“I think,” I said slowly, “that I’d like to see the inside.”
Relief washed over his face. He grabbed my bag from the truck bed and led me up the porch steps, and I followed him through the front door into the life I’d chosen for myself.
3
KROSS
The cabin looked different with her in it.
I’d walked through this space a thousand times without really seeing it. Now, watching Sydney take it in, I noticed every flaw—the scuff marks on the hardwood, the way the kitchen cabinets didn’t quite line up, the general emptiness of a place where a man had lived alone for six years without bothering to make it feel like a home…
“It’s not much,” I said, setting her suitcase down by the door. “Living room’s here, obviously. Kitchen’s through there. Bathroom’s down the hall, bedroom’s at the end.”
She didn’t seem to be listening. She drifted toward the fireplace, her fingers trailing along the wooden mantel I’d carved during my first winter here. Back when I’d needed something to do with my hands to keep from going crazy.
“Did you make this?” she asked, tracing the pattern of interlocking leaves I’d spent weeks perfecting.
“Yeah. Needed a project.”
She turned to look at me, and her smile tightened something in my chest. “It’s beautiful. The whole place is beautiful.”
“It’s sparse.”
“It’s peaceful.” She ran her hand along the mantel again, almost reverently. “There’s a difference.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I did what I always did when I felt off-balance. I offered food.
“You hungry? I was going to make dinner. Nothing fancy—just pasta and some garlic bread.”
“That sounds perfect.”
She followed me into the kitchen and settled into one of the chairs at my small wooden table. The chair looked different with her in it. Better. Like it had been waiting for her this whole time.
I pulled out the ingredients—ground beef, jarred marinara, a box of spaghetti, a loaf of bread I’d picked up yesterday—and got to work. Sydney watched me move around the space, her chin propped in her hand, asking questions.
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“My mom.” I dumped the beef into a hot skillet, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon. “She worked a lot when I was growing up. Double shifts, sometimes back-to-back. But when she was home, she’d teach me things. Said a man who couldn’t feed himself was only half a man.”
“She sounds smart.”
“She was.” The meat sizzled and popped, filling the kitchen with a familiar smell. “Toughest woman I ever knew. Raised me on her own. Never complained about it. Not once.”
“How long ago did she pass?”
“Seven years. Cancer.” I added the sauce, stirring it into the meat. “I moved here about a year after. Couldn’t stand being in the same town anymore. Too many memories.”
Sydney was quiet for a moment. Then, “Six years is a long time to live alone.”
“I guess it is.”
“Do you get lonely?”
The question caught me off guard. I watched the pasta water as it started to bubble. “I used to think I preferred it this way. Quiet. No one to answer to. Just me and the mountain.”
“Used to?”
I glanced over at her, wooden spoon in hand. She watched me with those warm, patient eyes—like she actually wanted the answer instead of just filling the silence.
