Chapter Six
Nate
“You want to see the best sight ever?” I ask Elaina as I walk into the cabin, carrying an arm full of wood for the fireplace. “I know we can’t get out on the road yet, but you can come out on the porch.”
“Yeah!” She offers back as she leaps off the sofa and heads toward the doorway.
She grabs her jacket in the time it takes for me to stow my load of wood by the fireplace. I immediately pivot back toward the entrance, where Elaina is just now sliding into her boots. I follow her outside as I watch her adorably take gingerly soft steps on the now uncovered porch.
“There is so much snow,” she whispers. “I always think that Chicago gets a ton of snow, but this is next level.” Her eyes look out toward the road. “You really think we can get out of here tomorrow? I don’t want to have an accident or something. Even if that is a short trip to the resort, it looks treacherous.”
“I have no intention of driving,” I tell her as her head swivels to me with huge eyes.
“Okay? Care to share.”
“Walk, hike, or snowshoe—depending on the conditions. I promise tomorrow we will eat a solid big meal in the lodge and get new supplies,” I tempt her.
“I will trust that you know my best friend and won’t abandon me in the elements,” she murmurs.
Definitely not! I’m starting to enjoy and crave her company. Why in the world would I stop this visit before I have to? I might be ready to stock up on fresh supplies, but my desire to get her out of my house is absolutely not there.
“I promise no harm comes to you on my watch,” I confirm as I bump her arm with my own.
The smile she sends in my direction muddles my insides, but I do my best to hold it together.
“You ready?” I ask.
She just gives me that confused, cute face. “For what?”
I move slightly backward to turn off the porch light and pull the door closed. We remain on the porch in the dark of the night now that the light is off. “Look at that sky,” I murmur as I see her turn her head to the heavens. “Bet it doesn’t look that sparkly in Chicago.”
I hear the inhalation of her breath as her jaw drops. The wonder in her eyes, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon, is mesmerizing. The crisp air and the quietness around us create a whirlwind of emotions that wash over me. I think this is one of those perfect moments you savor and take in every detail to look back on later.
“This view is out of this world,” she says. “Do you ever just sit and try to count the stars in your little slice of heaven? It boggles the mind how clear it is.”
“I love it out here. I actually stumbled onto stargazing; like you, I was quite busy for so many years. Then, I took this one ski trip at the expense of one of the magazines I worked with. It was this fancy resort up in Breckinridge, but I was able to hike out one night. Seriously, the first time I saw the clear sky out here, I was sold. It’s humbling, beautiful, and it made me realize how fast-paced and insignificant the job I was doing actually was.”
“Wow, that sky is a lot more powerful than we imagine it to be if you could get all of that in one sighting,” she teases back. “Were you at a point where, like I am now, you were looking for a change? Or did something happen that prompted you to be open to the messages from the heavens?” she asks.
I give a little chuckle at her wording. “It wasn’t as profound as I guess that sounded. You know, modeling has a shelf life. I knew that going into it, and I was doing better than most. Diet, exercise, and extreme routines allowed me to capitalize on this. Most other men were out of the business a decade before me. I know that I’m so blessed for the opportunities I had been granted in my life. My goodness, if someone had told me when I was a kid, that I would travel to all of those countries and take in so much of the world—I would have laughed at them. I was the one expecting to do engineering and spend my life at a desk.”
I glance over and see Elaina wrap her arms around her midsection.
“You cold?”
“A little, but the fresh air is intoxicating. I’m good for now,” she replies. “When did you decide to change to modeling?”
“It was oddly a New Year’s Eve trip to New York that changed everything. I was going to be graduating high school, and the family all decided to finally see the tree lit in Rockefeller Center. It also is amazing if you have never seen that,” I report a little side note for Elaina.
“I have it on my list,” she whispers.
“List?”
“All the places I want to see and haven’t.”
“Okay, that is just sad. You need to make a plan to start checking things off that list. You realize that is why we make lists, correct? For the joy of checking things off them and knowing we completed something big,” I tease.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she retorts with a little funny face in my direction. “Stick to your story, big guy, and not a commentary on my life.”
“Well, I was at the tree lighting and having the time of my life. Luna was taking some pictures of me, and I was doing these terrible poses, just laughing it up. This lady approaches and claims to be with a modeling agency. I, of course, thought it was a scam. You know, someone realizing we might not be from here and trying to work us for money. The lady gave us a card and told me to call if I ever became interested in exploring modeling. Obviously, that is such a foreign concept for me at that point, but it noodles around in my head almost until graduation. When I was applying to colleges, we went back out to the East Coast, and I decide on a whim—well, Luna prodding me—to call the lady. A day later, I was getting headshots, and three weeks later, my first gig. It was a whirlwind I got caught up in; it was over a decade before I stopped to take a breath and consider what the next season of my life might look like. By then, like you, I had money and a career I loved but just felt I was in the wrong place for what I wished the rest of my life to look like.”
“You know we talked about my desires for marriage and a family. You never did say your thoughts on the matter. Did you quit hoping to find the love of your life and settle down?”
“No, it wasn’t about that for me. I wanted to slow down, find a community, and feel connected again. I didn’t even have a place to get my mail other than this little apartment in New York that I would see sporadically. It had become this frenzied pace of life that just took something away from the enjoyment of it all. I had this great friend in the business, Derek, who came into it about the same time,” I start to tell one of my secrets.
I’m not even sure how we got here or why I feel this comfortable with Elaina. This is one of the stories I never shared even with my family. They never understood my career, so scaring them into the darker side of the industry would have been unkind, and I didn’t want to make them worry about me.
“He was amazing. The guy could light up a room just by walking into it. The women loved him, and children flocked to be in his presence, just bigger than life,” I explain. “He would pull these awful practical jokes on me, and it became this thing to see who could one-up the other. He once put a balloon of paint in my dressing room just prior to a big shoot—the makeup department was livid, getting blue paint off me at the last minute. Oh, and the jalapeno peppers in my Oreo cookies were a classic. To this day, I don’t know how he managed to make them so hot—but I still can’t eat Oreos.”
“Okay, he sounds wonderful and a little sadistic,” Elaina retorts with a chuckle.
“For sure,” I add as the punch line of my story draws near. “Unfortunately, underneath all that happiness and trying to bring joy and pain to others—he was struggling with life. He took a dark turn into drugs. Honestly, I just worried all the time in the last year of our time in that industry. Then he went out to Africa with this one campaign that was stunning. I don’t know what happened exactly, but he never came back to modeling. I’ve chatted with him on the phone once in a while; he joined a mission for clean water in Africa, found the love of his life and married her, and the man I talk to now is so happy. I realized just about the same time he got married that I needed balance. I needed something different than shallow looks and seeing what people could do for me. I found it here at the Mountain Haven Resort.”
“How did you end up with the whole resort, though?”
“Now that is a funny story,” I mumble, but I can see her tightening her grip around her midsection. “Maybe one better told inside and playing the game of Clue you promised me.”
“Okay,” she replies with a giggle. “I mean, trying to figure out who done it, definitely is the time for sharing life stories. I’m not letting you off the hook, though; I want all the details while I, again, beat you at yet another game.”
“Hey, now. The snow has stopped, and it is looking like I might be released from this prison I share with you. Maybe my luck in board games is also turning around,” I defend myself.
“Let’s hope,” she says with a light pat on my shoulder as she pivots for the door. “Otherwise, I would probably give up playing against other people forever. I mean, you really are terrible at it.”
“Oh, I’m coming for you this time,” I retort as I lightly poke a finger into her belly through the coat.
I feel like I’m eighteen again, and not forty. This woman keeps even the most mundane tasks enjoyable, and laughter fills this space. As I close the door behind us, I have a moment of melancholy, since this will be our last night, just the two of us. I sort of wish that the heavens would blanket us with another big dusting of the white powder and give me a little more time with Elaina.
Never have I thought I would fall so fast for someone. I’m, of course, not going to jeopardize this time or make it weird declaring myself. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to work hard to find ways to keep her here with me for just a little longer.