Chapter 25
Owen
“Where are we going?” Bee asked after two and a half minutes of silent walking. Longer than I thought she’d manage to be quiet.
“Almost there.” Unexpected nerves had my palms sweating under these gloves. I’d spent the past day working on this surprise for her, but what if she didn’t like it?
“Guess what?” she said, her joy effusive.
“You found out there is a special edition Pop-Tarts flavor?” I teased.
“Har har. No.” She stopped, eyes widening. “Wait, is there?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“Not something to joke about,” she mumbled under her breath. “What I was going to say was that I’m famous!” She wiggled her shoulders, unable to contain her excitement. “Well, for Slippery Slopes. At least for today.”
“Is that right?” I glanced at her and almost tripped on a guinea pig when I forgot to look away. She looked beautiful with rosy cheeks and the tip of her nose red, alit from within with whatever magic made her. Probably the same magic that made Keebler elves.
I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed her, though we’d only been a part for a little while. These feelings had grown so fast it had to be part of that same magic.
“Yes! So many people came into the café to see me and talk to me and ask me about my time in jail or about getting stuck in the tram or about the jump to the cabin.”
The side of my mouth pulled into a smile.
“Not to let this life of crime go to my head, but I’m sort of a big deal around here.” She nodded like she accepted her newfound burden of popularity.
“As you should be,” I said. I squeezed her to me.
We’d made it to the bench I wanted to bring her to. Despite the cold and snow, it couldn’t wait. The town of Slippery Slopes was tucked in the valley between mountain peaks, somewhat protected from last night’s storm, but a fresh layer of snow blanketed everything, like a clean, fresh start to the year.
The snow was already cleaned off the bench and the thick wool blanket sat waiting for her. She pushed them out of the way and sat.
“That was for—” I started. Her wide brown eyes blinked at me. “Never mind.” I sat next to her, the cold bench seeping through instantly. This could be my life. A joy like I never imagined warmed me from within. Sharing cold benches and making sure Bee was comfortable for decades to come made me feel excited.
If I was lucky. I unfurled the blanket and wrapped it around us. “Are you happy now?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t love wool. It’s pretty itchy.”
I couldn’t help myself. I bent and kissed her cold, rosy cheek. “I meant with all your newfound notoriety.”
“Oh. Yes!” Her head tilted. “Well, I mean. Sure.” She slouched back. “I think so?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“What’s going through that mind of yours?” I asked, accountably nervous.
I knew what I wanted. I understood that Bee was it for me. But I also understood that she’d spent her life being overlooked, and we just got close in the past couple of days. I wouldn’t want to scare her or make things happen too fast.
“I guess I thought it would make me feel different. I was surprised at how many people came in today to talk to me. How many people commented on my change, implying that they had seen me before? I guess I thought I would feel a sense of relief, a sort of validation?” She shook her head once. “Really, it just made me realize I didn’t need the whole town to see me.” As she spoke, her shoulders went to her ears. Finally, she took a deep breath, dropping them. She turned to me and said, “I just needed one person to really see me.”
My heart beat a heavy, hard thump once in hope. “I see you,” I said softly.
“I know. You always have. I don’t know why—” She cut herself off and leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Thank you, Owen.” She pulled herself closer, and I could see her thoughts gathering. “I thought people knowing my name, wanting to talk to me might make me feel … Well, as silly as it sounds, I thought it might make me feel important. Loved. I don’t know. It wasn’t a conscious desire, in hindsight. Not any more than you actively seek food or rest, just something you long for on an instinctual level. I never thought that I would be worthy of a romantic sort of love.” She blushed furiously and met my gaze. “I thought that I was too forgettable or different, too whatever, to have anybody really notice me that way. Not that I should have derived my value from that either. I just …” She sighed and stretched out her fingers, seeming to collect herself.
“I spent a lot of time in jail thinking, you know. And I think that the thing that I really wanted was to feel that I had something to offer the world, and maybe I found that just by existing. Because all the attention that I got from town today was nice, but it was like eating cotton candy when you’re really hungry, when you really need a good meal of steak and potatoes. And trust me, I have had many meals that consisted only of cotton candy.” I wasn’t surprised at all. “I thought that would change me. But I understand that none of those people really saw me today. It was nice, sure, I think because I might just be chatty by nature, but I didn’t really feel like anybody cared. Not like when I talk to you. When I talk to you, I feel like I don’t have to try, that bits of myself just pour out, and you are waiting there with a little butterfly net to catch them all.”
I swallowed, my throat too tight to talk. But I nodded to show I understood.
“I’m sorry about the tram. I’m sorry you had to come get me and all the dumb stuff I did because I thought I needed some sort of validation,” she finished, fully depleted of her thoughts and feelings.
How she’d come to trust me in such a short amount of time was truly a gift.
I grabbed her hands, and emotion swelled in my chest. “Do you remember how you told me to look through your eyes if I needed to see a better version of myself?” I asked her.
“I’m so wise,” she said with quiet awe.
I laughed softly. Her features lit up as her gaze moved from my mouth to my eyes and around my face. “You are wise, Bee. And I want you to know that it’s the same for me.” I lowered my forehead to hers. “If you need somebody to see you, to hear you, to listen to you, let it be me. Tell me your stories and your bad jokes. I would love to share your food and lint roll your cat hair.”
“It’s a real problem.” She flicked off a stray hair.
“Let me be that person,” I said, but the wobble of my voice made it a question. “I want to be the person who shares the load with you.”
Her large eyes welled with tears, expressive eyebrows contorted with joy. “Only if you let me give you all the love that you needed in the past,” she said, voice tight.
“I’d like that very much.” I kissed her freezing knuckles before I pulled her sleeves down to cover them.
We held each other, and I kissed her face and cheeks and neck. “You’re so cold.”
“I have lost a lot of insulating hair.” She leaned back and sniffled. “No offense, because I’m loving this, but why are we out here in the freezing cold? I thought we’d had our fill of that.”
I kissed her one more time and turned to gesture to the side. I didn’t follow her gaze because I knew what she would see. I only watched her reaction as her eyes took in the scene, and she gasped. “Oh my God, you cleaned up Jane Smith.”
She shot up, elbowing me in the chin in the process, and went to the larger-than-life bronze statue.
“We got a few volunteers to trim the vines and cut back the weeds. I owe some people for working out in the snow,” I explained.
“It looks so good! She’s so shiny,” she said. “Wow, are those lights new?”
“Yep. Little spotlights so she’ll even be seen at night.” I grabbed her hand and brought her closer. “But this is really what I wanted to show you.” I pointed at a small, printed sign. “I was just going to clean Jane up, but as I was doing it, I saw a name I recognized engraved on the side. Fled.”
“As in Ned Fled? Resident centenarian?” She gasped.
I nodded. “Who just happens to live down the hall from Ivy, as you may recall. His great-great-grandfather was one of the gold rushers who came to settle Slippery Slopes back in the day. It was his father who erected the statue in the thirties on the centennial anniversary of Slippery Slopes. He had a lot more to say and would love to talk to you. He said he was sorry that your meeting slipped his mind, but that happens sometimes.”
Her chin quivered as she nodded. “I would love that. I already plan to make more visits to Golden Sunset. Oh, maybe I could bring the cats.” She waved a hand like putting a pin in the thought for another time. “How did you find all this out in such a short time?” she asked. “Seriously, I’m like ten percent frustrated because I really did look.”
“I asked Ivy, and she had some ideas. Ned had old articles in his room, and a story passed down in the family. Someone at the Santa Fe clerk’s office confirmed some details, and here we are.”
Bee went quiet, her hand covering her mouth as her other gently pressed her fingertips against the words. She gasped and snorted. “No way,” she said.
I knew what she had just read and chuckled. “Yep. That’s her actual name. Or at least the one she provided when she moved here to Slippery Slopes.”
“Jane Smith.” Bee laughed as her eyes softened, and she looked into the distance. “I really am psychic.” She brought her focus back to the statue and started to read the paragraph that would be the future plaque that would mark the woman.
“We don’t have the full story yet, but we have narrowed it down. Some speculate that she made her name up when she moved here because she was hiding from her abusive husband or ex-lover. I’ve heard two versions of her story. One’s a love story, and the other was a tragedy.”
Bee stared up at her face and smiled, her eyes gleaming. “It was definitely a love story.”
“I even heard that there’s a legend that says she hid some treasure in Looters Lake.”
“Alliterations,” we said at the same time and then smiled widely at each other.
“Now we will have to learn how to scuba dive,” Bee said seriously.
My heart swelled. This was everything I had hoped it would be for her. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t complete, but she seemed so happy. I felt so much relief at her joy.
“Like I said, this sign is just temporary. Once the earth defrosts in spring, we’ll put the real one in. With some funds Benny Jr. has generously decided to donate.”
“This is … I’m crying. Thank you so much for this, Owen. I can’t tell you what this means.” She squeezed me until I grunted and then turned back to Jane. She placed her hand on the foot to the statue. “You won’t be forgotten,” she whispered to her.
“She’ll never be forgotten … and neither will you.” I pointed at one last thing.
“‘Generously donated by local legend Bee Perkins.’”
“But I didn’t …”
“Benny Jr. did. In your honor. We came to an arrangement. That’s part of the reason I hadn’t called you yet. Sorry I took so long.”
She blushed, went up on her toes, and kissed my cheek. “You better be careful, Owen ‘The Soupman’ Campbell. I am dangerously close to falling for you.” We kissed deeper, arms interlocked, there in the middle of town. She paused to pull back and study me. “You know, I’m not as scared now. I’m not afraid of fading away. I think because if I have you to share the day-to-day with, I won’t feel like I’m a ghost. As long as I’m here making memories with you, I think that’s more than enough. More than I thought possible.”
My throat tightened, and I nodded. “I’d love the chance to get to know our story together.”
She looked back at the statue and shook her head. “I can’t believe you did this. Most people would think this is so silly, that I’m so silly for caring.”
“You’re not silly, Bee. You are fierce and brave and hilarious and beautiful, and I can’t wait to get to know you more,” I said, tucking her under my chin so she could admire her statue.
“I’m so glad I got us trapped in the tram with my harebrained idea,” she said.
“I didn’t realize how stuck I was. You’ve shaken me up and turned my whole world upside down. I thought I was only capable of violence. I thought there was no coming back from my mistakes, but nothing feels like a mistake anymore. How could it be when it all led me to you?”
“Even getting stuck in the tram?” she asked, voice shaking.
“Especially that. That night meant so much to me. You mean so much to me. You are extraordinary. You make me excited about life again; you are exceptional. I’ll remember you forever. You aren’t a forgotten statue, Bee. You are a marker in time. There was after I met you and everything before. I will never be the same again. And I wanted you to know that, no matter how many years pass, I will never forget you.”
She turned into my arms and stepped up on the low wall until we were face-to-face.
“I know it would be crazy to say I’m falling in love with you after just one night on a tram?—”
“Don’t say crazy, it’s not nice.”
She grinned at my mirrored words. “But also crazier things have happened in this town.”
My throat bobbed at her confession. She grinned so wide.
“I feel the same way,” I said.
I leaned forward, and we kissed. The future lay ahead of us, and I couldn’t wait to see what it brought.