“Oh, no. I think it’s real, for sure. But you have to figure that out for yourself.” She points the knife at me. “Now go on upstairs and get ready for your date. Wear something nice, but not too nice. Remember, this is Copper Creek, not Atlanta.”
At 6:45, I’m standing in front of my closet, having a minor crisis. Everything I brought from Atlanta is just way too formal. The dresses are cocktail appropriate, the blouses need statement jewelry, and the shoes require valet parking. I finally settle on a pair of dark jeans, my nice ones without any paint stains, and a soft blue sweater that Dolly convinced me to buy at a boutique in town last week. It’s casual, but pretty, and it makes my eyes look brighter. I leave my hair down, just a little bit of wave to it. Minimal makeup, simple silver earrings. I look like someone who might belong in Copper Creek, definitely not like the Eleanor Whitfield from Atlanta. Like Eleanor, just Eleanor.
At exactly seven, there’s a knock on my door. I take a deep breath, check myself in the mirror one more time, and open it. Wyatt is standing there, also in dark jeans and wearing a button-down shirt, navy blue, rolled up at the sleeves. And he looks just so good, it should be illegal.
“Hi,” I say, suddenly feeling very shy.
“Hi.” He’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world worth looking at. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you. You clean up pretty nice yourself.”
“Well, I tried.”
He offers his arm. “Ready?”
I take his arm, lock my apartment door, and let him lead me down the stairs. This is our first real date, the first step toward figuring out whether this thing between us is real, whether it’s worth the risk. As we walk out into the warm evening, his hand finds mine as if it belongs there, and I think maybe it could be.
So I say, “Are you gonna tell me where we’re going, or is this a surprise?”
“It’s a surprise. Well, sort of.” We walk toward his truck. “I’m cooking.”
“You’re cooking?”
“Yeah, at my place. I mean, that’s okay, right?”
To me, it’s more than okay. It’s unexpected in a way that makes my stomach do something interesting. “That’s perfect. That sounds perfect,” I say.
Wyatt’s truck rumbles down Mountain Road and then turns onto a narrow street I haven’t noticed before, one that cuts away from the main road and disappears back into the trees. We follow it for at least half a mile, the forest pressing close on both sides, before the trees open up and his cabin comes into view.
It’s small, a single-story building made from dark wood with a stone chimney and a wide front porch that stretches the full length of the house. String lights are wound around the porch posts, not the kind you put up for a party, but the kind that have been there long enough to just become part of the place. A rocking chair sits near the front door, and beside it, a small table with a mason jar of wildflowers that someone clearly just picked.
Behind the cabin, the mountains stretch out in an endless ridge, the last light of evening turning them that particular shade of blue and gold that makes your breath catch.
“Oh,” I say softly as he kills the engine.
“Yeah.” He looks at me, and there’s something about his expression. “It’s not much.”
“Wyatt, it’s beautiful.”
He nods, pleased but trying not to show it, and then hops out of the truck to come around and open my door.
Inside, the cabin is exactly what the outside promised, a single open room that serves as the living space and kitchen, with old wood floors worn smooth by years of use. A stone fireplace takes up most of one wall, and even though it’s too warm to use tonight, I can tell from the stack of seasoned logs that it gets plenty of use during the colder months.
A simple sofa in dark leather, a couple of wooden chairs, and a table that looks handmade, sturdy, and beautiful. The kitchen is small but well organized. It has a gas range, a butcher-block counter, and copper pots hanging from a rack. Everything has a place, and everything is clean, but not sterile clean, not trying to impress clean like I used to see in the city, just a quiet tidiness of someone who takes care of what they have.
What catches my eye is the windowsill above the kitchen sink. It’s lined with small carved wooden figures: a deer, a bear, an owl, a fish, a little horse, no bigger than my thumb. Each one is different, clearly handmade.
“Did you make these?” I ask, picking up the little bear and turning it over in my fingers.
“Yeah, it’s something I do, mostly in the mornings when things are quiet.” He’s already moving around the kitchen, pulling things from the refrigerator. “Started when I came back from the service, needed something to do with my hands.”
“They’re gorgeous, Wyatt.”
“It’s just whittling.”
“It’s not just whittling.” I set the bear down carefully. “They’re art.”
He glances at me over his shoulder, surprised. “Well, thank you.”
