2. Keira
CHAPTER 2
KEIRA
The market is a riot of early fall colors. The lush greens and bright hues of summer are fading, replaced with oranges and rusts and reds, not only in the changing leaves on the surrounding trees, but in the produce in the market stalls: gourds and pumpkins and butternuts everywhere.
It’s my favorite time of year here in Maple Falls, so named for the maple trees planted here by the town’s founders, that well over 200 years later still reach majestically toward the sky. Their foliage provides shelter from the hot sun and rain clouds in the summer, and a veritable tapestry of rust and red and orange now in the fall.
I chew on my lip as I eye the empty stall, nestled between the Maple Falls Meats and Callie’s Cupcakes. Where once Willy Watson sold his caramel walnut fudge now stands an empty counter, surrounded by the same cream canvas of all the Maple Falls Farmers’ Market stalls.
It’s only been empty for a week, but that’s seven days too long in my books. I know. I’ve been running the Maple Falls Farmers’ Market for the past four or so years, and the rent on these stalls is vital to its overall success. Busy stalls equal greater cashflow, and I need the market to make a healthy profit. I love this job and the last thing I want to do is let down my employer, Geoffrey Goldblatt and his son, Martin. I’m really hoping the Maple Fest gives the coffers of both the Farmers’ Market and the city the boost we need.
“You’re looking pretty serious there, Ms. Keira Johnson,” Brian says, pulling my attention from the empty stall. Brian’s the proprietor of Maple Falls Meats. He has a store on Maple Road and a stall here at the farmers’ market each weekend. He’s a hardworking, burly, friendly guy, commonly found wearing a white apron over his round, plaid flannel-clad belly.
I smile. “I’m working out who we’re gonna put in this stall now that Willy’s retired.”
Willy Watson was a farmers’ market fixture, kind of a Maple Falls local legend. It was he and his wife, Nancy, who first suggested expanding the Maple Falls Farmers’ Market from simply selling fresh produce, flowers, and plants to include items from local businesses, such as baked goods, coffee, and ice cream. The waffle stand is particularly popular, and I can’t say I’m adverse to the treat, smothered in cream and strawberries, at the end of a long day. Willy brought in local bands that lend a relaxed and fun atmosphere to the market, and people can be found wandering around each weekend morning, clutching their coffees and hot chocolates, munching on bacon sandwiches and pastries, folk music filling the air.
Did I mention I love my job? Where else can you work in such idyllic surrounds?
After graduating college in Seattle and coming back to Maple Falls, I worked at the coffeehouse in the bookstore my friend Emmy runs, until this job came up. Although I was tempted to do what my college friends were doing—moving to big cities to pursue exciting careers—I knew I needed to be back home. My sister, Clara, and I lost our parents in a car wreck when I was a freshman at college. And then, disaster struck again when she got so sick with chronic fatigue syndrome, aka CFS, that she could barely get out of bed, and her scum of a husband left her and her two young kids for another woman.
She needed family. I was all she had.
Of course I wanted to try out a different life, at least for a while. But it wasn’t in the cards. So here I am, twenty-seven years old, living in my hometown, with no plans to ever leave.
Don’t get me wrong: I love living back here. The place has got heart, just like a small town, only with some of the amenities of a much bigger place. I mean, what small town has an ice arena? Other than Maple Falls, that is.
It’s so picturesque here, and many a tourist can be spotted at this time of year, lapping up the local scenery and snapping shots of the pretty leaves. And attending the Maple Falls Farmers’ Market if I’ve done my job right.
“Those sure are some big shoes to fill, Keira,” Brian comments, bringing my wandering mind back to the market. “Willy was an integral part of the fabric of this place.”
I pull my lips into a line, feeling the pressure. “I’ve had a few applications, so I’m trying to work out what fits best between Callie’s and your stalls.”
Let’s face it, raw meat and freshly baked cupcakes aren’t exactly a match made in heaven. The applications I’ve received so far have been from a butcher from a neighboring town, which Brian will spit tacks at; a local florist, just starting out; a small local olive oil business; and someone who wants to sell those little rubber things people clip onto their Crocs.
“I’m sure you’ll make the right call, just as Willy and Nancy always did before. You got this.” Brian beams at me before his attention is diverted to a customer.
That is my cue to leave and take a mental note to offer the stall to the olive oil business first. That ought to provide a decent oily buffer between meat and cupcakes, if you’ll excuse the pun.
It’s almost closing time for the Saturday market, and I’ve got to ensure all the vendors are fully packed up before my team and I can secure the stalls, ready for an early start come Sunday morning.
Saturdays are always a rush for me because I need to get my eight-year-old niece, Hannah, to her figure skating lesson across town. I take her six-year-old brother, Benny, along with me, too. Even though he gets bored sitting in the bleachers watching his sister and her classmates skate, it’s the perfect time for Clara to get some peace and quiet. Clara’s juggling a lot with the CFS and being a mom, so I do everything I can to help her out, which includes a lot of running around after my niece and nephew.
That’s what families do for each other.
Just over an hour later, the vendors have all left for the day, the market has been packed up, and I get home to the house we grew up in with just enough time to herd Hannah and Benny out of the house for Hannah’s lesson.
Balancing two bags of groceries from the fresh produce stalls—and a half dozen cinnamon rolls from Maple Grounds Bakery, because life’s too short not to eat cinnamon rolls—I let myself inside, turning a blind eye to the exterior walls’ peeling paint, and the fact that one of the porch steps still needs fixing. Both are in the “too hard” basket for now—along with too many things to mention. I’ll get to them. Someday.
The curtains are still drawn when I make my way down the hall into the living room, and I can tell Clara had a bad morning. She was still asleep when I left earlier, and I always say a little prayer on my drive back home that this day is a better day than the last.
I find my sister lying on the sofa, a crocheted blanket our mom made draped across her slim body. She opens her eyes and blinks at me a couple times before she pulls her lips into a smile.
“Hey, Kiki. All done for the day?” she asks as she begins to push herself up.
“Don’t get up. Relax. I got this.”
She slumps back on the sofa. “You’re too good to me.”
I place the bags of groceries on the coffee table and pull the blanket up over her chest. “I’m just doing what anyone would. Can I get you anything before I go? I picked up some supplies. We were running low.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’ve been an absolute saint since Dwayne left.”
“Don’t mention that jerk,” I say softly, referring to her ex who decided the best course of action to deal with his wife’s illness was to skip town. Oh, and run off with Clara’s best friend, too.
I’m certain there’s a special place in hell for people like him.
Clara’s eyes brim with tears. “I wish I’d never married him.”
“But without Dwayne, you’d never have had my beautiful niece and nephew.”
Her lips lift into a soft smile. “You say that every time.”
“That’s because it’s the truth. Where are they, by the way? It’s way too quiet in here.”
“They’re outside in the tree house.”
“I’ll go get them. But first, I’m going to make you a cup of herbal tea. Chamomile or peppermint?”
“Coffee?” she asks with her nose scrunched up, ever hopeful.
I shake my head. “You know the caffeine is not good for you.”
She sighs. “I know, but I thought I’d try anyway. See if I could catch you off guard.”
I busy myself with putting the groceries away in the kitchen as I make a cup of tea. Spotting the kids out the window, I see that Hannah is already in her figure skating outfit, and when I wave at them, they rush back into the house with excited squeals, almost bowling me over with their enthusiasm.
“I’m the captain and you’re my prisoner!” Benny exclaims.
“You’re not going to make me walk the plank again, are you?” I ask.
“The plank! The plank!” he chants in response.
“Let me get my swimsuit first,” I tell him as I tickle him under his arm, and he falls down giggling.
I notice a tear in Hannah’s tights. “Honey, how did this happen?”
“It got caught on a twig,” she replies, placing her hand over the tear. “It’s not my fault.”
“Do you have another pair you could go change into?”
She shakes her head mournfully, and I make a mental note to buy her a new pair next time I’m in town.
“We don’t have time to sew it up now, but I’ll fix it tonight and get it back to you before your next lesson, okay?”
“Thanks, Aunt Kiki,” she replies dutifully, although I’m sure she doesn’t want to wear patched up tights when some kids in her class have brand new everything.
We’ve got to make do with what we can afford. With Clara not being able to work and her idiot of a husband not only out of the picture, but only providing erratic child support and alimony, it’s up to me to hold this family together—and more than just by making tea and hand-sewing up tears in tights.
Supporting my sister and her two kids might not be the way I saw my life turning out, but you do what you’ve got to do for the people you love.
“I’m going to deliver this drink to your mom, and then we’re ready to go. Go get your warm clothes. Layers are our friends on the ice,” I tell her. That and cinnamon rolls. I stuff three into a paper bag to take with us to the arena.
Hannah dashes from the kitchen in a blur of excitement, trailed by Pirate Benny, still ha-haring as he goes. Hannah loves her figure skating class, and I’m so lucky my friend and ice-skating teacher extraordinaire, Ellie Butler, gives us a hefty discount on both the classes and her skates. Figure skating is an expensive sport, and with Benny chomping at the bit to try ice hockey, I’ll take whatever discounts my fellow townsfolk are willing to offer.
You only get one childhood, and I want to make theirs the absolute best it can be.
A few minutes later, I’ve delivered Clara’s tea, made her more comfortable on the sofa, grabbed my current read from my nightstand, and the three of us have headed to the arena. Once there, Hannah runs in through the door in excitement, her blonde ponytail flying, and we follow after her, Benny far less enthusiastic to have to watch his sister’s class.
A brisk chill wraps around us, a stark contrast to the relative fall warmth outside. The air carries the distinct scent of ice, mixed with a hint of hot chocolate drifting from a nearby stand. I can hear Ellie’s encouraging tones, mixed with the crisp scrape of blades on ice as she stands in the middle of the rink, her breath fogging the air as she teaches a class of older kids.
She notices me and throws me a quick smile, and I wave back.
“Did Hannah help you with your homework?” I ask Benny, holding his hand in mine as we make our way to the bleachers. Hannah is a typical older sister: like a little mom-in-training who loves to boss her brother around.
“I hate math. It’s so hard,” he complains.
“What’s hard about it?”
“Everything. It hurts my brain.”
“I know what. I’ll help you with it. I’m not the best at math, but I know enough.” And how hard can first grade math be? I’m banking on not hard at all.
“Can I go to Levi’s house to play when we get home instead? He’s a pirate, too. ”
“Of course you can, but how about we give this math thing a shot first? I promise it’ll be fun, and you might even be surprised with how much you already have in that big brain of yours.”
He pulls his lips to one side, not convinced. “I guess.”
I help Hannah lace up her skates as she chats eagerly with her classmates, ready for her class. I kiss her on the head and tell her to have a good lesson before I find Benny and me a spot alongside the group I’ve labelled the Mom Squad in my head.
“Hey, everyone,” I say as I sit, the cold metal of the bench instantly beginning to seep through my clothing. I pull out a coloring book and crayons from my purse and hand it to Benny, who begins to color.
“Hey, Keira,” says one of the moms, a woman called Nell. She was a few years ahead of me at Maple Falls High and is now married with a couple of kids. She glances at the book in my hand. “Watcha reading this time?”
“ Wuthering Heights . I read it back in high school, so it’s a reread for me,” I reply. “It’s good, despite its doomed love story between the two main protagonists, Cathy and Heathcliff.”
“Yeah. Sure.” It’s clear Nell has zero interest in my book. “Have you heard the big news?” she asks, her eyes bright with excitement.
I put my bookmark in my book and close it. “What news?”
“Well, you know how Troy and his billionaire brother are hosting those charity games coming up soon?”
Of course I’ve heard about it. It’s the biggest thing to happen to Maple Falls in ... well, forever. Zach Hart has come to town and invested in Troy’s hockey team, which means a bunch of top hockey players will be here to play a bunch of charity games to raise money for the Happy Horizons Ranch. It’s a worthy cause, and I plan to attend all the games, like the rest of the town.
“I live here,” I reply with a light-hearted roll of my eyes. “What’s the latest?”
“Dan Roberts is back here right this very minute, ready to play on the team. The Dan Roberts, as in hometown hockey hero and NHL superstar? My friend who works reception at the Hawk River Lodge told me. Can you believe it?” Nell’s expression shows me just how thoroughly excited she is by this news.
Me? My heart seems to have stopped at the mere mention of his name.
So, the rumors were right. He’s back in town.
Dan Roberts.
My ex.
I had called Ellie a couple days ago in a panic when I first heard he may be on the team. She’d teased me about him, suggesting we could rekindle things while he’s here.
But, you see, the thing is, Dan Roberts might be our hometown hockey hero, he might be big news in the NHL, but to me, he’s always been my what if? The one that got away.
Only he didn’t get away, exactly. I let him go. Back in the day, we were high school sweethearts in the flush of first love when he won a hockey scholarship to Yale. I was going to college at the University of Washington, so I would be at the other end of the country from him. Everyone told us a long-distance relationship would never work, particularly because we were so young.
There’ll be other guys.
There are plenty more fish in the sea.
So, even though it broke me, I told him to go. We broke up.
I told myself at the time I had big plans of my own. I might not have been on a sports scholarship at a top school, but I knew I wanted to make something of myself. When everyone tells you at seventeen your high school sweetheart is only your first love and not your last, you believe them. And besides, I didn’t want to be the one to stand between Dan and his dreams. Breaking up was the right thing to do.
Or so I thought.
It turns out they were wrong.
Dan was my first love, and although it’s only been ten years since he left Maple Falls, no one else has even come close .
Breaking up with him was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and my heart has never recovered.
And now he’s a big star, big goal scorer for the Chicago Blizzard. He’s talented. Famous. Women love him. He leads this crazy, glamorous, exciting life. A life I know nothing about.
Me? Not famous. I glance down at my jeans, sneakers, and red puffer jacket. Definitely not glamorous. What’s more, I’m still living in the small town I grew up in. I’m just plain old Keira Johnson—never changed, and probably never will.
Dan’s a big hockey star, coming home to play on the Ice Breakers team, and I’m just his high school girl.
I haven’t seen him since we broke up. Not officially, anyway. As embarrassed as I am to admit it, I saw him last winter. He was at the diner downtown, enjoying a meal with his family, home for the Christmas holiday. I was in a booth in the back with Hannah and Benny, and as soon as I laid eyes on him, I slid down in my seat so he couldn’t see me, making it a game for the delighted kids. Then as he was posing for selfies with fans, I bundled the kids up and snuck out the back as quickly as I could, much to the surprise of the kitchen staff.
Mature, right?
But when the guy you’ve never been able to forget turns up in town, looking irresistibly handsome and thoroughly happy with his life’s choices, you do what you’ve got to do and, in this case, that involved me pretending with Hannah and Benny that we were spies and needed to ninja roll and then crawl—quite literally—out the back door. Shirley May, our regular server and a kindly resident of the town, unlocked the door for us, and we climbed into my car, and slunk away without even switching on the headlights.
The kids thought it was super fun. I thought it was super necessary .
I knew seeing him could stir up a whole load of feelings that would be far from helpful. And seeing him so happy? Well, I needed to protect my heart. Pure and simple .
And now, today, I know it makes sense that people are excited about him coming back home to play on the charity team. Dan’s the local guy who went off to play in the big leagues. He’s our hometown hero, Maple Falls’ answer to Sidney Crosby. He’s big news around here.
The fact he’s also the ex I’ve never been able to forget? Well, that’s really only big news for me.