Chapter 6
Chapter Six
OWEN
Two days without her in my bed is enough to rearrange my priorities.
Day one, I chop wood until my hands blister. Split enough to last the rest of winter. Stack it against every cabin wall on the property. Reorganize the supply shed. Fix the latch she was working on the night I kissed her.
Day two, I sit at Mabel's counter at seven in the morning staring at a plate of biscuits I can't eat.
"You look terrible." Mabel sets down a coffee I didn't order. Leans her hip against the counter. "When's the last time you slept?"
"Night before last."
"And where's your girl?"
"She's not my girl."
"Sweetheart." Mabel's voice drops into the register she uses when she's about to deliver truth that hurts.
"That woman has been fixing your cabins, sleeping in your bed, wearing your jacket around this town for three weeks.
She's your girl. The question is whether you're gonna be stupid enough to let her leave. "
The coffee burns my tongue. Good. "She found the developer's papers."
"Mm."
"Saw the tax notice. The repair list. All of it."
"And?"
"And she thinks I've been using her. Free labor for a property I'm about to sell."
Mabel's hand comes down flat on the counter. Hard enough that Hank looks up from his newspaper at the far end.
"Owen James McCall. Are you telling me that woman drove fourteen hours across the country, fell in love with your sorry behind, and you let her walk out of your house believing she was a convenience?"
The words land in my chest. Fell in love. Mabel says it matter-of-factly, the way she says everything.
"She didn't..."
"Oh, she did. Hank, did Carmen Reyes fall in love with this fool?"
Hank doesn't look up from his paper. "Yep."
"There you go." Mabel refills my coffee. "Now. What are you gonna do about it?"
Sitting in my truck outside the diner, I call Greg Weston.
"Owen! Great to hear from you. I was just about to send over a revised..."
"I'm not selling."
Silence on the other end.
"The McCall Cabins aren't for sale. Not now, not next month, not ever. Take the property off your list."
"Owen, let's be reasonable. The numbers don't..."
"The numbers are my problem. Not yours." My hand tightens on the steering wheel. "Don't call again."
Hanging up feels like dropping a weight. Not all of it. The taxes are still overdue. The roof still leaks. The generator still needs replacing. But the cabins are mine. My parents built them. My grandfather cleared the land.
And the woman who's been fixing them deserves to know they're staying.
The drive back up the mountain takes twenty minutes. By the time I pull into the gravel lot, my hands are shaking the way Carmen's used to. Not from exhaustion. From fear.
Cabin six is quiet. No smoke from the stovepipe. No light in the window.
Her Honda is gone.
Every organ in my chest seizes at once. The lot is empty where her car sat for three weeks. The gravel shows tire tracks heading down the mountain.
Then my phone buzzes.
Mabel:
Before you do something dramatic, she's at my diner. Came in 20 minutes ago looking like she hasn't slept. Ordered coffee and a biscuit and hasn't touched either one. Get down here.
Me: On my way.
Mabel:
Use the back door. If you upset her in front of my lunch crowd I will end you.
The truck barely stops before I'm out of it. Back door of the Ridgeline. Through the kitchen where Mabel's nephew is frying eggs. Past the storage room.
Carmen is sitting in the last booth by the window. Coffee going cold in front of her. Biscuit untouched. She's wearing a clean shirt, her hair pulled back, dark circles under her eyes. In her lap, her phone is open to a Houston area code. A hospital's number.
She's looking up jobs.
My whole body rejects the image. Every cell, every instinct, every stupid protective impulse that's been building since the night she ate three bowls of my stew with shaking hands.
"Carmen."
Her head snaps up. Those brown eyes, wide, exhausted, guarded. The warmth that's been growing between us for three weeks is buried under something harder. Self-preservation.
Sliding into the booth across from her, I set my phone on the table. Open the call log. Turn it toward her.
"I called Weston. The developer. Told him the property isn't for sale."
She stares at the screen. Doesn't touch it.
"Why?"
"Because those cabins are my family's legacy. My grandfather cleared that land. My parents built every one of those structures with their hands. Selling it because the math is hard is the coward's choice, and I'm not a coward."
"You can't afford to keep them."
"Not alone." Reaching across the table, I take the phone from her lap. Gently. Set it face-down on the table between us. "That's what I should've said. Not that I'm handling it. Not that it's my problem. The truth is I can't do this alone, and I've been too proud to say it."
Her chin trembles. Just barely. She bites her bottom lip to stop it.
"Carmen, I left you those papers on the counter because I was up at three in the morning trying to figure out how to keep you.
Not the cabins. You." Leaning forward, I rest my forearms on the table.
Close enough that my fingers almost reach hers.
"The developer's offer would solve everything.
Pay the taxes, fix the roofs, replace the generator.
But the second I imagined signing those papers, all I could see was you on that porch with your coffee at sunrise.
You in my kitchen reading my mother's book.
You under my sink fixing a fitting my dad put in wrong thirty years ago. "
A tear slides down her cheek. She swipes it with the back of her hand. Fast. Nurse reflex. Don't cry on the job.
"I'm not selling the cabins because selling the cabins means losing the porch where you drink your coffee.
The kitchen where you eat my soup. The bed where I hold you at three in the morning while you finally, finally sleep through the night.
" My voice breaks on the last word. Don't care.
"And I'm not losing you, Carmen. I'd rather lose every cabin on that mountain. "
"Owen." Her voice cracks. "I don't have anywhere to go."
"Yeah, you do." Sliding out of the booth, I round the table. Drop to one knee on Mabel's linoleum floor right there in the Ridgeline Diner with eggs frying in the kitchen and Hank pretending not to watch from the counter.
"This isn't a proposal." Taking her hands in mine, I look up at her.
"Not yet. This is me asking you to stay.
Not for a month. Not for a deal. Stay because this mountain belongs to you now.
Because those cabins are better when you're in them.
Because I love you, Carmen Reyes. I've loved you since you sat at my table with shaking hands and ate my stew like it was the first kind thing anyone had done for you in years. "
Her hands squeeze mine so hard it hurts.
"I love you too." Barely a whisper. Tears running freely now. "You impossible, soup-making, porch-light-leaving, stubborn mountain man. I love you too."
Pulling her out of the booth, I wrap both arms around her right there in the middle of the diner. Her face presses into my chest. Her arms circle my waist. She's crying. I'm not crying. My eyes are just wet because Mabel's cooking something spicy in the kitchen.
"I called the county this morning." Speaking into her hair, I hold her tighter. "Worked out a payment plan for the taxes. Colt offered to co-sign a renovation loan through the credit union in Durango. Rhett's bringing a crew up next week to fix the roof on cabin two."
She pulls back. Looks up at me with wet eyes. "Your family."
"My family was always gonna help. I just had to ask." Wiping a tear off her cheek with my thumb, I keep my hand on her jaw. "That's what you taught me. That letting someone help isn't weakness."
Her smile starts slow. Sunrise after a long shift. Spreading across her face until her eyes crinkle at the corners, until her whole body softens against mine.
"So I stay."
"You stay."
"And we run the cabins together."
"Partners. Fifty-fifty. Your name on the lease if you want it."
"Owen McCall." Her hands flatten on my chest. Push me back just enough to look me dead in the eye. "Are you trying to make me your mail-order bride for real?"
The laugh that comes out of me echoes through the diner. Big, deep. Hank shakes his head. Mabel appears from the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.
"I always said Mountain Match had potential." Mabel is already crying. "Hank, get the camera."
"No." Hank turns a page of his newspaper.
Carmen laughs into my chest. Real. Loud. The ugly laugh she hates and I love. My arms tighten around her because letting go isn't something I'm built for. Not anymore.
Later. My truck. Her Honda following me up the mountain. She parks in the same gravel spot she's been in for three weeks. Steps out into the cold.
The cabins sit quiet in the afternoon sun. Smoke from the main house chimney curling up into blue sky. Creek running behind the row. Everything the same as the day she arrived, except nothing is the same at all.
On cabin six's porch, a mason jar of soup sits cooling on the railing.
Carmen picks it up. Unscrews the lid. Smells it.
"Pozole?"
"I made it this morning. Before I went to the diner." Reaching for her hand, I pull her toward the main house. Toward our house. "Figured you'd be hungry when you got home."
Home. The word sits right. Solid. Real.
She takes a sip of the pozole straight from the jar while walking. Grabs my hand with her free one. Squeezes.
Two weeks left on the deal that doesn't matter anymore. A property that's staying in the family. A woman who came here to disappear and found a place to stay.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Ignore it. Buzzes again.
Mabel:
That's nine couples I've put together in this town. NINE. If anyone asks, Mountain Match was MY idea.
Also tell Carmen her pozole is better than yours. Don't be offended. She's Latina. You never stood a chance.
Carmen reads the text over my shoulder. Her laugh carries across the mountain.
I pull her inside. Close the door. The jacket she left on the kitchen chair two days ago is still there. She picks it up. Puts it on.
Takes it right back where it belongs.