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“How do you like your eggs?”
“Um, scrambled,” I said. My stomach growled as my senses finally caught up to my brain. Not only could I smell bacon, but the sweetness of syrup pervaded the air too. One glance proved that Caleb was cooking pancakes, in addition to the bacon and eggs.
“There’s coffee,” Caleb said as he motioned to the full coffee pot.
“Thanks,” I said as I searched for a mug and filled it up. “Do you want some?” I asked.
Caleb shook his head. “Never did get a taste for it,” he said. “Two years in Seattle and I still haven’t been inside of a Starbucks.”
“I think that might be a crime out there,” I said as I returned the coffee pot to its place.
“Probably,” Caleb responded with a soft laugh.
His laugh was a balm on my battered soul. I knew the events of last night hadn’t fixed anything for him, but maybe it was the start of something. Even as that flicker of hope flared inside of me, my eyes fell to his right arm. He’d put on one of the shirts Dalton had bought him. It was the only long-sleeved shirt in the bunch. It made me wonder if he was hiding any new cuts beneath the fabric. I hadn’t even thought about all the knives that were in the kitchen. There was probably even a utility knife in the tackle box.
As I lifted my eyes, I saw that Caleb was watching me. His smile was gone and I cursed myself for my stupidity.
An awkward silence filled the small cabin, so I used the time to set the small table against the opposite wall. I was certain I’d fucked up enough that Caleb would make some excuse about being tired and not wanting to eat, but he surprised me when he began serving food on both of the plates I’d put out. Once we were seated, we each began picking at the food.
“It’s really good, thanks,” I said.
Caleb nodded but didn’t say anything else.
“I can’t cook to save my life,” I admitted, hoping to break up some of the tension.
It was several beats before Caleb said, “My grandmother taught me how when I was little. My mom and dad were too busy to cook, so my grandmother did most of it. She was living with us.” His eyes lifted to meet mine briefly before he lowered them again and began digging into his food with a little more gusto.
“My grandmother tried to teach me, but after I set the kitchen on fire that third time, she gave up and started collecting take-out menus for me. By the time I got out of the military, she’d amassed like a hundred of them.”
It felt like a small victory when Caleb smiled, and I felt myself relax.
“Have you always lived in the D.C. area?”
I shook my head. “No, I moved down here after my grandmother died. Maggie is planning to go to school at Georgetown University. She got accepted into their graduate program for art and museum studies. She was supposed to start right after she got back from the backpacking trip.”
I refused to let my thoughts linger on Maggie. It was a coping strategy I’d come to rely on after I’d learned of her disappearance. If I gave myself even a few minutes to think of the things she was enduring, quite possibly even at this very moment, I’d lose it completely. Fortunately, like the night before, Caleb seemed to sense my need not to go into too many details about my sister.
“Where did you used to live? You said you moved in with your grandmother when you were a kid?”
I nodded. “We lived in Vermont. When my grandparents emigrated from Romania, they opened a little gift shop near this ski resort. When my mom was a kid, they managed to scrape together enough money to also buy one of the lodges and fix it up. My mom and dad ran the lodge after my grandfather died.”
“Do you still have it?”
I shook my head. “No, my uncle – my father’s brother – and his wife inherited the lodge. They ended up running it into the ground and had to file for bankruptcy. My grandmother had managed to hang onto the gift shop she and my grandfather had started, so that kept us afloat until I was old enough to enlist. When our grandmother died, she left the gift shop to me and Maggie. Since neither of us wanted to run it, we sold it and Maggie used some of the money to go on that backpacking trip. The rest was for her tuition at Georgetown.”
“So you must love the slopes,” Caleb ventured.
“Um, no, not exactly.”
My response had Caleb perking up. He must have sensed my embarrassment because he said, “Why not?”
I studied him for a moment, then crooked my finger at him to motion him closer to me. “Can you keep a secret?” I asked.
