But for the past three hours, as they’d browsed shops and put fifty miles on his truck, she’d felt the seven years evaporate. Being with Noah felt—right. She’d laughed more in the past few hours than she had in a long time, and when he’d taken her hand earlier as he’d opened the truck door, she’d let him.
He pointed at a tiny set of framed prints on the wall, and she held her breath as he peered closer. “Are these yours?”
She nodded, bracing herself. Would he notice how different they were now? How … empty?
When she’d first met Noah, she’d loved nothing more than the nights when they’d eat dinner sitting on the floor of her studio apartment in the attic of Mrs. Grakow’s old Victorian, and then have … dessert … in bed. Later, after Noah was asleep, Piper would pull on his shirt, grab a fresh canvas, and paint till sunrise.
She’d be exhausted, but it was better than sleeping. Better than the nightmares that assaulted her when she closed her eyes. Better than imagining her parents falling to their deaths, over and over and over.
The paintings she’d done back then reflected the afterglow, the new love, the awakening of senses, and they’d been beautiful, deep, thoughtful.
In the mornings, he had come to her, naked and gorgeous, and slid his arms around her, pulling her back to bed. They’d made love for hours—been hungry, thirsty … insatiable, and she’d walked around campus afterward feeling cherished, wondering how it was possible for her life to go from feeling so dismal to so hopeful in the span of six months.
For two years, it had lasted. For two years, she’d wondered if it was possible to be this happy forever. For two years, she’d imagined what a future with Noah Drake might look like.
And then he’d had his first accident. It hadn’t been huge—not by his industry’s standards, anyway. A broken kneecap, a slight concussion, not even an overnight hospital stay. But her stomach had clenched when he’d called from the ER, and it hadn’t let go for weeks.
The second accident hadn’t been his fault, but as she’d waited for the medevac helicopter to pull him off Mount Washington, she’d died a thousand deaths. The sound of the chopper had sent her into a panic, and she’d begged—begged—him to be done with this life. She’d never told him how her parents had died. How could she, when he did what he did? But every time he left the apartment with his backpack on, she flew into a cleaning frenzy afterward, just trying to use up the adrenaline shooting through her panicky body, convinced he might never be back.
The third accident had been the proverbial straw. Walking into the hospital, holding her breath in the elevator, seeing the bruises and bandages … had all been too much. It had taken everything she had to walk back out of his room that day, everything she had not to answer his phone calls and texts … everything she had to pile a month’s worth of clothes into her car and head to a tiny motel in the Adirondacks so he couldn’t find her.
Because she’d known that if she let him back in, he’d only continue to break her heart every time he walked out the door. She’d had to stay away from Echo Lake until he, too, was gone.
The day after she knew his flight had been scheduled to leave for Africa, she’d rolled back into town, tears coursing down her cheeks as she climbed the stairs to her empty, empty apartment. She’d pulled out a fresh canvas, uncapped her paints, and cued up her favorite playlist, desperate for the art to heal her.
But nothing happened.
The canvas stayed blank.
For seven years now, blank canvases had taunted her with their vast whiteness, their tiny hollows waiting for genius. Apparently, hers had fled the moment she’d called it quits on Noah, and it hadn’t come back since. All she seemed able to do these days was create tiny four-by-four prints that tourists loved, but she hated.
And now he was going to see them. He was going to know.
She took a deep breath. “Those are mine, yes.”
“They’re … great.” He leaned closer to study them. “Such detail.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You hate them.”
“No, I don’t. Of course I don’t! How would I hate them?”
“Noah, you still bite your lip when you’re lying.”
“I do not.” He bit his lip, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Do I?”
“It’s okay. I hate them, too. They’re tiny and lifeless.”
He looked back at the grouping of four foliage scenes, tipping his head. “They’re not lifeless. They—I don’t know—they just maybe don’t have the same life-force I remember.”
“I know.”
“So what else do you paint?” He looked around. “Do you have other stuff hanging here?”
Piper shook her head. If he only knew. There was nothing else anymore. “Just these.”
“No time?”
“Right.” She nodded, grateful for the easy out. It was kinda-sorta true. She spent twenty hours a week at Avery’s House using her actual art therapy degree, and Mama B filled up forty more hours with waitressing shifts at Bellinis, so it wasn’t completely a lie to say she didn’t have time to create real art anymore.
Right. It was totally a lie.
Noah pointed at a staircase heading down to the bottom floor of the art studio. “What’s down there?”
“Workshop. This is a co-op, so most of the artists who display here have to play demo-dolly a certain number of hours per week.”
“Demo-dolly?” He smiled.
Piper shrugged. “You know. Like at the glass place. They sit, they work, we watch. They probably hate it—because they’re artists, and artists prefer not to be on display like animals in a zoo.”
“You speak like someone who’s done the demo-dolly thing.”
Piper closed her eyes. The summer after he’d left for Africa, she’d done just that, and it had been hell, mostly because she’d had to sit there and pretend to create some sort of colorful masterpiece, when all she’d really wanted to do was open a big tube of black paint and dump it on the canvas.
She made a swiping motion across her face. “We do not talk of this lapse in judgment.”
Noah laughed. “So … do you want to go downstairs and watch?”
“I will not go see the monkeys, no.”
He came closer, raising his eyebrows playfully. “Do you fear the power of the pottery wheel?”
“God, Noah. No.”
God, Noah. Yes.
One rainy day, she’d convinced him to watch Ghost, and though he’d argued and rolled his eyes, the man had rewound the pottery-wheel scene no fewer than six times before dragging her to the bedroom. The phrase “pottery wheel” became code for “I want you naked,” and Piper had been continually amused at all the ways Noah had learned to work pottery into normal conversation.
“So you … don’t want to go see the pottery wheels? Because I find them pretty amazing, myself.” A smiled danced at the corners of his lips, and his promise to keep things casual seemed to fly out the window.
“I do not. No.”
Oh, God. She so did. But how could she? What was it about him that made a part of her want to forget everything, and haul him off to … see the pottery wheels?
But another part of her clanged danger bells at an ear-splitting volume, forcing her back to their reality—that no matter how this weekend went, come New Year’s, he’d probably be off on another assignment, while she’d be waiting tables at Bellinis and painting tiny, lifeless barns and mountains.
“Are you … ready to go?” Her voice sounded shaky, even to her own ears. She was dead sure he could hear it, too.
He paused, but didn’t immediately answer. “Okay.” He reached for the bowl. “Let’s check Paige off the list. She is definitely a bowl girl.”
Their fingers touched, and he nodded, holding the pottery carefully.
“I know. You are, too.”
Chapter 5
Twenty minutes later, Noah glanced over at Piper in the passenger seat, and was seized by a vision of her on a college road trip
they’d taken from Boston up to Tuckerman’s Ravine in New Hampshire. He’d been determined to ski the legendary slopes, risking life and limb, but when they’d gotten there, the sheer magnitude of the spot had scared her silly.
We’re going to die, Piper had said, and he’d reluctantly agreed. The snow pack had been iffy, and an avalanche was not on his bucket list. They’d strapped the skis back onto the car, found a little diner for lunch, and ended up falling into bed that night in a cozy inn just outside of town.
Better than dying, Piper had said as they’d spread bubbles over each other in the huge claw-foot tub. He remembered feeling so—grown up as they’d shared that room, come down for breakfast in the morning, headed back up for one more time before they left for Boston.
He remembered looking at her in the passenger seat of his old Chevy, wearing a sweater just like the one she had on today, and thinking—I’m going to marry this woman.
He swallowed, returning his focus to the road. Five minutes later, he pulled into a tiny roadside diner about an hour north of Echo Lake. Snow was spitting and the steely gray clouds were sitting low over the mountain they’d just come across, but hopefully they were in for just a passing squall. Perfect time to hole up at a little diner with a big coffee carafe.
The building sat low to the ground, and had definitely seen better days, but cheerful gingham curtains hung in the windows, and the parking lot was full. That could very well be because there was nowhere else to go out to eat on a Saturday afternoon in this area, but in his experience, a crappy-looking little diner with a full-to-brimming parking lot generally had the kind of food that stuck with you … in a good way.
“Do we dare?” he asked as he parked the truck.
Piper looked skeptical as she scanned the building, but she popped her seat belt and reached for the door handle. “This is how we used to find the best food, right?”
“Right.” He smiled. She remembered.
“And besides, I’m so hungry I could eat a cow.”
They trudged through the snowy parking lot and stepped inside the creaky door, and Noah breathed in the typical diner scents of bacon and coffee. As they sat down, a middle-aged waitress in a sloppy bun swiped their table with a wet rag and plunked down paper place mats and napkin-wrapped silverware.
“I’m Darla. You want coffee?”
“Please.” Piper rubbed her hands together and looked out the window. Temps were definitely dropping, and he wished he’d thought to check the weather report before they got this far away from town.
Piper squinted at the window, then pulled out her phone. “Was this snow predicted?”
“I was just thinking that.”
Darla returned with a hot pot of coffee. She slopped it into their cups with the grace of a lifelong diner waitress, and then set down a bowl of creamers.
“No cell service here, honey.” She pointed to Piper’s phone. “We got a pay phone out back if you need to call somebody.”
Piper pocketed her phone. “Thank you. Any chance you’ve heard the weather for this afternoon?”
Darla stopped, her eyebrows up. “You haven’t?”
Piper glanced at Noah, worried. “We came up from Echo Lake. Wasn’t snowing when we left.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re getting back there tonight, honey.” She pointed out the window. “Twelve to eighteen inches in the valleys. More up here. Storm’s stalled.”
Noah saw Piper swallow hard as Darla pointed. The flakes were getting bigger, and they were sticking to the windshields in the parking lot. How had he been so stupid, getting this far away from town? He always checked the weather report.
As Darla left, Piper turned her eyes on Noah. “Please tell me you didn’t plan this.”
“Plan a monster storm? No, I’m not quite that powerful.”
“I mean plan to get us stranded in a monster storm. How’s your truck in snow?”
“Good enough that we have time to eat. I’m sure we’ll get back just fine.”
She nodded. “That’s what I was hoping. Not sure if you remember what I’m like when I’m starving?”
“Yes. Which is why I might be exaggerating the truck’s capabilities. I’d honestly rather deal with a snowstorm than a hungry Bellini.”
* * *
Half an hour later, they’d inhaled platters of burgers and fries, and Piper reached toward his plate, then pulled back like she regretted the automatic, sort of intimate move.
He pushed his plate toward her. “Want the pickle?”
“No, thanks.”
“You know you want the pickle. You always wanted the pickle.”
“People change.”
He pushed the plate a smidge closer. “If we fall off the road or get stuck in a ditch, this could be your last meal till morning.”
She paused, then reached over to snag the pickle, making him laugh. “Well, in that case.”
“Ready to head out?”
Piper looked out the window, where the snow was now falling fast and furiously. The parking lot had emptied while they ate, and now there were just a few cars. “Yikes. Now or never, I guess.”
“’Fraid not.” Darla’s gravelly voice surprised them as she laid the bill on their table. “Milk truck just slid off the road about a half mile down the mountain. Took out the Owl Brook Bridge. Road’s closed till further notice.”
Great. They’d have to head back up the mountain. Noah pictured the long curves and steep pitches, and wished they’d forgone the hamburgers and gotten out of here earlier.
Piper looked at him. “Does the truck have four-wheel drive?”
“Yeah.” He looked out the window. Only a couple of inches had settled so far. If they left right now—
“You thinking about going up?” Darla arched her eyebrows. “Then you can leave me your wallet and valuables, because you won’t be needing them again.”
“What?” Piper’s voice had a tinge of panic. “The road’s not that bad, is it?”
“Not in normal weather, no. But nobody in his right mind would drive up through the notch in this storm. Look out there.” She pointed out the window. “Already can barely see to your truck. Looks like you’re stuck with us till the snow lets up. But as long as we have power, we’ll be good to go. Plenty of food, plenty of good company, right? We’ve got ten of you stuck with us.”
Noah wasn’t sure whether Piper was going to scream or smile as she turned her focus to Darla. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”
Darla nodded. “At least once a year. Funny weather up here in the notch. Stuff blows in, and it doesn’t ever wanna leave.” She turned and headed back to the kitchen, and Piper was silent for a full minute. Noah wasn’t sure what to say, but figured shutting up was probably his best strategy anyway.
Finally, Piper lifted her eyes to his. “You totally planned this.”
* * *
“Ante up.” Piper motioned to the middle of the biggest table in the diner as she shuffled a deck of cards eight hours later. After everybody’d pitched in to make a family-style dinner, they’d cleared the dishes, settled the two kids down to sleep on a pile of jackets in one corner of the diner, and then gathered back at the big table for a game of penny poker.
Noah smiled as he tossed a penny in, watching Piper take charge of the game. It was ten o’clock at night, the snow was still falling like crazy, and after an initial flurry of people lining up for the pay phone out back, everybody had settled in for the night with good humor.
“Gus, are you in?” Piper motioned to one of the truckers who’d slid into the parking lot just after dark.
“Oh, I’m in, honey.” Gus elbowed the other trucker beside him. “Bear? You playing? Or you afraid?”
Bear delivered a one-finger salute as he flipped a penny into the pot. Darla’s came next, and then Sully’s, who’d been summarily relieved of kitchen duties by two women who were currently making popcorn and drinks. The diner didn’t have a liquor license, so the strongest drink they were all
owed to serve was the dark cocoa.
Piper dealt the cards, and Noah was transported to a Saturday night at her old apartment. It had been too cold to go out, and they’d been struggling-student poor, so she’d cooked them Kraft mac and cheese and microwave brownies, then talked him into a game of strip poker.
“Five card stud. Deuces wild.” She raised her eyebrows, and he shook his head to clear visions of her dealing cards practically naked.
She looked so natural sitting here at this diner, dealing out cards like she did it every Saturday night. This was her crowd, he realized. She’d been dishing up spaghetti and conversation to people just like this for years now, and she’d already been an expert at it when he’d known her way back when.
Mama Bellini had taken her in after her parents’ accident, putting her to work in the restaurant whenever she wasn’t busy with her art courses, and a long time ago, Piper’d told him that the Bellinis crowd had saved her from herself in her darkest days. They’d lifted her up and taken her in, and made her family. As a guy just barely cruising into adulthood, he hadn’t really understood the lure of that over the chance to travel the world, but as a guy who’d just finished his twenties … he could see it differently now.
This was home to her. And home, to Piper, was more important than anything else.
Before he could think better of it, he reached an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to him so he could kiss the top of her head. He knew it was an intimacy reserved for somebody who was planning to stay, but he couldn’t help himself.
When he let go, her eyes looked surprised at the affectionate move, but he could swear he saw a tiny smile poking at the corners of her lips. As she picked up her cards, he did the same, for the first time feeling a glimmer of hope.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance he could break back through her walls.
* * *
“I’m not sure I want to admit this quite yet, but being snowed in at a run-down little diner in East Nowhere, Vermont, is actually kind of … fun.” Piper smiled at Noah across their booth, where they’d returned after she’d raked in three whole dollars in the poker game. She piled the pennies on the table, hoping Darla would let her trade them in for paper bills in the morning.
Snowflake Wishes Page 4