I hang up the phone, and as soon as I stand up, Gunner rushes my legs. His entire body is wiggling along with his tail, and he whines just under his breath. He's impatient, but too well-trained to make a huge spectacle of himself.
“Alright, alright,” I laugh, stroking the giant, chocolate brown dog. “I get the picture.”
I was never a dog person until Gunner showed up on my front porch. No matter how many flyers I put up, no one claimed the guy. When he’d turned up, he’d looked like he'd been on the streets for a while. There wasn't enough meat on his bones and he walked with a limp which we later discovered was a broken foot.
After giving him a thorough exam, the vet said he'd probably been outside for at least a few weeks. No collar. No microchip. The shelter was overcrowded, and they took one look at the mutt and broke it down to me – the chances were good, in a small town like this, no one would claim him. Somebody had probably just dumped him to be rid of the responsibility. The vet told me that he'd probably be euthanized once his hold ran out at the shelter.
I took him home that evening, and he's been my buddy ever since. Saved me a few times too. When I felt down and out, ready to just give up on everything, Gunner would rest his head on my lap and look up at me, as if he was intuiting my thoughts. Those chocolate brown puppy dog eyes are often the only reason I get out of bed. He depends on me, needs me, and I can't let him down.
He follows me out the office, his tail thumping against the cabinets in the kitchen. I open the back door, and Gunner rushes outside into the snow drifts that are almost as tall as he is, kicking up white powder as he runs. If the cold bothers him, it doesn't show. Doesn't bother me much either. I stay on the back porch and stare out at the forest beyond the yard, enjoying the silence and the solitude of my house. It's nothing but open land for as far as the eye can see.
There's not even a fence, but Gunner has no intention of running off into the woods. Not after what he lived through before I found him. He stays nearby, always glancing back to make sure I'm still on the porch watching him. I guess because of what he endured before he came to me, he's a little paranoid and wants to keep me in sight at all times. The snow is too deep to play ball with him, but there is one thing I know he likes. I walk down the back steps and wade out into the snow, bending down to make a snowball with two hands. Gunner sees what I'm doing and rushes toward me, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, a wide doggy-grin on his face.
Picking up the snowball, I toss it toward him and he leaps from the ground, into the air, and his jaws close around the icy ball. It explodes in a hail of icy chunks and Gunner lands on his feet with snow covering his muzzle and a smile on his face. His eyes are begging me for more, his enthusiasm making me laugh.
I'm not even sure what I did with my free time before he came into my life. David was right about one thing – it did get lonely up here. For the most part, I prefer it that way. Loneliness and isolation are safe. It's familiar for me. There aren't many people I enjoy spending time with, and even fewer that I trust. No one here in the small town of Redstone knows a thing about me. Which is good. I intend to keep it that way.
Gunner eventually gets tired of the snowballs and finds something of interest to sniff. Small tracks dot the snow all around where he's sniffing. Some kind of small animal, obviously. Gunner continues following them until he gets too close to the iced over mountain road, which in a roundabout way, takes you into Aspen. Eventually. It’s a town I stay far away from for obvious reasons – tourists.
I whistle, and Gunner's ears perk up immediately. He turns and looks at me, a question in his deep brown eyes, Ahh, do I have to go inside now?
“I know, buddy,” I say with a sigh. “I have more calls to make, more work to do. But soon, I'll be free to enjoy my days with you and we can play outside as long as you want.”
Gunner, being the good boy that he is, comes running toward me as happy as a clam. He gets it. He gets me. We're a good team, Gunner and I, and it's incredibly fortuitous that this big lump of fur and wiggles came into my life when he did. It might have saved my life.
He leads the way up the stairs, shaking himself off on the porch. I open the back door and he scampers inside, his nails clicking on the hardwood floors as he goes over to his favorite spot in front of the fireplace and plops down with a long sigh. The fire is going strong, the warmth filling the house, and for that, I'm grateful.
In fact, I'm grateful for everything I have, even if it doesn't seem like it. The living room that stretches out before me is filled with nice things. A stone fireplace keeps the house warm, surrounded by brown leather sofas, and an overstuffed chair that I made the mistake of having an interior designer pick out for me. The chair doesn't feel like me, not really, and it's not overly comfortable to sit in, but it looks nice. So, I guess that's something.
A large flat panel television hangs on the wall that's hardly ever used. In fact, I hardly ever sit in the living room. It's a room I usually just pass through on my way out of the house. I spend most of my time in my office, bedroom, kitchen, or bathroom. The rest of the large cabin goes mostly unused, including the loft up above the living area that serves as a library. It's full of more books than I can ever read in my lifetime. I hope once I'm finally finished with my dad's company though, I can at least put a sizeable dent in the collection.
I walk through the living room, passing it by as usual, and head for the kitchen. This room gets used a lot. Given how small of a town Redstone is, getting delivery is next to impossible, so I cook most of my own meals, as well as Gunner's. Large and spacious with stainless steel appliances and slate countertops, it's the one room I had a say in. A dining room separates the living area from the kitchen – yet another space that goes largely unused. It's an elegant room though, dominated by an eight-person dining table made entirely of locally sourced wood.
Given that I'm not into hosting dinner parties though, I usually eat at the breakfast nook situated in the corner of the kitchen. My laptop is a permanent fixture there as it's one of the few places, outside of my office, that I do my work, mostly because of the view. The nook has bench seating against a bay window, and in the distance, you can see the snowcapped mountains that the tourists flock to on their skiing holidays.
Personally, I prefer seeing them from this distance. The mountains are majestic though – rugged and natural, rising above the earth and dusted with snow almost year-round. Summer is beautiful in this little slice of Colorado too though, when the trees are green, and everything comes alive once more. As beautiful as it is though, winter will always be my favorite season. I had more than enough summer in the dessert.
I sit down with a cup of coffee and open my laptop. I delete a bunch of useless e-mails, and scroll through, only stopping on those for local woodworking jobs.
Checking the clock, I see that I have a few minutes to go until my next call. This one handling the day to day operations of the business until the business is finally sold off. One more week, maybe two, and then I'd be free to do what I loved instead of dealing with this daily rigmarole.
Then, maybe, I can finally, truly relax.
CHAPTER THREE
SYDNEY
“Can you tell me where we're going now?” I ask, once we’ve boarded the private jet.
A woman brings me a glass of champagne, which she hands to me along with a napkin. I didn't ask for any champagne and am not particularly in the mood for a drink right now. I put the glass in the cup holder on the arm of the leather seat. Peter takes his glass and sips it, a devious smile on his face as he glances at me from over the rim.
“Do you like skiing, Sydney?” he asks me.