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"Yeah," he said to no one. To God. To the Montana winter pressing white and cold against the window. "I know."
22
SAGE
"Okay, you can do this Sage… it's just a truck. Just a truck."
The F-350 Super Crew roared through the dirt road and snow with uncaring efficiency, as if offended by anything in its path. As if the obstacles it faced were so far beneath it. Which they were, since the truck had been raised several feet off the ground to accommodate its owner. This however, meant that its current driver had to climb into the cab.
Fucking climb.
And why was the seat so damn big?
She felt ridiculous.
And excited. Ridiculously excited.
"Oooh yeah… just a… just a giant fucking truck," she whispered, giggling as the truck turned from the estate onto the main road, the Triton V10 engine roaring beneath her.
She slowed for a moment as she took in the snowy timber landscape — raw, stunning, mountains rising in every direction.
She'd never done anything like this.
Taking a breath, she reached down and turned on the stereo.
"I wonder what Bear listens to—"
Sweet Home Alabama.
"Of course. Of course he does," she said, laughing as the familiar guitar riff filled the black leather interior. She paused for a moment, thinking of the rock and punk she was used to.
Then she shrugged, turned it up, pressed down on the pedal, rolled down the windows, and headed into town.
She sang along anyway. Loud. Off-key. Completely shameless. Felicity had made sure she knew every word.
The mountains opened up in front of her, white and endless, and something in her chest loosened.
Mama. I’m coming home to you.
She didn’t know if she meant the mountain, the man who owned this ridiculous truck, or the strange new life waiting at the other end of the road.
She just knew it was true.
MARY SUE
Mary Sue Ellen remembered the exact time and day her mother gave her the family recipe for chocolate chip cookies.
She was eleven years old when her granny and her mother stood together in the kitchen of their countryside home looking solemn, and said: "Now, Mary Sue. This here is a special day. This is the day we're gonna teach ya how to make them cookies. You don't teach nobody else unless they're kin. You hear?"
She had eaten those cookies all her life, and they had always felt like the embodiment of a warm hug on a cold day — like chicken soup when you were sick, like youth and joy and comfort all rolled into that delicate balance of melted chocolate, semi-gooey cookie, and nostalgic sweetness.
She smiled at the memory.
She wiped a tear at the thought that in thirty minutes, she was about to teach a girl who had made her boy laugh again — a girl she suspected was to become kin in every way that mattered.
She headed out of her office through the kitchen into the diner, seeing the last of the lingering lunch crowd. Annie Townsend smiled at her as she cleared a table.
She heard the truck before she saw it.
