Sabra, the following March...
“This kitchen is gorgeous,” Peyton declared from her favorite spot at Sabra’s new chef-quality stove. “You did it all. The farm sink, these quartz counters. Clean white cabinets with all the storage options and inner drawers. I’m so jealous.”
Sabra, sitting at the island next to Iris, sipped her wine. “You saw it before. A bad memory from the early ’80s. Uh-uh. It was crying out for an update and we’ve been doing better than ever since I finally moved home and started tackling my job here, day-to-day. I’ve hooked us up with two new restaurants, big accounts. It all helps—and you, my dear Peyton, are invited to make your magic in my new kitchen anytime.” The wonderful smell of Peyton’s special pasta sauce graced the air. “You, too.” Sabra elbowed Iris playfully and then raised her wineglass. “Just bring more of this wine with you when you come.”
An hour later, they sat on the long benches at the harvest table her great-grandfather had built and shared the meal Peyton had cooked for them. It wasn’t until they’d taken their coffee into the living room that Sabra’s friends started in on her about the “cabin guy” and how she needed to get over him.
Iris insisted, “You can’t spend the whole year just sitting around waiting on a guy who’s with someone else and only showed up last year to say goodbye.”
Pain, fresh and sharp, stabbed through her at the thought of that too-bright December day. “Who says I’m just sitting around? I’ve got a farm to run.”
“Please, girlfriend. We’re not talking about work and you know we’re not. We’re talking about your social life, which is essentially nonexistent.”
“Wait a minute. I have you guys. I have other friends, too, longtime friends I grew up with. We’ve reconnected since I moved home and we get together now and then, meet up for a show or lunch, or whatever.”
“You do hear yourself,” Peyton chimed in. “Friends, you said.”
“We are talking men,” said Iris. “And not men friends. Uh-uh. You owe yourself at least a few hot nights, some seriously sexy times.”
“That’s not going to happen. It’s not who I am and I’m fine with that.”
“Just download a few dating apps,” Peyton pleaded.
“FarmersOnly.com, for crying out loud,” moaned Iris.
“But I—”
“No.” Iris shook a finger at her. “No excuses. Even if everything goes the way you hope it will next Christmas, even if it’s over with the other woman, if he drops to his knees and begs for one more chance with you—that changes nothing. You owe that man nothing. From now until then is a long time. You owe it to yourself to make good use of that time.”
“Make use of it?” Sabra scoffed. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that you went from Stan the Swine to James the Jerk to once a year with the cabin guy. It’s not going to kill you to step out of your comfort zone and see what’s out there. You need to mix it up a little. You just might find a man who’s as ready for you as you are for him.”
“But I told you. Matthias was ready. I messed it up.”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself.” Iris was nothing if not loyal. “You’d lost your dad. That man you’re pining for now could have been a little more understanding.”
“And you’ve already boxed yourself in,” Peyton chided. “You won’t contact the guy before Christmas.”
“I told you, that’s our agreement and—”
“Understood.” Peyton cut her off, but in a gentle tone. “My point is, there’s nothing more you can do for now in terms of Matthias.”
“So?”
“So, it’s a lot of months until December. Make those months count, that’s all we’re saying.”
“It’s a numbers game,” declared Iris. “You’ve got to get out there and kiss a lot of toads before you’re ever going to meet the right guy for you.”
“I’ve already met the right guy,” Sabra said quietly, knowing in her deepest heart that it was true. “I’ve met the right guy—and he’s with someone else now.”
Her friends shook their heads.
They sipped their coffee in silence for a few seconds.
“Just try,” Peyton urged softly at last. “A few dates, that’s all. Give some other guy a shot.”
Sabra wasn’t exactly sure how they’d done it. But Peyton and Iris had prevailed. She had three dating apps on her phone now.
And she made an effort. She truly did. She filled out her profile information in detail, honestly. And she asked Marjorie, who had a certain aptitude with a digital camera, to take some good pictures of her which she posted with her profiles.
And then she started interacting, reaching out to guys whose profiles and pictures looked interesting, responding when someone reached out to her. She went with her instincts. If a guy seemed creepy or catfishy, she let him know she wasn’t interested and moved on.
Truth to tell, none of them really interested her. Because she wanted Matthias and she just plain wasn’t interested.
When she’d failed to so much as meet a guy for coffee by the end of April, Iris gave her a pep talk about not trying hard enough, about the need to get out there, in real life.
Sabra knew her friend had a point. There was trying—and there was really trying. Yeah, she’d put up the profiles and interacted a little online, but nothing more.
And that made her kind of an internet dating jerk, now didn’t it? She wasn’t benching or breadcrumbing anyone. She was simply wasting the time of the men she right-swiped. She needed to do better, make a real effort, if only to prove to herself that there wasn’t some unknown guy waiting out there who was just right for her, a guy who could have her asking, Matthias Bravo, who?
Could that ever actually happen?
No. Uh-uh. She knew with absolute certainty that it couldn’t.
However, more than once in her life she’d been totally wrong. Romantically speaking, at this point in time, she was 0 for 3. What did she know, really, about any of this?
Sabra kept at it.
No, she wasn’t ready to get up close and in person with these guys she was making contact with online. But at least by mid-May, she’d stepped up her game from mere messaging to Skype and FaceTime. It was so much easier to eliminate a guy once she’d seen him in action, heard his voice while his mouth was moving—and there she went again, thinking in terms of eliminating a man rather than trying really hard to meet someone new.
Finally, in June, she did it, took a giant step forward.
She agreed to meet a nice guy named Dave at the Astoria Farmer’s Market. Dave seemed every bit as nice in person as he had during their messaging phase and on FaceTime. Too bad there was zero spark. None. A complete and utter lack of chemistry.
Worse, she felt like she was cheating on Matthias.
As they reached the last booth, Dave asked her out to dinner that night.
She turned him down. Dave got the message. She never heard from him again. Which was all for the best.
She did coffee dates after that. Several of them. During each one, she nursed a latte and wished she was anywhere but there.
She went out with a podiatrist who talked really fast and all about himself through a very expensive dinner. Then later, on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, he grabbed her and tried to choke her with his tongue down her throat. Somehow, she resisted the urge to smack his self-absorbed face and simply told him never to try anything like that again with her.
He called her a tease and a few other uglier names. And then, of all things, he grabbed her hand, kissed it and apologized profusely.
She said, “Apology accepted. Just please, never contact me again.”
After the podiatrist, she took a break from dating. She figured she needed it. Deserved it, even.
Then, in late September, on CompatibleMate.com, she met a lawyer named Ted.
They went out to a concert and she had a good time. When he kissed her at her door, it was...pleasant.
And pleasant was pretty awful. A man’s kiss should be much more than pleasant, or what was the point?
Still, that’s what Ted’s kiss was. Pleasant.
She experienced none of the goodness the right kiss always brings—no shivers racing up and down her spine, no galloping heart, no fireworks whatsoever. In fact, what she felt was a deep sadness, a longing for Matthias.
But Ted really did seem like a great guy. She liked him.
He asked her out again two weeks later and she said yes to dinner and a show. That time, when he kissed her as they were saying goodnight, she knew beyond any doubt that she never wanted to kiss him again.
And when he called her a few nights later to ask her out for Friday night, she knew she should turn him down, tell him how much she liked him, explain somehow that merely liking him wasn’t enough, that she was wasting his time and that wasn’t right.
But there was nothing wrong with him—other than the simple fact that he wasn’t Matthias. In no way was that Ted’s fault.
She opened her mouth to express her regrets—and a yes fell out.
They went to dinner again. Ted seemed happy. Buoyant, even. He talked about his firm and how well he was doing there. He asked about the farm and he actually seemed interested when she proudly described the orchard of sapling fruit trees they’d put in that spring.
Over dessert, Ted leaned across the table, his dark eyes gleaming, a happy grin on his handsome face. “I have to tell you. I never thought this would work for me. But Sabra, now I’ve found you, I’m changing my mind about meeting someone online. I know we haven’t really taken it to the next level, so to speak. But still. This is special, what’s happening between us. Don’t you feel it? Here we are on date three and I’m honestly thinking we’re going somewhere.”
Going somewhere?
No way.
Sabra kind of hated herself at that moment. She knew she had to stop this, that she had no right to go one second longer without getting real with the guy. “I’m sorry, Ted.”
He sat back. “Sorry?”
“The truth is, you and I are never reaching the next level. We’re going nowhere. I’m in love with someone else and I can’t do this anymore.”
Ted’s eyes were no longer gleaming. “Tell me something, Sabra,” he said, cool and flat. “If you’re in love with someone else, why the hell aren’t you with him—and you know what?” He shoved back his chair and plunked his napkin on the table. “Don’t answer that because I don’t even care.”
Muttering invectives against online dating in general and, more specifically, crazy women who mess with a guy’s mind, he headed for the door.
With a sigh, Sabra signaled for the check.
Late October...
“I’m done, you guys,” Sabra said. “Finished. Not going there—online or otherwise. Because you know what? Ted was right. It’s wrong to use one guy to try to forget another. And I’m never doing that again.”
Her friends regarded her solemnly from the other side of her harvest table. “We do get it,” admitted Peyton.
Iris, as always, asked the hardest question. “What will you do if he doesn’t show in December?”
Her heart broke all over again at the very thought. But she drew herself up straight. “Die a little. Suffer a lot—and please don’t look so worried. I love Matthias. I want him. No one else but him. I have to go all the way with that first. If he’s not there on December twenty-third, that’s when I’ll have to figure out what comes next.” She looked from one dear face to the other. “I know. I get it. I mean, who does what he and I have done? What two sane people make an agreement to have each other just for the holidays—and then keep that agreement for years? I know that sounds batcrap crazy, I do. But it worked for us. It was what we both needed. Our agreement created the space we both required, the time and patience to learn to love again. I truly believe that if my dad hadn’t died, Matthias and I would be married by now. But he did die and that threw everything into chaos for me. Matthias asked me for more and I answered no, unequivocally. I told him never. I said if he wanted more, he needed to go and find someone else. Which brought us here.”
“Matthias should have waited,” grumbled Iris, swiping a tear from her cheek. “He should have given you more space.”
“Space? I had years of space. And he did wait. I knew it. I felt it, the year before I lost my dad. I knew he wanted more that year and I wanted more, too. But neither of us stepped up and said so. Still, when we parted that year, I knew that the next year, we would be taking it further. That didn’t happen because the next year, I was a mess. But he had waited. He’d waited out that whole year.”
Peyton said sheepishly, “Honey, we just want you to be prepared, you know? Just in case he, well, I mean...” Her voice trailed off.
Sabra put it right out there. “You honestly don’t think he’s going to be there, do you?” Both of her friends remained silent. But the truth was in their eyes. Peyton glanced away. And Iris gave a sad little shrug. Sabra said firmly, “There is no preparing for that. If he doesn’t show, for me it’s going to be as bad as it was last Christmas.”
“But...” Peyton swallowed hard. “I mean, you will get through it, right? You’ll be okay?”
Sabra did understand the deeper implications of the question. And she loved her friends all the more for venturing into this difficult territory. “I adored my dad. I miss him every day and I wish I’d done more to help him live without my mom. In many ways, I’m like him. A total romantic, devoted until death. But I’m like my mom, too. And my mom was stronger than my dad was, strong and practical.” Sabra reached across the rough wood surface of the old table.
Her friends were there to meet her. Peyton’s hand settled on hers and then Iris’s hand covered Peyton’s.
“You’ll make it through, one way or another,” said Iris. “That’s what you’re telling us, right?”
“One way or another, yes. If he doesn’t show, I may curl up in a fetal position and cry my eyes out just like I did last year. I may spend a lot of time being depressed and self-indulgent. I may be miserable for months. It’s possible that, after being with him, knowing him, loving him, there’s just no one else for me, that he’s it for me, the one. Whatever happens, though, however it ends up with him this year, I promise you both that I will make it through.”
December 23, this year...
An emotional wreck.
That described Sabra’s condition exactly as she drove toward the cabin. An emotional wreck who almost ended up an actual wreck. Twice.
She kept spacing off, praying he would be there, then certain he would be there. And then knowing absolutely that she was deluding herself completely. He wasn’t going to be there and how would she bear it?
It was during one of those spaced-out moments that a deer bolted out into the road and then stopped stock-still and stared at her through her windshield, as if to say, Whoa. A car. Where’d that come from?
She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop just in time. The deer—a nice buck, a six pointer—stared at her for a good ten seconds more before leaping off into the brush again.
She took her foot off the brake and carefully steered to the shoulder of the road, where she dropped her forehead to the steering wheel and waited for her heart to stop trying to punch its way out of her chest.
When her mouth no longer tasted like old pennies and her hands had stopped shaking, she set out again.
The second almost-wreck happened after she’d turned off the highway into the woods, onto the series of unimproved roads that would finally take her to the cabin and her own personal moment of truth. Really, she didn’t know what happened that second time. She was looking at the road, both hands on the wheel.
But her mind? Her heart? Her whole being?
Elsewhere, far away, lost in memories of Christmases past. Of nights on the porch in a world buried in snow, of his hands—so big and yet deft and quick, whittling a small piece of wood into a porcupine, just for her, touching her naked body, showing her all the ways he could make her moan.
The giant tree seemed to rise up in front of her out of nowhere. With a shriek, she slammed the brakes again, sliding on the dirt road, her heartbeat so loud in her ears it sounded like drums, her whole body gone strangely tingly and numb with the sheer unreality of what was happening.
By some miracle, she eased the wheel to the right with the slide of gravel beneath her tires. The Subaru cleared the tree by mere inches. She came to a stop with the tree looming in her side window.
After that near-death experience, she turned off the engine, slumped back in her seat, shut her eyes and reminded herself that she’d promised Iris and Peyton she would get through this, one way or another. It would be so wrong for her to end up a statistic—especially if she finished herself off before even getting to the cabin and finding out that, just maybe, the man she hoped to meet there had shown up ready to try again, exactly as she dreamed he might.
He could be there right this minute, waiting to take her in his arms and swear that from this day forward, she was his only one.
Oh, if only that could really happen.
She was on fire to be the one for him, to claim him as hers. She yearned for this to be it, their year, the year they finally built something more than a beautiful Christmas together.
But none of that was even possible if she didn’t keep her eyes on the road and get her ass to the cabin.
She started up the car again and put it in gear.
Five minutes later, her spirits hit a new low. The suspense was unbearable. And she really should face reality.
Her friends were right. Matthias had found someone else and she needed to accept that. She needed to stop this idiocy and find a way to move on as she’d once told him to do.
She should give up this foolishness, she kept thinking, give it up and go home. There was no point. She was only driving toward more heartbreak.
But she didn’t turn around.
When she reached the last stretch of dirt road leading up to the cabin, her heart was hammering so hard and so fast, she worried it might just explode from her body. They would find her days from now, the front end of the Outback crunched against a tree, her lifeless form slumped in the seat, a gaping, empty hole in the middle of her chest.
She rounded the last curve and the cabin came into view.
Her nearly-exploded heart stopped dead—and then began beating again faster than ever as she pulled to a stop behind the muddy Jeep.
The gray world had come alive again. With anticipation. With promise. With her love that filled her up and overflowed, bringing the woods and the clearing, the rustic cabin, even the car in which she sat, into sharper focus, everything so vivid, in living color.
She heard a gleeful laugh. It was her own. “Yes!” she cried aloud. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Oh, it was perfect. The best moment ever. Her seemingly hopeless dream, finally, at last, coming true.
Golden light shone from the windows and smoke curled lazily from the stone chimney, drifting upward toward the gray sky. She managed to turn off the engine.
And then she just sat there, barely breathing, unable to move, still marginally terrified that she was reading this all wrong, that the man inside the cabin wasn’t really waiting there for her.
Until the front door swung open.
And at last, after so long—too long, forever and a day—she saw him.
So tall and broad, in camo pants, boots and a mud-colored shirt, his dirty-blond hair a little longer than last year, every inch of him powerful, strong, muscular. Cut.
Joy burst like a blinding light inside her as her gaze met his. She saw it all then. In the blue fire of his eyes, in his slow, welcoming smile.
Mine, she thought. All mine. As I am his. At last.