He carries my two suitcases, and even though it’s a little chilly, I keep my pullover tied around my waist and follow him up the wooden steps. The front of the house is almost all windows on the bottom floor, so I can kind of see inside. The downstairs looks like one large great room with high ceilings, and even though there’s a lot of one color—brown wood, brown leather, brown antlers, and brown rugs—I make out some stone features, as well.
“Hello!” Jake calls out, entering the house and setting my suitcases down. “Noah!”
I follow him, gently shutting the door behind me.
Two dogs rush up, a brown lab and another one, scrawny with gray and black hair and glassy black eyes. Jake leans over, giving them both a good petting as he looks around the house.
“Anyone here?” he yells again.
I immediately look up, seeing a couple levels of rafters, although the ceiling drops to the left and also where the kitchen is to the right. There’s not a lot of walls down here as the living room, dining room, sitting room, and kitchen just all melt together, not leaving much privacy.
It’s spacious, though.
“Yeah, I’m here!” a man’s voice calls out.
A young guy walks out of the kitchen fisting two beer bottles and shakes his head at Jake. “Jesus Christ. Fuckin’ Shawnee got out again,” he says.
He strolls up to us, looking like he’s about to hand Jake one of the beers, but then he looks at me and stops.
His dark blond hair is slicked back under a backward baseball cap, and he doesn’t look much older than me, maybe twenty or twenty-one. His body, though… His strong arms are tanned dark under his green T-shirt, and he’s broad. His crystal clear blue eyes widen, and his mouth hooks in a half-smile.
“This is Noah,” Jake introduces us. “My youngest.”
It takes me a moment, but I raise my hand to shake his. Instead of taking it, though, he just puts one of the bottles in it and says, “Learn to like it. We drink a lot here.”
The sweat from the bottle coats my palm, and I shoot Jake a look. He takes it from me and looks to his son. “Your brother?”
“Still in,” Noah replies, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“Right.”
In? I start to wonder what that means but shake it off, wiping my wet hand on my jeans, still feeling his eyes on me. Why is he staring?
I meet his eyes again, and he quirks a real smile. Should I say something? Or should he say something? I guess this is weird. We’re essentially cousins. Am I supposed to hug him or something? Is it rude not to?
Whatever.
“How long did you look for the horse before you gave up?” Jake asks him, a sigh that he won’t let out thickening his voice.
Noah smiles brightly and shrugs. “My logic is that if we don’t find her then she won’t ever run away again.”
Jake cocks an eyebrow as he glances down at me and explains, “We have a young mare who always seems to find some way out of her stall.” And then he eyes his son again as if this is a tired subject. “But horses are expensive, so she needs to be found.”
The kid holds up his beer and backs away. “Just came back for fuel.” And then he locks eyes with me as he walks toward the back of the house. “If you shower, save me some hot water,” he tells me.
I watch him walk past the large stone fireplace, down a long hallway, and eventually I hear a screen door slam shut somewhere at the back of the house. He’s going to find a horse tonight?
“It’s dark so I’ll show you around the property in the morning,” Jake says, walking off to the right, “but here’s the kitchen.”
He trails around the island in the large space, but I stay back.
“Of course, help yourself to anything,” he explains, meeting my eyes. “We’ll be making plenty of runs to town before the weather starts in the next couple of months, so we can stock the pantry with any food you like. We’ll be doing some canning, too.” He closes the fridge door I’m guessing his son left open and informs me, “We try to grow, catch, and kill as much of our own food as possible.”
It makes sense why I thought I saw a barn and a greenhouse among the other structures. With getting snowed in for such long periods of time, it’s smart to rely on grocery stores and the town as little as possible.
He gestures for me to follow him, and I join him as he opens a door off the side of the kitchen.
“If you need the washer and dryer, it’s out here in the shop,” he tells me, flipping on a light. He descends the few stairs, and I see another truck parked in the bright garage, this one red.