The place was perfect. Rory Harrison's real estate agent had found, in a few days, what he had spent the last month searching for. It sat at the far end of a quiet neighborhood street that was mostly filled with families. She had a smile on her pretty, oval face as she showed him around the outside of the house. She was wearing heels and a tight skirt that emphasized her shapely ass. Rory found his eyes wandering to it as she walked ahead of him but he ran his fingers through his thick brown hair and shook his head. It had been a while since he had last got laid but he knew she was married. The first thing he noticed when they shook hands in the driveway was her ring. He shook the dirty thoughts from his mind as she gestured towards the treeline that butted up to his backyard.
"As you can see, this property backs up to this patch of woods that will provide a nice bit of privacy during the summer months unless you want to put a privacy fence but that would hide the fall foliage and I guess that you already know how breathtaking it can be around this area," She said as Rory walked over to an old rusty swing set.
He walked around it and noticed that while the set itself looked very old, the chain and solitary seat looked to be maybe a year old.
"Ah that, I know it's an eyesore and I was told it was supposed to have been taken care of by now but I guess it's on someone's to-do list," the agent said as she joined him.
"I thought the previous owner was an elderly gentleman, so why the swing set?" Rory asked.
"Mr. Gunderson is in his eighties so I have no idea why he'd still have this up. Nostalgia maybe. Does it really matter?" She asked him as she looked at him curiously.
"I suppose not, I was just curious is all. I thought there might be a story in it," Rory stated then nodded towards the house. "Shall we see the rest of the place?"
"Absolutely," She answered as she started walking towards the house. "You're going to love the kitchen!"
She was right. The kitchen was spacious with a workable island and a cozy little breakfast nook that looked out over the back yard. It, along with the privacy, was the major selling points of the house.
"Once that eyesore out there is gone, you'll have an amazing view of the woods," She enthused as she swept her arm at the window as those models do on game shows.
Rory nodded and allowed her to direct him through the rest of the house.
"This will make a nice office," she stated as she showed him the small guest bedroom at the top of the stairs.
Rory nodded as he sized up the room. He had other ideas for it but didn't feel the need to disclose them to her. An office was the last thing that he wanted in this place. Too many bad memories associated with his previous home office.
"Mr. Harrison, if you don't mind my asking you a question," She asked as they walked down the hallway.
"When is the next Tyler Hart novel coming out?" Rory asked.
"I guess you get that a lot." She laughed.
"Not as much as you'd imagine," Rory chuckled.
She looked confused for a moment then shook her head.
"Ah yes, the pen name," She said as she fluffed her raven colored curls. "I forgot all about that."
"My agent loves to advertise but I'm a bit more private," Rory said as they looked into the master bedroom. "That said, I'm thrilled that the series has become a hit."
"It's been such a great series so far," She enthused while trying her best not to go all fangirl. "A Broken Hart was so sad when Tyler was betrayed and left for dead! That cliffhanger you left us with has me dying for the next book!"
"Thanks for being a fan," Rory smiled at her. "I'm hoping this place will help inspire me to finish the follow-up and a few more books."
She nodded and Rory watched as his words dawned on her face and she broke into a smile.
"So that means that you're taking it?" She asked barely able to contain her glee.
"That means I'm taking it," Rory smiled and a week later he was pulling a rental truck up to his new place.
****
A Week Later
Rory was halfway through unloading the rental truck when his stomach argued rather loudly that it was time for something to eat. Fortunately for him, his agent, Reginald Kasey, had the whole place furnished the day after Rory signed the paperwork. Reg worked fast and since the pair had been friends since elementary school he knew Rory's tastes. As he finished his ham and cheese sandwich, Rory thought he heard a noise coming from the backyard. He looked out the kitchen window and saw a small girl, he guessed no older than eight or nine, slowly swinging on the rusted swing set. For a moment Rory thought that he might have waited too long to eat something and his mind was playing tricks on him. She had long, dirty blonde colored hair and a cute little smile on her face as she swung back and forth without a care in the world. Rory watched her enjoying herself for a couple of minutes before he headed out the backdoor to say hello and introduce himself. The little girl had other ideas, however. As soon as she heard the backdoor opening, she quickly hopped up from the swing and ran for the treeline behind the house. Her legs may have been short but she was gone by the time Rory reached the bottom porch step. He stopped in the grass and wondered if she knew the man he brought the house from.
"Maybe she's the reason the old man kept the set," Rory thought as he tried to catch a glimpse of the girl through the underbrush but he couldn't see anything.
He made a mental note to ask the real estate agent if she knew anything about the girl then went back to unloading the truck. Several hours later Rory called it a day and went out to grab a pizza. He usually preferred to cook but was feeling drained. He sat at the dinner table facing the French doors and stared out at the swing set wondering about the little girl. Who was she and where had she come from?
****
The next day was more of the same for Rory as he carried box after box into his new place. His clothes had all been unloaded yesterday and now he was unloading his boxes of books and movies. Reg had offered to pay movers to do it all but Rory rebuffed the idea. Reg wanted him to concentrate on writing while others did all the work but Rory put his foot down.
"I write better after I do some strenuous activity," He told him and that quelled the argument though Rory was expecting the delivery of a full home gym complete with a personal trainer to shout at him for four hours to push himself at working out then another four to push out more pages on his latest book.
He didn't put it past Reg to go to extremes to get the next book out. Rory looked around at the last ten years of his life packed up in boxes and sighed.
"Not a lot to show for a man in his early thirties is it," He asked the empty house as he pulled open a box of books.
All of the books in this particular box were reference books for his writing. Books on weapons. Books on jungles. Books on self-defense. All used in his writing one way or another. Reg had constantly harped on him about spending his money on books when most of the information in the books could be found with a web search or three. Rory would have tried to explain to Reg about how much he enjoyed cracking open a book. The smell of an old book brought back memories of the times he would crawl up into his father's lap when he was a child and be read to about tales of cowboys and gunslingers. About how the feel of the paper on his fingers reminded him of when he would help his sister turn the pages of her storybook while she insisted he voice all the characters. He still has her storybook somewhere in these boxes and now that she has a daughter he would make a point to find it and give it to her soon. As he knelt down to start looking for it in his boxes, Rory's stomach had other plans. He went to the kitchen to slap together another sandwich and as he was eating it he glanced out the window. The little blonde haired girl was back on the rusted swing set. Instead of going out to try and talk to her Rory simply stood there and watched her as she swung through the air. He wished that he could go back to those carefree days of youth where all you wanted to do was pump your legs and get the feeling of flying through the air. After a half hour on the swing, she got to her feet, glanced briefly at the house then skipped her way back into the woods.
****
The same scene played out much the same for another week. She would appear around lunchtime, swings for a half hour while Rory kept a watchful eye on her, then back off through the woods she would go. He could almost set his clock to it and he found himself keeping a regular lunch schedule so he could spend some time watching his new little friend. The change in the routine happened quickly and sent Rory's heart up into his throat! He was watching his little woodland pixie as she swung when there was a loud pop from the swing set. The rusted crossbar of the swing set had snapped in half sending the girl tumbling to the grass. Rory was on his feet in an instant and running towards the backdoor to check on her but she was quicker than he was. She was already back on her feet and hurtling headlong towards the woods but Rory refused to let her disappear this time. He needed to see if she had been hurt in the fall but she was fast and she knew the terrain better than he did.
****
Rory nearly tumbled into a creek that divided the patch of woods but he managed to snag a low hanging branch that saved him from ending up face down in the water. His saving branch allowed him to swing about halfway across the expanse before it let go with a loud snap dropping him feet first into the cool water.
"Great," He muttered as the water and mud splashed over his shoes and jeans.
He stepped from the water, briefly shook his soaked feet off before he tried to pick up the girls trail. He saw a flash of yellow shirt fabric through the brush ahead of him and followed it. She was wearing a yellow shirt and he could hear her footfalls snapping twigs as she ran ahead of him. She exited the woods and made a beeline for the rear of this modest-looking two-story house where a woman stood hanging laundry. Rory didn't even think that was still a thing in this day and age but there she was with a clothesline, clothespins, the whole set up. His woodland pixie grasped the woman by the leg and pointed emphatically towards Rory. He slowed to a walk when he realized how this must look. A grown man chasing a child out of the woods.
"I'd arrest me or shoot me and not necessarily in that order," He thought to himself.
The woman looked frightened but she put herself between what Rory deduced was her child and himself like a mother bear ready to protect her cub. Rory took a moment to look the woman over. She was short, five foot five inches or five foot four inches with the same dirty blonde hair that her daughter had. Hers was pulled back from her pretty face in a messy ponytail. Her build was slender, he would almost say too thin but Rory didn't doubt that she would rip his throat out if he tried to snatch her little girl. He stopped about twenty yards from them and held his hands up trying to show that he meant no harm.
"Who are you and what do you want?" The woman glared at him.
She avoided yelling but her tone relayed that mama bear was pissed.
"Hi, I'm Rory," he began and took a step back.
He told himself that it was because he was standing at an odd angle and had nothing to do with being afraid of the pretty mother.
"Rory Harrison, I'm sort of your neighbor... just through the woods here. Mr. Gunderson used to own the place," He told her.
"I heard that it got sold," She nodded but didn't relax.
"She'll be checking the sex offender's registry as soon as she gets into her house," He thought to himself.
"I'm sorry if I scared your daughter but I wanted to make sure she was all right," Rory stated with his hands still held up.
The woman looked down at her daughter and asked, "Were you over on that swing set again?"
"Uh huh," the little girl answered shyly.
"Emily, I told you that you shouldn't be over there now that Mr. Gunderson has moved out," She mildly chastised her daughter then turned back to Rory. "I'm sorry if she's caused you any trouble."
"Oh no, she hasn't been any trouble. I just watch her on the swing when I'm making lunch. When the set collapsed my heart leaped into my chest!" Rory told her as he lowered his arms slightly.
"It collapsed?" She asked then dropped to her knees beside her daughter and immediately started looking her over. "Are you hurt, baby?"
The little one shook her head as she continued trying to hide from Rory.
"I shouldn't have allowed her to continue using the swings. I saw how rusted out it was and I was going to take it down but...," He started to say but was shrilly interrupted.
"No, you can't!" the little girl shouted before she ducked back behind her mother's legs.
"Emily!" Her mom admonished her which caused the girl to shrink back and hide her face in her mother's jean-clad leg.
She turned back to Rory. "I'm sorry Mr...?"
