My throat tightens. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not giving up on me, even when I was being an idiot and considering that stupid offer.”
“You weren’t being an idiot. You were being practical. There’s a difference.” He reaches over and takes my hand. “Besides, I kind of like it when you’re human and figuring things out. It looks good on you.”
I laugh. “Human. That’s what you’re going with?”
“Well, better than being pristine and perfect, right?”
He’s right. It is better. Everything about this life, this messy, complicated, uncertain life I’m building in Copper Creek, is better than the pristine, careful, perfect, empty life I left behind.
I just hope I have the courage to choose it when October comes.
The week after I turn down Gary Allen’s offer passes in a blur of routine. The bar opens. The bar closes. I learn to work the register without Presley hovering over my shoulder. I start recognizing regulars by name. Betty from line dancing teaches me the two-step, and I only mess it up about half the time. It’s starting to feel like normal. Like a life.
Wednesday afternoon, I’m in the office trying to make sense of quarterly tax forms when Wyatt appears in the doorway.
“Hey, you busy Saturday?” he asks.
I look up from the spreadsheet that’s been giving me a headache for the past hour. “It depends. What do you have in mind?”
“Well, there’s a place I want to show you, up in the mountains. It’s a little bit of a hike, but not too bad. Maybe an hour up.”
“A hike?”
“Yeah. Wear good shoes. Bring water. I’ll pack a lunch.”
“Ooh, that’s very mysterious.”
“It’s a surprise,” he grins. “A good one, I promise. I’ll pick you up at nine?”
“Okay.”
He starts to leave, then turns back. “Eleanor?”
“Yeah?”
“Wear layers. It gets a little cooler up there.”
Saturday morning dawns clear and perfect, the kind of spring day that makes you understand why people write poems about May in the mountains. The sky is an impossible blue that only happens at this elevation, and the air smells of pine, wildflowers, and hope.
Wyatt pulls up at exactly nine in his truck, and I climb in wearing jeans, hiking boots I bought at a local shop, and a light jacket tied around my waist.
“Morning,” he says, handing me a travel mug of coffee.
“You made coffee?”
“I know how you like it. Cream, two sugars.”
It’s such a small thing, such a simple thing, but it means more than anything.
We drive for about twenty minutes, winding up narrow roads that get progressively more remote. The houses thin out until it’s just forest on both sides, thick and green and alive with birdsong. Wyatt turns onto what is generously called a road, which is really more like two tire tracks through the trees, and we bounce along for another five minutes before he parks in a small clearing.
“This is it,” he says, turning off the truck.
“This is what?”
