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“I’m going to make garlands out of them. For the tree.”
We work in quiet unison, the music our background and the two of us finding an easy rhythm side-by-side. She folds and hands me the papers to cut, pointing and smiling encouragingly.
Once we have enough snowflakes, she ties them to the twine, and together we wrap them around the tree. The white and black newspaper snowflakes look classic, and when she places her snow globe cutout at the top of the tree, I can’t help but smile.
“Now we need popcorn,” she directs.
By now, I’ve learned not to argue with her.
“I’ll start that and you can get the needle and thread.” I know where she’s going with this.
“Let me guess, you have a sewing basket?”
“You’re gonna have to stop teasing me, girl,” I tell her as I add oil to a pot and throw some kernels in. “My sewing kit is next to the bookshelf.” Then I turn the burner on high and wait to hear the pop, pop, pop.
“My God, is this your book? I mean your books?” she asks. I look over and see she’s picked up the sewing kit, but my books are on the shelf next to it.
“Everett Miller, A Modern-day Mountain Man,” she reads. “Everett, you told me they were e-books, you have print copies too?”
I shrug, reluctant to talk about myself.
“This is so impressive. You know I’m going to stay up all night reading your most intimate thoughts, right?”
“You want to read about my last three hundred and sixty-five days? You want to hear about me drying my clothes on a line outside in the summer? About me butchering a goat? Go for it, honey.”
“You seriously do that? Butcher your goats?”
“How do you think we had chili?”
“That was goat chili? Oh. My. God. I’m telling you, Everett, I run a frugal girl’s blog, and have heard of some weird shit to cut corners... but I’ve never heard of people eating goat chili.”
“Calm down, woman. It wasn’t goat chili. I was joking. Yes, I butcher goats, but that was venison in the chili.”
She shakes her head, opening the sewing kit. “I don’t think I could do it,” she says, pulling out the thread and a needle.
“The butchering? It’s not so bad. I mean unless you get queasy around blood”
“No,” she says softly. “I don’t think I could do this whole off-the-grid thing. I think it would drive me a little crazy, to be honest. What if you want to go to the movies? Or enjoy a cup of coffee you didn’t have to make yourself?”
I know where she’s going with this. I get plenty of readers who send me letters asking me the same sort of thing. I know this life isn’t for everyone.
But in my bedroom, earlier, when I was taking Evie against me, when my hands were running over her soft skin, I thought that perhaps we could be something beyond this night. I thought we could be something real.
“I’d be lying if I told you there aren’t times I get a little stir crazy. I go to town about every eight weeks and pick up things I need. I’d say on a whole, eight weeks of making my own coffee isn’t so rough. Like I said, I don’t take anything for granted.”
Evie bites her bottom lip, straightens her shoulders, her body language telling me that my words aren’t the ones she wanted to hear.
“What is it? What did I say?”
“It’s just that when you say it like that, that you don’t take things for granted, it implies that everyone else does. I guess ... it’s kind of hard to hear. I wish you didn’t think of me that way.”
The popcorn starts smoking.
“Dammit.” I lift the pot off the burner, realizing it’s scorched. Using a potholder, I carry it out the front door and set it in the snow. The snow is still falling heavily. She’s followed me to the doorway, and I turn to look at her.
“I don’t think of you that way. I believe you live a full life and care deeply for those around you,” I say, speaking from my heart. “And, I’m sorry, I know you really wanted to string popcorn.”
“I don’t need it.” She sighs and reaches out for my hand. “Come inside. Let me warm you up.”Chapter NineWhen Everett pulls me into bed that night, my heart feels torn. Which is strange. On one hand, I have this ridiculously dreamy man who has a massive boner for me holding me tightly against it. But on the other hand, I know this isn’t going to last... and I wish it could.
At the end of the blizzard, I’m going home to my little cottage, going to continue as if this never happened, because no matter how perfect Everett appears, his life couldn’t be more different than mine.
