Chapter Eleven
“It’s just a massage, Kate,” Boone argues.
“I’m fine. Truly. I’ve been taking care of myself for years, Boone. Basically, my entire life.” I cross my arms, looking down at him as he sits on the couch in front of the fire.
“It’s practically medical. Just let me help you,” he sighs. “This is not a big deal. What else are we going to do? Really?”
I look around the room. Boone doesn’t even have a television, and there’s only a small bookshelf with about twenty books on it.
“Don’t you get bored up here with nothing to do?
” I ask. “I mean, what do you do? Are you just up here hibernating like a bear, slumbering all day and all night? I’m guessing you’re not a sports guy since you lack an oversized screen, and either you only read a few favorite books, or you don’t read at all. Can you read?”
“I can read,” Boone laughs. “And I like being bored. Nobody is bored enough anymore. Now, please just sit down so I can help you. I can see you wincing, Kate. You might be tough, but you’re still human.”
“What if I’m not human?” I question, tilting my head to the side, trying to hide the fact that the slight movement feels like it might as well decapitate me.
“Well, maybe finicky water pipes are your kryptonite then,” Boone teases while shaking his head. “Kate, if you don’t sit down and let me help you, I’m going to stop making you coffee.”
My eyes widen. “You wouldn’t!”
Boone smirks. “Try me.”
“You’re mean,” I sigh as I carefully sit down in front of him.
“Sure, because helping you is cruel,” he replies.
“Holding my coffee hostage is not helping me,” I argue as Boone’s fingers find my skin. So much for him not touching me.
Boone doesn’t reply. Instead, his thumbs begin to softly rub against my neck, causing me to flinch with pain and yet breathe a sigh of relief when he finally unties a knot beneath my flesh with his bare hands.
The air between us feels heavy and smells like peppermint, because, naturally, Boone, the lumberjack full of surprises, has a collection of herbal remedies.
“Is the pressure okay?” he questions.
“You’re perfect.” The words linger between us before I realize what I’ve said, feeling my face flush before I stutter, “I mean, it’s perfect.
Of course. You’re not perfect. You’re great, but I’m sure you’ve got some flaws you just haven’t thought of revealing to me yet.
Now would be a great time, by the way, since I seem to be revealing all of mine.
I mean, you already know that I’m emotionally and physically dependent on coffee, that I ramble way too much and say things that I should probably keep locked up tight somewhere inside my brain, that I obsess over things until I master them, and well, have a hard time accepting help. ”
His fingers pause. “Those aren’t all flaws, Kate.”
“Then what else are they? They aren’t exactly my best traits,” I answer.
“Or maybe they are, and you’ve just been told they aren’t,” he replies, and I feel a crack in my armadillo shell, as if he’s managed to see the soft part of me that I always try to protect. I am honest in a lot of ways, but I’ve also learned how to protect myself.
“You don’t really know me,” I mutter.
“Well, you don’t really know me, either,” he argues. “In fact, I think you assumed a lot, with me being a man that dresses in red flannel living up in the mountains by himself.”
“I suppose that’s true,” I admit. “In my defense, I woke up in a new place with a stranger.”
“In my defense, I rescued a woman that almost killed herself in a blizzard because she couldn’t stay somewhere where there wasn’t coffee,” he jests.
“Fair point. So, let’s get to know each other instead of continuing to just tiptoe around what we think we know,” I suggest as I carefully untangle my legs and attempt to stand up. Boone puts his hands around my waist, helping me up.
Dog is curled up in the chair, so I turn around to sit beside Boone on the couch, pulling my legs up underneath my body. I’m wearing a pair of Boone’s thermals, my hair still damp from the shower I took, if you could call it that.
“All right,” Boone says before extending his hand to me. “Hi, I’m Boone Montgomery.”
My lips twist, wanting to smirk, before I put my hand in his for a handshake and say, “Kate Everett.”
“Kate as in Katherine?” There’s a daring spark in the way Boone is looking at me.
“Katherine if you want me to hate you all of your life,” I reply, my words smooth and sharp as if they are a sword, while arching my eyebrows.
“I’d prefer you didn’t,” he laughs. “So, Kate, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a marketing manager for an ad agency,” I answer swiftly.
He nods his head. “Do you enjoy it?”
“Mildly. I’m good at it, but I wouldn’t say I necessarily enjoy it. I enjoy the life I have from the paycheck attached to the job. What do you do for a living, Boone?”
I have been wondering what Boone actually does. Do lumberjacks split wood for a living and sell it? Build houses? Chicken coops with luxury accommodations?
“Well, I make and sell coffee mugs. I have a shed out back that’s my studio. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.”
My brain starts processing a marketing plan that would put Boone’s mugs on the map, that would cause mass sellouts and monetary success, but at the same time, I don’t think Boone would want that kind of success. He seems like the kind that prefers the quiet kind of living.
“You sell those mugs?! I need to put in an order, stat. What’s your turn around? Think you could teach me how to make them? Is it hard?”
Boone’s baby-blue eyes widen slightly, allowing me to see his amusement more clearly before he says, “Yes, I sell them. The entire process from throwing the clay to glazing takes two to three weeks. I’m not sure what my teaching skills are like, and it’s not hard, but it’s not exactly easy, either. It’s an art.”
“The omelet proves you are good at learning, so maybe you are good at teaching. Have you always been interested in pottery?” I question.
He shakes his head. “No. I started pottery when I moved up here after Becca died. If she knew I was a potter now, she’d call me a liar. Honestly, I needed something to work on with my hands, and I wanted to understand pottery because of the Master Potter.”
“Master Potter?” I’m not following.
“God,” he answers simply. “How He molds us into something from nothing. I guess I wanted to try to understand Him more after everything.”
I haven’t been to church in years, well, really since my dad died.
Kevin and I went to church on Sundays with him while my mom stayed home.
It’s not that I’ve forgotten about God. I believe He exists, believe my dad is in a better place.
I don’t even blame God for the cancer. Even at seventeen, I knew how broken our world was.
I just kind of leaned more away from, than into, God.
Still appreciating Him, but not exactly seeking Him out.
“So, did it help?” I ask.
“I’m still in the process of understanding. Not sure I’ll ever not be in that process,” he says softly.
“So, what did you do before pottery?”
“I was a surgeon, actually,” he answers, and my mind flip-flops.
“An actual surgeon? Like scrubs, mask, that funny looking cap, scissors, and real-live surgery where you cut people open and fix them?” I ramble, because honestly, I don’t know what else to do.
Boone does not look like a surgeon at all.
Not that I know what all surgeons look like. I’ve never had surgery.
“No, I meant the game of Operation,” he teases, standing up to poke at the logs in the fireplace.
“It’s just, you don’t seem the surgeon type,” I say.
He nods his head. “Well, I was once Dr. Montgomery.”
“So, do you miss it?” I ask, watching as the sparks sprinkle like flaming confetti as the logs move around.
Boone gently places a new log on the fire. “Not really. I worked hard for it—thirteen years of school and residency, but I don’t really wish I was back in an operating room.”
“That’s a long time,” I say. My schooling took four years, and yes, I worked hard to climb the ladder to be where I am today, but the commitment didn’t seem as intense as becoming a doctor.
“Well, enough about that. Can I ask you a question?” He brushes his hands against each other, flecks of bark falling to the ground.
“Sure.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Coffee,” I answer swiftly.
“Coffee isn’t a food.”
“It literally comes from beans, Boone. It’s 100 percent a food, and the majority of my daily caloric intake,” I defensively argue. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Bananas.”
I squint at him. “There are no bananas in this house.”
“Well, I don’t really like the bananas themselves. I like when I have bananas and I let them sit on my counter until they turn black, and my mom comes up and makes banana bread.”
I internally grin at the thought of Boone buying bananas just so his mom can make him something he loves. “So, you’re close with your family?”
He nods his head. “I am. I grew up around here and moved back after Becca. My parents have been happily married for forty-two years, and I have a younger sister, Camryn. She’s married, has three kids and a goldfish.
She lives out in California. I see my parents at least once a week and talk to Camryn often. ”
“Are they back for Christmas?”
Boone shakes his head. “Christmas in California with Trevor’s family, my brother-in-law. It was just going to be me and my parents, not that I do Christmas. I just usually go eat.”
I look around the room, thinking how perfect a tree would be in this space.
It’s practically made for Christmas. The fireplace is ideal for stockings, the mantle perfect for garland.
I can see it all in my head, a cozy little Christmas.
He really should do Christmas. I understand why he doesn’t, but it’s such a waste of a good cabin.
Boone’s intently watching me. “So, what else about your family, besides your dad that I know you loved and your mom that you don’t seem to as much?”
“I didn’t really grow up in a family that felt complete, even though statistically we were a traditional family unit.
My mother and dad stayed together, but they never seemed as if they wanted to be together.
I have a younger brother, Kevin. Kevin and I are more than siblings; we’re more like best friends.
We do this thing at Christmas that we call Santa Secrets.
We lie under the Christmas tree and reveal all the things we’ve kept from each other all year.
We started doing it when I was nine and he was seven.
My dad had told us that Santa gave the best presents to truth tellers, so we figured it was our last-ditch effort to get all the truth out before Santa came.
” I smile at the memory that has become tradition.
“You still do that?” Boone questions.
I nod my head. “Oh yes. The secrets have gotten better each year. Sometimes we intentionally keep something from each other just so we have something big to reveal at Christmas.”
“Honest Kate keeping secrets?” Boone teases me, the left side of his mouth turned up into a lopsided grin.
“Hardest thing I do all year,” I laugh. “Okay, ask me something else. Something beyond the skin-deep things of family and food. Not that I don’t think your favorite color or place to vacation would be interesting, but…”
“Green, I don’t vacation, and what’s with the bird tattoo?”
The question makes me swallow hard and pull my mouth into a tight line. I knew he’d most likely seen it. It’s a little hard to miss, especially when a man had to undress and redress you like a floppy, lifeless Barbie doll.
“My dad loved bluebirds,” I mutter.
“But the placement…” His words trail off.
“I’m aware.” I cross my arms and lean back into the sofa.
“It’s just a little weird if it’s a memorial tattoo and it’s on your lower back…” The corner of his lip is twitching upward, and there’s a sparkle in his eyes, that while I’m completely humiliated, creates an urge to make him smile.
“It was the 2000s,” I explain. “I mean, really, we were completely unhinged during that time. Plucking each other’s eyebrows like we were a Mrs. Potato Head; wearing bright blue eyeshadow that, let’s be honest, no one in this world can pull off; and dropping it low when everyone needed to stay up.”
Success. The twitch grows into a grin. “But the clouds kind of make it look like…”
At this, my face warms. “I’m aware. It’s an unfortunate placement, but I was only seventeen.”
“You have to be eighteen to get a tattoo unless your mom…”
The thought of my mother signing off on a tattoo makes me give a stiff laugh.
“Ha! No. My mother still has no idea it exists. And yes, I was seventeen, which should indicate the type of tattoo artist I went to, which then would explain the fact that the clouds do not look like clouds and more just like wind.”
Boone laughs, but it’s not like a laugh I’ve heard yet. It’s deep and rich and more stimulating than the first sip of coffee in the morning. It echoes in the small room, and I don’t mind being surrounded by it. In fact, I want that sound to bundle around me so I can relax into it.
“You know, you can have it removed. Have a new tattoo done in his honor.”
“I don’t know. While this one is embarrassing, it tells a story of a seventeen-year-old girl that was grieving deeply and needed something permanent that made her feel in control when she felt anything but.
Although I can’t exactly see it, I know it’s there.
Erasing it seems like erasing who I once was.
Who I needed to be then to become who I am now. ”
Boone tilts his head. His blue eyes narrow in that way where you feel someone is really looking at you, trying to peer deeper into your delirious ramblings. “You are an interesting woman, Kate.”
“Interesting in a good way?” I question, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“I haven’t yet decided,” he admits.
“You’re interesting, too,” I shoot back.
“Interesting in a good way?” he asks.
“I haven’t yet decided,” I repeat with a small shoulder shrug and a smile.