He’d go back to work when I had my gazebo and laundry building. In helping me with the cabins, it became clear that there wasn’t enough for him to do and he’d told me he needed to be busy. So he was going to find a job.
He didn’t know what he wanted to do yet, just that he was going to go back on the grid, officially.
I worried about this. Uncle Sam, I figured, might have a problem with someone dropping out for ten years plus, then showing back up again.
“It becomes a problem, Cassidy, we deal,” Deacon said when I shared these fears with him. “But, woman, shit happens in life and people drop out all the time. I was a homeless man, lost and wandering. You don’t make a homeless man pay taxes.”
This was true, even though Deacon was a homeless millionaire.
But he was right. If it became a problem, we’d deal. Deacon was good with dealing, after he survived the ultimate and came out the other side. It took him some time, but he did it.
So there was no use worrying about it now.
And bottom line, he was back. Not in the shadows. He was living, free and clean.
With me.
“I like his friends,” Milagros noted, taking my mind from my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They’re likeable.”
And they were. Extremely. More so because Raid looked at Hanna a lot like Deacon looked at me.
Like she was his reason for breathing.
That said it all about Raid Miller.
As for Hanna, she was just lovely. And sweet.
“Friends say a lot about a man.”
Milagros wasn’t wrong about that, and Hanna and Raid said everything.
“Manuel no longer worries.”
I closed my eyes as that swept through me.
I opened them again, saying, “I’m glad.”
“I am too, Cassidy.” Her voice was heavy with meaning. “Very glad.”
I drew in a breath, let it go, turned to my friend, and smiled.
She smiled back at me.
Then she said, “Let’s get those workers a drink.”
“You’re on,” I replied.
Her eyes twinkled.
Then we walked into the kitchen to get the workers a drink.
* * * * *
I was barely containing my excitement when the knock came at the door.
“Get that, will you, honey?” I asked the sandwiches I was making at the counter.