Now Mia was getting teary-eyed. “I hate them. I’m your friend. I will do almost anything for you, except help you bury dead bodies because I don’t have the constitution for it, but those trips cause a lot of stress for me. You don’t think I worry about you? I worry that maybe you’re going to meet up with someone who isn’t a good person, who might do something to hurt you. Not only am I going to feel completely helpless being so far away but then I’m also the one hiding it from your family and they’d probably be extremely angry with me being a part of this. And I don’t have much of a family here in Placerville as it is, Natalie. I don’t want to lose you or them.”
“You don’t have to worry, I always take—”
“Don’t tell me not to worry! People have feelings and, I hate to tell you this, but you can’t control other people’s feelings. What I feel is what I feel. And I don’t care what you and Ross say about my abilities to persuade. The truth, Natalie, I can’t persuade anyone of anything that they didn’t already want to do in the first place. So, yeah, I can’t stop you from taking these trips or doing whatever you’re going to do with Mason. You’re going to do what you want. But you also can’t stop me or your parents or Mason from having feelings or opinions either. The number of things in the world you have actual control over is very, very small. So why would you even choose to give up one of the things you can control?”
Natalie wiped a hand across her eyes. “It’s fine. You can hate me. Mason hates me—”
“You don’t get it! This has nothing to do with hate. It’s about love. I love you. I want you to be happy. And I’m pretty sure Mason loves you too.”
There was no way Mia knew about his earlier confession and yet she somehow knew anyway. “He can’t love me. And, even if he did, what’s going to stop it from fading?”
“Let me show you something.” Mia pushed Natalie into her office chair before retrieving her phone and scrolling through it. “There’s this picture. And before you get mad at me, I only took it because I had a feeling I was going to need it, so you can finally see what I’m seeing from my perspective. Ah, here it is. Are you going to tell me that whatever this man feels for you isn’t real?” She turned the phone around and it was a picture from inside the horse trailer. Mason was leaning against the order window while Natalie made him a hot chocolate.
“When did you take this?”
“The day after you went snow tubing with him. The fact that you didn’t even notice I took a picture should tell you something right there.”
“Which is what? That I was concentrating on my work?”
“God, Natalie, can you take off the damn blindfold for once?” She wasn’t like this very often, so when she did act blunt, one couldn’t help but pay attention. With two fingers, Mia enlarged the picture on her phone, giving both a closer view of Mason and herself.
As much as she wanted to keep fighting her best friend over who had the most accurate perspective on situations, she was way too exhausted to create an argument. Instead, she took a good look at the photo. As she expected, Mason’s face was tilted upwards, gazing at her with a soft smile on his lips as though he’d never adored a person more. She wanted to cry all over again because she knew he adored her. She’d seen this expression from him several times and could feel it in the way he touched her, talked to her, in basically everything.
The real surprising thing was her own image. Her cheeks were flushed, probably due to the cold, but she wore a large smile as though he had said something she found amusing. Her hand was halfway in the process of brushing a strand of hair away from her cheek. Her eyes were downcast but she radiated happiness. She hardly recognized herself, especially with how she felt today. All those times Natalie wondered what Mason saw when he looked at her, she finally saw it for herself. If the people in the picture were strangers, she’d admit she saw two people who were completely smitten with each other.
“You don’t get to decide for him how he feels or what he’s willing to do for you. All you have is a single choice and that is, what are you going to do with his love? And how do you keep love from fading? You put everything you have in it and fight like the villain you are.”
*
Natalie had barelyrecovered from her conversation with Mia when her uncle stopped by.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, it’s…just allergies, I think. My eyes have been really dry lately.”
Her uncle gave her an odd look, even his mustache tilted in concern. There was no way he believed her, but she didn’t have the energy to care. Regardless, Enrique proceeded ahead. “I know I said we’d wait until after the new year to discuss your position, but I think we can have the conversation now.”
“What? Really?” She had a sudden moment of doubt. Could she actually do this? Was she ready?
“Yeah, I’m starting to look ahead at when I want to retire, and what I think we should do is go through the process of hiring a new manager to free up your time. You can work with me to learn more of the responsibilities that I deal with like insurance, vendor contracts, that sort of thing. You take over those things and I’ll give you a percentage of the business. Maybe not 50/50 right away but we’ll work up to it when you start taking over the business more. Plus, if you want to expand the business with the coffee truck, I’ll let you have free rein on that. How does that sound to you?”
“Really?” she asked again. After planning this for so long, she was having trouble believing it was happening.
“Yes, really. I’d be proud to have you as a partner.”
Natalie burst into tears again.
“Are you really that happy?”
“Uh-huh, sure. Thank you, Tío.” Except it was hard to be truly happy when she was also miserable. Whatever she thought she’d feel at this moment wasn’t there. It was almost as if her heart was so empty it was lost at feeling anything.
“Have you changed your mind? Do you not want this anymore?”
“No, I do.”
“But these don’t look like happy tears.”
“I’m fine. It’s just that…” She’d never discussed personal issues with her uncle before. She blurted her thoughts before she could change her mind. “Is the story really true? Did my parents fall head over heels for each other in a week?”
