“I cannot believe how little this town has changed!” Honey sat across from me at the café. Her bouncy blond curls were smooth and shiny.
“The whole town reminds me of Gram and Pop. I like when people tell me stories about them.” My heart lifted, but ached, at the memory of my grandparents.
Honey flipped through the sticky plastic café menu. I had called her after Lincoln decimated my heart. She listened to my sobs for hours that first night. I wanted nothing more than to pick up and leave—run away—but I had a few more appointments, and with Lincoln not coming into the office, I didn’t want to leave Finn in a lurch. So, instead of leaving town for Butte, Honey insisted she come to me.
Mrs. Coulson, our very elderly and very slow server, finally met us at the table. She looked back and forth between us.
“Evening, Mrs. Coulson,” I said, breaking her stare from Honey. “You remember my sister, Honey?”
“Oh, I wondered if that was you! My, it’s been a long time.” Her sweet face crinkled, and the soft wrinkles of her face deepened with her smile. “I see you’ve still got a proclivity for flashiness.”
I choked out a little laugh as I sipped on my water. Mrs. Coulson also lacked a filter.
“It has been a while.” Honey smiled a warm, affectionate smile back, ignoring the backhanded compliment. “I hear you have all been taking care of my Jo.” Honey just had a natural way with people. She could talk to anyone like it was just yesterday they last talked. Everyone felt at ease around her.
“Oh, well, our little Jo’s been quite the talk of the town, you know!”
Our little Jo. My cheeks flushed at her words. I had never truly felt a sense of belonging anywhere, and somewhere along the road, I had started to think of Chikalu Falls as home.
Mrs. Coulson continued. “She’s got our Lincoln in a tizzy, that’s for sure. But it’s good for him, if you ask me.” Her deep brown eyes danced with mischief.
Clearing my throat gently, I shifted uncomfortably in the booth. When Mrs. Coulson winked at me, it took everything I had not to roll my eyes. Anger still simmered beneath my skin, and I held onto it because it was better than feeling the deep bruise of hurt that Lincoln’s rejection had left behind.
We ordered our dinners and spent the next hour watching the people of this small town talk and mingle. There was a thumping rhythm about it—the way that people laughed and chatted across tables. No matter where you went in Chikalu, neighbors were family. A deep spot in my stomach ached at knowing I loved this town but would never be a part of it.
After dinner, Honey followed me down the dark roads to Mr. Bailey’s farm. She parked her vintage Chevelle next to my old truck.
“You know,” she said as she got out and examined the side of her car, “I’ll be pissed if this gravel dings my paint job.”
I laughed. Honey was a lot of things but used to small-town life—gravel driveways included—was not one of them.
We walked up to the cottage and, despite myself, I peered over at Lincoln’s cottage. The curtains were closed tightly and the lights were off. Honey’s hand patted my back between my shoulder blades. She rested her cheek against my shoulder in comfort.
As I went to open the cottage door, I frowned at the fresh pile of neatly stacked firewood beside the door. We went inside and unloaded Honey’s weekender luggage. She reached inside when I flipped on the lights and let Bud go for a quick run. He yipped and loped straight toward Lincoln’s cottage. Traitor.
From her bag, Honey held up two bottles of vintage Shiraz, wiggling them side to side. “Got any cups? Let’s drown your sorrows tonight.”
I pulled two small mugs from the cupboard and we sat knee to knee on the couch, sipping the luxurious wine.
“You spoil me,” I said, smiling at her.
“Someone needs to! Plus, I am always down for a good post-breakup wine-fest.” At that, we clinked our mugs together. I took a deep sip, letting the spicy liquid warm me. My eyes lost focus as I stared at my mug, lost in thoughts of Lincoln and what could have been.
Honey reached over and gave my shoulder a loving squeeze. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
“Yeah, you and me both.”
“He really beat the shit out of those guys?”
“Yep.” I nodded. “It was bad. I hardly got the words out and he was flying out of the office. I didn’t see him until later that night, and he looked awful. I guess Colin had to pry him off the guys.”
“That’s kind of hot.” A devilish grin spread slowly across my sister’s face.
A small smile quirked at the corner of my mouth. Before I could respond, Honey had her hand up. “Shhh! I hear something . . .”
I looked down at Bud who was resting between us, but he hadn’t moved. Honey set her mug down and tiptoed to the kitchen, flipping the light off as she entered. She moved her small frame to the side of the door, peeking out from behind the curtain of the window into the darkness outside.
“It’s him!” she whisper-shouted.
My stomach flipped.
“I knew he was hot, but you never said he had a body like that! Damn.”
I planted myself on the couch, refusing to look at the man who’d shattered my heart.
“Shit!” Honey ducked below the window. “He’s coming!”
My eyes grew wide, and my heart hammered in my chest.
Honey kept her hand clamped over her mouth, but tipsy giggles kept escaping around her fingers. I swatted my hand in her direction and put my finger to my lips. We waited a beat, then another. Nothing.
I mouthed to Honey, “Where’d he go?”
She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. Carefully, I moved off the couch, trying not to rile Bud. I toed to the door, moving slowly next to Honey. When I straightened my body, I let one eye peek out of the window. Through the foggy glass, I could make out Lincoln’s large frame entering his cottage and closing the door behind him.
Disappointment flooded my system. I looked at Honey and shook my head, walking back to the couch to down the rest of my wine in one burning gulp.
She straightened. “Did he really turn around? I’m taking a peek.”
Honey cracked open the door to get a look for herself. When she moved back inside, she was holding a small bundle of wildflowers wrapped in jute twine.
“This doesn’t look over to me,” she said. Honey set the yellow and pink flowers on the end table next to me.
I pressed the petals to my nose. “I’ve been finding little things—flowers, the firewood, treats for Bud. I do not understand him.”
“He’s in love with you, idiot.”
A flush bloomed across my cheeks at her words, but I forced it away and sank back into the couch. “Men like Lincoln don’t love girls like me, Honey.”
Her face twisted at my words as she plunked down beside me. “What kind of bullshit is that?”
“I’m serious,” I continued. “Men like Lincoln end up with girls like you—beautiful and funny and feminine.” I gestured at all of her as I spoke.
She rested her hand on top of mine. “Jo, you’re all of those things. Just because we’re different doesn’t mean you’re less.” My eyes filled at her words. “Joanna James, you are hot as fuck, strong, smart as a whip, and can run circles around any man with a fishing line. You’re going to be running this county when you decide to get off your ass and open your own guide service. And that,” she gave me her best stern look, “is a fact.”
“I need to do it, you know.” I found my voice and looked at her. “People keep asking me and I think it’s time. I’m going to open up my own service and see where it takes me.”
“That’s my girl!” Honey emptied the last drops of the bottle into my mug and went searching for the second bottle. I couldn’t help but replay her words.
He’s in love with you.
Why did he have to be so stubborn? Why was he leaving me things? Didn’t he know that made it so much harder? If he loved me, how could he push me away? Flashes of anger rose inside of me.
I did nothing wrong. If he can’t see how great we could have been together, then that’s on him.
I swiped a traitorous tear that tumbled down my cheek.
A week after Honey’s visit, I still hadn’t seen Lincoln. Since he was a man of routine and order, avoiding him had become easy—out the door during his morning run, avoid the coffee shop around three, no more dinners at The Pidge.
Once I’d fulfilled my commitment to Finn, I would pack up my meager belongings and head back to Butte. There, I could focus on how I would finally start marketing Montana’s first female-owned guide business.
In reality, the thought of leaving Chikalu Falls and the warm, friendly faces that nodded and waved when I walked down the street spread a dull, aching sadness across my back. In the short time here, happy childhood memories had flooded back. I would miss Mr. Richardson insisting my groceries were far too heavy, Miss Trina giving me a smile and a knowing wink when we passed.
I would even miss grumpy old man Bailey. I knew by the way he’d try to hide a smile and slap his knee when I reeled in a fish off his riverbank that, beneath his gruff exterior, there was a teddy bear. I had fallen in love with Chikalu—it was a small town with big love.
But I couldn’t bear the thought of Lincoln moving on. My stomach soured at the thought of seeing him with his arm draped across the shoulders of another woman, his blue eyes looking at her with the love I wished he could feel for me. I couldn’t pretend what we had wasn’t real.
The mountain air brought a crispness, reminding me that summer was slowly tilting toward fall. Consumed by my thoughts, I rounded the corner out of the coffee shop—I’d started ordering tea, even though I hated it, because coffee reminded me too much of mornings with Lincoln—when I crashed into a brick wall of a man with a very un-ladylike ooof.
Before my head could snap up, I was accosted by his deliciously clean, pine smell. His arms instinctively steadied me, wrapping a little too intimately around my back.
“I’m sorry,” tumbled out of me before I could completely register who was holding me. When I looked up and saw Lincoln’s sea-blue eyes, I jumped back, sloshing my tea through the lid.
“Joanna.” Lincoln’s eyes fixed on me. He looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. Shadows darkened beneath his eyes, and his beard was shaggier than I remembered.
I blew out a breath to steady my war-drum heartbeat.
