by Holly Rayner
When they were fully settled in and had ordered what Paige insisted was the best collection of items on the menu, they were left with nothing to do but to talk to one another. Which, on the one hand, was the one thing in the world Kehlan had most wanted to do since he had wandered into the diner and seen her standing there. But on the other hand, he found that his heart rate was rising. He was almost nervous to speak to her, after the trip down the mountain and with the growing attraction towards her.
He knew he didn’t show it—he was well-versed in keeping a steady, calm air however he might be feeling. But all the same, the feeling caught him off guard.
“So,” she began, “you said you were from Al-Derra?”
He smiled, on familiar ground. How many times had he had this conversation over the years? Always versions of the same thing.
“I am. Let me guess, you’ve never heard of it?”
She returned his smile and he was struck again by how gorgeous she looked when she smiled.
“I have to admit, I haven’t.”
He shrugged.
“It’s not a large nation by any means, but it’s home. It’s basically nothing more than a sprawling city by the sea with some desert that is technically part of the country. We tend to fly under the radar.”
She nodded, considering, and then continued with a sly smile.
“And that’s in the Middle East, right? The hot, mainly desert Middle East?”
He could see where this was going, and absently stroked his chin.
“It is, yes.”
“Not a lot of snow there, I imagine.”
Kehlan laughed.
“No, not really. Very occasionally, up high in the mountains, there’s a snowfall. But nothing like here.”
Their conversation felt a little bit like watching her solve a puzzle.
“So when you say you’ve been skiing once or twice…”
He helped her out.
“I perhaps went more than once or twice. To be honest, when I told you I learnt English in Europe, I might have left out that that was at boarding school in Switzerland.”
She laughed—that glorious, gorgeous laugh that had rung out in the diner so beautifully. It only seemed all the warmer bouncing of the walls of the smaller confines of this cozy little restaurant on the slopes.
“And here I was worrying you wouldn’t be able to handle the conditions. You’re like a pool shark, only for skiing!”
Kehlan shrugged.
“I like to be a pleasant surprise. I would only be a skiing shark, as you say, if we’d somehow put money on it. So that’s not really fair.”
“And you don’t seem like you need the money.”
The words slipped out of her mouth, and it seemed to surprise and embarrass her that she’d said them. He tried to slide the conversation forward to minimize her embarrassment.
“No, I don’t,” he admitted. “I’ve been very fortunate.”
“You’re a doctor in Al-Derra.”
He didn’t mean to hide it from her. He didn’t think through not revealing his identity as a member of the country’s ruling family. It just felt as though mentioning it was the wrong thing to say. If she had been intimidated by the car, how much more so would she be by a royal title?
“I am, yes.”
Not a lie. But not the whole truth, either. In times like this, he almost wished his poker face were a little less well developed. He almost wished that she would see that he was leaving things out and call him on it. But instead, he just continued on smoothly. More truth, just not the whole truth.
“I wanted to be a vet when I was very young, but before long, I switched to humans. I can’t remember a time when healing wasn’t what I wanted to do. Honestly, I find it very satisfying. I have a practice at the hospital in Al-Derra’s capital, Sadifah, which suits me well.”
No mention of the compromise with his family that required him to set his practice up there. No mention of the reactions he constantly had to manage from his patients when they heard his full name for the first time. All of that belonged somewhere far away. None of that belonged here, with her, in this perfect place.
For one long, tense moment, he thought she might interrogate him further about his life and position in Al-Derra. But instead, she asked him about school in Switzerland, and he was glad to tell her about it. Here, he was hitting his stride. As much as speaking to her had made him feel nervous in a way he hadn’t been in years, as soon as he got talking, he felt the words flowing out of him like water. She was so easy to talk to, and he found that he enjoyed her attention more than he could remember enjoying anyone else’s.
She didn’t talk much about herself, he noticed. And he found himself deeply curious about all the things she wasn’t mentioning. But at the same time, he didn’t want to pry and risk souring the conversation. There was something she was holding close to her chest, and he wouldn’t pressure her for it. She would tell him eventually, if she deemed him worthy of being told.
The food came, and Kehlan was blown away.
“This is amazing,” he said to Paige’s smiling face.
“Worth the trouble getting here?” she asked, and he nodded.
“Most definitely.”
He asked her about the dishes in front of them, more out of curiosity than out of any expectation that she should know their various origins and ingredients. But to his surprise, she was as forthcoming about the food as she had been cagey about herself moments before.
“Now it’s my turn to feel played,” he said.
“How so?”
“Well, I seem to have accepted a restaurant invitation by someone who works there. You know, you have to disclose your relationship before making the recommendation. There are laws and everything.”
He was giving her a playful grin to soften the words that might have seemed harsh if she hadn’t realized he was joking. Luckily, she did.
“Locally sourced ingredients is something that the Coffee Cup and this restaurant share,” she replied, by way of explanation. “The owner of the Coffee Cup relies on me a bit to work with the local farms and ranches, and I’ve compared notes from time to time with the buyer for this place. Technically, they’re the competition, but that’s just the way people are around here.”
“So, you’re not just a waitress, then?”
The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Just?” she smiled at him, mock offended.
“I didn’t mean—”
She waved her hand.
“No, I know. I’m not offended. But no, I guess I’m not ‘just’ a waitress. I mean, technically, that’s my job and that’s most of what I do. It’s my official job title in as much as the Coffee Cup has ‘official’ anything. But I’ve been there for eight years now, and the longer I stay, the more I get pulled into the inner workings of the business.”
Kehlan nodded, understanding.
“So, are any of these dishes similar to those you serve at the Coffee Cup?”
He was hoping this would get her talking, and he was right. No sooner was the question out of his mouth than she was off, telling him every detail of any number of dishes at the other restaurant. Watching her talk with such obvious interest felt like a door being opened; as much as Paige was quick to insist that this was just a bit of added responsibility on top of her normal duties, Kehlan could tell that it was a genuine passion for her.
She told him all about the local farms, including a few interesting, colorful anecdotes of the people who ran them in all their off-kilter, central Washingtonian glory. Even as she wasn’t sparing them, her affection for each and every person she talked about shone through in her face as she spoke.
When she came around to a stopping point, their food was mostly consumed. Kehlan was satisfied to have gotten to listen to her speak for what felt like such a luxuriously long time.
“So, what is it about locally sourced ingredients that interests you so much?” he asked her, greedily trying to
coax out just a little bit more. “Is it the environmental aspect? Fewer fuels and all that?”
She considered for a minute, and then smiled.
“Why, are you worried for your country’s oil revenues?”
She was teasing, but there was something real behind it. He rushed to reassure.
“Not in the slightest. Our reserves are limited, and we’re aggressively moving towards more sustainable energy production ourselves. We barely have enough oil to export twenty percent a year.”
In fact, my cousin Abdullah has made it his life’s mission to future-proof the country, and not relying on oil revenues is a big part of that.
He thought it, but he didn’t say it. Why didn’t he say it? Why didn’t he just tell her and get it over with?
“Twenty percent, huh? You seem to know a lot about it.”
She wasn’t accusing, just mildly interested.
“I keep myself informed.”
Not a lie. Technically not a lie. But for a moment, she paused, and he was worried she would notice there was something odd about his answer. But then she went on, shaking her head.
“No, it’s not mostly about that for me. I mean, it’s a bonus, and I’m not saying I don’t want to protect, you know, all this.” She motioned around them. “But it’s more than that. It’s kind of hard to explain. A sense of place, I guess? So many people are so quick to run away and get out there and explore the world. I just like the idea of finding a way to be satisfied with this corner of it, and to really live in and from this corner of it.”
As she spoke, she began talking more quickly. He wondered if she felt like the words were flowing out of her the way he had felt when he’d talked about his schooling and his friends and his childhood earlier.
“And part of that,” Paige went on, “means really supporting the businesses and the people who choose to stay here. That’s what really makes me passionate about it. That’s what it means to me to make sure that the Coffee Cup is contributing to keep building and developing businesses here. It’s about keeping home…well, home.”
When she was done, she seemed almost embarrassed by her own passion out on display. Kehlan wished he had a way of assuring her that there was no need to be, without calling out the embarrassment and worsening it.
“They should put you in a commercial,” he said, taking a sip of a locally grown tea that, Paige had told him, they served at the Coffee Cup as well.
She laughed. “If we ever decide to start putting out commercials, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”
Having finished their meal, they headed back out to the slopes. As treacherous as the terrain could be, this late in the season, Kehlan found that he enjoyed the challenge, and he enjoyed undertaking it with Paige. She was a good skier, for sure, even if she seemed a little rusty. But as the afternoon wore on, and they raced each other down the slopes over and over, he saw her get back into the stride of it and give him more and more of a run for his money.
They skied until the afternoon started to turn towards evening, and they’d seen every part of the mountain that was still open for runs. They saw precious few other skiers out there, and Kehlan couldn’t help but feel that, although the conditions were suboptimal for skiing, the feeling of him and Paige being nearly alone on the mountain was irreplaceable. He couldn’t imagine a better time of the year to go.
When they had returned their gear and gotten back into the car, Kehlan turned to her.
“Well, now that you’ve shown me the restaurant and the slopes, I do believe that you are officially my tour guide.”
She laughed.
“Oh, am I? Didn’t know I was qualified for that job.”
“Believe me, you are more than qualified. And, as my tour guide, I think it’s time you told me what the best place in town is to see the sunset. It shouldn’t be too long now, I imagine.”
She thought for a moment, before a look of concern crossed her face.
“What is it? Is something wrong?” Kehlan asked, surprised at how quickly her concern had become his.
She shook her head.
“No, it’s just that the best place to watch the sunset is actually a place that Alvin told me about, years ago. And I wondered how he’s doing. If you don’t mind…”
She pulled out her phone and gestured with it, and Kehlan told her to feel free. She called the hospital, and though he only heard half the conversation, it was obvious that it was good news.
“They’re releasing him tonight,” she said, beaming, after ending the call.
Her caring was infectious. Kehlan cared about all of his patients in a professional manner, of course, but it was something different to see it through her eyes.
“That’s great,” he replied, and meant it more than he would have imagined a few hours ago.
“Now,” he said, not wanting to waste the good spirits. “About that sunset…”
Still smiling, Paige gestured ahead.
“I’ll show you the way.”
Chapter 7
Paige
She knew she probably should have warned Kehlan that the best place to see the sunset in Stockton required hiking up the side of a steep hill. They’d been skiing all day, after all, and he’d just had a transcontinental flight, so the way he still kept up with her as they hiked up the mountain was nothing short of impressive.
That’s not to say that she wasn’t already impressed with him. With everything about him, really. With his body, and his incredible features. With his skill and his cool attitude under pressure. With his careful observance of her moods and his gentle comfort when anything rubbed her the wrong way. With his skill on the mountain and gameness to try anything. With his attention—his incredible attention—that made her feel as though everything she told him were so much more interesting than she suspected it really was.
But as she walked behind on him on the path, she found herself watching him more than the beautiful sights around them. The view headed up the hill nearest town was incredible. She’d seen it many times, as this had been a favorite spot of hers for years. She even brought Dylan part of the way up here, sometimes with her family, when she was feeling up to the task of hiking with a young child. She looked forward to the day he’d be able to make the trip all the way up to the top.
But these incredible views were familiar, and Kehlan was something new and exciting. How was the commonplace splendor of nature supposed to compete?
Plus, there was the timing. In order for Kehlan to really catch Stockton in the best possible light, they would need to make it up the trail and to the top in record time. And she found that she deeply wanted him to have his first aerial view of Stockton to be in the best possible light. That was more important to her than she could explain to herself. So, she avoided trying.
Kehlan must have sensed her urgency, because he kept up a breakneck pace, and they made it to the overlook at the summit just in time to catch the best of the shifting sunset colors as Paige had hoped.
“So, this is Stockton,” he breathed.
As accustomed to his uniquely blended accent as she had become over the course of the day, she still found it mesmerizing when she heard him talk. And she found watching his face beholding the view for the first time to be an even more entrancing sight.
“This is Stockton,” she answered. She could hear the pride in her own voice, as though the town were hers and hers alone, and the approval implicit in his overawed tone was somehow a credit to her.
“It’s a beautiful place,” he said, and she nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her and wouldn’t see.
“It really is.”
They stood for a while in silence. She wasn’t sure where the lines were. Was she just showing him around, or was this a date? It certainly felt like a date, and there was a part of her that desperately wanted him to take her hand.
But then, there was another part of her that didn’t want it to be a date. Because if it were a date, and not just a pleasant afternoon with a p
assing tourist, then she would have had to tell him about her son, and that was something she definitely had not done.
The further they went along, the more she liked the feeling of being with him—of being the person who could just spend a day with a charming, handsome man with no responsibilities in the world. She liked the feeling that anything could happen, and that at any moment they might just blow off the mountain together and end up in Switzerland or the Middle East, or even somewhere else, completely new to him as well.
Real Paige, normal Paige, couldn’t act that way. In her real life, she had responsibilities. She had a life that required constant commitment and a man who was from here, and wasn’t a part of all of that out there.
So no, it was right that he didn’t take her hand, as much as she wanted him to. It was right that they stood there slightly apart in silence, watching the light play over the town in front of them, still in the impossible altered state that had defined their entire day together so far.
After a time, she saw his scowl of concentration that she had already grown so fond of appear on his face.
“Where’s the Coffee Cup?” he asked. “I’ve gotten turned around, I think.”
She leaned in, close but not quite touching, and pointed.
“Just there,” she said. “See, that’s the main road in from the highway, and there’s where it branches off towards Main Street…”
And just like that, she found herself describing everything in front of her. It was just like at the restaurant, when he had asked her about sourcing local ingredients and she’d found herself talking and talking about things that he couldn’t possibly find interesting, but somehow seemed to anyway. All the details, he seemed to drink up just as quickly as she could provide them, and his rapt attention just drew more out of her.
Before she knew it, she was telling him the little-known histories of the tiny little side streets, and the people that lived on them, and the interesting, amusing, or heartbreaking things that had happened to them. As she spoke, she realized how much more she knew about this town than she had even realized—how much of it had seeped into her mind without her knowing it, and how much she was eager to share it with him.