Building on Love

by Kat Bellemore

  But that was back home. Where everything was familiar. Nothing felt right here. But then again, it had never felt right back home in Starlight Ridge either.

  Chloe gave him a small, sympathetic smile. “Take it easy, and if you’re feeling up to it later, you can join everyone for dinner. Who knows, maybe a little Thai spice is just what you need.”

  Davis doubted it, but he’d agree to anything if it meant Chloe leaving the tent.

  It wasn’t Thai spice that he was craving, but a healthy dose of self-pity.

  And an escape plan.

  6

  Chloe warmed herself by the fire, the smell of freshly cooked pork making her stomach grumble. Because they were at a higher altitude, the winter nights could be chilly. As chilly as it could get this close to the equator, anyway.

  The Thai villagers were just finishing up for the day—they always made sure they worked harder and longer than the volunteers. They didn’t like feeling like they couldn’t rebuild their village on their own so made sure they did more than their fair share of the work. If the volunteers had worked another hour, the villagers would have worked two. When she’d first started Building on Hope, Chloe had quickly learned that her organization was meant to help but not take over. Thailand may be her home, but this village? It was not. Though after years of living various places in a tent, it certainly felt like it.

  A middle-aged Thai woman approached Chloe, her two children in tow.

  “Sawadii kaa,” Chloe said, raising her hands together in front of her as if she were praying. She bent her head slightly as she did it. Chloe loved the Thai way of greeting and would miss it terribly if she ever left. There was a certain level of respect intrinsically attached to it, and it connected the people together, whether Thai or volunteer.

  Pii Beun smiled and raised her hands in response. “Sawadii kaa.” She nodded toward the tent behind Chloe. “Farang mai, na ka?”

  Chloe turned in the direction Beun had indicated. Davis was just exiting the tent. It was the first she’d seen of him since he’d needed to lie down earlier. The smell of the meat must have enticed him out. “Ka,” Chloe said, turning back. “Farang mai. Kara’s luugchai.”

  As Davis approached, Beun’s small son and daughter ran toward him, pointing and shouting, “Farang. Farang. Farang.” Pii Beun scolded them, and they ran back to her, laughing.

  Davis sent Chloe a bewildered look. She’d seen that look on new volunteers, but it seemed to have settled much deeper in Davis than it had with the others. “Farang means papaya,” she explained. “It’s their word for a white person. You could be European or Australian, it wouldn’t make a difference. You’d still be a farang.” Chloe gave him an encouraging smile in hopes that Davis wouldn’t take offense at the name. “I was just telling Pii Beun here that you are Kara’s son. The villagers are always excited to see a new face, and they adore your family.”

  Davis nodded slowly, taking in the scene as more villagers approached, many of them carrying food. Chloe knew it would mostly be rice, a staple of their meals, along with some vegetables.

  Chloe loved Thai food, but it could take some getting used to, and she hoped Davis was up to the challenge. He seemed quite different from the rest of his family—more cautious—and she worried that two weeks in Thailand might be too much for him.

  “Davis!” someone called from the opposite side of the camp. Two people, actually.

  It had been one word, but two voices. The twins.

  Will and Randy seemed to appear out of nowhere, racing around the fire and both leaping onto their brother at the same time, despite being almost as tall as Davis.

  To Chloe’s surprise, Davis’s whole demeanor lit up. He laughed and grabbed Will around the waist and dropped him on the ground, then just as quickly got hold of Randy and dropped him on top of his twin brother. And then Davis pinned them both as they wriggled in the dirt, laughing while begging him to let them up.

  Davis was a completely different person. Almost like the presence of his brothers had freed him from whatever dark place he’d been all day.

  Kara and Rick walked up, their arms laden with the tools they needed to put away. They shared amused looks.

  “It’s been too long since I’ve seen that sight,” Kara said. “I had hoped that it wasn’t too late—that we hadn’t been away for too long and lost the opportunity.”

  Rick released an exasperated sigh, though he hadn’t lost his smile. “What we’ve been doing the last two years—what we’ve given Will and Randy—it’s irreplaceable.”

  “I know,” Kara said, watching as Davis jumped to his feet and helped his brothers up off the ground. “But what about Davis?”

  Davis heard his name and glanced in his parents’ direction, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. Chloe’s heart rate quickened at the sudden attraction she felt toward him, and she dropped her gaze. She had experienced something similar back in the tent, when she’d accidentally walked in on Davis changing. But this felt different. It wasn’t attraction to a random set of abs. She found herself drawn to the man they belonged to.

  And that was one place she couldn’t let her emotions take her.

  “Davis is a man, unlike his brothers, and he doesn’t need us breathing down his neck,” Rick was saying, and he seemed to be purposely saying it loud enough for Davis to hear.

  “Hey,” Will and Randy protested at the same time.

  Will jutted out his chin. “Look, I have some fuzz growing in.”

  Davis put his brother in a headlock and rubbed his hand over Will’s mop of hair. “Is that what you call it?”

  “Yeah,” Will said, maneuvering out of his brother’s grasp.

  Davis smirked. “Well, I call it dirt.”

  Pii Beun’s two children seemed to want to get in on the action and ran over to Davis, giggling as they jumped forward, each latching onto one of his legs.

  Chloe held her breath, wondering what Davis would do. He’d seemed so overwhelmed with everything all day, keeping to himself and staying away—she didn’t know what to expect.

  Neither did Davis, apparently, because he froze, like he was unsure what to do with the two tiny people who had spontaneously attached themselves to him. He looked to his parents, then to Chloe, then back to his parents, as if asking for advice on how to get himself out of the situation. But his parents merely smiled, shrugged, and then continued on their way to deposit their tools in the makeshift shed they had helped erect when they’d first arrived on-site.

  Which left Chloe.

  She could help the guy out. It wouldn’t be difficult. The children were merely testing the limits of how much they could get away with.

  But she refrained. The man didn’t seem to be in distress, and she was interested to see how this would play out.

  “That’s Uan on your left leg, and Pink on your right,” Chloe told him.

  Davis looked down at the small girl who sat on his foot, her legs wrapped around his calf. She looked up and giggled. “Is that her real name? Pink?”

  “Everyone goes by a nickname. Their given names are only used in formal situations.”

  Davis nodded slowly as his gaze moved from one child to the other. It landed on the boy.

  “In English, Uan translates to fat,” she pointed out, although the boy wasn’t overweight at all.

  “Fat, huh?” Davis said, glancing at the boy and frowning. “That doesn’t seem to be a very nice thing to name your child.”

  Chloe had shared the same sentiment when she’d learned the meanings behind some of her friends’ names. But she’d since learned that its intention was anything but cruelty. “He was probably just a chubby baby and it was meant to be endearing. To them, it was a name and nothing more.”

  Davis bent down and looked Uan in the eyes. “You can be whatever you want to be, no matter your size or your name, you got that?”

  The boy laughed and then grabbed his sister by the hand and towed her back to their mother. Chloe fought back a smile of h
er own when she saw Davis frown, as if he was disappointed that his inspirational speech hadn’t had the desired effect.

  “I’m sure he’ll remember your wise words when he’s older. You probably just transformed a life,” she said.

  Davis threw a glance her way and caught the smirk she wore. Chloe expected him to be annoyed with her, considering how serious he’d been all day, but he surprised her yet again when a corner of his lips tilted up. “You are absolutely right. And there’s more where that came from. If you see any other children running about, send them my way.”

  “Transform my life,” Will begged, his tone mimicking a small child, as he jumped onto Davis’s back, though he was far too big for it. Davis was taken by surprise and lost his footing before falling on top of his brother. Seeing Davis back down in the dirt, Randy saw his chance to overtake his brother, and he and Will finally succeeded in pinning Davis to the ground.

  Seeing Davis’s predicament, Uan and Pink ran back over, but rather than help their new friend, they sat on him instead.

  “Dii maag,” Randy said, giving them each a thumbs up. He turned to Davis. “I’m telling them, ‘good job.’”

  “Yeah, I figured,” Davis managed to choke out. Seeing the man splayed out on the ground invoked a pang of guilt, and Chloe moved to help Davis out of his predicament, but just as she reached him, Davis caught her eye. He wore a slight smile and managed a nod toward the children. It seemed whatever he had planned, it would be better if the children weren’t sitting on top of him for it.

  Chloe ushered the children off of Davis and toward their mother, but they hadn’t gotten more than a few steps when Davis managed to throw off both of his brothers and pin them to the ground. Again.

  Whatever Davis was or wasn’t, one thing was clear. The man had skills in the athletic department.

  He caught her staring and grinned, making him appear like a child who knew he’d done a good job and wanted to be praised for it.

  But something about it made Chloe want to do the opposite—she’d always had that knee-jerk reaction, not wanting to do what was expected of her. Which was probably how she’d ended up with the job she had now.

  Chloe lifted a shoulder. “Not bad.”

  He gawked. “Not bad? Have you met my brothers? I might have a couple decades on them, but they’re as slippery and squirrely as they come. Doing it once was amazing, but twice? It’s a freakin’ Christmas miracle.”

  She laughed, but rather than give him the satisfaction of praise that all men seemed to be after, she merely said, “I better gather everyone for dinner.”

  And she left Davis staring after her as she moved toward the tent, though she wasn’t quite able to resist one last glance over her shoulder.

  7

  Davis finished off the last of his red curry. Back home he would have balked if someone had suggested he put peanuts in a dish, but this meal made him want to put them in everything now.

  “Want more?” his mother asked. “Now’s your chance because we’ll be giving the leftovers to the villagers.”

  Davis did want more but knew he shouldn’t. For one, now that he knew that the more he ate, the less there would be for others, he would feel guilty with every bite. Besides, Davis had already had three servings. Even though his tongue was begging for more, his stomach was begging him to stop.

  “I think I’m good,” he said, leaning against a rock that had become a makeshift chair near the fire. Most of the villagers had returned to their huts and tents, only a few women remaining as they spooned the leftover food into plastic bags.

  Davis couldn’t imagine the rice, curry, meat, and cooked vegetables would fare very well like that, but it seemed they had no other method of storing the food. It seemed silly to miss something like a disposable storage container. They were so inexpensive that they could be thrown out if he wasn’t in the mood to wash them.

  And yet, here were the villagers carting away the leftover food in bags, where it would get all mixed and squished, and they’d have to eat it cold because there was no microwave.

  Davis was aware of his mom watching him. “You look happy,” she said.

  Was he?

  That wasn’t a question Davis had asked himself in a long time; he’d always been afraid of the answer. Now that he had gotten over his carsickness and the shock of landing in a foreign country, he mulled over the possibility. Sitting here with his family in the middle of a Thai jungle, warming himself by the fire after a delicious meal. Yeah, at this moment, he was happy. Back in Starlight Ridge, Davis had allowed himself to forget how much he had missed his family—his brothers.

  Bridgette had helped fill that void.

  But after her death, that void had only grown until it had become the equivalent of a black hole, sucking in any form of happiness that dared threaten it, until none had been left. And there had been no possibility of it ever returning.

  For this one moment, though, the black hole had been subdued.

  “Right now, I am,” Davis finally said.

  His mom was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad you’re here. Having the whole family together again—I didn’t know the next time it would be like this, if ever.” She paused. “I know that’s my and your father’s fault, whisking your brothers away like that, leaving you to run the store. It wasn’t fair of us. And then we got caught up in the life out here. One year turned into two. I was able to justify not returning home because you and I talk on the phone each week, and we’re doing a lot of good out here. But it wasn’t—”

  “Mom,” Davis interrupted. His voice softened. “It’s okay. I’m thirty-five years old. I made the choice to take over the store; that had always been the plan. And I think this is exactly what Will and Randy needed. Being stuck in Starlight Ridge their whole lives—that’s not good for anyone, but especially the twins. They need more than what the town has to offer.”

  His mom raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of our hometown. I grew up there, you know, as did you father, and your grandparents—”

  It seemed Davis had struck a nerve. Starlight Ridge held a special place in his family’s hearts. Most people who grew up there wanted to stay forever—wanted their families to stay there forever. “Then why did you leave?”

  Davis was afraid his mom would be annoyed by the question, but she merely sighed, her gaze resting on the fire. “That…is a valid question.” She picked up a stick from the ground and drew in the dirt. “When we left, I told you we needed an adventure, and that was absolutely true. We did. But more than that, we felt you boys needed it.”

  “You mean Will and Randy.”

  His mom shook her head. “No, I mean you too.”

  “But how would you leaving be any help to—”

  Davis cut off when he saw Travis and Chloe approaching, each armed with a shovel and bucket. Looked like it was time to put out the fire.

  His mom patted his knee as she stood. “I hope you’ll forgive us for thinking we knew something about raising children—even adult ones.”

  She turned away and struck up small talk with Travis as he apologized for needing to clean up. Davis was sure his parents had their reasons for leaving, and it was clear that they had needed it, but it bothered him that it seemed they had thought this had been what Davis had needed as well. What type of person needed to be alone, without the people who truly understood and cared for him, quirks and all?

  He shook his head and took a step toward the tent, where his mom had just disappeared. Davis paused mid-step. He wasn’t in the mood to be around people. The happiness he’d felt just moments earlier? Well, the black hole was back, and it was not happy that it had been ousted for the brief couple of hours that had given Davis a glimpse at the life people led.

  Other people, of course.

  Not him.

  Never him.

  Davis had always been the strange one, the odd one out. Always too serious. Never knowing how to interact with people who seemed to thrive on ch
aos.

  So he walked away from the tent.

  “Where are you going?” someone called after him.

  Davis paused. He recognized Chloe’s voice. Not bothering to fully turn, he said over his shoulder, “Out for a walk.”

  “Without a flashlight?”

  Annoyance rumbled in his chest, though it was mostly with himself. Chloe was right; he didn’t even have a cell phone on him, having left it back in the tent because he was in the middle of nowhere with no service.

  “I wasn’t going to go far.”

  He heard quick footsteps, and then Chloe appeared out of the dark behind him. “Here, use this.” She handed him a headlamp. “You can hang on to it for the next couple of weeks. You know, until you head home. You’ll need it.”

  Davis took it, more out of surprise than anything. He turned it over in his hands. “Thank you.”

  Chloe nodded, acknowledging that she’d heard him, but she didn’t move to leave. It almost seemed like she was waiting for him to try it out, to make sure it worked. She really took her job seriously.

  Davis slipped it over his forehead and turned it on. The light was nearly blinding, and it certainly illuminated his path, but it also made everything else disappear. The stars were no longer visible, the nuances of the dark trees were gone—everything seemed to take on a harsher tone. He turned it off.

  “It works really well,” he said, hoping she’d get the hint and leave so he could continue his walk in the dark.

  She didn’t, though, and instead asked, “Mind if I join you?”

  Davis had a feeling it was so she could keep an eye on him—that she was afraid she was going to lose one of her volunteers if he went wandering into the jungle by himself. And considering Davis’s track record for the day, he could understand why she’d be worried.

  But he really did just want to be left alone.