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“Okay, baby.” She smiles and throws on a flannel before heading out the front door.
I start working away on my next book. A new manuscript that works as a sequel to the story that happened to change my career. Although I stayed a few days more with Chris last year, I did eventually go back to the city and submit my story about us instead of the other piece I was working on. My editor and publisher loved it so much they signed me on for a three book deal with the same setting for the characters. A new set of love interests but taking place by this magical cabin. So when I pitched staying with Chris to get the books done, they all but jumped at the idea.
So my editor hired a social media manager, and once a week I’d submit photos and captions about what I’ve been up to. Only when I head into town for our weekly grocery shop. Then I don’t have to do anything else but write the stories. Chris has been all too supportive, giving me space when I need it and making me feel like her cabin was my home too. It only took a few months before we took the next step and decided it was time for me to move in.
It all happened a little fast, but for us it just feels right. It is like there is nothing standing in our way but us, so why wouldn’t we just go for it? I play with the ring on my finger and can’t help but think about how happy I will be to marry Chris. I knew the ring was coming, I had found it a few weeks ago when I was putting away her socks. I mean come on, everyone hides rings in their sock drawers. But I still acted surprised and jumped up and down when she pulled me aside last night, took me on a moonlit walk to the cabin next door, and proposed to me in front of the place she saw me for the first time. I smile just thinking about how thoughtful it was.
My editor takes the claim for me being so happy and for introducing me to the love of my life. I wonder sometimes what would’ve happened if I hadn’t met the lumberjack in the cabin next door.
MR. SECOND TIME’S THE CHARM: BREANNA LYNN
ONE
SHEP
Aspen Falls High School graduating class of 2011 cordially invites you to a twelve-year class reunion.
“Who the fuck plans a twelve-year reunion?” I growl in the empty garage.
My voice echoes slightly in the big room and drowns out the country song on the radio. Rolling my eyes, I spy the culprit at the bottom of the over-the-top invitation that showed up in my mail this morning.
Danielle Owens-Hart.
Of course. I should have known. I’d been gone for eleven years, but in the last year I had been back it was easy to figure out some things didn’t change. Including Danielle Owens. Owens-Hart now. She had married the captain of our wrestling team, Josh Hart, and is the same small-town busybody she was when I left. Only now she doesn’t have the boundaries that applied to teenagers. How the fuck she managed to marry a nice guy like Josh is a mystery of the universe.
My phone pings with a text.
Jagger: Did you get your invitation? ::eye roll emoji::
Me: Yeah.
Jagger: You gonna go?
The “No” in my response bar sits there mocking me until I delete it.
Me: Maybe.
Jagger: Come by after you close up. I’ll buy you a beer.
Jagger owns the local bar, although with all the changes in our small town of Aspen Falls, Colorado, it is called a microbrewery now.
The few things that haven’t changed?
The way Uncle Joe’s radio only gets reception to one station—the same country station I’ve been listening to since I was a kid. The smells of oil and tires that filter through the room. The way I still imagine Uncle Joe bent over a car in one of the two bays, muttering to himself about newfangled cars with their computers.
Why do cars need a mother anyway?
“A motherboard,” I say out loud.
But there’s no one there to hear me. Uncle Joe’s been gone for more than a year. His garage is now mine.
Fuel Good Repairs.
It was hard to get used to. The pace of this town was difficult to get back into. I’d lived in Denver for so long, I’d gotten used to the choices for everything. I’d gotten used to not running into people I knew every time I went out. To not seeing the woman I broke up with over ten years ago frequenting the same places I did.
Twelve.
The invitation clutched in my grip is quick to remind me. I’d broken up with Jade Parker the last night of summer break after graduation. And I could still clearly remember the confusion that colored her beautiful bright-green eyes. The question I couldn’t answer.
