Out of the Cold

Chapter Seventeen

For the first few days after Gabriel walked out, she spent hours wishing she’d done her usual snowshoe. If only she hadn’t been gone so long, everything would still be perfect between them. But it didn’t take her long to realize that something would have triggered him, sooner or later. All the love and sex in the world couldn’t fix something he hadn’t worked through.

She couldn’t heal him, but she still watched for him through the windows and whenever she went out.

Which was a problem.

But she couldn’t leave. Even if she could find a place to live in the Bay Area earlier than planned, she’d only taught one of the six workshops she’d committed to. Six kids had signed up, four girls and two boys. And they were really great. When she was with them, she didn’t think about anything else, and she loved reading their work and finding ways to make them feel good about how they were expressing themselves.

She had finished her second workshop that Wednesday evening when she ran into Amelia coming out of the library.

“How’s it going?” Amelia asked.

“I love it.”

Amelia laughed. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe a little. It’s easier than I expected.”

“You must be a natural.”

They pushed through the library doors and out into the parking lot.

“I’m headed to the Red Onion for dinner,” Amelia said, gesturing toward the center of town. “If you want to join me.”

Lucy hadn’t spoken to an adult in days, and she wasn’t sure what would come out of her when she did. But she wasn’t passing this up.

“That sounds great.”

Ten minutes later, they were seated in a booth. They chatted for a bit about the workshop and Amelia’s job, ordered their food, chatted more. Lucy asked her lots of questions, hoping to steer the conversation away from herself. It worked for a while.

“How’s your book coming?” Amelia eventually asked.

That wasn’t so bad. She could answer truthfully, without getting into anything else.

“Pretty good. I’m on track to finish it by my March deadline. It helps that I don’t have much to do up here.”

“I can always find ways to procrastinate.”

“I did plenty of that. Why do you think I’m here now?”

Amelia laughed. “I don’t know how you manage alone out there. I live right in town, and I still feel isolated sometimes. Everyone’s nice, but they still think of me as an outsider. And I feel like one.”

“That can’t last forever.”

“We’ll see. I’m not sure how long I’ll stay, anyway.”

“I haven’t been completely alone.” It came out without her meaning to say it, so low she almost hoped Amelia didn’t hear her.

“No?”

Lucy traced a drop of condensation on her water glass with her thumb. “I was sort of seeing someone, someone really great, but it ended.” Now the tears came, but she didn’t let them fall. “I’m kind of a mess.”

“I’m really sorry,” Amelia said, her eyes full of sympathy. Like she’d been there.

The food arrived then, a welcome distraction that allowed her to rein her emotions in. When the waiter left, they talked about their favorite books when they were kids, and Amelia had her laughing with stories about learning to ski.

She felt better as she drove home, but it lasted only until she pulled into the driveway and saw Gabriel moving past his window.

She sat in her car, unable to find the energy to go inside. Why bother when he wouldn’t be there?

The car cooled, and she still didn’t move. Eventually she started to shiver, and her hands grew numb. Hilde was probably inside barking like crazy, beside herself.

The thought propelled her out of the car and into the house, where Hilde greeted her with a frantic dance of joy. For the zillionth time since she’d gotten her dog, she sent up a little prayer of thanks that Hilde was in her life.

All she had to do was keep her head down and survive living within sight of Gabriel’s cabin. Not only bear it, but write something that would make people’s hearts sing.

And also figure out the rest of her life. Which looked pretty empty from where she was standing.

But as awful as things were, she didn’t regret any of it. She couldn’t, not when she loved him. She was glad now that she never used that word. She’d wanted to wait until she knew they could survive outside their little bubble. But she’d been saying it to him in so many other ways.

Now she needed to survive until her book was done.

Hilde didn’t help. She didn’t know they were supposed to be keeping their distance. If they were outside at the same time, her ears perked up and she took off toward him.

Lucy didn’t have the heart to call the dog back every time, though she couldn’t watch them together, either. But once when he was out chopping wood and she was inside, she picked up her binoculars and trained them on him. But she couldn’t tell anything from this far away. Couldn’t see whether he had dark circles under his eyes, like he did when she first arrived. The only thing she knew for sure was that he’d stopped shaving.

She put the binoculars down and didn’t look again.

She wrote, went on long treks, and contacted everyone she knew in San Francisco to let them know she was looking for a place, alone or with a roommate.

“Come back home,” Cara said. “You have so many people who love you here. You can stay with me until you find something.”

Oddly enough, the offer wasn’t even tempting. She wanted to go home to visit at some point, but her reasons for leaving Florida hadn’t changed.

She was going to make another go of it in San Francisco, and she was going to be fine.

***

G abe woke up in a sweat , his heart pounding. Another dream about digging Ricky out. It had been like this every night since he’d ended things with Lucy. All day he managed to feel nothing, and every night everything he was trying not to feel came back with a vengeance.

He was right back where he’d been before Lucy, only now sometimes he dreamed she was the one trapped under the snow.

A thousand times over the past few weeks, he’d nearly knocked on her door. But what came after that? He wanted to be the man she thought he was, but he was stuck in a time warp, where every day was the day Ricky died.

He still couldn’t stop himself from noting what time she left for her afternoon treks and what time she came back. It wasn’t his job anymore—it never had been—but there was no shaking the compulsion to make sure she was okay.

It usually took him until late morning to shake off the emotional hangover of his dream, and today was no exception. But he plowed through sales figures for the newest line of apparel, grateful to have something that absorbed his attention.

He was on the phone with Eddie, reviewing the results, when he saw Lucy heading down the front steps, dressed for her daily snowshoe. Oddly, Hilde wasn’t with her.

“Gabe, are you there?”

“Sorry, Eddie. Could you repeat that?”

She came home an hour later, much sooner than usual, and a minute later his cell phone rang.

“Lucy?”

“Please come over,” she said, her voice shaking. “I need help.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Grabbing his jacket, he stepped into his boots and ran out the door. She was crying. Why would she be crying? Was she hurt or sick? She’d looked fine a minute ago.

He was breathing hard by the time he reached her door, and his heart raced liked he’d climbed a mountain. Lucy was sitting next to Hilde, who was lying on her side in the middle of the floor, surrounded by vomit.

“Lucy...”

Her face was flushed and streaked with tears. “Will you help me get her to the vet? She’s so sick, and she’s too heavy for me.”

“Of course.” He bent down and slid his hands beneath the dog. “Here, sweetie, I’ve got you,” he said, carefully lifting her.

Her head lolled to the side, and she groaned weakly.

“I already called the vet,” Lucy said, grabbing her purse. “I’ll sit in back with her. We can take my car.”

Hilde lay limp in his arms as they left the cabin, and her whimper when he set her on the back seat broke his heart. Lucy climbed in after her.

“You okay back there?” he asked.

“I think so.”

He shut the door and went around to the driver’s side. Lucy didn’t say anything for the first few minutes. She was petting Hilde, who was now panting.

“Thank you for doing this,” she said, her voice shaky. “I panicked when I walked in and saw her...”

“I’m glad you called. What happened?” he asked, his eyes meeting hers in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know. She was listless at lunch time, that was all. She didn’t get out of her bed, so I went on a short hike on my own. When I got back...” She bit her lip. “I should never have gone. I can’t believe I did that.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“She definitely ate something other than her kibble. I could see that from the mess in the kitchen. Whatever it was must have made her sick.”

He drove as fast as he dared, and he stopped checking the rearview mirror. Seeing Lucy up close again was killing him. He was grateful she was in the back.

“It’s coming up on the right in about half a mile,” she said sometime later.

He pulled into the parking lot and jumped out of the car. Getting Hilde out was awkward, even more so than getting her in, and his stomach lurched at how lifeless she felt.

They entered a waiting room where several other people sat with their pets.

“Can I have your name?” the receptionist asked.

“Lucy Pond. I called a little while ago, and someone said I could bring my dog in. We don’t have an appointment.”

“Right this way,” she said, leading them down a hall. “We’ll get your information after you see the doctor.”

She gestured them into an examination room. “Go ahead and put her on the table. Dr. Kim will be in to see you shortly,” she said, shutting the door behind her.

Gabriel lay Hilde on the metal table and stroked her fur. “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” he said, trying to sound confident.

She had to be okay. Lucy would be lost without her.

Lucy stood by Hilde’s head and stroked her ears. He looked up to find Lucy’s gaze on him, but she looked away as if she’d been caught out.

He wasn’t numb now, and the reality of what he’d done to them both nearly brought him to his knees. It filled the room until he could barely breathe.

He was starting to think he should wait in the outer room when a woman in a lab coat came in. “I’m Dr. Kim” she said. “Tell me what’s happening.”

The vet listened to Hilde’s heart as Lucy filled her in. She checked her gums and eyes, pinched the fur on her back, and ran her hands along Hilde’s sides, pressing as she went.

“You’re sure she didn’t get into any chocolate?”

Lucy shook her head, her eyes wide. “I’m super careful about that, and I don’t even have any chocolate in the house now.”

“I’d like to do some bloodwork and get fluids in her. I recommend letting her stay overnight so we can keep an eye on her. I don’t know what made her so sick, but the good news is, she’s not vomiting anymore. That may mean that whatever the problem was, she’s purged it from her system. The bloodwork will tell us if it’s something else.”

“You’ll call me if she gets worse?”

“Absolutely. We’ll give you an update before we close tonight. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her.”

“Okay.” Lucy leaned down and whispered in Hilde’s ear, “They’re going to take care of you here and make you all better.”

She kissed the dog’s head and left quickly, but not before he saw tears running down her cheeks. He took a second to pet Hilde and get ahold of himself. Damn if he didn’t feel like crying, too.

Lucy filled out paperwork at the front desk, the pen trembling in her hand.

“I can drive,” he said as they left the building. “You still look a little shaken up.”

“Thanks, that would be great.”

Once in the car, she closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. He didn’t say anything. The small sedan felt too intimate now that she was sitting next to him. He wanted to lay a comforting hand on her arm, but he was already feeling too much, and she might not even welcome it.

“You all right?” he asked instead.

She nodded and opened her eyes. “I’m a wreck, but as long as she’s okay, I’ll survive. Sorry I was so emotional when I called you.”

“Hilde’s the best dog in the world. I’d have cried, too, if I could.”

“What do you mean, if you could?”

He shrugged and wished he could take it back. “Nothing, only that I get it.”

“I can’t lose her. She’s all I have.”

For several seconds, he couldn’t breathe. He wanted to tell her that wasn’t true, but what right did he have to tell her anything? She didn’t have him anymore. He’d taken himself away.

Instead, he gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles ached. “She’ll get better,” he said. “She’s over the worst of it.”

Lucy didn’t answer. Neither of them said anything for several more miles. Then she cleared her throat. “I, uh, found an apartment in San Francisco for March first.”

That was only three weeks away. He tried to order his thoughts as his breath came faster and a strange panic set it.

“Len said you could have the place until May.”

“It’s time for me to go,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “I’ll be done with my book, and I don’t need to hide out here anymore.”

He sucked in a breath.

“I didn’t mean....”

“No, you’re right,” he said, his voice almost normal. “We’ve both been hiding out. I’m glad you’re ready.”

But she’d have stayed if he hadn’t ruined everything. They’d created a private paradise, and he’d smashed it all to pieces.

He was frozen in time, and she was moving on.

She’d finish her book, and he wouldn’t be part of that. If they were still together, he’d have made a big deal of it. He’d have cooked her something special and told her how incredible she was. He’d have asked to read it.

They were nearly at Len’s. He wanted to drive past their cabins and keep going until they’d both forgotten what he’d done.

He pulled into her driveway and reluctantly turned off the engine.

“Thank you again for coming,” she said. She seemed steadier, her eyes red but her expression calm.

“I’ll come in and help you clean up.”

“Thanks, but I can handle it.”

She was turning away from him to open the door, hiding her face.

“You’ll let me know how she’s doing?” he asked.

She hesitated the barest second before nodding. She got out of the car and he followed, handing her the keys.

She was ready to fly, and the best part of him was glad.