The Comfort of Mountains

Chapter 1

The sun hadn’t quite broken over the horizon; the world outside was still cloaked in gray when Kara Nicholls received the call. Her eyes felt heavy with sleep as she blinked against the illumination of the bedside digital clock:

She groaned. Her hands flailed desperately, reaching for the bedside table, searching for her phone. The flashing screen lit up, and the name on it filled her with dread.

"Zoe?" she croaked, voice hoarse. Her younger sister's sobs splintered through the line, fragile and broken.

“He’s gone. Dad’s dead.”

As if struck by lightning, she sat upright, heart shuddering in her chest.

Climbing out of bed quietly, padding barefoot down the hall to the guest bathroom, she shut the door, locking it behind her, then sank onto the closed lid of the toilet.

Her hands trembled.

The news itself wasn’t surprising. If anything, they had been waiting for it for nearly six months.

George Nicholls had been slowly dying for years; he had lost himself to the bottle long before the cancer settled in his liver.

He had been a casual drinker for most of his life, and then became a raging alcoholic after his last deployment to Iraq.

His decline had been neither graceful nor private.

When he'd agreed to see a doctor, the cancer had already metastasized, touching every vital part of what was left of him.

George had finally found his end in a hospice bed, where he’d lie sedated with a cocktail of morphine and Haldol.

Kara hadn’t felt a shred of sadness when her sister told her last week that he had taken a turn for the worse. But today, the tears came, hot and heavy. She brushed them away quickly, almost angrily. She wasn’t crying for him—not really.

Kara cried because grief is never clean. Even though she considered her father to be a monster, the feeling of loss still clung to her.

“Hey, it’s okay, Zo. I know it hurts right now, but you don’t have to handle it all by yourself. Just breathe. I’m here, okay? Whatever you need, I’m here.” Kara’s voice was even and steady.

Zoe was crying too hard to get any more words out. Kara only listened quietly, realizing just how deeply her sister had loved their father. Hearing Zoe struggle made Kara’s own tears fall harder.

The call ended with a promise. That she would come home soon. A promise she regretted the second she hung up.

"Home,” she whispered to herself, the word tasting bitter in her mouth.

She crept back into bed, slipping under the covers with practiced stealth.

Her fiancé, Isaac, lay undisturbed, his chest rising and falling in rhythmic peace.

His presence brought her comfort as she snuggled closer to him.

Isaac was the best thing to have happened to her.

The years before he’d shown up had been so much harder; he had been her steady post to hold onto when everything, and even herself, were in turmoil.

After making her way to New York alone, she had nothing but her old Camry and the stolen cash she’d taken with her.

Kara was like many who had clawed their way out of forgotten small towns, but she left scorched earth.

Her escape had been desperate, the only act of security she could afford.

Leaving had cost her everything. Her family never forgave her—especially Zoe, who was attending high school at the time.

Kara didn't want to imagine what she had to go through when she left.

When they reconnected a few years ago, Zoe feigned indifference to the past. But Kara knew that her sister had suffered.

She closed her eyes and prayed for sleep, but instead, her mind raced.

She began to imagine what the rest of her family thought of her now, all these years later. Would they want to share her life, her money, or more importantly, her peace? She wasn't sure they cared enough to understand what she had had to survive to get here.

Did they expect me to return as if nothing had happened?

Despite being one of the state’s top legal consultants, Kara struggled with imposter syndrome. The voices of her past, especially her father’s, followed her into boardrooms and courtrooms.

"Get away from me, girl. You’re a loser, just like your fuckin’ mother." George had slurred so many times; the smell of alcohol was heavy on his breath.

That voice, with those words and many others, lived in her bones, always showing up whenever she asked herself for courage. She stared into the dark, imagining the mountains she’d driven away from and wondered what might be awaiting her when she returned.

Eventually, the exhaustion pulled her under. When she woke again, the sun made its appearance. Golden morning light streamed through the pale curtains, momentarily tricking her into peace.

Then panic settled in, the truth gripping her.

Time to confront the fact that her childhood tormentor, who had given her such a tortured existence, was dead.

His death should have comforted her. In some strange way, it did, but guilt lingered all the same.

Guilt that she hadn’t gone back to Montana when Zoe asked her to at least say goodbye to George.

That she hadn’t been there for the birth of her niece, Isabel.

And guilt, too, for not feeling the way she was supposed to.

Isaac perked up on the couch as she walked in. “Everything okay?” He greeted her with a concerned look. “You look awful.”

She flopped face-first into the opposite sofa. “Dad’s dead.”

His spine went rigid, understandably startled. When Kara didn’t say more, he said quietly, “I’m so, so sorry, babe. When did you find out?”

“Zo called early. Didn’t want to wake you.” She said, her voice muffled by the leather. Isaac moved to sit beside her, gathering her into his arms.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

She let herself lean into him. “I’m… relieved.

“How are you really?”

“I’m not ready to go back there.”

“Then don’t,” he said. “You don’t owe them anything.”

Kara had told him most of it—the pieces she could bear to say out loud, the parts that explained the therapy and the PTSD.

That sometimes her mind would wander back to those moments, so deeply that she wouldn’t even realize she had left the present.

It wasn’t until she came to was when she’d noticed how far her thoughts had taken her.

Isaac didn't know the whole truth. She had never told anyone.

“I have to at least be there for Zoe. She’s the only one who’s ever even remotely mattered to me.” Kara sighed, her voice catching in her throat.

Isaac offered a smile. “Well, it would be nice to meet your family.”

She turned to him, deadpan. “I’ve spent thousands of years in therapy trying to unlearn those people.”

He stayed quiet, respectful of the edginess in her words. She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder.

“I hate him even more now that he's gone, because I have to go back…”

Two days after the call. They had flown in from New York.

They had packed the airport rental with the three bags they carried.

Of course, Isaac had chosen the most ostentatious rental available.

He’d claimed, with that usual smirk, that it was the only option with enough legroom for a man of his stature.

Kara never made a big deal of it—she didn’t even mind it most days—but today, everything grated. She knew she'd been too hard on him. Taking things out on him had become a habit, and she hated herself for it.

Always polished. Always composed. That aura of stability was what hooked her; back then, he seemed like a shining, unshakeable post she could tether herself to so she wouldn’t drift too far.

It was probably because of his upbringing. Both his parents are prestigious, widely respected doctors, unimpressed by anything less than perfect. Isaac grew up with that pressure carved into him. A chip on his shoulder. A need to prove himself, even when no one was asking him to.

Thinking back, she couldn’t pinpoint the moment she fell in love with him.

The timeline of their relationship just happened.

It was predictable and expected. After four years of dating, he popped the question, and she said yes.

Not swept away in love—just following the script she was supposed to want.

Kara shook her head at the unwelcome thoughts and focused on the reality before her.

The funeral date was set. The service arrangements were made weeks before he actually passed. Then ironed out completely before her suitcase had been zipped.

Kara didn’t protest a single detail. She agreed to it all: A church service held at a small chapel George had never set foot in, followed by a quiet reception back at the house.

Why delay the inevitable?

“I love you, Kara Moraine Nicholls,” Isaac sang from the driver’s seat, bringing her to the present, his voice light like they were on a road trip, not heading toward grief and her old ghosts.

She didn’t respond, folding her arms tighter across her chest and staring out the window, where pine trees blurred into dark green streaks.

The drive felt too familiar. Too haunting. Kara stared out the passenger window, her jaw set tight as mile markers flickered past like the memories she refused to claim.

“I’m glad you brought me,” he added, glancing at her. “I know this isn’t easy.”

Kara forced a smile. She was grateful. At least, she told herself that. Isaac was her buffer. Her polished, well-dressed excuse to avoid anything that might claw at her emotions over the next few days.

Zoe had insisted they stay at the house, but Kara had thrown Isaac under the bus without hesitation. Claiming that he needed faster Wi-Fi for work and followed that up with the fact that she couldn’t possibly let him sleep alone at the hotel.

The lie had rolled off her tongue so easily.

“Are you really not going to speak to me?” Isaac asked.

“I’m just… playing into their hands,” she muttered, her voice tight. “ Mercedes screams ‘rich bit—” She stopped herself, shaking her head instead.

“This is all they had, Kara,” Isaac said, exasperated.

“I know,” she grumbled, gazing out of the window, trying to get her bearings. Was this the right way?

“It’ll be fine,” he said with the same false confidence he always has.

It would absolutely not be fine.

“Look, turns coming up,” Isaac said, but she was already looking.

The mountains stood like sentinels on the horizon, their snowy tips sharp against the sky. As the sun slipped past a stubborn cloud, light shimmered across the peaks, dancing like tiny fires waiting to burn through everything she thought she had buried.

"This place is beautiful," Isaac said softly.

She nodded slowly.

It really was a beautiful sight. Objectively breathtaking.

The mountain range loomed in every direction, snow-dusted and majestic, the kind of postcard landscape people drove cross-country just to witness.

To Kara, they were like returning to prison bars.

Tall, ancient reminders of everything she had tried to escape and how hard she had fought to break free of them.

“Pine Ridge,” she murmured to herself. She hadn’t remembered the view being quite so cruel. Or quite so gorgeous. It almost seemed to mock her now; it had nearly killed her to leave.