Chapter One #2
He swallowed and looked at his dashboard clock. He’d been driving longer than he meant to—long enough that the map in his bones pointed the way.
“Lu.” He took a breath that filled him all the way. “I think I’m gonna keep going for a bit.”
“I figured.” No guilt trip, just love, comforting as a warm blanket. “Call me when you land?”
“Yeah.”
“And Gabe?”
“Hm?”
“I’m proud of you.” She said it so simply, it punched his lungs. “Not for pretending you’re okay. For knowing when you’re not.”
His laugh came out raw. “You and your teatime wisdom.”
“Shut up.” He heard the smile in her tone. “Go.”
“Go,” he echoed, and ended the call before he could choke on all the things he didn’t have words for.
The truck ate the miles. Towns ghosted past, their main streets dark save for a flickering gas station sign here and there. The land opened up and the sky did too. He cracked the window and let the cold air slap his face until his eyes stung.
He could’ve turned around at any exit, but he didn’t. The compass inside him kept aiming toward a place that had locked in the coordinates.
The first time he’d ever driven up there, he’d been bone-tired and half feral, the world too loud and bright. He’d been ready to leave five minutes after he arrived, already planning his escape route if the therapy program tried to make him sing kumbaya in a circle.
Instead, a woman with gray eyes handed him a mug of coffee and told him to sit because the sun was going down and the sunset was worth watching.
No one asked him what he could offer. No one asked him to be okay.
They just made space for him, like setting an extra place at the table. Sometimes they nudged, sure. Sometimes they just stared him down and called him on his bullshit. But they’d done it from the heart.
The memory made his throat tight. He rolled his shoulders to shake off the weight in his chest. It didn’t ease up, and all he could do was follow the pull until it stopped tugging.
Hours later, the old wooden billboard with the hand-painted willow tree appeared out of the dark like a ghost. The sign had been repainted several times and leaned a little too far to the side, but continued to cling to the mountainside like the stubborn people who lived in Willowbrook, Wyoming.
Home, a voice inside him, deep and unguarded, whispered. He didn’t argue with it.
He took the turn without signaling because no one was behind him on the road at this late hour to care, and the road narrowed to a two-lane stretch snaking through pastures.
Frost rimed the fence posts like sugar. Some of those posts he’d set himself as part of the work that silenced the noise.
The ranch gate swung into the headlights, iron bars and a weathered arch.
He slowed and stopped. For a second, he sat with the engine idling, listening to the ticking of the engine cooling under the hood like a heartbeat. He felt his own pulse in his throat.
He killed the engine. When he opened the door, the cold air slapped him. Cleaner here, carrying the scent of old hay and the mountains that shouldn’t smell like anything at all yet did.
His boots crunched over gravel, and he approached the gate, wrapping his fingers around the cold metal while reaching for the call button to announce his arrival.
He remembered so much about living here, but also remembered leaving, how the weight slid over him like a shadow. He’d left because it was the next step. Because he wanted to prove he could stand on his own in a world that didn’t pad the sharp edges.
God, he was tired.
He pressed the call button, knowing he was on camera.
A second later, a familiar voice projected through the speaker. “You lost or found?”
He huffed a laugh that fogged in the cold. “Found.”
The lock clicked, and the gates swung open. He hurried back to his truck and drove up the long lane leading to the Black Heart Ranch.
The porch light at the big house beckoned, along with the warm glow of a few lights still on in the lodge where the veterans stayed. As he parked the truck and cut the engine, a shape appeared on the porch.
By the time he climbed out, Carson Malone was standing there, brows pinched in concern but the smile on his face welcoming. “Wondered if we’d see you again.”
Gabe’s mouth tugged in the closest thing to a smile he’d managed in days, weeks, months.
“I was just driving. And I ended up here.”
Carson nodded. “I’ve got a bed for you. Supper too, if you’re hungry.”
He was but he wasn’t. Right now the thought of a bed and a cool pillow lured him more than any hunger pains.
“A bed would be nice.”
Carson answered by leading him past the lodge to the barn and a humble bunk room.
Gabe followed, unsure how long he’d stay or what he’d do tomorrow, but Carson didn’t make him explain anything beyond this moment.
Of all the places he’d tried to fit since he left the military, this was the last place that felt right.
As Carson opened the door and flipped a switch, warm light spilled into the room, and Gabe let himself walk toward it.
* * * * *
The bell over the bookshop door chimed like it always did. Today, the bright, happy sound felt like someone poking a bruise.
Felicity pasted a smile on her face and turned the sign to CLOSED even though it had already been a day of quiet so thick she could hear the dust settling.
Spring had reached Willowbrook in name only.
The mountains held on to their chill, keeping most folks indoors and making the streets feel emptier than they should this time of year.
And with the interstate exit still shut down, the trickle of travelers who used to wander in—stretch their legs, fall in love with her shop and leave with a paperback or a handmade mug—had dried up completely.
No early-spring weekenders with rosy cheeks. No curious tourists stumbling upon her window display and lighting up like they’d found a secret.
Just her.
Just locals she already knew and loved, doing their best to keep her small bookshop afloat—as if they could buy her entire store one paperback at a time.
Her books.
And a silence that felt heavier every day.
Her two employees had already finished cleaning up the shop for the day and sat around the table near the window. The sky beyond was what Felicity called Wyoming gray—the color of promised precipitation, but at the same time, a color that didn’t commit.
Rina had brought her famous lemon bars on a pretty dish, and Mina was busy winding twine around a glass jar to upcycle it into a lantern for their next “Books and Crafts” night.
Mina looked up from her project. “You look like you need tea.”
Felicity caught herself before she blurted: I need a miracle.
“Tea is good.”
Rina handed her a mug of tea brewed on a hotplate in the back room of the shop.
The ladies weren’t more than a handful of years older than her, but they mothered her the way they mothered everyone in town.
Usually it made her feel like she was part of a little family held together by the love of books and imaginary worlds.
Today it made her feel scraped raw.
Rina reached for a lemon bar. “How are we looking?” It had become a ritual for the ladies to ask the status of sales for the day, week, month. But each day, week, month that went by, things looked bleaker.
Her throat worked, and she let the steam from the tea whisper over her face, breathing in the comfort. “Not better.”
“We’ll get more bodies in here for the next event,” Mina piped up, gluing down the edge of the twine. “We can post on the town Facebook page again. Folks loved the last Books and Crafts.”
Felicity’s gaze slid to the chalkboard sign leaning by the counter.
BOOKS & CRAFTS
Read, Rest, Renew.
Theme: Self-care through stories
Craft: DIY Tea Blends
Donation: $5. All proceeds to the Black Heart Ranch Therapy Program
Felicity drew a sip of tea into her mouth, barely registering the chamomile blend her sister Honor had made for her last time she popped in.
“I talked to some people in the coffeeshop yesterday. They all showed interest in the event,” Mina said.
Rina nodded. “What we do here matters.”
Felicity smiled because what they did mattered. But the bell hadn’t rung enough this month or the last or the one before that.
“Too bad the light bill doesn’t accept handmade tea blends as payment.” She joked to lift the mood, but her words dropped a heavier weight over all of them.
Rina settled a hand on Felicity’s arm. “It’s just the traffic. Once that interstate exit is fixed—”
“We’ve been saying ‘once’ for six months.” Her voice didn’t break but the words came out like she’d climbed the mountain in thin air. “The leaf peepers didn’t come through this past fall. The weekenders ordered online for the holidays.”
Mina reached across the table and squeezed her hand. The gesture was meant to comfort, but it only made Felicity feel worse.
Her friends exchanged a look. They weren’t related, but a lot of townspeople thought they were twins for more reasons than their rhyming names. They had a lot of the same mannerisms, including the expression they just shared.
“Talk to us.” Mina abandoned her jar lantern. “No bravado, Felicity. We’re practically family.”
She stared at the lemon bars, the powdered sugar like the first snow when everything was still pretty. But nothing about this situation was pretty anymore.
She inhaled and her breath snagged. It took two more tries to pull it through her lungs.
“I have to let you go.” She aimed her statement to the plate because she couldn’t say it to their faces yet. “I—” The rest didn’t come out, but the tears did, so hot and fast, she couldn’t press the heels of her hands to her eyes quick enough before they tumbled down her cheeks.
“Oh, honey.” Mina’s chair scraped the floor, then she was there, enveloping Felicity in a warm lavender and lemon-scented hug.
Rina took Felicity’s other side as if she was propping her up. And she was.
She issued a laugh that wasn’t remotely humorous. “I’m the one who should be hugging you guys.”