Light My Fire: A Contemporary Winter Romance

by Lucy Snow

  Marty came back for a second bowl and leaned back against the counter, sizing me up. “With this weather starting to look up, I expect you’ll be looking to move on soon, yeah?” He didn’t say it like it was a request - I had a hunch Marty and Clara would let us stay here as long as we wanted.

  “Yeah,” I replied, in between spoons of delicious oatmeal. “We’ll probably see about a bus or a taxi or something as soon as we can.”

  Marty gave me an odd look. “The roads should be cleared up pretty soon. Snow’s not falling nearly as heavy before, so I think the roads are safe to travel on. Driver said they’re planning on resuming bus service pretty soon.”

  I nodded. “That’s good. I’ll see what Eames wants to do, but we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

  Clara smiled. “Oh honey, you know having you both here’s been wonderful. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like…” she trailed off and looked at Marty, who grunted.

  “No sense in sugarcoating it, Clara.” Marty turned to me, grimly. “Eames isn’t here anymore, Avery. He left this morning, went back to where he left his car, got it running and drove back to Meridian.”

  I set the bowl down on the countertop just before I started to swoon. “What? He left?”

  Clara was right there, her arm around my shoulder. “There, there, sweetie, I’m sorry. He said he had some things he needed to take care of.”

  Marty didn’t say anything, just looked glum and kept eating his oatmeal.

  How could Eames have left without saying a word to me? Was all that we had shared meaningless? Just a fling while the weather was bad, and now that the roads worked again, he was gone, like he was never here?

  I picked my bowl up again, mind still reeling. “Thanks, Clara,” I mumbled. “I’m gonna finish eating out there and then I guess I’ll, uh, get packing.”

  I started back toward the dining room, but Clara interrupted me. “You don’t have to go anywhere, dear, you know that. You can stay here with us as long as you like.”

  “I know,” I smiled. “Thank you so much for the kind offer.”

  And then I left the kitchen and sat down at the nearest table in the dining room, still unsure of what to do next.

  He was really gone. Already the color of the inn had faded to me, the walls dull and drab without Eames there to light them up. I remembered the taste of his lips on mine, the way his hands moved up and down my body, the way he held me as he thrust into me over and over.

  No. Wait. Stop, Avery, this was most definitely not the time to start fantasizing.

  Especially about a man I’d never see again, let alone kiss or make love to again.

  Whatever we had was over. We had lasted a week, if you could even call it that, and then, at the first sign that he could get out of it, Eames had gotten back on the road to Meridian and left me here.

  Whatever we had had wasn’t even important enough to him to say good bye to me, to even pretend that we might get together some time soon when we were both more stable.

  Nothing like that. He’d gotten up in the wee hours of the morning, before the light was up, and snuck out of the inn and back to his real life.

  And I was still here.

  I felt the tears come as I forced myself to eat in slow and methodical bites, but I didn’t really want to eat anything — how could I be hungry when the first time I’d really found happiness was ripped away from me while I slept?

  By the time I finished the bowl of oatmeal, which was delicious even though I could barely taste it, I had made up my mind. I would not let this defeat me.

  Eames and I hadn’t known each other a week ago, so it was pointless and weak for me to let something so new and sudden and unexpected drag me down when it disappeared. Easy come, easy go — sure it was a cliche, but it was more true than ever.

  I had experienced a small slice of something wonderful, and unfortunately, that’s all I was going to get, at least from Eames Beckett.

  The only thing left for me was to head home and get back to my own life — deal with my parents, spend the last week of my winter break mending fences with them, and then head back to school to finish up a degree and move on to the next phase.

  If Eames Beckett didn’t have time to say goodbye to me, then I didn’t have any time to mope around about Eames Beckett.

  I felt better already, and knew what the next step was — call a cab and get myself back to Meridian, on the double.

  But first, I was going to have a little more oatmeal.

  CHAPTER 20 - EAMES

  It felt good to drive. It felt good to move fast. Sitting behind the wheel, going just fast enough to stay safe as I rounded the corners, inching closer and closer to Meridian and my date with destiny and my father with every minute, I realized that the last week at the inn, while wonderful for many reasons, had felt weird — like an incomplete journey.

  Like I hadn’t gone all the way.

  And now that I was back on the road it was as if I had found the missing piece, the part of me that I’d been searching for even while living in that tiny cabin what felt like forever ago, despite only having left just over a week earlier.

  Life could change a lot in a week, I was starting to discover.

  For the hundredth time since I got out into the cold to start hiking back toward my car, I thought about Avery lying in bed, thinking I was right next to her. I didn’t want to leave, of course, but something compelled me. Ever since I had seen that snowplow coming over the hill I knew that our time here had ended.

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t escape from what lay in Meridian waiting for me; the excuse of not being able to get there wasn’t good enough anymore. I knew that my father had expected me days ago, and by now they’d have been worried that something had happened to me, without at least me getting in touch with him to blow him off.

  Then again, he had no idea where I was, so any searching for me would have had the entire planet as a starting point. Those weren’t really great odds.

  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about Avery and how much I already missed her. I couldn’t bear to leave, but in my head I knew it was the right thing to do. The storm was over, the roads were passable, and our brief…whatever it was, had come to an end.

  That’s how it had to be, there were no other ways around it, and just because I was angry about who I was and what I had to do didn’t really change either of those facts - I was Eames Beckett, and I had to uphold the family name, even if I’d spent almost half of my life trying to figure out just what that meant to me.

  And it seemed I was only a little closer to the answer. The one thing I had realized over the last week was that when I was with Avery, I didn’t think in terms of responsibility and debt; I didn’t think about the specter of my father looming over every decision I made.

  She had taught me how to let go and just be comfortable with myself for a little while.

  And for that I would be eternally grateful. I had learned something from Avery that I would never be able to put into words.

  Maybe that’s why I had to leave.

  My future was back in Meridian, with my family and our business. I knew that now. I’d woken up this morning more sure of it than I could remember.

  I couldn’t run away anymore.

  It took a few more hours of driving, but then, as I made the turn around a corner, I got my first glimpse of the Meridian skyline pushing the sky back and proclaiming that people had built something here that could withstand the test of time.

  I drove through the streets of Meridian, the day in full swing and trucks and cars and people going about their daily business, my mouth open, my eyes trying to take in all that I was seeing.

  It had been a long time since I had been around so many people and so much…wealth was the wrong word, but then again I’d spent most of the last decade around people who were thrilled to eat one full meal a day. So this, even in the seedier parts of the city, looked like wealth to me.

  Even though I had
n’t been here in years, I still remembered the way through the various Meridian neighborhoods till I reached the nicer part of town, where the houses were further apart, had their own gardens and lawns, and most of all — walls and gates to keep them separated from their neighbors and the rest of the city.

  I felt my hackles rise as I drove on, more and more uncomfortable as I got closer and closer to the Beckett house we’d moved to when I was in middle school and my father’s business had finally begun to take off. At the time I’d been thrilled to move to a house that had more rooms than I could explore in a day, but I distinctly remember realizing early on that that really just meant that there were more rooms for people to sequester themselves so they didn’t have to talk or interact with anyone.

  I couldn’t just turn around, though, not after I’d come this far - I had to see this through, talk to my father, and get to work becoming the heir to the Beckett name. Even as I got out of the car and started up the hill toward the front entrance of the massive house, though, I couldn’t get visions of Avery curled up next to me out of my head.

  I knew she’d haunt me for a long time, but right now I didn’t have the luxury of reminiscing — it was time to start the rest of my life.

  When one of the attendants opened the door and saw me, he blanched, his face turning white as a sheet as he stammered for me to come in, before rushing off to alert my parents that I had arrived.

  I had a few final moments to myself, and I used them to look around the foyer of the house, with staircases that seemed a lot smaller now curling up and to the left and right, corridors and rooms branching off in every which direction.

  What I noticed most of all, though, was that there was just more…stuff around. More art on the walls, various statues adorning the gaps, and display cases that looked to house a whole museum’s worth of artifacts dotted the floor.

  My parents certainly had been busy while I was gone.

  “Eames!” I heard my mother’s voice shout as she came rushing down the stairs, looking almost the same, if a little older, than I remembered. “You’re back! I was so worried when we didn’t hear from you.”

  She made it down the stairs and pulled me in close, giving me a long hug, as if she was trying to make up for a decade of being apart with one embrace. I pulled her in, smelling her motherly scent and realizing for the first time in years just how much I missed her.

  “I got caught in the storm,” I said when we pulled apart.

  “I’ve been following the news,” she said, pulling me toward one of the side rooms. We sat down and the same attendant poured us tea. “I want to hear all about it.”

  The attendant coughed and looked at her, and my mother sat up. “Wait, no, I want to hear all about it, but you have to see your father first!” She stood up, her tea already forgotten. “Come, come, he’s in his study.”

  No sense in delaying the inevitable. I left my tea behind as well and followed my mother through the bowels of Beckett Manor to the door to my father’s study.

  My mother hesitated in front of the door. “He’s really glad you’re here,” she whispered, clearly worried my father would hear, even though I remembered both just how thick the door was and just how wrapped up in his work my father got when he was in there. “We’re both so glad to see you, Eames. It’s been too long.”

  “I know, Mom,” I hastily replied. “I’ll be around more often.”

  The joy on my mother’s face took years off her. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that, you have no idea.” Then she drew herself up. “You don’t want to keep your father waiting,” she quickly added, and knocked on the door. A muffled sound came from inside, and she opened it, ushering me inside and closing the door behind me.

  My father’s study was exactly the way I remembered it, just with fewer papers now. There was a computer on his desk, which I found ironic considering how much he hated them when I left town. It seems Beckett had managed to go digital in spite of its CEO.

  My father sat at his desk, leaning over the computer and typing noisily, one finger on each hand doing all the work, watching the keyboard and stopping every few seconds to look at the screen and make sure he saw what he wanted.

  “Eames,” he said, when I took a step closer to him. “You managed to find your way back.”

  “I got caught in the storm,” I said, in a way that suggested I didn’t want to go into much more detail.

  “I expected you 4 days ago.”

  “And had there been clear weather I’d have been here 4 days ago. It just didn’t work out that way.”

  He grunted, and I knew that he was processing all that, and realizing that this time, I hadn’t been very far away, since the Meridian airports weren’t affected by the weather in upstate New Hampshire. Unless, of course, he thought I was lying.

  “Well, sit down, we have a lot to talk about.”

  I came up to the two chairs that sat in front of his desk and sat down in one of them. My father leaned back in his chair and watched me like a detective watched a suspect in the interrogation room before giving them the third degree.

  “I’m sure you’ve had…many…experiences on your travels. I’m sure you’ve enjoyed yourself,” my father started. “I want you to know that I don’t begrudge you for, uh, taking the time to find yourself,” the way those last words came out suggested he still didn’t understand what I was doing, “but now I need to know that you’re committed to doing what’s right for the family.”

  I frowned, and I detected a hint of surprise on my father’s face. “I think you should spell out just what that means before I commit to anything.”

  He nodded. “Good man, always get the terms spelled out before making a decision.” He pulled one knee up toward his chest, holding it close with his hands wrapped around it, something I didn’t remember him doing as a kid, but recognized that I did myself all the time. “You’re going to start working for me. I know that I wanted you to start years ago, but we’ll just have to go a little bit faster. You’ll pick things up quickly — you were always a fast study.”

  He leaned forward. “I don’t have the most time in the world left, and I want Beckett to stay in the family.” His face soured. “The way business goes these days, companies are swallowed up and stripped for parts all the time. I won’t have it. I won’t have it!” The anger on his face was clear.

  I waited for a moment till he calmed down. “And you want me to take over.”

  My father nodded. “That’s what I’ve wanted from the start, son.” He waved his hands around to take in the whole room. “All of this that I’ve built, it was all for your mother, and eventually, for you.” He looked down at his hands. “And it…hurt me when it seemed like you didn’t want it.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want it, it was that I wanted to build something for myself. I never could get why you didn’t understand that.”

  He nodded. “Well, I’ve had some time to mull that over while you were gone, and it took a while but I think I have.”

  Now that I didn’t see coming. What was my father saying?

  CHAPTER 20 - AVERY

  I spent the morning in my room, trying to figure out, and for the life of me not getting anywhere, why Eames would just leave as soon as the plow came on through and the road cleared.

  Could there have been any clearer indicator of just how important the last week had been to him? No goodbye, no making sure we’d get together again in the future, not even a pretend? Not even if he didn’t mean it?