Chapter 33
It’s still dark when I open the door to the cabin the next morning, my suitcase rolling behind me, coffee mug in the hand, and shock ripples through me when I see Stevie climbing out of her truck. She’s wearing flannel pajama pants and a barn jacket, her braid sticking out of a wool beanie.
“You’re here,” I say, voice lifting through the cold, breath puffing in the air.
“I wanted to see you off.”
My heartbeat quickens as I make my way down the porch stairs, closing the distance between us. “You didn’t need to drive out here in the middle of the night.”
A grin hitches up one side of her mouth. “You know I’m a hiking guide right? I think I can handle a ten minute drive at five a.m.” The smile dims. “I just wanted to tell you bye.”
“You told me bye last night.”
We finished dinner and sat at the table playing card games before turning on something on the TV, neither of us really watching as we talked. I stayed until her lids were growing heavy and I knew I needed to get back to get some sleep before my day of driving.
When we hugged, she gripped the back of my shirt in her fist, and I held the back of her neck, breathing her in. I’m sure we both knew we were holding each other too long to be considered friendly, but neither of us backed away for a long time.
“I know.”
I set my coffee mug on my suitcase and step forward, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. “I’m glad you came.”
“I’m going to miss you,” she says into my shoulder, the words muffled by my jacket, but I feel them as if she’s whispering them directly into my skin.
My hands tighten on her. “I’m going to miss you, too, Stevie Lynch.”
I don’t know how long we stand there, tangled around each other in the darkness. Long enough that my hands start to get cold, and I feel Stevie shiver against me.
I pull back, my eyes still fixed on hers in the dim light from the porch. “I wish things were different.”
She nods, and I think I catch a sheen in her eyes. It tears something in my chest wide open. “I know. Me too.”
If there was a solution for us to be together, a way to make us fit, I think I would have found it by now.
But there isn’t, because her life is here and mine isn’t.
Her roots are planted so deeply in this soil that she doesn’t know who she would be without them, and I need to go back home, figure out where to go from there.
So I let her go, backing up to put space between us, and pick up my coffee.
“What’s this?” she asks, clearing her throat nodding in the direction of my mug. Her voice sounds ragged enough to make my heart throb.
I look down, realizing it’s the mug I got the day she officially moved out, when I was lonely and trying to fill my days with something besides her.
“My new coffee cup. I got it a few weeks ago.”
She lifts a brow, and I barely catch it in the darkness. “You’re leaving with two souvenirs?”
“You’ve changed me.”
Her smile is small. “Glad to have made an impression.”
I want to tell her just how much of an impression she’s made, but that would take much too long and bare my soul way too wide for someone who is about to drive away, so I only nod and say, “You definitely have.” Then I glance at the time on my watch and realize we must have been standing huddled together for longer than I thought.
WIth a wince I tell her, “I better get on the road.”
“Right,” she says, stepping out of the way.
I load my suitcase into the Jeep and set my coffee in the cup holder before turning back to her. She’s backlit by the porch light, the only thing illuminating her face is the faint light from my open car door.
Still, she looks beautiful. A part of the land around her, like she grew up out of it, a piece of mountain and stone.
I reach for her once more, this time letting my hand slide up her jaw.
Her skin is cold, and I can feel the hot puff of her breath on the inside of my wrist. It sends goosebumps trailing up my arm, disappearing beneath my layers of clothes.
Her cheek is soft and oh, so delicate beneath my fingertips.
She trembles when I press them there, and I don’t move for a moment, just reveling in the feel of it, waiting to see if either of us will move, allow ourselves to finally have what we’ve been wanting for months.
But we don’t, and the moment ends as I pull back, searching for her eyes in the darkness.
“Goodbye, Stevie Lynch.”
“Goodbye, Jack Sullivan.”
I don’t pull out of the driveway until she’s safely in her car and headed down the mountain road, her headlights illuminating the way ahead of us.
At the stop sign, she rolls down her window and waves before turning left.
I watch until her tail lights disappear, throat thick and chest tight, before turning right.
Away from Fontana Ridge. Away from Stevie.
It’s late Wednesday night when I finally make it to Larkspur, Montana, passing the old, rusted metal sign on the highway as I turn off on the exit.
My heart is beating in my chest, fast, but I think I’m too tired to muster any more anxiety about being back.
The entire two days of travel, I thought I would panic when I pulled off the highway toward home, but I don’t.
The town looks just like it always has, except for a few new updates—a restaurant here, a shop there.
I pass the road that leads out toward the ranch I worked on in high school and just past it, the hospital where Mom used to work as a CNA.
I expect to feel an overwhelming rush of heartbreak as I drive past it, but I mostly just feel sad that Mom isn’t here to comment on the new paint job it’s undergone sometime in the past decade. She would hate the color.
Evan lives in a house over the bridge, on the other side of town from where we grew up.
The homes are more spread out here, although everything in Montana is spread out compared to Fontana Ridge.
I follow the road until I get to his driveway and turn in, smiling up at it.
It’s the kind of house he always wanted to live in growing up, with a wide front porch and a big yard.
It’s dark, but I know that when the sun is out I’ll be able to see neatly gardened beds and well-pruned trees.
The front door opens as I step out of the car, and I see my brother coming down the porch steps toward me. The air smells like Montana, like no other place I’ve ever been, like Ponderosa pine and sagebrush, and the sky is wide above me, the stars more visible here than anywhere else.
Evan’s hands are stuffed in the pockets of his sweatpants.
His hair has grown out longer than mine, and he’s got a full beard where I just have stubble, but we still look remarkably similar.
Same blue eyes and deep Cupid’s bow. Matching cowlicks that give us grief.
Tall, lean bodies, although his has filled out more than mine from time spent at the gym instead of running.
For a moment, I’m worried he’s going to be upset. That he will chew me out for how long I’ve been gone. But when he gets close, I see that he’s smiling a wide, toothy smile. The same one he always had on Christmas morning. His arms come around me before I can clock anything else.
“Welcome home, brother.”