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ChapterOne
REESE
Two speed limits.
Two speeds.
The small signs flew by in my rear view as I headed toward Jackson from the Jackson Hole airport. I wondered if all the visitors to this neck of the woods, nestled in the Wyoming wilderness, noticed how every speed limit sign had two numbers: a higher one for daytime and a lower one for at night.
It made sense. At night, the vast darkness seemed to stretch into new galaxies sooner than it reached the lit streets of the town. The trees and Grand Tetons that rose up during the day like natural monuments along the skyline would evaporate later tonight into the deep dark abyss…along with the road and any wildlife trekking across it.
So, two speed limits.
Two speeds.
Just like my life.
One speed in the city and one speed when I came back home.
In New York, I was an ER doctor at one of the busiest hospitals in Manhattan. If I stayed the course, all of the Chinese takeout, sleepless nights, and nonexistent personal life for the next five years would pay off; I would have a shot at becoming chief of medicine.
But here…the speed was much slower.
As if to prove my point, the Tahoe in front of me slowed down well below the speed limit.
“Seriously?” I muttered under my breath and hit the brakes of the Cherokee I’d rented through Turo.
I’d had to explain to Mom that it was like an Airbnb but for cars, assuring her it wasn’t a big deal for me to just rent something. Obviously, there was no way she could come pick me up from the airport being only a day out from her knee replacement surgery. I’d wanted to be here for the surgery—I was supposed to be, but they’d moved it up to yesterday. Thankfully, Mom’s good friend and neighbor, Cheryl, had taken her to the hospital and brought her home this morning, staying with her until I got there.
Which would be a lot sooner if the people in the Tahoe weren’t standing through their freaking sunroof to take photos of the Tetons.
I wasn’t in a rush. I shouldn’t be in a rush. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from driving like a New Yorker and riding the guy’s ass.Even if I dreaded where I was headed, I still had to get there faster.
If that wasn’t East Coast mentality, I didn’t know what was.
It took everything I had not to blare the horn.
To be fair, I didn’t dread everything about coming home to visit. Just some things.Mainly, the fact that I had to come clean to her that the boyfriend I claimed to have for the last year was a figment of my desperate imagination. An excuse I’d used to not come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, instead claiming I’d spent it with said boyfriend’s family. The truth? I’d picked up extra rotations because Dr. Okon was on staff, and if I stayed his favorite, he’d recommend me to take his place as chief of medicine in five years when he retired.
Mom had been beside herself.As expected.She worried too much about my personal life. Three Christmases ago, I’d come home only to be treated to a Santa speed-dating spectacular. Two Christmases ago, I’d flown her out to New York, thinking it was safer to have her on my turf. I was wrong. Arlene Barker might not know how to work an iPhone, but she sure knew how to create an eHarmony profile.
“I just want you to find someone, Reese. You can’t work your life away.”
I wasn’t trying to work my life away, I just never wanted to have to depend on anyone else. My past was a common one—raised by a single mom because dad was nonexistent. I had no memories of him. I had plenty of memories of all the ways Mom had struggled and scraped by to support us.She never complained, and I never told her I could hear her crying in the shower because the bathroom shared a wall with my bedroom.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in love, I just believed in security and independence first. But I couldn’t explain that to her—that her silent struggle led to my obsession with self-sufficiency. So, I’d made up a boyfriend. It was a bad move. I blamed the Hallmark channel and the ridiculously predictable, yet seriously addictive, movies I’d been binging at the time. But now I had to figure out how I was going to lie to her face about him for four weeksorconfess that he was a lie and endure her guilt-tripped matchmaking for a month.
I let out a groan.Yeah, the latter wasn’t an option.With Mom being immobile, there was no telling the line of Wyoming cowboys she’d havetraipsingthrough the front door to ‘help her.’
The Tahoe hit its blinker and turned into a pull-off.Thank God.
My foot dropped to the floor, and the gauge on my dash swung to the right…only, it wasn’t the speedometer. My eyes bulged, and I let off the gas just as the engine temperature reached the red line. I knew nothing about cars, but in my mind, anything above the red line meant the car risked spontaneous combustion.
Shit.I coasted off to the side of the road, put the Jeep in park, and immediately reached for my cell. I opened the Turo app and messaged the owner of the car. After about thirty seconds of no response, I fiddled under the wheel.There was a button under here somewhere to pop the hood, right?The latch released in answer.
There was no puff of smoke when I lifted the hood, but there was a smell…a sweet smell.
I checked my cell again. Still, no response from the owner.
