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CHAPTERNINE
LUCAS
As I’ve spentthe afternoon working, it hasn’t escaped my attention how dark it’s gotten in the cabin, which means it’s gotten just as much outside. It’s also gotten colder, and the wind started to pick up about an hour ago.
All of that points to one thing.
The storm has moved in.
“Oh my gosh,” Holly whistles as she stands at the front window, looking out over the small yard. “It’s coming down fast out there. Luke, I can barely see your truck.”
This is what they’ve been warning us of for the last week. “The weather report said it could come down at a clip of seven inches an hour. Looks like that’s what it’s doing.”
“You can’t go out in that,” she hugs her arms to her stomach. “You’ve got to stay here.”Earlier, before I knew it was her who was in this cabin, I’d been worried about getting snowed in. Over and over in my head I’d been thinking about all the work I would miss out on. Now, knowing it’s her? It sounds like the best idea ever. “Are you sure it’s not a problem?”
“Not unless you absolutely have somewhere you need to be. Someone waiting for you at home?”
The way she phrases the question might be considered innocent by most people, but I know her. “There’s no one waiting for me at home. Just me and my long nights running this business. There are people I should’ve gotten today that I didn’t, so I’ll need to text them, but I’m fine to stay here with you.”
She smiles brightly. “Good, I’d worry about you if you were out in this.”
I try to remember when someone besides my mom worried about me, and I can’t help but have a visceral reaction to it. “I appreciate that, Holly.”
“I’m not saying it to be nice, I’m saying it because it’s true. I didn’t expect to see you today, but now that I have, I can’t imagine any other way this day would’ve gone. It’s like we were meant to be in the same place at the same time.”
I’ve never been the type of person to believe in kismet or all that other hokey shit, but I’m wondering if she’s right. All the anxious energy that’s flowed through my body the last few months is gone. In this moment I feel at home, and I crave more of the feeling. I don’t want to leave and go back to the craziness that’s been my life since Dad died. I want this familiarity, this peace.
I’ve needed it for far too long, and if she’s the person to give it to me, I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers again.
CHAPTERTEN
HOLLY
“You’relucky I remember how to do this,” I laugh as I put the grate over the coals in the big fireplace.
“We used to do this when we went camping,” he reminds me. “You’d make the best pizzas in the cast iron over the fire.”
“It was the one thing I was good at cooking, but I’ll tell you a secret.”
“What’s that?”
“I learned how to cook it for you. When you asked me out on that first date, I had no idea what I was doing, or how I was going to impress you. There were a few things I did know about you, though. You loved to camp and you played sports. I couldn’t do much with the sports because I was a cheerleader, but I went to my mom and told her I needed to learn how to cook.”
He raises his eyebrows, an amused smirk on his face. “What did she say?”
“She asked what happened to her daughter, and who was I? I’d never shown any interest in cooking a day in my life. When I told her it wasn’t even conventional cooking, it was over a campfire, she was suspicious.”
“Oh I bet she was. That’s a hell of a thing to ask your parents out of the blue.”
“Eventually I told her you’d asked me out on a date, and it included coming out to your family campsite. I begged her to teach me how to do her campfire pizza. It was the best thing I’d eaten and I wanted so much to impress you. So, she taught me. It took a while,” I laugh. “The first weekend she tried to teach me, I burned every single one. When she told me that some people weren’t gifted in cooking, I cried. I told her I was going to marry you one day and I just had to get this right. It was the way to your heart.”
He’s laughing now. “Little did you know it kind of was the way to my heart. I went home and told my parents that I was going to marry you too. Anyone who could cook that well, and deal with me loving to camp? They were the one for me.”
We’re quiet for a minute, neither one of us knowing what to say. He breaks the silence.
“You know I haven’t been camping since you left, and I sure as fuck haven’t had a cast iron pizza, so this is going to be a treat for me.”
Now it’s my turn to reveal my secret. “I haven’t either, and I’ve never cooked it for anyone but you.”
