Chapter 9
Anna
On Saturday morning I was up at the crack of dawn. I was uncomfortable, unsettled, and I had no idea what had woken me up. Luke lay next to me, fast asleep. Would he wake up if something was wrong? I wasn’t sure. He was alert and on his guard—I picked that up every now and then—but he slept like the dead.
I rolled onto my side and tried to go back to sleep. The sun hadn’t even risen above the horizon yet, and the night still had the silvery quality it gets before dawn. I couldn’t fell back asleep, so I decided to get out of bed and put coffee on.
Two windows framed the front door, and I stood in front of one of them, looking out over the winter wonderland that surrounded the cabin. The pine trees with their evergreen needles were in stark contrast to the white fluff that lay on the floor and covered the branches like cotton wool. The morning was crisp, and despite the fire Luke had built last night to warm up the cabin, the cold came through the window panes and reminded me that we were very small in a very wild part of the country.
The kettle boiled, and I took it off the stove, making a mug of instant coffee. I opened the fridge and found eggs and bacon, part of the supplies Luke had bought yesterday. I set down my coffee and started breaking the eggs, whisking them together in a bowl while oil heated in a pan for me to cook the bacon. I put bread in the toaster and made scrambled eggs with bacon on toast.
I wanted to do something to thank Luke for how good he was to me. He had taken me in and made me feel welcome since the moment he had found me in the snow. Finding kindness like that was rare. In my life, at least. I wanted to show him how much it meant to me. Making breakfast wasn’t enough to show him how grateful I was, but it was a good start.
Luke came out of the bedroom a while later wearing the sweats he had gone to bed in. He looked delicious, still thick with sleep. I let my eyes slide down his body while he rubbed his eyes, relishing in how good looking he was and that I had been there, done that. I smiled and forced myself to look away.
“That smells fantastic,” he said. “The smell of coffee and bacon is sure to get any man out of bed.”
I smiled and dished up the food. Luke took his plate, and I took mine. We sat down at the little table together. We were starting to create a routine, and I liked it. I didn’t feel like I was a guest anymore, or worse, a patient. I felt like Luke and I successfully turned it into a little home.
The moment I thought it I pushed it away. Luke and I were playing happy family because he had no choice. I was here until the roads opened after the snow had made them inaccessible. This wasn’t anything other than a necessity.
“I want to go back to Dillon today,” Luke said.
“Why?” I asked. “Didn’t you say you only go a couple times a week?”
Luke nodded. “Ideally, yeah. But they sold me meat that’s gone off before nighttime. I want to exchange it and fight with the butcher. He knows me. He knows he should check his meat before giving it to me.”
“It’s very cold for meat to go off,” I said.
“My point exactly. Would you like to come to Dillon with me again today?”
I nodded. We had been to the little town only yesterday, but the cabin was small, and it was easy to get cooped up out here. The snow had been falling steadily so heading out for a walk hadn’t been possible.
“It would be a good idea to call Lizabeth again,” I said. “Maybe she has a weather update for us. It’s her parents I was traveling to in Steamboat Springs. She’s in New York but they invited me to stay while I’m vacationing here, and they’re worried now that I dropped off the map. It’s good for Lizabeth to be able to let them know I’m alright.”
Luke didn’t ask why I didn’t phone Lizabeth’s parents directly, and I was relieved. I didn’t know what I would have said in response. Instead, Luke nodded. “New York can be a great place or a scary place, depending on how you look at it.”
“Do you go often?” I asked.
“Not in the past year or so, but I used to live there. I have an apartment there.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. “For some reason, I thought you had lived in New Jersey, too.”
Luke shrugged his shoulders. “I grew up in Atlantic City, but I moved to New York when I was fresh out of college and built a life there.”
“Until your parents disowned you?” I asked.
Luke nodded. I frowned. It didn’t make sense to me. Why would Luke have left New York if his parents lived in Atlantic City?
“Do you miss New York?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” Luke said. “But I like the simple life out here. In the city, it’s so easy to get caught up in the rat race, in doing what you have to do no matter what.”
I could relate to that. We might not have been coming from the same place, but I knew exactly how that felt; doing what I had to do no matter what.
“If you don’t mind me asking, you’re a grown man and you had your own place in New York. Why did you come here when your parents disowned you? Could you not have stayed in New York?”
Luke shook his head. “No.” He glanced at me, and a look crossed his face that suggested he’d just remembered something. “I mean, I guess I could have. But my life was so damn full, and I needed to get away. We had this cabin in the woods, so I decided why not?”
I envied Luke the ability to leave everything behind and go. Sometimes I wished my dad would disown me so that I could stop running, stop trying to impress him and always fail. But that was unfair. Luke had been close to his parents, and he had lost them, and here I was practically wishing my father away. But if Luke’s parents had put Luke through the kind of hell mine had put me through, maybe he would feel the same about his parents.
“So, the cabin is in the family?” I asked.
Luke nodded. “I grew up in the mountains. We came out to the cabin often. My parents got the room, of course, and I had the sleeper couch. It was an adventure to come out here. My dad taught me everything I know about hunting and trapping and surviving in the wild.”
I watched Luke talk about his family, and it was so obvious he missed them. I felt sorry for him. He wanted to be with them, but he couldn’t. It was horrible to think about, and it made me envy the bond he must have once had with them. I had never had a bond with my dad. I had been trying to escape him my whole life. It was the first time I had had enough courage to get this far.
“I can see why you would escape here,” I said. “There’s something about this place that’s nothing like anywhere else I’ve ever been.”
“It’s the wilderness,” Luke said. “It’s strangely accepting. At least, to me.”
I understood what he was trying to say, even if he thought it sounded silly. The wild mountains, the secluded cabin, the snow that kept us in most of the time and prevented me from leaving, all of it made me feel like I fit in somehow.
That, and how Luke was treating me. I could see why he would come out here and spend more than a year in the mountains, living from supplies that he bought in Dillon and virtually no social life.
How different it was from the life I had grown up in. Aside from my dad being in the mafia, I had lived a normal, city life. I had rushed from one place to another, and I had always had too many people to see, too many places to rush off to. Out here, there were hardly any people at all, and in only a few days I had slowed my life down to a snail’s pace.
And it was wonderful. It was easy to see how Luke could have stayed here for so long.
We arrived in Dillon, and Luke stopped in front of the butcher. He went inside with the meat he had bought yesterday to take care of it. I stayed behind in the car again and dialed Lizabeth’s number. She wasn’t as frantic when she spoke to me this time. After she made sure I was still alright and let me know how her parents had reacted to the news that I was alright, I asked about the weather again.
“I know it’s the most boring thing in the world to ask my best friend,” I said. “But you’re my only contact to the outside world right now.”
Lizabeth laughed. “Well, I guess we don’t have anything better to talk about than the weather, seeing that you’re not going to give me any details about the mystery man you’re staying with.”
She was fishing for information, but I wasn’t ready to tell her what had happened between Luke and me, yet. I wanted to relish in what we had done by myself for a short while longer before I dropped the news to Lizabeth that I had lost my virginity. I knew she would squeal and go on about it, and I wanted to wrap my mind around it, first.
“I’ll talk to you about it when I can,” I said. “For now, I need to know if I can reach your parents. What are they saying?”
Lizabeth sighed. “I guess I’ll have to be content with that. They’re saying there’s going to be a window tomorrow where the roads will be open, but it’s not going to last too long. There’s another storm pending for later in the day. So whatever you do, do it fast.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Liza. You’re such a help.”
“Anytime,” she said. “I think what you’re doing is so brave. I’m glad I can help even if it is only through weather reports.”
We ended our call, and I walked into the store to find Luke, who was looking at new cuts of meats to replace what he had brought back to the butcher. When he saw me, he flashed me that charming smile that made me melt every time.
“Is everything alright?” he asked.
I nodded and told him what Lizabeth had told me about the weather.
“We’ll discuss what to do when we get home,” he said. “First, tell me what you think of this.”
Luke pulled me into a discussion about the meat and which cuts were the best to take. I didn’t usually enjoy shopping, but it was fun with Luke. Then again, I was starting to realize that no matter what I did with Luke whether it was sex or dishes or grocery shopping, I enjoyed it. Everything about Luke was fun.