Green Mountain Collection 1 by Marie Force (22)

Nolan went on with his day as if the most momentous thing in the known universe—or at least his known universe—hadn’t just transpired in Hannah Guthrie’s driveway. Thank God for dead batteries, he thought as he returned to the garage and got busy dealing with the cars customers had dropped off for repairs that morning.

He went through the rote motions of changing oil, replacing a timing belt and fielding calls from customers while trying not to think about Hannah and the hope she’d given him earlier. Since the night they’d danced and kissed, he’d berated himself at least a thousand times for moving too quickly, and then to hear that she’d liked kissing him and hadn’t wanted to stop . . .

Holy hell, how was he supposed to function knowing that? And how was he supposed to cope with the overwhelming guilt that came with his feelings for Hannah? He carried that guilt with him all the time.

Caleb Guthrie had been one of the best friends Nolan had ever had, and the pain of his loss was something Caleb’s unruly tribe of friends still carried with them all these years later. Caleb had been the sun around which the planets orbited. He’d been their fearless leader, and they were lost without him in so many ways.

After living the life of an army brat with his officer father, Caleb arrived in Vermont at the start of seventh grade when his father finally buckled to pressure from his family and retired as a full colonel. The kids from tiny Butler, Vermont, hadn’t known what to make of Caleb, who had friends all over the world. They were his “Sultans,” as Caleb called them. He’d named his group of friends after the Dire Straits song “Sultans of Swing,” his dad’s favorite song, and he collected Sultans everywhere he lived.

Becoming one of Caleb’s Sultans was a high honor, one none of them took lightly. It involved a foolish initiation ritual made up entirely by Caleb, who picked and chose his Sultans carefully. Upon entering the inner circle, Nolan had found a friend unlike any he’d ever had—funny and brazen and playful and serious and daring, brilliant yet twisted in his humor and approach to life.

He’d lightened Nolan up, taught him there was more to life than work and had exposed him to people and ideas and adventures that ranged from skiing the Rocky Mountains to spring break in Mexico to years of Mardi Gras in New Orleans where the Sultans worshiped their Creole patron.

Life with Caleb was all about fun. Life without him was a huge, gaping void that no one else could ever fill. Nolan couldn’t begin to speculate on the hole that Caleb’s death had left in Hannah’s life. The two of them had been amazing together, truly, deeply in love, and devoted to their friends and family as much as they were to each other. The Sultan parties every Labor Day weekend at their house were legendary, and despite the agony of Caleb’s loss, Hannah and the Sultans continued the tradition without him, knowing he’d expect nothing less.

But goddamn it was tough. Young, vital men with their whole lives in front of them weren’t supposed to die at twenty-eight. They weren’t supposed to die without giving the people they left behind some idea of how they were supposed to carry on without them.

Nolan liked to think that Caleb would approve of his affection for Hannah. He chose to believe that because the possibility Caleb wouldn’t approve was simply unbearable. Nolan had always loved Hannah as a friend and hadn’t entertained anything other than friendly feelings toward her until about two years after Caleb died.

That’s when everything changed for him. It’d been over a Labor Day weekend with the Sultans, watching her carry on like everything was fine as she kept the unruly guys in food and beer, when Nolan had realized he felt something more than friendship for her. Why did it have to be her of all people? He’d asked himself that question almost every day for five years. He couldn’t say exactly, other than she touched him deeply, far more deeply than any other woman ever had.

He fixed things. That’s what he did. He wanted to fix things for her. He wanted to make her smile again the way she used to when Caleb was alive, the way she used to before life pulled the rug out from under her and left her reeling. He wanted to put the pieces back together again for her, to make right that which could never be made right.

The Abbott family had tuned in to the fact that Nolan’s feelings for Hannah went beyond that of a lifelong friend, but the other Sultans didn’t know. Well, except for Hannah’s brothers, Hunter and Will, who were fully initiated into Caleb’s tribe. But Nolan didn’t think they’d told the others. Why would they? It wasn’t like anything had ever come of Nolan’s feelings for her.

Until a recent Saturday night at the Grange. Until today when she said she wanted to spend some time with him. How long would he have to wait to hear from her? Would she panic on the drive to St. Johnsbury and decide she’d been impetuous?

Leaning into the hood of a Chevy sedan, Nolan released a deep breath and tried to figure out how long he’d been staring at the V-8 while thinking of nothing but Hannah Guthrie and how she’d looked that morning—lovely and flushed and embarrassed and undone by their conversation.

Waiting to hear from her might actually kill him. It was certainly killing his concentration, he thought, as he got busy changing the spark plugs and filters on the older-model car.

Every time the garage phone rang, his heart stopped for a moment, which was flat-out ridiculous. She said she’d call him. She hadn’t said she’d call today. But why hadn’t he asked her to call to let him know she’d arrived safely after the trouble with her battery?

He wiped the grease off his hands with a red oil rag and threw it aside in frustration. Was it possible for a person to drive himself nuts? If it was, he was well on his way. Since his productivity was positively shot, he decided to break early for lunch.

He was on his way out the door to grab something to eat at the diner when the phone rang. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve let voicemail pick up the call, but there was nothing normal about circumstances under which Hannah Guthrie might be calling. So he ran back in and grabbed the phone.

“Nolan’s.”

“Hey, it’s me. Hannah.”

Come on. No way. Had he gone straight around the bend into the land of the delusional? Had he wished so hard for her call that he’d made it happen out of sheer will?

“Nolan? Are you there?”

It was really her. “Oh yeah, sorry. I’m here. Is everything okay with the car?”

“That’s why I called. I figured you’d be worried about whether or not I got here, and I did, so I wanted to tell you.”

Was it his imagination or was she rambling? And did she sound nervous? The calm, cool Hannah he knew and loved never sounded nervous. She was always in perfect control of her emotions, something he admired greatly about her in light of what she’d been through. “That’s good to know. I was hoping it wouldn’t give you any more trouble.”

“It didn’t.”

Nolan wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say next. His brain spun with possibilities, each of them rejected.

“I also wanted to tell you . . .”

His heart pounded as anticipation beat through him in time with his heart. “What, Hannah? What did you want to tell me?”

“Ever since I saw you this morning, I can’t stop thinking about enchiladas.”

Since that had been about the last thing he’d expected her to say, he laughed. “Is that right?”

“I’m drooling, in fact. So I was thinking, maybe we could check out that place in Stowe later? If you’re not busy. I know it’s last minute—”

“I’m not busy.” He was but he’d get out of it. The racing team could meet without him. “What time will you be back?”

“Around six thirty.”

“How does seven sound?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then?”

“I’ll be there. I can’t have you drooling all over the place. What will people say?”

Her laughter made him smile. “See you soon.”

Nolan put down the phone and let out a very loud, “Yes!”

“See?” Becky said as Hannah hung up the phone. “Was that so hard?”

“It was excruciating. I sounded like a complete idiot.”

“You did not! He’s probably dancing for joy around the garage after hearing from you.”

“Be quiet. He is not. I never should’ve told you any of this.”

“Yes, you should have, and you told me because you wanted me to force you to do something about it.”

“That isn’t why I told you!”

“Yes, Hannah,” Becky said gently, “it is. You needed permission to act on what you feel for Nolan. I’m glad I was the one you confided in and that I was the one who gave you the push you needed to make that call. It’s high time, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. It’s just that I still feel . . . I don’t know. It’s ridiculous, but it feels disloyal to Caleb.”

“Aw, honey, Caleb loved you so much. He’d want you to be happy. You know that.”

“Of course I do, but it’s hard to think about moving on with someone else. I never wanted to move on without him.”

“You don’t have any choice. You’re a young, beautiful, vibrant woman with so much life left to live and so much love left to give. I can’t even begin to understand what you’ve been through, and you’ve handled it all so gracefully and with such dignity.”

“Not always,” Hannah said with a laugh, looking to lighten things up a bit. She didn’t allow herself many trips to the maudlin side of town where nothing good ever happened, but once in a while . . .

“I’m sure you’ve had a lot of rough moments, and you may continue to have them for the rest of your life. But that doesn’t mean you can’t also have other things, too, such as a wonderful, sexy guy who looks at you like you’re the cat’s meow.”

“He does not.”

“Um, yes, he does. Ask anyone.”

Every time someone said that to her, Hannah felt twitchy and off balance. She’d known Nolan forever—even longer than she’d known Caleb. He had been one of her husband’s closest friends and had served as a groomsman at their wedding. “Do you ever think that maybe Nolan is too close?”

“How do you mean?”

“He and Caleb were the best of friends. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s always been there, you know? How does that suddenly turn romantic?”

“The same way it did for you and Caleb, remember?”

As if she’d ever forget the night Caleb kissed her at the quarry and changed everything between them forever. She had to admit Becky made a good point.

“I want you to do something for me,” Becky said.

“What’s that?”

“I want you to have dinner with Nolan and not blow it up into a big freaking deal in your mind before it actually is. It’s dinner. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“If I’m to believe what you and everyone else says, it’s already way more than that to him.”

“So what? That’s his deal, not yours. Don’t take it on. Go to dinner. Eat a meal. Enjoy his company and relax. Can you do that?”

“I guess so. I can probably relax easier with him than I would with someone I just met.”

“I know you can do it. Go have a wonderful time. You’ve so earned the right to some fun and happiness, Hannah.”

Hannah hugged her longtime friend. “Thanks for the pep talk and for letting me off the hook on the sleepover.”

“Once you told me about Nolan asking you out, I was prepared to kick you out of here if I had to.”

Hannah smiled at Becky’s emphatic words. Sometimes she felt like the people in her life needed her to move on more than she needed it for herself. Up until the last couple of months, she’d been perfectly fine to rattle around in her big old house alone and to spend more time living in the past than she did in the present.

At some point over the recent winter though, she’d begun to feel anxious and lonely and perhaps ready to step foot out of her self-imposed cocoon to take a peek at what had been going on in the world while she was holed up with her grief.

After two hours of laughter and pedicures she was on the road home, her mind spinning with thoughts about the evening she’d agreed to spend with Nolan. Would it be awkward or easy? Would he try to kiss her again or would he keep his distance? Which did she prefer? She couldn’t say for certain.

By the time she pulled into the driveway twenty minutes before Nolan was due to arrive, her nerves were stretched thin. An accident on the main road into town had added half an hour to the ride. Inside the house, she used the phone in the hallway to leave a message for Hunter on his office voicemail to let him know she’d decided to come home and he was off Homer duty.

“Hey, Home Boy,” she said, using the nickname Caleb had given his dog as a puppy after the multicolored mutt had decided he belonged with Caleb. No one was really certain of his breed, but speculation ran the gamut from German shepherd to Lab to beagle. “Where are you, buddy?” Hannah checked the sitting room, where she and Homer spent most of their time, as well as the studio, where she worked and he kept a bed on the floor, but saw no sign of Homer.

At sixteen, he didn’t do the stairs on his own anymore, so he had to be somewhere on the first floor. She went into the kitchen and stopped short when she found him sprawled on the floor, his eyes open and trained on her, his distress apparent.

Hannah dropped to the floor next to him. “Hey, buddy. What’re you doing in here?” She stroked his face and back and noted the choppy cadence of his breathing and his seeming inability to raise his head off the floor. He tried to stretch his paw out to her the way he always did, but couldn’t muster the strength. Tears filled her eyes. “No, Homie. Not yet. Please not yet.” She lay down on the floor next to him, petting him as she wept.

Hannah knew she should get up and call Myles Johansen, the local vet. He’d been making house calls to check on Homer for quite some time now and had told her to call any time she needed him. Somehow she knew if she got up, if she made the call, that this time would be different.

“Oh, Homie, I’m sorry I left you today. I know you haven’t been feeling good for a long time, but you’ve stuck around because you don’t want to leave me alone. I promise I’ll be okay. Before I call anyone though . . . While it’s just you and me . . . When you see Dad, make sure you tell him I love him, and I miss him, okay? You’ll take good care of him, won’t you? He’ll be so happy to see you.”

One more minute, she told herself, sobbing as she clung to Homer. One more minute and then she’d get up to call Myles.

“Hannah?” Nolan’s voice echoed through the first floor. “Are you home?”

How long had she been lying there with Homer? She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, trying to fix the unfixable. “Back here.”

“You didn’t answer the door, so I hope it’s okay I came in—” Nolan halted in the doorway to the kitchen when he saw her on the floor with Homer. “Oh God, Hannah, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She shifted slightly to the right so he could see Homer stretched out on the floor, his breathing shallow and labored.

“Oh no. What can I do?”

“Would you mind calling Myles for me?”

“Of course. Anyone else?”

“Hunter. He’ll tell my parents. And the Guthries. They should be here.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll call them. You stay with Homer.”

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief at knowing she didn’t have to be the one to make the calls, to say the words . . . “It’s okay, buddy,” she whispered to Homer. “Everything is okay. You can go if you’re ready. I understand that you’re tired and you’ve had to live a long time without your best friend. That’s been so hard on you, but you took good care of me. Dad would’ve been so proud of you for taking such good care of me.”

She tried to quiet her sobs so as not to upset Homer. This wasn’t about her. It was about him, and she wanted to give him everything he needed.

Nolan returned to the kitchen and squatted next to Hannah. “Myles is on his way, and I left a message for Hunter. I also called your mom when I couldn’t reach Hunter. Hope that’s okay.”

Hannah nodded, grateful to him for taking charge.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, resting a hand on her shoulder. His voice, she noticed, was thick with emotion. He’d loved Caleb, too, and that mattered right now.

“This helps. Thank you.” Hannah leaned into him, resting her head on his chest as she continued to stroke Homer’s silky ears and coat. The dog’s eyes were closed now, his breathing even more shallow, if that was possible.

Nolan sat next to her, keeping his arm around her as she leaned against him, grateful for his presence and his strength.