Safe Haven

Finding A Real Home

This was totally unfair. Why were they sending him out in something like this? He didn't want to go out into some redneck-middle-of-nowhere for his summer vacation. All he wanted to do was stay home and play his new video game and watch baseball games.

He wanted to stay home in New York.

His parents had promised to take him to sporting events and let him be with his friends for the summer. They promised to take him on a trip in Europe. They promised to take him to exciting places and have tons of fun. But they were sending him to live with his grandparents in Montana. For the entire summer.

They lived on a farm of some sort. Not harvest-crops-and-raise-chickens type of farm, but more of a raise-and-sell horses type of farm. And something to do with cows.

How was a ten year old boy supposed to have any fun in a place like that? There was nothing to do. His grandparents didn't even own a TV. How did his parents expect him to survive the summer?

"You'll have plenty of fun at the farm, Bo," his grandma, Shawna, said as they bumped along the dirt road. To a ten-year-old's eyes, she was an old lady, but in reality, she was only in her forties. She looked like she was only in her early thirties. Shawna definitely wasn't a fragile lady; her skin was tanned from spending so much time in the sun, she had some muscles from heavy lifting and fighting with horses, and her dirty blonde hair didn't have a single gray hair in it. "There's plenty of animals to keep you busy. And there's also a little girl about your age just down the road. Well, actually, she's about a year and a half or two years younger. But she is quite amusing, and she can play baseball with you from time to time."

"Baseball is for boys, not girls," Bo grumbled, tapping a couple buttons on his handheld game.

His grandpa, Will, just grunted and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. He, unlike his grandma, didn't say very much. In fact, he hadn't said anything to Bo since he'd arrived. Will was the same age as Shawna, and looked just as young. There were no wrinkles making themselves at home on his face, there were no gray hairs taking refuge and hiding in his black hair, and there were no signs of him becoming fragile and slowing down. Will's skin was somehow lighter than Shawna's despite how many more hours he spent outside. His muscles were more pronounced than Shawna's, and his hands possessed calluses from horseback riding.

"Oh, you two," Shawna laughed, jokingly slapping Will's arm. He turned his head to grin at her, and without swerving from the road, leaned over and kissed her full on the mouth. That small movement had Bo gagging from his spot in the backseat, but it also left a funny feeling in his stomach. His own parents didn't show that sort of affection to each other. Usually it was just polite chats or heated arguments. His grandparents hadn't approved of his dad when his mother ran off with him. His grandparents had even offered to let her move back home, but she was way too stubborn to admit that they had been right about him.

"Say something to the boy," Shawna whispered, nudging Will with her forearm. Will glanced back in the rearview mirror and spotted Bo with his lowered head, tapping away at his game. The boy was the spitting image of Will when Will had been his age. The black hair, the naturally pale skin color, the blue-gray eyes were all the same. Bo was also as stubborn as his mom, and passionate like Shawna. And best of all, no part of him was like the scum his daughter, Mira, had run off with.

"Do you like to eat, boy?" Will asked, unable to say no to Shawna. "You look like you never get fed."

"I eat," Bo protested, loosening his grip on his game in surprise so that it fell into his lap. "My parents never let me go hungry and you can't get me to say that they have!"

"I didn't say they let you go hungry. But what is it that they feed you back home? Wheat germ dust?"

"Wheat germ what?" Bo questioned, glancing at Shawna in alarm.