The man raised the shovel with one hand. “Come on out.”
A spark of indignation lit in her chest. She wasn’t a criminal. Maybe technically this barn belonged to someone, but it had obviously been abandoned for years. She’s the one who’d spent hours tidying it up. And in the three years she’d been coming here, she’d never seen this man. Occasionally, she’d glimpsed a woman in the buttercup-colored house in the evening, sitting alone, but no one had ever come near the barn. Never given it so much as a passing glance, as far as she could tell.
She took a step forward, buoyed by righteous indignation. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The man swung his other hand above his head until it connected with a ratty old string hanging from the rafters. He pulled the cobwebbed cord, and a bare bulb clicked on in the middle of the barn. She flinched at the sudden bright light.
“How did you get in here?” The man’s face appeared as astonished as she felt.
“You look upset.”
His nostrils flared. “Of course I’m upset. I just found a stranger trespassing on my property. You’re lucky I didn’t take your head off with this shovel.”
The dog stopped barking but remained vigilant. It was cute the way it acted tough. Mr. Whiskers yowled.
She patted his back. “You’re scaring my cat.”
The man’s eyes bulged. His mouth opened and closed. He leaned the shovel against the wall with a thunk and looked around the barn.
“Did you move all this stuff around?”
He didn’t sound pleased. She nodded reluctantly. “I like your dog.”
“It’s not mine.”
“Sure looks like yours. What’s his name?”
The man shook his head. “What are you doing in here, kid?”
She took a long, slow breath, buying time. He didn’t need to know how long she’d been coming here. Didn’t need to know she fled to the quiet solitude of this barn as often as she could, trying to escape the relentless forward progress of her life.
She shrugged. “Just thinking.”
He scowled. “You can’t think on your own property?”
She wrinkled her nose. He would never understand. Sometimes she got tired of people watching her every move, waiting for her to slip up. Tired of Dad’s unending ideas about her future. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone—”
“Owned this barn?”
“—cared about this place.”
The man took a step back, like someone had struck him. Something in her stomach twinged. She didn’t know why or how, but an invisible line had been crossed. The concluding words of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Bluebeard” poem rang in her mind: “This now is yours. I seek another place.” Her secret hideout had been trespassed upon, and yet something told her she had unwittingly committed an even greater offense than intrusion.
The barn was special to this man, too. Whoever he was.
She shifted so that Mr. Whiskers lay cradled in her arms like a baby. “You live here?”
“Of course.” He threw his hands up in disgust. “Why else would I be here?”
“I’ve never seen you before.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You’ve been here before?”
Oops. She searched for a way to answer that question without causing more trouble but came up empty. Instead, she jerked her chin toward the door. “I guess I’ll be going.”
The man stepped aside so she could pass. “Don’t get any ideas about coming back.”
She paused with her back to him, her heart sinking. No other haven would ever be as good as this. But it had been nice while it lasted.
She sighed. “Okay.”
The dog trotted behind her, smiling now as if they’d been friends all along. She stepped onto the gravel drive and turned to go behind the barn, where the shortcut trail was hidden.
The man called out, “It’s a she.”
Rae stopped. “What?”
“The dog. Daisy. It’s a she.”
“Oh.” Rae knelt beside Daisy to pat her on the head. “Good girl.”
Daisy licked Rae’s hand and sniffed Mr. Whiskers’s rear end, much to the cat’s dismay.
Rae laughed. “She’s just saying hello.”
She sensed the man close-by, watching, but was afraid to look at him. He was old and seemed harmless, but something about him was a little frightening. Intense. She stood and turned to go again.
The man cleared his throat. “Why’d you really come here?”
She hesitated. She’d never told anyone about this place. Not even Kylee. But the man’s voice demanded the truth.
“It’s peaceful.” She slowly spun to face him. “For some reason, whenever I’m in the barn, I feel safe. And happy. Like that’s what it was made for, to make people happy.”
And when she was inside, she could be herself. She didn’t have to be the best. Didn’t have to have all the answers.
“I didn’t mean any harm.”
It was dark. The light from inside the barn shone on the man’s back, shrouding his face in shadow. She strained to see whether he was still angry.
He crossed his arms. “You take that cat everywhere?”
She half smiled. “Not to school.”
The air had cooled considerably since she first arrived, but Mr. Whiskers was like a heating pad in her arms. He nestled against her, his confidence apparently restored now that he was out of Daisy’s reach. Rae took one last longing look at the barn and exhaled sharply. She was sure going to miss it.
The man grunted and muttered something.
“Pardon me?” Rae asked.
“I said I guess it’s okay if you use it.” He waved an arm at the barn. “It’s just sitting there, after all.”
Rae suppressed a squeal. “Really?”
His arms hung at his sides. He didn’t seem so intimidating anymore. “Just for now. But you’ve got to stop moving stuff around.”
She bounced with delight. “I promise I won’t touch anything.”
He pressed a button on his watch and it lit up. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
It couldn’t be later than nine o’clock. She stifled a grin. “Yes.”
He waited expectantly. “Well? It’s late. Go on now.”
“Right.” She patted Daisy again on the head, then gave the man a salute. “See you later. And thanks.”
She slipped around the barn before he could change his mind. If
