2
Fran
“I should just leaveyou out here for the blizzard!” I yelled into the snow-blanketed clearing, only realizing how rusty my voice sounded when I heard it echoed back from the trees and rocks around me. “Dang dog. How many times have we had this conversation, Phoebe? I let you out for a pee break, not to make social calls. And those poor rabbits donotwant your damn company anyway!”
In fact, the little warren of rabbits wanted to be left alone even more than I had after my Grandpa Sid died, which was saying something.
Sadly for the rabbits, Phoebe didn’t pay them any more mind than she’d paid me two years and a bit ago when I’d helped her out from under a thorny clump of honey locust and told her to shoo and find her owners. She’d stared at me then, all tongue-lolling and thrilled, despite the way her ribs poked through her fur, as if to say, “I already found him, silly.” But in truth, I wasn’t sure which of us owned who.
Take, for example, this little game where she played tag with the rabbits, and I played tag with her.
“Thought dogs were supposed to be loyal and devoted and never leave your side,” I muttered as I broke a trail across the nearly-pristine layer of snow we’d gotten the other day—two days ago? Or maybe Tuesday? Unless yesterdaywasTuesday, in which case it had been Monday, almost definitely—and followed the prints my nuisance canine had left me. “Instead I’m playing hide and go seek for the second time this week, and hoping she hasn’t managed to fall in the pond…again.”
Yesterday’s bright winter sunshine had melted the top layer of snow just enough for it to freeze into a thick layer of ice overnight, and today’s murky sun hadn’t done much to melt it. The path I’d plowed down the mountain yesterday was probably impassible by now, if I were fool enough to attempt it, and tromping through the fields was no picnic either. But that didn’t stop Phoebe from running all over the place.
“Ridiculous girl.”
It was enough to make a person ponder shit like leashes and fences, just to keep her safe, even when one of the best things about living out here on Jane’s Peak was supposed to be the wide open spaces.
And the solitude, too.
Obviously.
Couldn’t get too much solitude.
Though I seemed determined to try.
Phoebe’s tracks disappeared when I reached the tree line. Under the canopy of pine branches, the snow cover was sparser, and in some areas not a single flake touched the thick cover of fallen needles on the ground.
I looked back the way I’d come, across the clearing to where Grandpa’s A-frame cabin—nowmycabin—sat nestled under another stand of trees. I’d banked the fire and made sure to turn off the lights to conserve fuel in the generator this morning before Phoebe and I had headed out to the little shed that served as my studio so I could work on a couple pieces of artwork I’d had commissioned. Now, though, the place looked strangely cold.
Dark, empty, and abandoned. Uninviting.
Which, I reminded myself, was fine, really.
I didn’t want to invite anyone around. In fact, the last time Dare Turner and his guys had come up this way, I’d reminded them where my property line was and instructed them not to cross it, just like I’d done with all the ladies who’d come bearing casseroles after Grandpa Sid passed, and all the looky-loos who’d come to speak in hushed whispers when my nephew Shane had gotten himself into trouble after that.
If they had thoughts and feelings about the way my family had all but disappeared, they could keep them to themselves.
I was better off alone, with a nice little icy barrier between myself and the rest of the world.
Not a single one of those meddling O’Learians I used to consider my friends had seen fit to inform me that Grandpa’s little “spot of trouble” with his back had actually been a very serious problem with his kidneys until it was too late for me to do anything but rush home from San Diego to hold his hand for his last few painful weeks, because Grandpa “hadn’t wanted them to worry me.”
I hunched further into my jacket as I picked up Phoebe’s tracks again on the other side of the tree break and reached the strip of stony beach at the edge of the pond where the January wind whipped strongest.
Of course, it hadn’t been entirely the O’Learians’ fault. I’d been the idiot who’d taken Sid at his word all those times, that last winter, when I hadn’t been able to get in touch with him for a couple days at a stretch. The man had detested being cold his whole life. Why had I believed him when he said he’d taken up ice fishing?
Because I’d wanted it to be true, that was why. I hadn’t wanted Grandpa to need me. I hadn’t wanted to leave San Diego.
I hadn’t wanted to leaveMark.
For just a second, I closed my eyes and let myself remember something warmer and brighter than the desolate winter landscape.
I’d had shit luck with guys for the longest time—partly ’cause I hadn’t come out until I was in the military, and then partly because I’d beenin the military, and then partly because, by the time I’d separated from the military, it had seemed like I’d missed a class in how to find a decent guy when you didn’t want to go to clubs or bars, or let an app hook you up, like Ash Martin had.
I’d sworn off dating for good.
Then suddenly Mark had burst into my life like sunshine through the clouds, all big blue eyes and blond hair and bright smiles, and made me think maybe I could take just one more chance.
