“I’m going to put another kettle of cider on.”
Sarah didn’t think they’d even finished the first one. “I should get going, especially since you said you’re expecting company.” It was then that she thought back to her original reason for stopping by the ranch. The carrots and the novel she’d brought as a gift. She’d left them in the car, too stunned by theFor Salesign, followed by her tear-filled response, to remember to bring them inside with her. “I have a few items in my car for you. I’ll run out and grab those really quick before I leave.”
“You don’t need to be on your way,” Nana Jo insisted, but Sarah wasn’t sure she was the best company in a time like this anyway.
“I really should go. But I’ll get those things first.”
Her scarf was draped over the coatrack near the door, and her jacket had been spread across a chair by the fireplace to dry from the light dusting of snow she’d received on the walk from her vehicle to the farmhouse. She moved through the front room to retrieve it. The sleeves were warm, and as she slid her arms into the holes, it felt like a hug. One she desperately needed.
She stood there a moment, bundled up in front of the crackling fire, holding her arms tight around her own body. She shut her eyes.
None of this seemed real.
The ranch was for sale.
She was in an argument, fight, disagreement—whatever it was—with Lance.
The writing retreat was over, and along with it, that high had vanished entirely.
For the first time since moving back to Snowdrift Summit, Sarah felt aimless. Alone.
She thought she heard murmurings in the foyer, but it could have been her imagination. She had a wild one lately.
But when footfalls padded across the hardwood, she figured Nana Jo’s guest had finally arrived. Despite the invitation to stay, Sarah thought it best to get out of the way.
She slid the zipper up the front of her coat and approached the door.
Lance stood directly in front of it.
“Sarah.” There was a quality of surprise in his voice, a helpless look of vulnerability in those troubled blue eyes.
Nana had been in the entry helping her grandson out of his coat, but she quickly retreated to the kitchen to leave them alone. It was an offer of privacy Sarah didn’t necessarily want.
“Lance.” A surge of emotion clogged her throat. She swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?”
It was a stupid question. This was his grandmother’s place. He was welcome to visit whenever he liked. Sarah was the one out of place. She wished there had been an emergency exit she could have slipped out the moment she’d realized there was company. Some way to avoid this awkward face-to-face with Lance.
“Do you have a minute?” His head cocked to the side. His eyes remained on hers. “Or are you on your way out?”
“I was just stepping out to grab some things for your grandma from my car.” She paused, holding his gaze. There was something palpable in the air. Not quite tension, not quite anticipation. Something that straddled the line between uncertainty and expectation. She drew in a breath. “But I have a minute.”
“Can we talk?” He motioned toward the room with the fire, the same place Sarah had gotten lost in contemplation moments earlier.
She nodded and followed him back into the room, taking a seat on the couch they’d occupied weeks before when they’d gone through the stack of well-loved books pulled down from the attic. Back then, she had been thrilled to sit beside him. The way their legs brushed, sending sparks of electricity throughout her, made her buzz. Now she trembled, but it wasn’t the same sensation.
He didn’t sit on the cushion right next to her but left one in between them. It was fitting, she guessed, but it still caused a little space in her heart to crack.
“Sarah.” Lance’s big shoulders shrugged up to his ears before they dropped down slowly. “I’m sorry for everything that happened at the shop the other day.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, but that was the easiest thing to say. The best route to avoid a confrontation she wasn’t strong enough to have. Between the ranch going up for sale and now this, she was clinging to her ailing poise by her fingertips.
“It’s not fine.” He turned his whole body toward her and bracketed an arm on the back of the couch. “I shouldn’t have dropped all of that on you like that. It wasn’t a good time for it.”
“Isthere a good time for a conversation like that? I mean, you had to know how it would make me feel.” It was strange,standing up for herself and her feelings in this way. But if she knew Lance like she thought she did, he was strong enough to handle it.
“That’s the thing. I didn’t know how you would feel about it. For so long, I’ve only had to think of myself when I’ve made big life decisions. But when your brother and I opened up our business a few years back, I learned to share the responsibility of ownership,” he said. “I’m still learning, Sarah. Learning what it looks like to put someone else first.”
“I don’t expect you to put me first in everything,” she said. “I love that we each have our separate passions. Me with the library and you with your rental shop. I don’t want to take that from you, Lance. But I also don’t want you to make decisions that could ultimately lead to you getting hurt.”
