These weren’t the emotions I’d seen in breakups on TV and in movies. My eyes didn’t burn with unshed tears. I didn’t feel anything. Our words were sharp and nasty, but no emotion was behind them. I couldn’t feel anything besides the anxiety twisting its way through my gut. Like the smell of sour milk, I sensed the wrongness brewing around me in this place I called home, but I was still taken by surprise.
All I felt was an unrelenting desire to get away and this man I no longer knew.
I needed a plan to get out of here.
“We aren’t the same people who met in grad school,” he went on, determined to have the final words. “I thought we could help the world. But I know better now. You, of all people, should see how the world really works. One person can’t change these giant broken systems this country runs on.”
“So we give up?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“We get our piece and then help when we have the money. The money is the power.”
“I refuse to believe that.” I shook my head, fists balled, and a numbness spread through my appendages. “If I help one person, then it matters.”
I thought of ceramic beads and the tiny apartment housing four people.
He was wrong.
We used to be on the same page. I used to know Kevin, but this person was a cruel stranger. That was what happened when I locked myself away. People changed. The world changed. I promised myself I wouldn’t miss the signs of a breaking foundation last time, yet somehow, my life was crumbling around me, and I’d missed it all happening again. I didn’t have all the information, and now, I suffered the consequences. But I couldn’t think about that right now.
I didn’t have a home. I didn’t have the partner I thought I did, but I wasn’t giving up. I wouldn’t let this stranger in front of me be proven right.
I packed my bags and left that night.
First step—find a place to finish my article and show Kevin just how wrong he was.
Chapter 2
Levi
I wipedthe sweat from my brow before it could sting my eyes. Despite the late September day this high up in the Rockies, I already had to shed my flannel and strip down to a white undershirt. That first smell of fall came with a strong wind, cooling the sweat that covered my body. The sun began its descent behind the tall pines and aspens. That feeling of shifting seasons was all around, and the farmer’s almanac predicted a hard winter. Another long, lonely winter.
I grabbed the next piece of wood and set it up to split before I was taken over by a wave of grief, pointedly not looking at the guesthouse.
One of the many perks of living this far up the mountain was that I only had to worry about provisions for myself. An acheclenched my chest like a muscle being pulled, thinking of the last winter I had someone to care for. I swung the axe in a hard arch over my head, letting the physical work of my body push the thoughts away.
The nearest town was Cozy Creek, which was still a good twenty minutes away by winding road. That meant I could chop wood naked if I wanted to. Not that I would risk the family name in that way, but I could. Those left who worried about me never experienced the true freedom that came with solitude.
No nosy neighbors in your business. Nobody guilting you into doing things you didn’t want to.
The sound of a truck on the gravel driveway came between the whacks of my axe splitting wood.
So much for solitude.
I didn’t stop as I heard the slam of the door and heavy booted footfalls heading my way.
“I come with a six-pack and news from town,” Pace said by way of greeting.
“I would like fifty percent of that offer,” I said and steadied the next log on the stump. Some of the tension melted from my shoulders.
The only person who regularly visited from Cozy Creek, Pace held a hand to the brim of his baseball cap to block the slanting rays of the setting sun.
“Where’s Ripley?” Pace glanced around as he set down the paper bag and perched on the steps of the porch that led to my cabin.
“She doesn’t like the cold. She’ll be napping in her spot by the stove.”
“Such a ferocious beast.”
I glanced over when I heard the pop and sizzle of a can opening, not the crack of a cap off a beer bottle.
