Page 12 of Still Missing You

He shakes his head, steering onto the dirt road that leads to my cabin. “No, unfortunately, but I did find where he was before he made his way to you. I’ll go over all that when we get to your place.”

“Mine is the first driveway on the right,” I tell him.

He steers down the winding gravel drive to the A-frame cabin at the edge of a fast-flowing river. He throws the truck into park and cuts the engine. Quiet settles between us, except for the muffled rush of the water and the quiet ticks of the cooling engine.

“You really live here?” he asks.

“It’d be weird to ask you to take me to someone else’s place.”

He huffs out a chuckle that cuts off abruptly. Almost as if he hadn’t meant to let it out at all. “It’s not what I would have pictured for you?”

“Never saw me living out in the woods like an outdoorsman?”

“Never imagined you would have settled for any of this—the café, the cabin, a small town in the middle of nowhere. I figured you would have gone to New York, Philadelphia, maybe, but definitely somewhere more urban, and not so close to Burlington.”

He hadn’t asked me why I’d left, but this is the closest he’d come.

“Honestly, I wound up here by accident. That piece of shit car I used to drive broke down a few miles outside Fieldstone. I found my way here and just sort of stayed.” This is definitely the condensed version of how I settled here, but I’m still not sure how much he really wants to know. “Do you want to come inside?”

He huffs out another laugh, but this time it’s humorless and bitter, and he shakes his head. “Sure. Why not?”

He gets out of the car and grabs his satchel from behind his seat, then follows me to the door. Inside, the cabin is cool and shadowed by the woods outside. I switch on a few lamps and crouch at the fireplace, sneaking glances at Hunter as he studies the room.

The house is small and cozy, with the kitchen along the back wall and a spiral staircase in the middle acting as a divider between the kitchen and living area and leading up to the loft and my bedroom. As I get the fire going, Hunter meanders to the wide floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the river.

“This is nice,” he says without looking at me.

“Thanks.” The fire’s caught, and I lean back on my knees, looking at his broad back. I can see his reflection in the glass like a ghost, and for some reason, my throat tightens as if I might cry if I let myself. Shit, I must be tired.

“The water’s higher than normal from the spring runoff. By the end of the summer, that river will be barely more than a trickle,” I tell him for some reason. Something to fill the tense silence, I guess.

He turns from the window abruptly. “Is there ice in your freezer?”

I blink at the sudden shift in conversation. “Um... yeah.” Where else would it be?

He crosses to the refrigerator and pulls open the freezer door before taking out an ice tray. “What about something to put in?”

“There’s a dish towel hanging over the oven handle.” He’s getting an ice pack for my head, I realize. I stand and start toward him. “Here, I can do it.”

He looks up from where he’s dumping the contents of the tray into a makeshift bag using the dish towel around his index finger and thumb. “No.” He points to the sofa. “Sit. I’ll bring it to you.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m fine, you know. I can get my own ice pack.”

And I could, but if I’m being totally honest, I’m not completely fine. My body aches as if it’s one big bruise, and I’m so tired I could curl up on the sofa and sleep until next week.

I drop onto the couch, and Hunter brings me his makeshift ice pack, wrapping it in the dishtowel that had been draped over the handle of the oven.

“Here,” he says, gently pressing the pack to the cut on my head. “Where do you keep your ibuprofen?”

I sigh. There’s no point in arguing that I can get it myself, since he’s not listening. “The cabinet behind the mirror in the bathroom.”

I point to the closed door off the kitchen. He nods and disappears into the small room while I lean back and sink deeper into the couch, letting out a slow breath.

Having Hunter in my home and taking care of me is a weird combination of surreal and achingly familiar. He’d been like this when I’d gotten into it with Tim Wanamaker, one of the offensive linemen on Hunter’s football team, after Tim found out I was tutoring Hunter and called him stupid. The guy had been twice my size, and I’d barely gotten one decent hit before he clocked me with one huge, ham-like fist and knocked me flat on my back.

“What are you smirking about?” Hunter asks, returning from the kitchen with two pills and a glass of water.

“Tim Wanamaker,” I say, before swallowing them both and washing them down.