Chapter 32
There’s a cake in the break room during my final shift, and my favorite charge nurse brings me a coffee from the cafe in town since she knows I refuse to drink the black sludge that’s always burning in a pot twenty-four hours a day.
There have been plenty of places I’ve loved living, plenty I couldn’t wait to leave, but Fontana Ridge is going to be the first I will genuinely miss.
The staff all get along, the hospital is run well, and the town itself has a way of making you feel welcome.
Still, when my shift is over, I’m ready to leave. I want to go back to the cabin, sleep for a couple of hours, and head to the Airstream to see Stevie. It’s our last night together, and she told me she was going to pick out the meal for us to make and grocery shop for us.
Frankly, we could eat chicken broth and Jell-O and I’d be happy just to spend one last evening with her.
By the time I get back to the cabin, after many goodbyes and promises to keep in touch, that I think I may actually try to keep, I’m too wired to sleep. I finish packing up my things and cleaning the cabin, before crashing in my bed.
The time changed a few weeks back, so when I wake up several hours later, it’s already starting to get dark, the setting sun slanting through the windows.
A pang of sadness hits me that this is the last time I’ll see it.
I’ve grown to love this cabin in the woods and the town that surrounds it.
I want to see what it looks like blanketed in snow or covered in the first wildflowers of the season.
I wonder where I’m going to be when the seasons change.
I haven’t signed another contract yet, still unsure if I’m going to want to stick around in Montana after visiting my brother.
I dress in layers since the chill in the air has officially turned into cold and head for Stevie’s, the drive familiar enough now that I could navigate it in the dark.
When I pull onto her property, I can see her through the Airstream windows.
She’s on her sofa, her hair hanging loose, chewing on what looks like a pencil as she reads a paperback.
Her eyes lift at the sound of my car door closing, and she catches my gaze.
I think there’s sadness lingering beneath her smile, reflecting how I’m feeling too.
Last week she told me to let myself in, so I do.
It’s warm inside and smells of pine candles.
There’s a miniature Christmas tree on the built-in shelf behind the sofa, its incandescent colored bulbs lighting her cheeks in every shade of the rainbow.
She set it up one evening last week after dinner, telling me about how her mom grew up decorating for Christmas on November 1st and her dad always put the tree up after Thanksgiving, so when they got married, they compromised by settling on November 15th.
That’s what Stevie does now, too, and the Airstream decked out for Christmas is my new favorite sight.
“How was your last shift?”
I shrug. “We had cake.”
One side of her mouth tips up. “They like you.”
“I like them.”
The rest of the words hang between us, that I would have stayed longer if they would have let me. They feel heavy, too heavy for tonight. I want tonight to be happy, memorable.
“So what are we making for dinner?”
Stevie lays her book down on the sofa, face down, and stands, heading for the kitchen.
She pulls out an expensive cut of deep red meat.
“We’re going all out. I’m finally going to try making Beef Wellington.
And then we will have mashed sweet potatoes, roasted veggies, and espresso-soaked chocolate cake for dessert. ”
“Espresso-soaked chocolate cake?”
Her grin splits open. “Well, I know how much you like coffee.”
“I think this may be above my skill-level,” I tell her.
“Well above,” she responds with a nod. “But I’ll teach you.”
Cooking with Stevie in her tiny kitchen is a form of torture.
Tonight she’s in soft, wide-leg pants and a sweater with a collar that keeps slipping to expose the curve of her neck.
She’s wearing mismatched socks with a hole near her left pinkie toe, and it keeps popping out to expose one deep red nail.
Every time she moves, I catch a whiff of her spicy, fig scent.
Her hair, hanging down around her waist, keeps brushing against me, tickling the fine hairs on my arms. I don’t think she realizes it, but every time she moves around me, she places a hand on my shoulder or waist, like a silent version of a chef yelling “Behind!” in a busy kitchen.
We popped open a bottle of red wine and I’ve only had a few sips of a glass, but I already feel intoxicated. Every graze of her fingertips, scrape of her skin against mine, trace of her perfume, makes my head spin.
I don’t think I’ve been any help by the time we finish dinner. More than once, Stevie has caught me staring, nudged me into action, but I can’t seem to make my body work when my brain is focused entirely on her, on how little I want to drive away from this Airstream tonight or this town tomorrow.
“Jack?” Stevie asks, wrenching me out of my thoughts. I was zoned out, staring at a trio of moles on the slope of her shoulder. They look like a constellation, and I wonder if she has more. I’d like to map out her skin like the night sky.
I shake my head. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“Can you get the bottle of wine and take it to the table?”
I nod and follow her instructions. Her kitchen table is too small to set with serving dishes, so we always leave them on the countertops and fill our plates there.
Stevie told me that when the weather is nice, she likes to have her friends and family over for meals, and they will sit outside at the picnic table.
She said she likes to go all out for those dinners, and that she has an assortment of tablecloths and taper candles and dishes she keeps in the shed out back for just that purpose.
When she described it to me, I wanted nothing more than to be here on the first warm day in spring, around her table with her friends and family, sharing a meal that she made and I did my best to help with.
But there’s no point in wishing for things we can’t have. So I was determined to just enjoy the time we did have. It seems I’m going to have to work harder than usual tonight.
The entire Airstream smells of cooked meat, fresh herbs, and roasted vegetables overpowering the Christmas tree candle. The spread is lining every spare inch on the counters, and my stomach rumbles loudly as I look at it.
“Ready to eat?” Stevie asks wryly.
“Please.”
“Dig in.” She motions at the meal, but I shake my head.
“You go sit, and I’ll serve you.”
She blinks, surprised. “I can get it.”
I laugh. “I know.” She stands beside me for another second, but I nudge her shoulder with mine, ignoring the way my skin prickles at the contact. “Go on.”
She finally sits at the table, but I feel her gaze heavy on me as I make our plates.
“How are you feeling about Wednesday?”
I swallow, throat tight. “Okay, I think.” Then I shake my head and look over my shoulder at her. “Nervous as hell.”
She gives me a soft smile, the candlelight flickering in her dark eyes, making them appear almost black. “That’s fair.”
I’m starting the drive before sunrise tomorrow, but I won’t make it to Montana until Wednesday night. It will be two long, grueling days of travel, but I didn’t want to leave tonight. I wanted to enjoy every last second with Stevie.
“Did you decide what you’re going to do about your next contract?” she asks as I pick up our plates and cross the small distance to the table, serving hers first before setting mine down and sliding into the seat behind it.
I shake my head, and pick at a knot in the wood on the table. “No, I think I’m going to wait until after Thanksgiving. See how things go, how I feel.”
When she doesn’t respond, I lift my eyes to hers. Her gaze is intense, full of understanding. “I get that.”
A breath heaves out of me, and my heartbeat slows in my chest. I’ve been avoiding thinking about Montana, about everything that waits for me there, but I know when I’m alone on the road for two days, the anxiety is going to catch up to me, overwhelming.
“Let’s eat,” I say, not waiting to think about tomorrow or the weeks after.
We dig into our food, and I let out a frankly indecent moan at the first taste of the Beef Wellington.
It prompts an outright laugh from Stevie, and I can’t help the way the sound of it pulls my lips up in a smile.
She’s not a loud laugher. She mostly deals out smiles or small chuckles, but when she does laugh, it’s musical.
“Did you end up going to book club last night?”
Her smile disappears, replaced by the almost sad look she was wearing when I arrived. “Yeah, I did.”
“How was it?”
Two nights ago, she refused to watch TV, saying she had to finish the book they were reading for club that month and told me to find something to read too.
I dragged my fingers along the books on her bookshelf, and finally picked one with a green spine.
I set it up on my knees, on the opposite side of the sofa from her, but I ended up getting distracted by her awayway, watching her read.
Her eyes moved across each page at lightning speed, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.
When she finally let it go, there were indents from her teeth pressed deep into the flesh, and it took every ounce of self-restraint in my body not to reach over and run my thumb over them.
“It was—” She cuts herself off, shaking her head as she runs the tip of her finger over the stem of her wine glass. “It wasn’t the same.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes lift to mine, intense and so sad that it makes my stomach clench.
“I don’t know. I guess I just feel like my life has been standing still for so long, and when I was there, seeing how much they’re all moving forward—moving on—it reminded me of that.
I think maybe that’s why I stopped going before. Subconsciously.”
The feeling in my stomach sours. Because I’m just another person in her life moving on, and I feel sick about it.
“I’m sorry, Stevie.”
She shrugs. “It’s fine. I think I just need to figure some stuff out.”
A swooping sensation moves through me. “What do you mean?”
“I think I’m stuck. I think I’ve always been stuck here, existing but not really living, at least not in a long time. I need to figure out how to fix that.”
“I get that,” I say, and her gaze snaps to mine once more.
“Yeah?”
I swallow. “Yeah, I don’t think I realized that’s how I felt until I got here. I’ve been stuck, too, running from Montana, running from my grief, running from…” I trail off. “From getting too close to anyone. I think going home is the first step for me.”
She nods. “I need to figure out what my first step is.”
“You’ll figure it out,” I tell her.
“You think so?”
“Yeah,” I say, voice rough. “And if you need someone to talk to about it, you can always call me. I’ll be figuring myself out too.”