Chapter 1
Rainey
Ihave made some deeply questionable decisions in my life. Marrying Kevin is still sitting smugly at number one. But buying a mountain property online without seeing it in person is clawing its way up the list with alarming speed.
My cart rattles across the uneven floor of Cady Springs Lumber Center like it’s as unsure as I am. The front left wheel wobbles. The handle sticks. There’s a shovel in it, a pickaxe, a post hole digger, two boxes of roofing nails, gutter brackets, work gloves, and three bags of concrete I absolutely should not be trusted around.
I stop in the middle of the aisle and stare at the shovel. Why does it look mean? That’s a ridiculous question. It’s a shovel. It does not have a personality. And yet this one feels aggressive.
I grip the handle and test the weight again. Nope. Still aggressive. This is a shovel with opinions, possibly violent ones.
A laugh almost slips out of me, but it gets tangled in the rest of my mood, which is somewhere between homicidal and one dropped tool away from tears.
The real estate advertisement said the cabin neededa little TLC— short for tender loving care. That lying son of a biscuit. A little TLC, my ass.
The gutters are hanging off the roof like broken elbows. One downspout is missing completely. Each time it rains, water pours off the cabin in sheets like the place is trying to dissolve itself back into the mountain.
The roof looks like it’s one hard storm away from giving up on life. The ground around the place is compacted and uneven, and I’m pretty sure one side yard is actively becoming a trench.
But sure. A little TLC.
I toss the shovel back into the cart with more force than necessary. The pickaxe clanks against the post hole digger, and I wince. I still don’t know why I bought the pickaxe. Google, that’s why.
Google, rage and the very dangerous female instinct to prove I can do this myself. The same instinct that had me sitting in my condo three weeks after my divorce is final, glass of wine in hand, scrolling property listings at one in the morning like a woman possessed.
Fresh start, I told myself. New chapter. You know what says emotional healing? A cabin in the Colorado mountains.
What it actually says is: congratulations, idiot, now you own structural problems at elevation.
I push the cart toward the front counter, muttering under my breath. “It’s fine. Totally fine. Women have rebuilt their lives before. Women have crossed prairies in corsets. I can handle a gutter.”
Can I? I don’t know.
But I am here now, and most of my divorce settlement is sitting on a ridge outside Cady Springs in the form of a cabin that looked adorable in photos and slightly haunted in person.
The teenage cashier glances up when I reach the register, and the poor thing immediately gets the expression of someone who senses trouble approaching but isn’t paid enough to avoid it.
I start unloading tools.
“I have questions,” I tell him.
He blinks. “Okay.”
“Great. Just fabulous. First, this shovel.”
I hold it up.
“It feels aggressive.”
He stares at me. I stare back because I’ve already committed to this sentence and there’s no graceful way out now.
“Aggressive,” he repeats.
“Yes. Like if I try to use it, the earth will become defensive and retaliate.”
He looks at the shovel. Then at me. Then back at the shovel like maybe he’s missed a key detail.
Behind me, somewhere to my left, I hear a low chuckle. I ignore it because I’m already one bad moment away from becoming the woman who cries in a lumber store. I lift the post hole digger next.
