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The rivulets of cold water trailing down her face couldn’t wash away the image of Damon. Broad-shouldered and with those same bright blue eyes she’d never wanted to stop staring into when they were in high school together. Now he had lines around his eyes and looked tired, but he was just as handsome as he’d been back then. More so now, as a confident man. The broad shoulders didn’t hurt either.
It had been a shock to see him. The man that had been the love of her life, and the biggest sacrifice she’d ever had to make, standing before her. Once again, she wondered if she’d done the right thing. For the first couple of years after leaving, after they’d graduated from high school, she’d been certain her choice had been correct course of action. It was what they’d planned. She was making her future. But as she matured and realized how hard it was to find relationships like they’d had, people to connect with on that level, she’d started to question herself. Then she’d gotten her first career position and pushed those thoughts away. Until now.
She stared at herself in the mirror, as guilt came over her at the shadow in his eyes and the quiet, but harsh words, how could I forget. Maybe she was imagining the emotion, or maybe her feelings of guilt and pain for leaving him were still present. When he’d looked at her, warmth had tickled her stomach, and the feeling unnerved her. She hadn’t had feelings like that for the last couple of guys she’d dated, and she shouldn’t feel that way for a man she hadn’t even spoken with for nearly two decades. She toweled off her face. It would be better if those feelings remained buried.
It was ironic. She’d always thought that being an adult, being able to make her own decisions, would be easier. It wasn’t. Worry, procrastination, and second-guessing all came with making decisions as an adult.
Valerie shut the bathroom light off and walked softly to her room.
After the men had left, she and Martha had eaten on the couch with Gus between them, feeding the skinny dog little bits of the casserole, which he took surprisingly gently.
If she were starving—and by his prominent ribs and hips, she could only assume he was—she doubted she would have been as gentle when taking food.
The care and attention that Martha had shown the dog had made Valerie’s chest ache with longing. She hadn’t had anyone to love like that. Not since she’d left. I’ve had my career, she kept telling herself. And a clean apartment. She’d always enjoyed her career and considered it her love, but seeing the connection and warmth between Martha and her dog created an emptiness behind her breastbone. She told herself that as soon as she landed another job, she’d feel better. Somehow, that didn’t help the ache.
Focus on something else, she sternly told herself, flicking the light on to her room.
The two bedrooms in the house were small and cozy, and the twin bed welcomed Valerie with a red-and-white quilt she had no doubt Martha had made herself. The sweet scent of fir came from a baby fir tree in a big ceramic pot in the corner, clusters of pinecones, glued together in decoration, sat around its base. With so many trees outside, she wondered why Martha had wanted one inside, as well, but she couldn’t say she was unhappy with the sweet little decoration. Snuggling under the quilt, she rolled to her side and looked at her phone. No reception, no Wi-Fi to connect to. As she set it on the solid wood nightstand, she realized that it didn’t bother her. In fact, there was peace to not being constantly connected. With that thought, she closed her eyes.
When Valerie opened her eyes, it was still dark, with no light seeping in past the thin yellow curtains on the small window. She laid there, enjoying the warmth and weight of the thick blanket, and wondered if it was even morning yet. It wouldn’t get light until late morning here during the winter, so it would have been impossible to tell if not for the smell of cooking wafting through the door and Gus’s excited barking downstairs.
The stairs creaked, and something bumped into her door. Martha’s voice came from outside of it.
“Silly boy, as amazing as you are, you can’t run through walls. Go jump on her when I open the door.”
The door opened a sliver, letting a soft beam of light in.
Gus ran in and stretched up on his hind legs to lick her face.
“Are you awake?” Martha asked, still at the door.
“I am now,” Valerie said dryly, standing up and giving Gus a rub on the back.
“Breakfast is ready when you are. Come on, Gus.”
Valerie pulled on jeans and a sweater, pulled a brush through her hair and put it up in a ponytail and brushed her teeth before making her way downstairs. The smells of baked goods tempted her to the stove, but Martha appeared before she could look inside and shooed her away with a chuckle.
“You’ll get them soon enough. Why don’t you set the table?”
Valerie stepped over Gus—who was looking fatter already and was lying stretched out on the kitchen floor—to get to the cupboards with the dinnerware and again to set the table.
Martha brought a cake pan over, the contents still bubbling.
“Wow, being an adult has perks. I don’t recall anyone ever letting me eat cake for breakfast before.”
“It’s blueberry buckle. I have several bags of blueberries I picked last summer in the freezer just waiting to be eaten. I also made moose sausage and skillet potatoes. We need our energy for the day ahead.”
Valerie’s eyebrows shot up, and she barely managed to keep a groan from escaping. “Work?”
“Remember all the animals I told you about? They like breakfast too.”
“Somehow I don’t think about that as work.”
Martha laughed. “You will soon enough.”
Valerie grimaced, but digging into the warm and gooey blueberry buckle made up for any chores Martha had planned.
When the scrumptious breakfast was finished and Valerie had washed the dishes, she was ready to go back to bed. Martha was scribbling something down when Valerie rinsed the last dish, setting it on a rack to dry.
“What’s this?”
“Because I don’t want you to freeze, take my truck into town and give this note to Liddy at the general store.” Martha handed her a large, folded-up sticky note.
“Oh, that’s not necess–”
Martha held up a hand, interrupting Valerie. “My girl, I want you to enjoy your time here, and feeling like you’re about to get frostbite every time you go outside is not going to aid in that regard. Plus, and more importantly, my animals are going to be in the church Nativity and what kind of message would it send about me if you become a frozen statue in my yard like that witch did from that movie with those British kids and that powerful lion?” She turned away and headed to the stairs. “I’ll be outside with the animals when you get back. I can’t wait to see you looking like an Alaskan again.”
Valerie wanted to groan. Looking like an Alaskan meant being warm in negative forty degrees, but having no fashion to speak of. Still, she couldn’t be perturbed with Martha, not with that overdone explanation. A frozen statue like that witch...shaking her head, Valerie marched back out through the first door and got her jacket and boots.
She must have been preoccupied on the drive yesterday, because as she settled herself onto the driver’s seat, she realized that the truck was a stick shift. Oh, brother. She stared at the door to the house, wondering if she should go in and tell Martha she couldn’t drive a stick.
No. She’d learned how to drive one of these trucks as a teen, and if this was a test from Martha, she was going to pass it. Besides, being a burden to the only person who’d offered her help right now wasn’t particularly appealing. Neither was becoming a frozen statue, for that matter.
“Okay, clutch then...” Muttering to herself the order of operations that she remembered, she got the truck into reverse with minimal noise. Getting it into the right gear to get down the driveway went okay, but in slowing down at the end of the snowy driveway to turn onto the road, she stalled and had to start over.
At least the snow filled any potholes along the dirt road. She almost laughed. What an odd thing to remember, but it was true.
“Whew, I think I got this,” she muttered.
The road toward town was fairly straight, with only some minor curves, and she got into a comfortable gear for the speed she wanted on the snow-packed road. Town was a few miles away from Martha’s place, and there were only a couple of neighbors in the vicinity. Valerie found herself glancing to the left time and again, her mind straying unbidden to Damon. She’d wished they could have caught up, even if it had been uncomfortable seeing him without warning. At one point she thought she saw a truck through the trees, easing over the snow-packed turf off-road. Damon, or someone else working on the ranch?
With a stern shake of her head, Valerie focused forward. Being here now, in this place that hadn’t seemed to change, might feel as though time hadn’t moved since she’d left, but it had. Many years had come and gone, and both she and Damon had made their decisions all those years ago.