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She glanced at her phone just as it lit up for the hundredth time in the passenger’s seat. This time, she finally felt far enough from LA to pick it up.
“Lily, what the hell are you doing?” her agent screeched. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day! You can’t just walk out of a meet and greet. Do you know how hard it was to spin that so everyone wasn’t pissed off?”
“I did that because I had to.” Lily paused for a long moment, choosing her words carefully. “Clyde, the next book will be on time. It will be good. Better, even, than the ones before it. But you have to give me some space. I need to go home for a while.”
“Boise fucking Idaho? Are you kidding me with this?” A long sigh underscored his mounting irritation. “What could you possibly need in Idaho that you can’t find in Cali-fucking-fornia?”
“No, Clyde, I’m not kidding.”
He started to speak but seemed to think better of it, the silence settling heavy and sudden between them. Lily started to feel her chest tighten again before she remembered where she was and drew in a deep breath.
“Besides, I’m not going to Boise.” She almost smiled as a white-tailed deer took off into the woods. “I’m going home. To McCall.”
She hung up before he could reply and turned off her phone, tossing it back onto the seat beside her. Dropping everything to go back to McCall, even with her plan to rock up unannounced at her ex’s new retreat center, made a lot more sense than talking to Clyde for one more second. She couldn’t keep doing the same things she’d done for the last five years and expect things to change, even if she didn’t know what the change would be.
She turned onto McCall’s main street as the last of the twilight sank into darkness, and the streetlights clicked on. Everything looked exactly as it had the last time she’d seen it: Mary’s drugstore with the handwritten Closed sign hanging slightly off-center against the glass door; Gus’s Place, looking even homier now with its shiny newness sanded down along the edges with love scuffs; and of course, Moxie Java, her favorite spot in the world to sit and write. As she passed it, something new behind it caught her eye. She turned right at the corner and saw a log cabin with an expansive stone patio strung with tiny copper lanterns glowing with golden light. Tables lined the wood railing at the edges of the deck, each with a cast-iron cauldron in the middle and a glass jar of marshmallows to one side.
Lily got out, watching as a server with a turquoise ponytail and bright orange flannel shirt placed a handful of kindling and a couple of mini logs in each cauldron and carefully lit them before moving to the next table.
She looked up as Lily stepped onto the patio. “Aren’t these the cutest? We just got them.”
Lily glanced up at the split-log sign above the door. The Other Place. Clever. “How long has this place been here?”
“Less than a year.” The server retrieved more tiny split cedar logs from the pile stacked against the wall and tucked them under her arm. “The owner came here to ski last winter and fell in love with McCall.” She looked around, her bright ponytail swishing across her back. “She said the only thing it needed was a bar. So she opened one.”
“Well, she’s a genius. I used to live here, and the only time everyone got together for a drink was Wine and Fire on Sunday nights at Moxie.” Lily zipped her black puffer vest up over her faded denim shirt, looking back over her shoulder at the coffee shop behind them. “Do they still do that, by the way?”
“Oh yeah. This place closes Sunday afternoon so the staff can go to the locals’ dinner at the diner, then most folks just wander over to Wine and Fire once Mary starts giving their phones back.” She paused to brush some bark off her sleeve and roll it up. “It’s a thing.”
Lily started to ask what she meant, but people were beginning to fill the tables on the patio, and Candy, according to the name tag on her flannel, excused herself to get their orders before they started lighting their menus on fire. Lily hesitated, then clicked the lock on her rental Jeep and walked into the bar.
Glossy split-cedar walls glimmered under the lights of the enormous antler chandelier, with red buffalo plaid couches in muted shades of cranberry and black framing an expansive bar along the far wall. A few tables and chairs were scattered around, but other than that, Lily was reasonably sure she’d just walked into Ralph Lauren’s living room.
The bartender, a younger guy with a Bieber swoosh of hair low on his forehead, placed a black leather coaster on the bar as she sat. “What can I get you?”
“Whiskey.” Lily shrugged off her down vest and laid it over the stool to her left. “Neat.”
He nodded and picked up a bottle off the top shelf, filled a rocks glass with a high pour, and placed it on the leather coaster. Lily brought it to her nose, drew a long, deep breath, and let her eyes flutter closed as she set it down. The muscles across her shoulders unfolded slowly, and she kneaded the back of her neck with her hand as she drew in the scent of the place.
The logs were new cedar oiled with linseed, which gave them a drier, deeper scent, like August wheat baking in the sun. The bar was antique, silent, and stately under layers of luminous mahogany lacquer, and the cut crystal of her tumbler pressed its shape into the tips of her fingers as she lifted the glass and took the first sip. Lily memorized its burn, like rising fire, as it slipped down her throat, the echo dry and languid into the back of her nose, leaving behind notes of silky caramel and forgotten smoke.
When she finally opened her eyes, someone was sitting on the stool next to her with an old-school, high-fade haircut. It was a few seconds before a slow smile reached her dark eyes, and she nodded at the bartender. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Lily smiled before she thought the better of it. “You sure you can handle it? This isn’t exactly a piña colada.”
The woman held her gaze for a moment, then picked up the glass the bartender placed in front of her. She rolled the whiskey along the sides and took a sip before turning back to Lily. “You don’t know me yet, but there’s not much I can’t handle.”
Lily picked up her glass and nodded, relaxing into the slow warmth as it warmed her from the inside out. “You don’t exactly sound like a local. Where are you from?” She was usually good at placing accents, but this was one she hadn’t heard before. It was smoky and intense, like dark silk sliding over her skin.
The woman flashed a smile and picked up her glass, touching her tongue to the rim before taking a sip and setting it back on the leather coaster. “I immigrated from Cuba when I was seventeen, but I’ve lived in the States for longer than I was in my home country. I got my citizenship when I was twenty-five.”
As she spoke, Lily let her eyes drop to the hand still around the base of the stranger’s glass. It was angular and graceful, with subtly masculine fingers. It was clear right away that she was a masculine-presenting woman, but to anyone else, she could easily be mistaken for a tall, intensely attractive guy. Lily made herself look away but realized as she did that for the first time, LA seemed like a million miles away, like an odd, forgotten feeling. She was starting to remember how to relax into the space around her.
“So where did you learn to appreciate good whiskey like that?”
Lily glanced over, but the woman was still examining her glass, and it was a long moment before she met Lily’s gaze. Her eyes were a silent brown, like a dark handful of wet, overturned earth, with dense black lashes. Her skin was darker than Lily’s by a few shades, and her gaze didn’t waver.
“I’ve always loved whiskey. I even spent a month in Scotland last year taking an immersive course in regional scotch.” Lily nodded when the bartender asked if she was ready for another, pushing the glass to the edge of the bar. “When I was younger, everyone around me was drinking endless cans of beer and those fruity wine coolers, but I never could figure out why.” She paused. “I like the intensity, I guess.”
