“Here’s the problem. You’re looking at this choice likes it’s right versus wrong. It’s not right versus wrong. It’s right versus left. You’re at a crossroads. You can go left or right. Left to Hawaii and your current job. Right to Oregon, a new job and Chris. Both are good options. That’s why it’s so hard to decide. If this were a choice between right and wrong, it would be easy. But since both choices are good ones...”
“Since both choices are good ones, I’m sitting on a tree stump by a lake when I should be getting ready for my brother’s wedding.”
“You don’t have to decide right now. It’s not like it’s do or die. Go to the wedding. Have fun. Go home to Hawaii tomorrow. Decide on your own time. If Chris really loves you, he’ll give you time, right?”
“He’ll give me time.”
“Then stop stressing. Have fun tonight. Drink an extra glass of red wine for me, okay?”
“Done.”
“I love you, JoJo.”
“Love you, too, KiKi.”
“Call me if you need me. But I have a date tonight so try not to need me until tomorrow morning after ten.”
“Oh, thank God. Please distract me for the next half hour with your personal life. I’m so sick of mine.”
“Can’t. You have a wedding go to, and I have stuff to shave.”
“Have fun.”
“You, too.”
Joey ended the call and stood up. She needed to hurry but she took one more look around, one more deep breath. In the fading light of sunset, the entire world seemed made up of shadows and shade. Only the highest trees on the highest part of the mountain still shimmered in the golden light of day. Black water. Green mountain. Blue sky. Brown earth. Red sun. She wanted to stand here and take in all the beauty until she had nothing but beauty within her. She wanted the beauty to crowd out the confusion, the uncertainty and the fear she carried around inside her head. And the embarrassment, too. Kira was right. It wasn’t her fault Ben had lied to her. But knowing that in her mind and knowing it in her heart were two different things. She didn’t feel ready to jump back into a relationship so soon. It wasn’t the relationship that scared her so much as the jumping. This wasn’t jumping off a diving board into a pool. It felt like jumping out of an airplane into the ocean.
Was it the ocean, though? Or did it just seem like that? Maybe it only looked like the ocean from a distance but once she jumped in it she’d find herself in a swimming pool. The deep end seemed very deep from where she stood, however. The deep end meant quitting her job, moving twenty-five hundred miles away from the place that had been her home her entire adult life, dating a guy who was already in love with her, a guy she’d only been seeing for a week—okay, ten days. Ocean or swimming pool—a person could swim in both or drown in both.
Yet...if she were honest with herself, a part of her wanted to close her eyes and just cannonball. The past two days since their fight in the cabin she had missed Chris. She’d missed him more than she’d ever missed Ben when he’d gone back to LA for work. Of course, she’d known Ben would be back in a week or two and Joey had no idea if or when she’d ever see Chris again after she returned to Hawaii tomorrow. That possibility felt...unacceptable. She had to see him again. Her entire body ached to see him again. Last night she lay alone in the bed he had crafted with his own hands and felt the absence of him inside her so keenly it hurt. Her entire body longed for him. Her hands missed his hands, her breasts missed his mouth and all of her missed his smile, his voice, his laugh in her ear and his cock inside her.
And him. Just him. She missed him. All of him. Every part of him. Even if he were standing next to her right now not touching her, not speaking, she would be happy.
But she couldn’t stand here debating with herself a minute longer. She said her farewells to the lake and the mountain and headed down the path toward the cabin. As the sun set, the air chilled and she walked faster to stay warm. Yet when she passed the path leading to the stone cabin Chris had shown her two days ago, she slowed down. She saw a tendril of smoke escaping from the stone chimney. Was someone in the cabin? No one should be in the cabin, right? Lost Lake Village Rentals wasn’t even open for business yet. Joey jogged down the walkway. Better to be late for the wedding than let one of Dillon’s cabins burn down.
She reached the cabin and found all was well. It wasn’t on fire, anyway. Someone had turned on all the lights in the cabin, however, and left the red door unlocked. She pushed the heavy wooden door open and found two men in the cabin moving furniture. One had a rocking chair in his hands that he placed by the fireplace. The other moved a wood frame sofa so that it lined up with the faded Persian rug on the floor.
“Ma’am?” One of the workmen saw her in the doorway. “You lost?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Sorry. My brother owns this cabin. I saw the smoke. I wanted to make sure the house wasn’t burning down.”
“Nothing burning down. Sorry to scare you,” he said. “We’re almost done here. Right?”
“Not yet,” the other man said. “Couple more little things in the truck.”
“I’ll get them.”
Joey looked around the cabin while the man got whatever it was out of his truck. All the furniture looked perfect for this cabin. Exactly what she would have chosen. She climbed the stairs to the loft and found a brass bed. It would need a new mattress and an old quilt. Quilts—not comforters or duvets. Real Amish quilts. On the bedside table was a metal lamp with a painted hand-blown glass shade. She’d seen similar lamps up at Timber Ridge Lodge. Downstairs she found a lawyer-style bookcase, antique walnut. Inside on the top shelf were a red leather dictionary, a black leather thesaurus, hardbound books on local flora and fauna and a blank book ready for ink on pages. The desk was also antique walnut, and with all the dings and nicks and chips in the wood, she would guess it had been around since the ’50s or so. It must have weighed five hundred pounds from the looks of it. Now this was a desk someone could write their magnum opus on. Of course they’d need a...
“Excuse me, miss,” the man said. Joey moved out of the way as the man sat a typewriter onto the top of the desk. A black Remington with black-and-white keys, a fresh black-and-red ribbon and polished to a high shine.
“Does it work?” she asked, staring at the vintage typewriter.
“It should,” the man said. “Try it.”
He handed her a blank invoice from his clipboard and Joey flipped it over to the back and rolled it through the typewriter. Instinctively she went to hit the on button before remembering it had no on button. Manual typewriter. She was the on button.
She put her fingers on the keys but didn’t push them yet.