Her forehead scrunches, but she doesn’t discourage me. “Uh…sure, I’ll tell her.”
I smile. “Don’t worry. She won’t kill the messenger. Tell her I’ll call when I’m safely there. And tell her I’m feeling good about this. That I need some time alone. To…work through some stuff.”
The drive winds through the mountains in long curves. The sky is a hard blue, and the air hums with cicadas. Pines rise in sharp green lines against reddish slopes, and the road dips through valleys that smell like sage and dust.
And I think about her.
About Tabitha.
The memory of her body beneath mine, her soft lips, her beautiful eyes gazing at me.
I grip the steering wheel harder, blink away the heat stinging my eyes. She’s not mine.
She made her choice.
By the time the cabin comes into view, I’m actually hungry. I’ll grill some burgers. There’s always Steel beef in the deep freezer. Tomorrow I’ll head to the market for supplies, but tonight burgers and my dog are all I need.
I park in back and kill the engine. The quiet that follows is absolute. No cars, no voices, just the whisper of wind through the pines and the faint scuttle of something small in the underbrush.
I sling my duffel over my shoulder, key in the code on the back door, and go inside.
Zach scrambles in, his claws clicking on the kitchen tile.
The cabin is quiet.
That’s the first thing I notice. No ranch hands calling across the yard. No hum of trucks, no phones buzzing. No Mom hovering and asking how I’m doing.
That’s why I came.
For the quiet. For the distance. For the space to think.
Or rather, not to think.
Not to think about her.
Never about her.
I dump my bag in the master bedroom and return to the large living area where I start a small fire. The storm winds will pick up, and I’ll be glad for the warmth. Then I sit down and lean back in an armchair, phone heavy in my palm. Francine’s number stares back at me, digits etched into my brain since I found them.
I could call.
I should call.
The last conversation wasn’t enough. It barely scratched the surface. But the thought of hearing her voice again tightens something in my chest I’m not ready to face.
Not tonight.
Besides, she’s not the one I truly want to talk to.
I toss the phone onto the coffee table and scrub a hand down my face. My head feels clear enough now. The scar’s healing, the stitches are gone, and the dull ache that used to follow me everywhere is finally receding. My hair is about a quarter inch grown in. My body’s fine. It’s everything else that isn’t.
Outside the huge picture window, the sky has become heavy, swollen with the kind of storm you can smell before it breaks. The wind threads through the trees, rattling the pine needles.
Then—
A car.
A car I recognize.
