rigid for my Wind.
“She teaches Shakespeare at Columbia.”
I let out an appreciative whistle. “I thought you meant like a high school teacher.” My image of a beleaguered public school teacher in a scraggly sweater shifted to a put-together Ivy-League professor in a sharp sheath dress and heels. “At least a Shakespeare professor will appreciate your acting.”
“She appreciates a lot of things about me.” Chelle said this with a tease in her voice, but it also sounded serious.
“I’m happy for you.”
“I have to go actually. She’s staying over tonight.” I heard a door somewhere in the background of the call.
“Oh, sure,” I said, disappointed. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Um, Harper? My romantic life—at least the sex part—is largely constructed of things you don’t do.”
“Right. Well. You know what I mean.”
“I do. Love you,” she said, and the lilt in her voice made me miss my friend violently.
“Love you too. Bye.” I hung up, picturing her putting down her phone and turning to embrace the mystery woman in her apartment.
I blew out a long breath, and then went back up the stairs to finish getting ready to introduce myself at my new job. It should be noted that going up stairs in a pencil skirt is no easier than going down. Since I hadn’t seen the set up of the new Inn, I changed into pants—there was a chance there might be stairs at work, and I didn’t need added complications today.
When I was dressed, made up and properly groomed, I went down to the car. But as I was getting myself settled and trying to breathe out the nerves that were gathering inside me, a howling whine erupted from somewhere across the slope from the cabin. I sat in the driver’s seat of my car, the door still swung open, and let my eyes wander the tree-covered landscape. If there was something over there, something slinking through the brush, winding between the tree trunks, I couldn’t see it. The Azalea was too thick and the shadows beneath the trees too dense.
I shivered when the howl came once more, and closed the car door. This sounded different. Less like a predator, less frightening. But if the rangers said there was a mountain lion wandering around up here, I wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
I started the car and drove into town.
The Inn was nothing like I remembered it. Of course, when I’d been seven, it hadn’t been the same inn. I think it had been called a lodge back then, more Cabin Life than this version’s Food and Wine aesthetic. I parked and took a few minutes to appreciate the outside of the structure. It soared into a high peak, strong solid wood reaching up into the incredible aching blue of the sky.
That was something that didn’t change up here, I decided. The sky. At night it was spread like a pinholed velvet map between the treetops, stars filling up almost every little corner of the darkness. And during the day—when it was clear, at least—the color of the mountain sky was an almost heartbreaking blue, a color so pure you felt like maybe you were seeing some small part of heaven up there, getting a view to something humans weren’t intended to look upon. And so you felt lucky gazing up into that little bit of forever. Or I did.
I smoothed my pants and closed the car door, climbing the front steps of the inn carefully in my favorite black slingbacks and pausing to look behind me, out over the railing of the sprawling porch at the meadow and town beyond. As much as I regretted the way I’d ended up back here, my heart squeezed a little bit. It had been a long time, and though I wasn’t eager to talk to my father about all the things that had happened so many years ago, it was still nice to be home—even if it was only temporary.
The lobby of the inn was every bit as impressive as the outside, modern and rustic all at once. I knew the place had been renovated by Palmer Construction, which was the only construction firm in town, run by the Palmer brothers Sam and Chance. When I’d been a little girl, I’d known the Palmers, though they were both older than I was. I couldn’t remember details, really—only that they did everything together, so it was no surprise to me that they’d grown up to take over their dad’s business together.