CHAPTER 5
LIAM

I woke up alone in my bed and I sighed. It was better that way. No one to wake up in the middle of the night with my nightmares. No one to protect from my anger. No one poking and prodding about my days in the military and no one to feed or look after. I’d done enough of that shit in the Navy and I was leaving those days behind me.

I wasn’t a doctor, I wasn’t a defender, and I wasn’t a protector.

I was just a man, trying hard to forget about the bullshit.

I dragged myself out of bed and took a shower. I was ready for winter to set in. I was ready for the snow to cover my cabin. I was ready to make a fire, sit by it, and simply reflect. I enjoyed the quiet, the eerie silence that came with being so far out into the woods. Back here, there was no one screaming. Back here, there was no one firing off guns. Back here, there was no one crying until they fell into an endless slumber.

I opened up the fridge and started taking stock of things. The snow hadn’t fallen nearly as hard last night as I thought it would and I was suddenly glad for that. Out of all the things I’d forgotten, I didn’t grab milk at the store.

That meant I’d have to go back into town and get some.

It was a tip I’d learned from a local who was chatting my ear off. You could buy gallons of milk and freeze them for the winter. All you had to do was take about half a cup out of the gallon, screw the lid on tight and then store it away. I didn’t use a great deal of milk for things but I would need it if I wanted to bake and cook up some of the things I’d bought the other day. I sighed, knowing Moose would try to talk my ear off again, but I didn’t really have a choice.

I wrapped a scarf around my neck and pulled on a hat. The temperature was dropping, which meant I’d need to store my truck away. The last thing I needed was the snow and ice damaging this thing. Every time I got into it, my truck reminded me of a lighter time. A time where I could still smile without feeling guilty and take a breath without feeling like my lungs were trying to collapse in on themselves.

I rode into town and tried to get my mind off things but when I came across a tree down in the middle of the pathway, I had to backtrack. I’d get my chainsaw out later and remove it.

I wasn’t sure where this back way took me, but I was hoping it would pass by a clearing. If I could keep leaning to my left, I could get back onto the road and get into town. As I traveled down the road, it eventually cleared into a carved-out path through the trees.

That was when I saw it. The resort.

I’d heard a few locals talk about it whenever I had to go into town. They talked about how the cabins were beautiful, but they also talked about how loud the families were. Rich families and people getting away would descend onto the resort and ham it up. They’d clog up the local restaurants, trying to experience “local Gatlinburg” life, when all they really wanted to do was buy a designer pair of boots.

The locals complained that it flooded their town with “city folk,” but I saw it a bit differently. It would have been the life I lived had things not gone south in the Navy.

I drove by the back road that skirted the property and studied the log cabins. They were put together well and I could tell they had all the common luxuries of high-class society. Ample electricity, central heating, massive windows that you could see into, chandeliers hung from the ceilings, and there were probably walk-in saunas and shit like that.

At another point in my life, I would’ve loved shit like that.

But not anymore. I wandered around the back end of the resort and finally came to what I thought was the front of it. I had to stop at a small little stop sign to get to the main road, but I had to wait until some people crossed my path. A mother was walking with her fully-grown sons while the father lugged all their luggage. There was a couple holding hands who couldn’t stop kissing one another long enough to cross the damn road.

And then there was a woman: one lone woman looking down at her feet.

She couldn’t have been older than twenty-eight and she was dressed as if she worked in the corporate sector. She had long blonde hair that looked perfectly styled. The sun reflected off the top of her head and almost made it look like she was glistening.

I wondered what her story was. What in the world was a woman like herself doing at a resort that tailored itself to families? Surely, she needed some money to stay at a place like this, which probably accounted for the way she was dressed. Her dark red pea coat covered her entire body but I could see her black work pants and her black heeled boots peeking out from beneath the fabric.

A beauty like her didn’t need to be walking with her shoulders slumped and head down.

My phone rang in my shirt pocket, ripping me from my thoughts, and I started back into town while I answered it. I knew there was only one person who would be calling me because, well, he was the only person who had my number.

And it was about damn time I heard from him.

“Paxton,” I said. “It’s about damn time.”

“Canter, what’s crackin’?” he asked.

“Nothin’ much. Just driving into town for some milk.”

“Preparing for that harsh winter or something?” he asked.

“Well, I do hear the locals talking about it sometimes. And the weather forecasts aren’t too pretty, either.”

“At least you’re getting into town. I was worried you’d coop yourself up in that cabin and never come out.”

“A man’s gotta eat,” I said, grinning.

“Especially when he’s as massive as you.”

“So, what’s going on with you?” I asked. “How are the guys?”

“Well, me and some of the guys are actually preparing for another deployment,” he said.

My hand gripped the phone a bit too tightly.

“Another deployment?” I asked. “You sure you’re up for somethin’ like that?”

“I mean, I need to get my mind off things. I need to show myself that not every deployment will turn out like our last one. All I’m doing here is sitting at a fucking desk, pushing papers and twiddling my fucking thumbs, man. I can’t do it anymore.”

“So, you volunteered for this one?” I asked.

“I did, and they gladly gave it to me. They’ve put me on a ship headed toward the scheduled war games this year, but don’t tell anyone I told you.”

“Yeah, keep that shit to yourself,” I said, grinning.

“Oh, dude.”

“What?” I asked.

“There’s a fucking massive snowstorm headed your way.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“How the hell don’t you? It’s on every fucking news station. Don’t tell me you don’t have a television.”

“I have a radio and I haven’t heard anything about it on there.”

“It sounds like its coming out from nowhere. Get yourself a fucking TV to stay up to date. Even if it’s just a twelve-inch little thing you sit on the counter. You guys are going to get pummeled tomorrow. It’s supposed to snow people in up to three fucking feet.”

Paxton was a good friend. He acted like he didn’t give a shit but he cared more than any man I’d ever met. I pulled up in front of the store. When I saw how many people were rushing around in there, I started to get worried. All I needed was a few gallons of milk but my mind kicked into overdrive. Suddenly, I needed ace bandages and peroxide. Band-aids and gauze. I needed to prepare for every fucking thing that could possibly go wrong. I wasn’t sure where the panic was now coming from.

“Canter, you good?” Paxton asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I just pulled up to the store. What exactly is that weather report saying?”

“It says most areas affected are supposed to see two feet of snow, but Gatlinburg is right in its brewing path. They’re predicting anywhere between three and four feet of snow dumped over the course of the next week.”

“The next week?” I asked.

“Yep. The mountains are trapping the storm, according to this weatherman. It’ll brew, stay, hang out, and then dissipate without ever going anywhere. Get the shit you need and stock the fuck up.”

“Thanks, man,” I said. “I’ll call you when I’m back at the cabin.”

“Hey, Canter?”

“Yeah?” I asked.

I walked into the store and grabbed another cart, my panic getting the best of me as everyone rushed around me.

“Take deep breaths,” he said. “You’re in the mountains, not at sea.”

“You know I can rough a snowstorm. Why is there this sense of urgency all of a sudden?”

“Because you’re in a crowded store,” he said. “I can hear the chatter over the phone. Take deep breaths like you always told me. Okay?”

“Call ya when it’s over,” I said.

“Paxton out.”

I white-knuckled the cart while I walked around the store. The first place I went was the milk aisle and I was glad I did. People were snatching up gallon after gallon left and right and all that was left to choose from was whole milk and skim milk. I grabbed four gallons of whole milk and decided I could get powdered milk for the rest of it.

Then, I traveled up and down the aisles. I threw salves, chapsticks, and ace bandages into my cart, along with a rudimentary first aid kit and more free newspapers. I picked up another four gallons of gasoline and threw all the frozen vegetables into my cart that I could stand. I even managed to pick up a couple of bags of frozen chicken wings, just in case I needed more meat for something.

I needed to get out of this fucking store before I lost my damn mind.

I stood in line for almost an hour before I finally got up to Moose. He was all smiles and kind phrases, but I could see the panic in his eyes. I knew enough about Moose to know he’d spent his entire fucking life in Gatlinburg, and if he was worried about the incoming weather, then we all needed to be.

“You got everything you need?” I asked as he rang me up.

Moose nodded. “Wife came in early this morning and told me the news. She took home five carts of stuff.”

“Five carts? Good for her. You get any time off to help her?”

“Nope, but I sent one of the baggers with her to help her unload. This city’s preparing.”

“It seems like they should be,” I said.

“You got someone to keep you company through the storm?”

I stayed quiet at his question as I began loading bags into my cart.

“You should,” he said. “Stop by the pet store and get you a dog or something to keep you company. It’s gonna get mighty lonely once you get snowed-in.”

“I’ll take it into consideration,” I said.

I paid for my groceries and booked it to my truck. I didn’t want any company. I didn’t want a pet. I didn’t want anything else to run after when I was already running after myself. I tossed everything into the bed of my truck before I handed my cart off to someone else. Then I jumped in and started back for my cabin.

Screw having someone to keep me company.

Alone was what someone like me deserved.