He sniffed at her as if to say, What about me?
She pondered her reply. And the Chewmonster?
Of course.
Okay, so that blew an objection out of the water.
She knew if she texted Eliza that the men were offering to let her stay with them that Eliza would change her locks just to force Rebecca to go stay with the men. It also made logical sense. After all, they did live next door to her uncle’s property.
Now her property.
Logical. Right?
It’ll be the wee hours of the morning when I get there.
That’s fine. Keep us posted on your progress.
You can track me on the Waze app.
That led to a back-and-forth as she had to explain what it was to him, he and Toby both downloaded it to their phones, and she got them added as friends on the app. It was how she kept track of some of her Ren fair friends, too.
And it was one more way for Eliza to locate Rebecca should she suddenly drop off the face of the planet. Not much of a safety net, but at least something.
Although it would be faster for Eliza to simply log into Rebecca’s cell phone account and activate the family tracker on her phone. Eliza was the only other person who had access to Rebecca’s cell account, for obvious reasons. But Rebecca also used Waze on her tablet, and it would still run under Wi-Fi even if she turned off the cellular function.
While texting with the men, an hour passed before she realized it.
Ok have to go to sleep. See you tomorrow night.
Logan responded. Text us when you get on the road. We’ll track you. Is that creepy?
She smiled. Not when I like who’s doing the tracking.
And no, she definitely didn’t find it creepy. They were concerned about her. Understandable, because they’d only known her for a week and didn’t quite grasp she had this routine covered.
It was nice to have someone concerned about her for a change, besides Eliza and Rusty.
* * * *
Logan smacked Toby’s arm. “Yes! She’s going to stay here.”
“I told you she would. If she hadn’t agreed, I would have sicced Eliza on her.”
Logan’s smile faded. “Are we getting in over our heads?”
“Look,” Toby said. “She’s independent. She owns her own home. Doesn’t matter that it’s an RV. She’s got a life, a business. She’s self-sufficient. If there’s any better person to think about playing with, then show me.”
“Sorry. I’m gun-shy.”
“So am I, but we know enough about her to take a chance. If we don’t take a chance, who’s to say she won’t just empty the place out, sell it, and leave again?”
“We still don’t know she won’t do that,” Logan pointed out.
“Then we get to know her better and give her reasons to want to hang around.”
“We need more dog treats,” Logan said.
“I love that dog. He’s hysterical.”
“We’re not making a mistake, are we?” Logan asked.
“I don’t think so.” Toby smiled. “Quit being a wussy Dom.”
“I’m not a wussy Dom. Asshole. I just don’t want a repeat of what we went through.”
“She’s not Julie,” Toby reminded him. “She’s also older than Julie was. More life experiences. It’s time we quit being afraid and take a chance.”
“I noticed we haven’t talked about counseling again.”
Toby stared at him for a long minute. “Do you want to go to counseling? I thought we’d made a lot of progress just in the past week or so.”
Logan pulled him in for a long, tender kiss. “I’ll leave it up to you. If you decide you want us to go, we’ll go.”
Toby stroked his partner’s cheek. “As long as the man I fell in love with doesn’t disappear again, then I’m good.”
* * * *
A line of thunderstorms racing through the area late Sunday morning actually changed Rebecca’s timeline. She’d been waffling, watching the weather radar feeds on her tablet ever since she’d gotten up that morning, and suspected her day would be drastically shortened.
As officials started to clear people from the grounds because of the threat of lightning, she packed her stuff, including her tent and tables, and boogied. Several other smaller vendors were following suit, leaving larger ones to stay behind, hold down the fort, and hope their huge set-ups didn’t get blown away.
This wasn’t the first time she’d had to pack up and leave with everything. It happened a couple of times a year. Her tent, fortunately, was easy for her to set up and take down by herself, a standard picnic tent for which she’d had custom canvas made to look medieval.
But it was dry when faced with the average rain shower, the sides keeping rain from blowing in.
Thunderstorms, however, she didn’t mess with. Not when the dang frame was metal to start with.
She was able to get everything loaded in two trips, Chewi keeping up with her on his leash and making none of his usual attempts to dawdle, either.
She suspected his canine nose sensed the weather coming.
Back at the RV, she got the tent and tables stored in her locking storage compartments before the rain hit. That left her time to shower, pack her clothes, and eat. By the time the storms tapered around three, she was ready to leave.
Music to the men’s ears. After starting her Waze app on her tablet, she sent the men a note through the app that she was on the way, hooked the tablet into the Toad’s windshield holder for it, as well as plugging it into the power cord, and she and Chewi got on the road.
* * * *
Other than some rain, it was a fairly easy drive. She made a detour around a construction zone that had traffic jacked up miles in both directions and saved an hour’s wait, losing only twenty minutes.
She thought she was being quiet when she pulled into their driveway around three the next morning, but then Toby walked out, smiling.
She felt like falling into his arms to hug him.
Fortunately, he hugged her first. “Glad to see you here safe and sound.” Chewi put his front paws up on Toby’s leg, his tail rapid-fire wagging in joy. “Hey, buddy. No other minuns recruited yet, sorry.”
“So, did you track us?”
“Actually, I did. Logan took the first shift, and I had the second. Wanted to make sure you got here all right.”
That made her feel good, and not the slightest bit creeped out. They cared.
It’d been…well, only her parents and Eliza and Rusty worried about her reaching a destination safely and on time.
It felt good to have someone else—someones—also looking out for her.
Toby helped her get her bags inside. She’d bring the jewelry stuff in later. He showed her to the guest room. “I put towels and stuff in the bathroom. If you need anything, let us know.”
“Thanks. I’ll get a shower in the morning. I had one before I left up there. Rain shortened the day.”
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
He seemed to want to say something else. Finally, “Look, we don’t want to creep you out or anything, but we meant it before. If you get to the point where you want to play, we’re open to that. We really like you. And you can talk to anyone you want about us for references.”
For a moment, she wondered about crawling into bed with them right then. Well, to sleep, not to fool around. She felt too exhausted to fool around.
“I might take you up on that at some point in the future. I’m not too proud to admit it’s been a long, long time since I’ve gotten what I needed, and I’m not afraid to speak my mind. And if Eliza’s trying to play matchmaker, I’m sure she’s probably already done the homework for me.”
Toby smiled. “Good. Just wanted to put that out there.”
* * * *
Someone knocking on the bedroom door woke her up. Then, it opened.