The Cabin - Jasinda Wilder Page 0,59

a big boulder with our sleeping bags zipped together and wrapped around us both, huddling together, watching our breath huff out in a white fog, staring up at the sky full of stars.

We sat there all night long, just staring up. Holding each other. Not talking, just…being. Together under the stars.

I haven’t seen stars like that since.

Until now.

I lose my breath, staring up at them. My chest aches. I feel him in their twinkling countless millions, feel him watching over me from somewhere behind them.

I’m not okay.

But for the first time since he died, I feel like maybe, someday, I could be.

Coffee & Home Cooking

25:

Dawn—I’ve woken at 6 a.m. on the dot without an alarm since I was sixteen, and by now it’s an unbreakable habit. I’ve been letting—sometimes forcing—myself to lounge in bed for an hour, dozing off, thinking, just enjoying being warm and in bed. Finally, around seven, just after sunrise, I take my cup of coffee out onto the porch—it’s not quite truly cold outside, chilly enough to require a jacket, but it’s bracing. The mug is hot against my palms, steam rising from the black liquid.

I sit with the book. In it, the narrator has met the heroine—like him, she’s a widow who recently lost her husband. They’re both closed off and bitter and hesitant to let anyone in—sounds familiar.

The heroine in the story is tall and slender with jet-black hair and green eyes.

The hero is tall, strongly built, and a carpenter.

A little on the nose, buddy.

I read on:

…I couldn’t make coffee for shit. This is from the heroine’s POV. I worked early and stopped for coffee on the way, and so rarely make my own coffee. On the weekends, my husband used to make it for me, but now, it was just me. And I couldn’t and wouldn’t make it for myself. It’s not like making coffee was hard or complicated. It was the principle of the thing, really.

I think about my pour-over inside. I wonder if she’s had coffee, yet. If she’s awake. A cup of fresh coffee would be a nice way to introduce yourself as a neighbor.

I’m considering this when I hear her front door open. She’s wrapped in a blanket. Sits in the rocking chair, but with her knees under her. I’m standing up, at this point, thinking. I’ve got my mug in my hands, having just refilled it, so it’s steaming.

She glances this way—it’s far enough I can’t really make out her exact expression, but I can feel her longing for coffee from here.

I head back inside and make a fresh batch. I carry the pour-over in one hand and my mug in the other. Head over across the grass between the cabins. I can feel her tensing as I approach. I stop at the base of her steps.

“Uh, hi.” I clear my throat. “Wondered if you might like some coffee.”

Her eyes are green, a deep, dark shade of jade. They search me. “I…yeah, actually, that would be amazing.” She seems embarrassed. “I don’t…I have stuff to make coffee but I…every time I make coffee, it tastes like dirt.”

I lift the Chemex. “Well, grab yourself a mug.” I set a foot on the lower step. “Mind if I come up?”

She hesitated. “I…yeah, sure. Yes. Please. I’ll be right back.”

Rising, she floats inside with the blanket trailing behind her like a superhero cape. Returns momentarily with a big ceramic mug, intentionally lopsided to mold against the hands. She offers me the mug, giving me something that might be the wayward ghost of a smile—tiny, faint, hesitant.

I hold the reusable copper filter in place and fill her up. I then dig in the pocket of my flannel shirt for packets of stevia and a spoon; in the story, she fixed her coffee black, with a little natural sweetener.

She takes the packet and spoon with a quizzical grin. “Thanks?” A question, by the tone of her voice. As in, how do you know how I like my coffee?

I shrug. “I drink mine black,” I say. “I had sweetener but not milk or cream. So.”

It’s not like I could come out and tell her, you know how I know how you take your coffee? Your dead husband wrote a story that seems to be about you and me getting together.

And also, it’s true. I don’t have milk or cream at the cabin, just packets of stevia, mainly because I was thinking about trying to make a cake or something and couldn’t find bags of