“I asked you first, Blue.”
“I’m okay.” I nodded, and today, it was the truth. I was more worried about him than myself. And maybe what I’d needed all along was to talk. To let it out. He’d given me that outlet at the waterfall.
No one knew those feelings. Not my parents. Not my siblings.
But there was something about Vance that had made me confess it all. Maybe because it seemed like he’d understand.
“Will you keep searching?” I asked. “Or just rely on the game cameras?”
“I’ll keep going.” His coat was hung on the back of his chair. He reached into an interior pocket, taking out the same map he’d shown me while we’d been hiking. It was folded differently now, reduced to the area around that stream. “Until it snows.”
What? My heart dropped to the floor. Until it snowed. That was it?
It could snow any day now. My eyes shot to the windows and the sky above Main. The late afternoon light had mostly faded as the days got shorter and shorter.
The sky was clear for a change. The rain clouds had blown away while Vance had been hiking. The stars would put on a show tonight, but this reprieve wouldn’t last. Especially in the mountains.
Snow was coming.
I wasn’t ready to let him go. Not yet.
“Why the snow?” I asked, hoping he couldn’t hear the sadness in my voice.
“Just too hard to hide tracks.”
“Right.” Of course. Like the mud, any tracks would help find Cormac. But they’d also alert Cormac to someone in the area.
What if there was another way? “My brother, Mateo, is a pilot. If it snows, wouldn’t Cormac need a fire or something to stay warm? What if you searched by plane instead?”
“Maybe. Though that could spook him.”
“But I’m sure wherever he’s been hiding, he’s heard planes fly around.”
Vance hummed. “I’ll think about it.”
If he was anything like my father, I’ll think about it meant no.
The bell dinged behind me, the door opening, and with it, a gust of cold air swept inside.
Mom walked in, her cheeks flushed and smile bright. “Hi.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“How’s it going?” She walked over, pulling me into a hug. “I was just coming to say hi and see if you needed an extra set of hands in the kitchen. I feel like baking but your father told me that he wanted to lose five pounds, so I wasn’t allowed to make a pie. I give it a week.”
I laughed. “Me too.”
“So . . . need free labor?”
“Sure.” I glanced at Vance.
He nodded to Mom, a silent hello as he chewed more of that sandwich.
“Hi,” Mom said, looking between the two of us. “Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting?”
“No, it’s fine. We were just chatting.” I looked at Vance. “I’ll let you eat.”
He nodded again, and as I headed for the counter, Mom at my side, I felt his eyes on me.
“Honey.” Mom leaned in close to whisper. “Who is that?”
“Just a customer.”
She scoffed. “And I’m twenty-nine years old.”
Being close with your mom was wonderful. Most of the time. But she’d always had this uncanny ability to know when I was lying.
Of her three daughters, why was I the one she could read like her favorite book? Eloise had been married to Jasper for a month before any of us had found out. And the few times Talia and I had broken curfew in high school, it wasn’t my twin Mom had interrogated. It was me.
Busted. Every damn time.
Winn was the only person in my family who knew about Vance, and she’d kept it quiet simply because I’d asked. Griffin probably knew, but he’d always been more concerned about Eloise’s choice in men, not mine.
To be fair, before Jasper, Eloise had picked some disasters as boyfriends. I guess I could take it as a point of pride that my oldest brother trusted me to be a good judge of character.
“What’s his name?” Mom asked.
I checked over my shoulder as we passed the counter, making sure Emily Nelsen was out of earshot. Then I nodded for Mom to follow me into the kitchen.
“Vance,” I told her when we were alone.
“He’s . . . wow.” Mom fanned her face. “Wow. Different from most of the men you’ve dated. Very rugged and he seems tall. Is he tall? Is he new in town? Tell me he just moved here.”
“Yes, he’s tall. No, he’s just visiting.”
“From where?” Mom asked, unzipping her coat. “Missoula?”
“Idaho.”
“Oh.” Mom’s face scrunched up. “That’s farther than Missoula.”
“It’s fine.” I lifted a shoulder. “We’re just . . . it’s fine.”
“Oh, honey. It’s not fine. You like him.”
So, so much. But diving into the details about why he was here and when Vance would leave would only lead to questions I wasn’t going to answer.
“I was thinking about making pumpkin bread with a cream cheese swirl for tomorrow,” I said. If Vance had taught me anything besides just how good sex could be, it was how to change the subject when the current topic was headed down a dangerous road. “Want to take the lead?”
Mom gave me a flat look.
“Or we could do chocolate chips instead of the cream cheese.”
“Lyla.” Mom wouldn’t drop this.
I sighed. “Yes, I like him. But he’s leaving. It’s nothing serious. And right now, I need that. He’s an escape.”
Her eyes drifted to my throat. No matter how many years passed, she’d always see those bruises, wouldn’t she?
“Chocolate chips or cream cheese?” I asked.
“Cream cheese.” She gave me a sad smile, then walked to the rack tucked in the back corner of the kitchen, trading her coat for a green apron.
I pulled dry ingredients from my shelves, setting them on the prep table, while Mom went to the walk-in, getting eggs and butter and cream. “Okay, I’m going to go check on things out there and leave you to it.”
“I’m going to invite him to family dinner at the ranch on Friday.”
“Oka—” Huh. “What?”
“Dinner at the ranch Friday. If he’s visiting, that means he’s eating out for every meal. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something homemade?”
“First, I won’t take offense to that statement, considering the majority of his meals have been here. Second, no. Just . . . no, Mom.”
“Do you think it would be weird if I went out there and invited him?”
“Beyond weird.”
“You’re probably right. I could ambush him in the hotel lobby.”
“That’s called stalking. Hard no.”
“It’s just dinner.”
“Mother,” I warned.
“Fine.” She waved it off. “I’ll butt out.”
“Thank you.”
She came closer, tucking a lock of my dark hair behind an ear. “I’m worried about you. I love you.”
Two statements that meant the same thing. “I love you too.”
“Here’s an idea.” She bopped my nose with a finger, then turned to the table. “What if we topped this pumpkin bread with some toasted sunflower seeds? Give it a little hint of salt.”
“Yum. Do I have sunflower seeds?”
“You go back to the counter. I’ll dig around the pantry.”
“Okay.” I left her to her task, knowing that her pumpkin bread creation would be a marvel.
Emily was gone when I returned to the counter, her empty mug and plate left behind, so I quickly cleared them away and wiped down the table before wandering back to Vance’s corner.
His plate was empty too.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“I’m good.” He pointed toward the kitchen. “You and your mom look alike.”
“We are alike. She’s in the back, baking.” Now that Emily was gone, I pulled out the chair across from his and took a seat. “She taught me how to cook. Knox too.”
I had countless memories from my childhood of spending hours and hours with Mom in the kitchen. At the time, I hadn’t realized just how much I was learning from her while she’d been standing at the stove.
She’d taught me about hard work. About the pride that came with accomplishment. She’d taught me patience. Grace.
And through every meal, Mom had taught us all about love.
“Eden Coffee was my dream job come true,” I told Vance. “In a way, I think it was for Mom too.”
Vance leaned his elbows on the table, not speaking, just listening. His gray-blue eyes locked on mine.
The more time I spent around him, the more I was learning to read those striking eyes. They unfocused whenever he was lost in memory. They darkened each night before he fucked me to sleep. And when he was interested in a story, soaking up every word like he was now, they had a brightness that made his irises almost iridescent.
If only we had more time together.
I’d learn every color of Vance Sutter’s eyes.
“While my dad was working on the ranch and running the family businesses, Mom managed the hotel,” I told him. “She loves The Eloise. Not the way Eloise loves The Eloise, but Mom enjoyed working there until she retired. But I think if she could do it all over again, she’d have a restaurant. Maybe not like Knox has with Knuckles, but something smaller. Something like this.”
“It’s good of you to let her come here.”
“It’s no hardship. Trust me. She’s an incredible cook. Better than me.”
Vance scoffed. “Doubt it.”