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It was after midnight, when we left the fire station. Jim offered to give Tom a ride home, leaving Chance to walk me to my car. I unlocked Snickety's door and climbed into the driver's seat. "Have you decided what you're going to do about a car in the winter? You've only got a few weeks before the snow starts."
"With everything else going on, I really haven't given it a thought." Everyone who saw Snickety, my lemon-yellow Fiat, told me it was not an appropriate car for winter in Montana. "Let me know if you want me to go with you to car shop in the city."
"Thanks, Chance. I might take you up on that."
"I'd like to go over some more cryptid info before you and Tom head out. Can you come out to the cabin tomorrow?"
"Sure. I'll bring lunch."
He leaned down so his head was level with mine. When I thought he might kiss me, my mind ran off in circles. Did I want him to kiss me? Would it make things harder? What about Tom and Jim? My simple life in the country was getting awfully complicated. He didn't kiss me. He just looked in my eyes and said, "Be careful, Everly." He patted Snickety's roof, stepped back, and watched me drive off.
When I got upstairs to my apartment, I remembered I hadn't turned the volume back up on my cell phone. I missed several calls and messages during the meeting, most of them from Laurie since she left the fire house. I called her.
"Laurie, it's Em. I'm home. I'm fine."
"Thank goodness. What on Earth was going on with those guys tonight?"
"I wish I knew. It was this big discussion about whether or not I had to finish the hike Chance and I cut short when he got hurt."
"What did you decide?"
"Tom and I are heading back into the woods day after tomorrow."
"What's the rush? If it's some scenic spot or something, it'll still be there a month from now, right?"
"That was my argument, but Jim and Chance didn't agree. Don't get me wrong, I can imagine a lot of things worse than spending time alone in the woods with your brother, but I really was hoping to settle in and figure out what my normal life here was going to be like."
"It's cool that you and Tom will have a chance to get better acquainted. Let me know if I can do anything to help."
We said our good nights, and I fell into bed too tired to do anything but sleep.
XXX
I ate breakfast at the cafe, while I worked on my to-do list. I really had intended to spend much more time in the cafe than I'd been able to do so far. I wanted to put my own stamp on the business. I made some minor menu changes like changing to southern fried chicken, but there was more I needed to do. I'd only taken a cursory look at the finances. I knew we were OK for a while, but I needed to dig deeper into all of it. I just needed to get all this stuff about the will behind me, so I could move forward.
With our lunch in the car, I headed to Chance's A-frame. He lived in a beautiful spot beside Lake Munroe on land his family had owned for generations. I wondered what Chance wanted to show me. I had taken a leap of faith and admitted that there could be unknown creatures living in remote areas, but I still didn't really understand why the cryptid hunters risked their lives hunting for something that no one would believe existed unless they brought back a body for scientific scrutiny.
At the SAR potluck, I'd been worried about what other people were saying about me, but now, when I replayed the night in my head as I drove, I got a vibe that there was something Jim and Chance weren't telling me.