Maybe I really could find myself in Love.
I felt dazed as I stared at the front door that just closed behind her.Seeing her awake was a completely different experience from seeing her sleeping. Her dark brown eyes held so much depth; a story I craved to know every word of.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I couldn’t understand what drew me to her. I hadn’t been interested in anyone in years. I didn’t even know who she was.
“You okay, man?” My brother Garrett’s green eyes—that mirrored my own but always held a sparkle of humour mine lacked—focused on me as he laughed and slapped my back. “Looks like you just saw a ghost.”
Patrick chuckled while grabbing a muffin from the counter. “Yeah, like that time we went roaming the graveyard and you almost shit your pants.”
“Shut up.” I turned away from my brother and my best friend, my mom didn’t need to hear about our crazy drinking stories as teenagers. “Grandma, who was that?”
“Stella. She’s the one you brought the bags in for last night. I told you she was gorgeous,” Grandma Trixie said with her infamous wink.
Garrett whistled. “You’ve got that right, Nan. Pat, did you see her?—”
“Don’t,” I growled at my brother.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I had onlyjustlearned her name, why the hell was I feeling so protective of her? And toward my brother, at that. He liked to joke around, but he was the best guy I knew.
Everyone went quiet and eyed me like I was growing a new head. Hell, maybe I was. I didn’t even recognize this feeling myself, it had been so long.
I quickly broke the silence by changing the topic to work. “How’s the fire up north going?”
Garrett’s expression sobered and he ran a hand through his short brown hair. As much as he enjoyed some good comedic relief, he took his work as a firefighter seriously. “Boss said we caught that one before it spread to anything unmanageable in the forest, thankfully. We’ve got it maintained with a secure perimeter now and it should burn out in the next few days. No one was hurt, nothing was damaged.”
That was a relief. Up here on the edge of the boreal forest, forest fires were an ongoing battle in the summertime. Thankfully, with so much open space, it wasn’t often the towns were at risk, but there had been a few close calls with the family business.
Lumber was my family’s start in Love, Saskatchewan. The ample forest provided vast opportunities for my great-grandfather who had a passion for trees. How they grew and what he could make from them; his imagination was endless. He started up Hart and Heart Logging shortly after the town of Love was established. An ode to his family name and my great-grandma who had stolen his heart. A lot of the buildings on Main Street still had the old bones that my great-grandpa set in place.
Now, generations later, most of the logging industry had switched to the expansive farm fields that Saskatchewan wasknown for, but us Harts were holding strong. Well, trying to, anyway.
We each filled our plates while easy chatter filled the space around us. “I’m going to take mine and run, I’ve got a lot of trees to get down today for the Johnstons’ order.” I bent over to kiss my grandma. It was only a half truth. Part of me couldn’t get my mind off Stella, and I needed to get my workday started if I had any chance of getting my head on straight.
“Can you have a chat with Carter when you see him this morning?” Mom asked. She had stepped in after my dad passed away to run the business side of things, while I managed labour and crew. “Stan said he took over two hours for lunch yesterday.”
I wasn’t sure which was more prominent—my scoff or my eye roll. “Yeah, I’ll chat with him again.”
Carter was a good kid. I suppose he wasn’t really a kid, only a few years younger than me, but his demeanor made him seem a lot younger than he was. He worked hard when he wanted to, but that always needed to be for his own benefit.
“I’m going to make a pot roast for supper,” Grandma said, breaking the tension. “Try not to scare Stella away this time, would ya, boys?”
Her car was still outside, I thought as I drove in my truck toward Main Street instinctively keeping my eye on the sides of the road. Love was a small town, only about twenty-five hundred people, so everything was within walking distance, but my family’s land was on the edge of town, backed by hundreds of acresof woods. It’s about a twenty-minute walk from my grandma’s to the first shops in town. I didn’t think I’d taken that long grabbing breakfast, but I didn’t see Stella anywhere.
Driving into town was admittedly out of the way when my job was on the same land as the bed and breakfast, but what kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t stop in at Melody’s for my morning coffee? She took over Cupid’s Cup a few years ago and gave it a completely new life, filling it with bright colours and unique local artwork. Pride swelled in my chest as I pulled up on the street right out front.
“Hi, Calvin!”
I inwardly cringed at the sickly-sweet voice calling to me from across the street. “Hi, Valerie,” I said as politely as possible, without giving her an inkling of anything more.
Valerie was the owner of Vintage Vows Boutique. She was great at selling wedding gowns, but she was also great at running the town’s gossip mill. She and I had gone on a few dates a couple years ago, and when I caught wind of the rumour that I was planning to propose—which was news to me—I quickly shut things down.
She grabbed onto my arm, her long nails practically digging into my skin as her rings clinked together. She pulled in to stand closer to me as I snaked my arm out of her grip and took a step away from her.
“I heard you helped out your grandma with that leaky tap. I’m having some troubles over at the boutique with my sink, any chance you could come have a look at it?”
I sighed. It really was crazy how fast word got around in a small town. “Sorry, Valerie, you’ll need to call Jerry.”
The town’s plumber would enjoy her attention much more than I would.
