Clara glanced at the teenage girl who was too busy staring at me intently before nodding. “I’ll take it as long as you show up and, if you don’t feel like coming in, you’ll at least give me notice?”
“I promise.”
“I have to warn you though, I can’t pay you much hourly.” She gave me an amount that wasn’t much over minimum wage, but it was something.
And with someone I liked and had known me before, it was fucking fate slapping me in the face.
And when fate pushed things into your life, you should listen. I had my ears ready. My future wide open. I had no clue what I wanted to do anymore, but this was something. This was a step. And the only way you could move was by taking that first step, and sometimes it didn’t matter which direction you took it as long as you did.
“I can teach you how to use the register, and we can figure out what other things you can do. Rentals. I don’t know. But it isn’t going to be a whole lot of money; I want you to know that. You sure that’s okay?”
“I’ve never wanted to be a millionaire,” I told her carefully, feeling something that felt an awful lot like relief crawl over my skin.
“Want to start tomorrow?”
Some more of that blooming hope flowered in my chest. “Tomorrow works for me.” I had exactly nothing going on.
I held my hand out between us. She slipped hers forward too, and we shook on it, roughly.
Then slowly, we both smiled and she dipped her chin down and asked, with her mouth twitching again, her dark eyes bright, “Now that that’s over, tell me everything. What have you been doing?” Her face fell, and I knew what had come into her mind again—the same thing that loomed over just about every relationship I had with people who were aware of what had happened—my mom.
I didn’t feel like talking about my mom or Kaden, so I changed the subject. “What have you been doing?”
Luckily, she took the bait and told me all about what she’d been up to.
I was feeling pretty damn good as I drove back to the garage apartment that evening. I’d spent two hours hanging out with Clara and Jackie. The fifteen-year-old had been quiet but extremely watchful, soaking up everything Clara shared about her life with these wide eyes that made me like her already.
Those hours together were the highlight of the last two months of my life—probably even longer than that. It was nice to be around someone who knew me. To have a conversation in person with someone who wasn’t a total stranger. I’d been to so many cool national parks, major tourist destinations, and so many other places that I’d only seen in magazines and in travel blogs, that I couldn’t regret how I’d spent my time before getting to Pagosa. It had been what I’d needed, and I was fully aware my free time had been a luxury.
Even if it was a blessing that had come with what had felt like such a huge price tag.
Fourteen years wasted for two months of doing whatever I wanted to do. And still more than enough money in my bank account that I wouldn’t have to work for… a while. But I knew that time was over.
There was no point in waiting to settle in to get my life back on track.
But getting to catch up with my old friend gave me hope that maybe… there was something for me here. Or at least that if I gave it some time, I could make there be something here for me. There were bones, and that was more than I could say for just about every other place in the United States that wasn’t Cape Coral or Nashville.
Why not here? Ran through my head all over again.
If my mom had been able to live here with no family and a few friends, why couldn’t I?
I pulled my car into the driveway like my navigation instructed and spotted two vehicles in front of the house. The Bronco and a truck that said “Parks and Wildlife” on the sides. Lights blazed through the big windows of the main house, and I wondered what the father and son were doing.
Then I wondered if there was a girlfriend, wife, or mom in there with them too. There might be a sister. Or even more siblings. Maybe not though, because if he had thought about trying to pull off renting out the garage apartment, it would’ve been a lot harder with a sibling who could rat him out.
I would know. My cousins used to pay me not to tell my aunt and uncle about things that would get them in trouble. Who the hell knew though?
I could snoop and perv from a distance. I was a sucker for a gorgeous face—usually dog faces or baby animals but human ones too from time to time. It wouldn’t be a hardship to check out my landlord.
Parking my car alongside the garage apartment, I picked up the envelope with cash that I’d gotten from the bank and got out. Not wanting to get caught by the hot dad who didn’t want to know I existed, I pretty much ran to the front door, knocked on it, then stuffed it halfway under the mat before I got caught.
I collected the bags of groceries I’d bought after leaving Clara and Jackie, grabbed the right key, and hustled for the door.
What had been supposed to be a quick trip to the grocery store ended up taking almost an hour since I had no idea where anything was, but I managed to get more sandwich supplies, cereal, fruit, almond milk, and things to make a few quick dinners. Over the last decade, I’d mastered about a dozen versions of quick, easy dinners I could make with a single small pot—most of the time I would rather eat my own food than what I could have gotten through catering. Those recipes had come in handy over the last two months when I’d gotten fed up with eating out.
Closing the door with my hip, I glanced toward the house and spotted a familiarish face through a window.
A young face.
I paused for a second then waved.
The boy, Amos, lifted a hand shyly. I wondered if he was grounded for the rest of his life. Poor kid.
Back upstairs, in my temporary home, I put my groceries up and made a meal, basically inhaling it. After that, I pulled my mom’s journal out from my backpack, setting the leather-bound book beside a spiral one I’d bought the day after I’d decided to head to Pagosa. Then I found the page I already had memorized but felt like seeing.
I’d driven by the house we’d lived in after the grocery store, and it had left me with something that felt an awful lot like indigestion in the center of my chest. It wasn’t indigestion though. I’d gotten so familiar with the sensation that I knew exactly what it was. I just missed her extra today.
I was lucky because I remembered a lot about her. I’d been thirteen when she’d gone missing, but there were a few things I could recall a lot more clearly than others. Time had softened so many details and watered other memories down, but one of the brightest memories of her had been her absolute love of the outdoors. She would’ve killed it working at The Outdoor Experience, and now that I thought about it… well, I guess it was the most perfect job I could have gotten. I was already planning on doing her hikes.
Maybe I didn’t know anything about fishing, camping, or archery, but I’d used to do some of that stuff with her, and I was pretty sure if I’d hated it, I wouldn’t have forgotten. That was something to consider.
Another thing I remembered as well was how much she had loved to catalog things she did. That included keeping track of what had been her favorite hobby in the world: hiking. She used to say it was the best therapy she’d ever found—not that I’d understood what that meant until I’d gotten a lot older.