Winter Waites (Aster Valley 0.50)

Needless to say, I was mortified. I’d paid off the hotel with such heartfelt remorse, the manager had begun laughing. “There was half a dent on a wall that could have happened by accident with someone’s suitcase. Don’t worry about it. We’re used to it.”

I’d wrapped an ice pack around my sore hand and paid one of our sound techs to drive me out to my rental in Aster Valley. As soon as I’d seen the little cabin nestled in the woods, I’d let out a breath. It was perfect. I was ready for a month of rest and renewal. I’d write new music and get my focus settled firmly back on work before going into our Australia tour in February.

My plan to ring in the New Year alone didn’t work out, however, because the pain in my hand didn’t subside the way I’d hoped it would. I ended up arranging a ride to the hospital on New Year’s Eve when I’d begun to worry my hand was broken. After several hours of waiting and a few X-rays, I learned it wasn’t broken, but there was tendon damage that would require some kind of physical therapy from a hand specialist. I scheduled the therapist to come to the house the following week since I wasn’t in a position to drive anywhere.

In the meantime, I curled up on the overstuffed leather chair by the stacked-stone fireplace and kept the gas fire going around the clock. Seeing snow flurries outside the window while the fire flickered inside was peaceful and calming. After a hectic December concert schedule, I found myself sleeping more than usual to make up for the sleep lost on the road. I dreamed of the nameless stranger in the concert and spent hours creating fantasy scenarios in which I’d successfully stopped him before he left the concert venue, but they were just dreams and fantasies. In reality, I was moving on, trying to get back into the New Year mindset of starting anew, focusing on work and finding my artistic spark again so I could create new music.

By the time the hand specialist was due to arrive, I almost felt normal.

I’d gotten a grocery order delivered and had started cooking decent meals for myself after subsisting on junk the first few days in Aster Valley. Song ideas began swirling through my head again which made me doubly annoyed at my stupidity in hurting myself. I used the voice recorder feature on my phone, but it wasn’t the same as scribbling in my well-worn spiral notebooks the way I liked to do. And my guitar stared at me forlornly from its stand in the corner of the room by the fireplace. I had high hopes for this hand specialist.

When an old, dirty jeep pulled into the driveway, my relief slowly morphed into fear that this tiny town’s idea of a hand specialist might not be much of anything. I was ready to get this show on the road and make progress toward getting the full use of my hand back, and if Aster Valley didn’t have the right kind of specialist, I might have to return to LA early and see someone there.

I tempered my expectation and took a breath, reminding myself to be polite and professional regardless of what kind of “hand therapist” they’d sent.

After folding up the cuffs on my favorite flannel shirt, I reached to open the front door.

There, on the porch of my cozy rental cabin in the woods, was a mirage. The man wore clean blue jeans and tidy brown hiking boots with a navy blue fleece pullover that featured the familiar logo from Aster Valley Med. His dirty-blond hair was windblown, and his beard looked strawberry blond in the glint from the late-afternoon sun. The man was fucking stunning.

He was a dead ringer for the man from the concert, so much so that I couldn’t stop gawking at him. His eyes widened in surprise, enough to let me know he recognized me, too. But I wasn’t sure if he recognized me as a celebrity or the pervy singer who’d been ogling him all night at Sweet Splits.

“H-hi?” I managed.

The man’s face turned bright scarlet right before my eyes. “Oh Jesus,” he squeaked adorably. “Oh Christ. Oh fuck.”

I tried to remember my manners and the name they’d given me at the clinic. It was an odd name, which was the only reason it popped into my head when I needed it. “Are you… are you Winter Waites? They said you…” My words trailed off as I completely forgot what I was saying.

He looked terrified as he nodded.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” he whispered, stepping backward carefully as if he’d almost approached a live land mine by mistake. “I’ll… I’ll recheck my paperwork and…”

I was not letting him leave again.