Chapter 1 #2
I blew out a breath and spun in a circle, examining the small office.
An old box sat on the work desk, and I recognized Lily’s familiar handwriting.
Levi was still discovering his mother’s work as he cleaned out the memories she’d left behind.
I went to the box and rested my hand on the top, thinking of the woman who was like a second mother to me.
A tightening pain lanced through my chest again, but I ignored it and flipped open the top; the smell of old photograph paper and dust reached my nose as I did.
Lily had been an incredibly talented photographer and probably would have taken the world by storm if she hadn’t put Levi and Cozy Creek first. She had been so at peace here; she never regretted the path not taken.
My throat tight, that sharp pang pulsed in my chest. When she passed after a painful battle of illness, she seemed to take a piece of my best friend with her.
I spent years worrying about him, checking in on him, trying to get him to leave the prison of his own mourning. I thought I might lose him to his depression. But then, thankfully, Claire arrived in the nick of time, forcing him out of his hole.
And now he was out and about in town, engaged to a wonderful woman. And while I can’t say it was all in thanks to me, I certainly helped get them together.
I smiled, remembering the way I showed up at his cabin, wanting to ask her out into town. I had no desire to go out with Claire. I wanted to see my friend get his head out of his ass and move things forward. And it worked.
You’re welcome, Levi and Claire.
That’s me—Pace Leigh, the unsung hero of Cozy Creek.
A hero without a journey.
Maybe that was what this weird sensation was that seemed to follow me around like a gathering storm cloud just out of sight on the horizon.
I flicked through the box of various-sized photos in clear plastic sleeves supported with cardboard backing.
A smile spread across my lips as I recognized so many people from town, ten to twenty years younger, and others who were likely just passing through.
So many local sights were photographed through her talented artist’s eye, making Cozy Creek look like something out of a movie.
An idealized representation of small mountain town life.
It gripped me with nostalgia for a simpler time, for the freedom of youth.
My hand stilled on a photograph that I hadn’t been expecting.
“Speaking of suddenly being transported in time,” I mumbled.
Kaylee smiled up at me. Somehow, Lily managed to completely capture my ex-girlfriend’s wild essence and beauty in one simple snapshot.
It still knocked the wind out of me how stunning she was.
Even back then, when she couldn’t have been more than sixteen, she was breathtakingly beautiful.
And she had been mine to protect and take care of and love.
Until she wasn’t. Until she left me and this town behind the day she turned eighteen without a single look back.
The day after I asked her to marry me.
I studied her portrait with a numbness that surprised me.
I used to not even be able to think about her without it feeling like my chest was going to cave in.
Now, with over ten years between me and when she left, I could see her with distance, and I felt almost nothing.
Except maybe that same longing for a simpler time, when everything was ahead of us still, and we felt like we were going to be alive forever.
Back when I knew my purpose was to love and protect her.
I had nowhere to put all that now. My throat tightened—
“Shit, sorry, man. I meant to hide that one.” Levi’s sudden return startled me into dropping the photo back down with the others.
I shot him an affable shrug, calming my racing heart.
“Nah. It’s all good. It was a lifetime ago,” I said, more honest than I would have thought.
“Yeah?” He stepped closer to close the container back up.
“Yeah, man. I don’t even think about her anymore,” I said, and it was true.
He held my stare like he didn’t believe me.
He thought, like the rest of the town, that I hadn’t moved on from Kaylee because I hadn’t had a serious relationship since the woman I dated for two years left me abruptly.
The whole town assumed I was still caught up on her.
And they only knew the half of it. I never dispelled the rumors either.
It was easier that way. But any residual feelings I’d had for Kaylee died when she hadn’t come home for Lily’s funeral.
We spent way too many afternoons lounging in Lily’s garden or in her photography studio with Lily casually doling out life advice and unconditional acceptance, only for Kaylee to dishonor her memory like that.
Lily was as much a part of my youth as Kaylee.
There was no excuse for her to miss it, even if she wanted to avoid me.
But the town was right in one regard to Kaylee. I did think about her from time to time, as a reminder of what not to do ever again. Never let myself fall so hard and fast, never let myself put my heart on the line for somebody who couldn’t get away fast enough.
It was weird how a little over two years of adolescence felt like a decade or more of adult life. It held more weight somehow. Things felt so big then, and now things felt . . . I didn’t feel much.
It was this unmoored mood I’d been in lately. I needed to shake it. What was this shit that was following me around like a cough that won’t quit after a cold?
Levi lifted the box to tuck it out of sight on a high shelf, and neither of us said anything else about Kaylee. As was the way.
He handed me a pair of leather gloves that I slid on.
“Be careful. This one is heavier than it looks,” he said.
We went on either side of the giant piece of tree trunk and gnarled root system.
“It’s a beauty,” I said.
“Yeah. Should be good.” He grunted as we both hefted the beast up.
Shit. It was heavier than it looked.
“Any plans for it?” I asked, more winded than I wanted him to know as we maneuvered out the back door, barely missing smashing my fingers into the doorframe.
Levi’s delayed response had me looking up at him. I was disturbed to find him staring at me with narrowed eyes. Creepy best-friend stare—intense and too observant. Levi had that superpower.
“Maybe. The beginning of an idea,” he said ominously.
“Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
I glanced away and focused on the task at hand.
We were silent as he navigated the rest of the way out the back door and to the bed of his truck.
This thing was heavy as fuck, and we were both—or at least I was—working very hard to pretend like it wasn’t.
We set it down as carefully as we could, shaking the whole truck as we released it with grunts.
It was enough to cause Ripley to bark once with indignant annoyance from her den in the back seat.
I slipped off my glove to reach through the back window to pat her head.
She licked my hand once before burrowing back under the blankets to make the whole mass shiver.
Levi lifted his hatch door and closed it with finality once the piece was strapped to his liking.
He leaned against the side as he slowly took off his gloves. He was working up to say something, and, for some reason, the buildup made me want to run down this back alley and out of sight.
“Do you know what they are doing for the fundraiser this year?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Not really.”