she said, “I want to give you your Christmas present.”

“No way,” he said, putting out bread and butter. The table was already set with a jug of milk, cheese, and apples. “Nothing before Christmas morning. That’s the rule.”

“Not this time,” she said. “Stay right there. And no