Chapter 4
Pace
By Friday, I debated taking on some extra shifts at the firehouse, but the chief, Cole, insisted there were only so many hours I could work before it became an insurance liability.
Pfft. Whatever. It was Cozy Creek, and aside from the occasional cat in a tree, things were quiet until the next forest fire season.
At least at the firehouse, there would be other people there to shoot the breeze with.
I wandered listlessly from place to place in town looking for somebody to help.
Normally, there was a plethora of people looking to take a few minutes to shoot the breeze with, and yet it seemed that everybody was occupied or in a rush to be somewhere else today.
The influx of tourists this time of year meant the locals were kept busy. Except me.
When I walked into the General Store, Betsy Wainwright pointed her finger to the exit. “Pace David Leigh, unless you plan on getting behind the register and helping with customers, you gotta stop buzzing about.”
I gave my most pitiful puppy dog pout, and she sighed, cocking her hip, arms akimbo. “Do not give me that face. Go bother Ruth at the B and B. She’s always got things that need fixing.”
I exaggerated my jutting bottom lip. “She sent me here.”
“Pace,” she said with warning. “Don’t make me get your folks on the phone and tell them you’ve been harassing people.”
My folks were almost always down in the Springs visiting my brother and their grandchildren, but to be fair, they probably would bend my ear about wasting the time of good, hard-working locals.
If I had a rock, I’d drop my head and kick it. “I just want to help,” I said softly.
I looked up at her with my head tilted down. I felt the pinch of my brows as I looked pitifully upon her.
She sighed, voice softer, and said, “Go help set up for the bonfire this weekend. The city council always needs a few more volunteers.”
“They sent me to Ruth’s,” I said, wincing.
“Then take a day off, son. Read a book. Do a puzzle.”
The thought of being still and alone with nothing but my own thoughts was a form of torture. I couldn’t understand people who liked to be alone with nothing but a craft. Sounded fake.
Just imagining going back to my lonely, cold apartment to look for something to do caused dark clouds to gather in my periphery. I scratched at the back of my neck.
“Yeah. Okay, thanks, Miss Betsy.”
Her features softened. “I’ll call you first thing if I need anything at all, okay?”
I stood up straighter and blasted her with my biggest grin. She shook her head and rolled her eyes on a laugh.
“You are too dangerous for your own good. Now go flash that smile at somebody forty years younger and able to do something about it,” she called after me as I went to the door, wiggling my eyebrows suggestively.
Back outside, the sun was out of sight. Even though it was only a little after six in the evening, the tall peaks of the surrounding Rockies had already put our little Cozy Creek in its shadows, casting a soft, dusky glow across town.
That growing dark cloud just outside my periphery seemed to loom, but I blamed it on the setting sun.
As I strolled around the corner and down a side street off the main throughway, where some more of the local shops were, I stopped suddenly.
It was like I’d stumbled onto an abandoned movie set.
Each shop was decorated with its mums and pansies, pumpkins and leafy autumn displays, picturesque as a Rockwell painting, but that wasn’t what stopped me in my tracks.
The street was totally empty even though it had been bustling a few minutes earlier.
It was like they’d just called “Quiet on set,” and my rounding the corner was the snap of “Action!”
That early-evening light set the town in a pink glow, golden light reflecting off shop windows, making it impossible to see inside them. There were no distant sounds of running cars or shouts from children. It was eerily silent.
It was like I was the last man on earth, and for a horrible moment I felt totally alone.
My throat tightened, and my palms went clammy.
Rationally, I wasn’t alone. I was one of the most popular people in Cozy Creek. I was fine. So why did everything feel so off?
“I just need . . .” I said out loud to myself. Like if I could vocalize it, I could make it go away.
But what did I need?
“I don’t know,” I finished lamely. “I just need to know what I’m missing,” I said with firm finality.
Just then, at the other end of the quiet street, a bustling breeze gathered and collected momentum.
A tall tunnel of swirling leaves and detritus made its way toward me, carrying with it the crisp fall night and, strangely, a feeling of anticipation.
It was coming right at me, seemingly from nowhere.
Instead of trying to dodge the spiraling air, I opened my arms wide, lifted my chin, and closed my eyes as the cold air blasted me from every direction.
Chills went down my back, prickling the hair on my neck and arms. The gust tugged at my clothes and ruffled my hair, like a hundred unseen hands pulling at me for my attention.
It took my breath away. But then, almost as soon as it started, it was done.
I carefully wiped the dust from my face before I blinked my eyes open. The sudden, strange wind was gone. The street was bustling again, and the lights of the shop all blinked on as the night moved in, casting warm yellow light all around me.
It wasn’t something I would admit out loud to anybody, but that moment felt significant.
Feeling lighter somehow, I was just about to take a step when I heard the small flutter of a piece of paper.
When I looked down, there, tucked under the toe of my boot, was a sheet of notebook paper with writing on it, flapping in an unfelt breeze at my feet.
I looked around to see if anybody would jump out and claim it as theirs, but nobody was even looking in my general direction.
I bent and picked up the paper. In tidy, unobtrusive handwriting—the opposite of my messy and brash scrawl—was what looked at initial glance to be a grocery list. I quickly killed that idea as my eyes processed the words I was reading.
“Whoa,” I said, glancing around again. I think I found somebody’s bucket list—their list of things to do before they kick the bucket. Without being fully aware, I moved to a nearby bench and sat down as I read and reread this Life To-Do List.
I couldn’t help but smile at the author’s funny, sometimes high-strung voice that shone through.
Who was the owner of this mysterious letter?
Was it somebody I knew? Somebody I talked to every day?
Part of me swore that if I knew this person, I would immediately be able to identify the list as theirs.
It made me want to get to know them. Had they meant to throw it away?
Had they meant for it to be found? Like a message in a bottle cast out to sea.
If found, please burn and pretend you never read this.
“Ha.” I laughed loudly at the thought. No. Quite the opposite would happen. This was what I’d been waiting for.
I sat back, the note gripped tightly in my hand. One thing was very clear. I had to find who this belonged to.
This had been delivered straight to me. It was a sign. This was what I was meant to be doing.