I glance at her. “You’re the first.”
She laughs, but it’s not the wild, up-loud kind from before. It’s smaller. Maybe a little shy, if that’s something she ever allows herself to be.
The drive to the cabin is short up the ridge road. She doesn’t ask questions, just looks out the window, watching the forest thin and brighten as we climb higher. I keep one hand easy on the wheel and let the engine do the talking. She hums, satisfied. Then she stretches out her legs and leans her head back against the seat, like she’s been coming up this road her whole life.
We hit the turnoff onto my drive, tires crunching over gravel. The trees at the entrance are older and tighter together. The light slants in, soft and green. She sits up, scanning the land, looking for clues about the man she’s following home on a weekday like it’s nothing. I park near the house and wait for her to say something about it.
Most people expect a cabin to look a certain way — kitschy, log-sided, maybe a bear statue on the porch. Mine’s not like that. It used to be an outbuilding for the old mining operation, with a roofline that’s a little crooked and siding that’s half original, half my repairs.
I put in real windows, got rid of the rotting porch, but I left the hand-cut stone foundation because I liked the way it stands out. Rainey looks it over, head tilted, not trying to hide her inspection. Her eyes skid over the greenhouse, then the shed, then the beds that run the length of the slope, already showing green. She opens the door and hops down, immediately circling the truck to get a better look at everything.
“Okay,” she says. “This is not what I pictured.”
I lean on the hood, arms crossed. “What did you picture?”
She shrugs. “Something more … I don’t know. Montana catalog? Antlers? A dog on the porch.”
I nod. “I don’t hunt. And I’m not home enough for a dog.”
She grins. “That’s a shame. You look like you could use a dog in your life.”
I don’t correct her. She’s not wrong. I used to think about it, sometimes. Now I just take care of the land and keep the rest simple.
She walks the length of the beds with me, stopping at the greenhouse. She peers through the polycarbonate panels, shading her face with her hand.
I can’t help but smile a little at how she tries to see everything at once, like she’s afraid she’ll miss something if she blinks. She presses her face to the greenhouse window. “It’s like a nursery for vegetables.”
“That’s the idea.”
She ghosts her fingers over the door but doesn’t open it, then spins on her heel and makes her way up to the cabin. I let her go ahead, watching her take in the details. She lingers on the stone steps, then pivots to examine the siding, running her fingers over the seam where I patched it last fall.
She grins over her shoulder. “You sanded this by hand.”
“How can you tell?”
“There’s a little swirl here,” she says, tracing it. “You left a lovely pattern.” It’s such an odd, thing to notice that it makes me want to see what else she picks up on.
I gesture at the door. “You want coffee, or are you more of a tea person?”
“Coffee,” she says instantly, and follows me inside.
The main room is small but open, windows on two sides and a woodstove tucked into one corner. The kitchen is a counter, a range, and a farmhouse sink.
Rainey takes it in, her eyes switching from the books stacked on the table to the enamel mug collection on a shelf. She walks right up to a window and stands, hands in her pockets, staring at the view. “You can see the whole valley from here,” she says, like she’s in awe.
I set up the coffee maker and scoop in the coffee grounds. “Better in the fall. Less leaves.”
She watches me, but only out of the corner of her eye. I get the impression she’s used to being in motion. Now, in a still room, she acts like she’s not sure what to do. She’s still, but not at rest. I get the coffee going and start pulling eggs and a loaf of bread out of the fridge. She turns around, arms crossed over her chest, and leans back against the window ledge.
I set the skillet on the burner and crack eggs into a bowl. She watches me, eyes tracking every move.
“You always cook for strangers?” she asks. I glance up at her, but she’s turned toward the light, watching something outside.
“We’re not strangers anymore, are we?”
Rainey looks over her shoulder at me then, and it’s the first time since we arrived here that she holds my gaze. The sun is coming in behind her and it makes her hair burn like all the copper in the state. She tilts her head, considering.
“We’re not strangers,” she agrees, but there’s a note in her voice that’s half challenge, half question.
