Amy laughed. “Elaine would have gone completely ballistic. Honestly, she acts like we are teenagers with raging hormones.” She put her hand on his arm. “You’re sweet to think about that.”
***
The sun was starting to rise as they reached Columbia.
“Do you remember,” Amy asked, “when long distance telephone calls were so expensive? When you found yourself passing through town, you would stop to call friends or relatives since the calls would be local.”
Drew chuckled. “Cell phones and free long distance have pretty much ended that practice, haven’t they? What made you think of it?”
“Oh, I realized that Jennifer lives in Columbia and I thought you might want to stop and call.” She laughed. “I don’t suppose she would be too happy hearing from you at seven on Saturday morning, though.”
“I expect she’s awake. Lucas is something of a morning person.”
“I can imagine.”
“We can eat breakfast in Spartanburg if you can hold out,” Drew said as the highway skirted the city.
“I’m fine. I had a bowl of cereal.”
They drove quietly, and Amy watched as the city fell behind them and the flat, coastal plain turned to rolling hills. She had lived on the coast so long that the hills seemed enormous to her.
Then, after stopping for breakfast, they set out again. It wasn’t long before they rounded a long curve, and a mountain loomed ahead, directly in front.
“About another hour,” Drew told her. “The cabin is on the other side of that mountain. We don’t go all of the way to Asheville.”
“How did you find the cabin in the first place?”
“I inherited it. When Mom died, she left the cabin to me. My sister received the beach house on Sullivan’s Island.”
“That seems a bit one-sided.”
“What do you mean?”
“The beach house is surely worth more than the cabin.” Amy felt her face becoming warm. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”
Drew laughed. “Mom gave me the house when Di and I married. Giving Susan the beach house was supposed to even things out a bit. It worked out well. Susan practically lived on the island anyway. Di was not fond of Charleston’s heat and humidity in the summer and we were already in the habit of going to the mountains when school ended each year.” He shrugged. “Susan’s family uses the cabin frequently in the winter. I park at her house when I go to the beach.”
Their speed fell as they began to climb the first mountain. The big trucks were creeping along and Drew sailed passed them at fifty.
“My ears are popping,” Amy exclaimed.
“Yawn. Swallow. You’ll be all right.”
As they crossed the summit and began their descent, Drew left the interstate. He stopped at a small grocery store. “I want to have food in the cabin when Jennifer comes next weekend. You can stay here if you’d like. I won’t be long.”
Amy sat in the car. It was still cold and she pulled her coat closed. It’s so quiet, she thought. She concentrated, but she heard nothing, other than the sound of a couple of cars driving past. She could see Drew though the store’s window. It must be hard for him to drive up here, to bring me to the cabin, she thought. He still loved his wife. She admired that about him. A good man did not forget the one he had loved for such a long time.
Amy looked at the three brown paper bags as Drew placed them on the floor in back. “What did you buy?”
“Flour, rice, potato mix. A few canned goods. Steaks and a roast. I’ll freeze the meat. It’s awful to pull in at seven o’clock after a long drive and have to go back out to buy dinner. We seldom remember to stop on the way in.”
“Jennifer’s lucky to have you.”
Drew shrugged and settled into the car. Several miles down the highway, he turned onto what looked like a single-lane road. It climbed the mountain and then dropped toward a small valley.
Just as they started down, another car approached, going up. “What are we going to do?” Amy said in alarm.
Drew smiled as he slowed and pulled to the side. The other car crept by with, what seemed like, inches to spare. He and the other driver waved as they passed.
“Did you know him?”
“No, not really. Seen him around.”
“You both waved.”
“What? Oh, just being polite.”
As they started down again, Amy spotted the lake on the valley floor, a patch of sparkling blue surrounded by the dark forest. Houses began to appear, peeking out from among the trees, most of which were bare, having dropped their leaves two months earlier, their brown trunks contrasting with the gray winter sky. She felt sure that in the summer the houses would be completely hidden and that it would be easy to imagine oneself completely alone on the mountain.
“It’s beautiful, Drew.”
“I love it here.” He turned onto a dirt lane and, half a mile later, stopped in front of a house.
The chill in the air hit her as Amy opened the car door. Looking up, dark clouds loomed in the sky behind the house. “Is it supposed to rain today?”
Drew glanced up at the clouds. “More likely snow, I’d say, as cold as it is. When was the last time you saw snow?”
“Years ago,” Amy exclaimed, “when I was a child. Except for a few flurries on rare occasions.”
Amy studied the house. It was two stories tall, with porches wrapping around both floors. She had expected to find it made of logs from the way Drew had talked about the cabin, but the first floor had stone walls and the second was wood. A high-pitched roof line was broken by two chimneys, one at each end of the house. “This is what you call a cabin?”
Drew had been retrieving the groceries from the car and he turned, his eyes following hers. “My parents always called it that. I suppose it’s not as large as a house and it’s in the mountains, therefore…” He shrugged and smiled.
It was as large as Amy’s first house. Maybe larger. She went and picked up the third bag of groceries, following Drew toward the door. “Now, show me this cabin.”
They mounted the front steps and entered a large room that occupied most of the first floor. “The kitchen and dining area are over here,” Drew motioned with a nod of his head and they carried the groceries into the kitchen.
Drew put them away and then led her through the house. “This was Di’s office. We set it up as a bedroom last spring when we listed it for rent. There is a bathroom, here.” He pointed down the short hall. “Upstairs, there are four bedrooms and a couple of baths. We could sleep eight upstairs and the sofa in the family room unfolds. Last year, we had the entire family here at the same time, early in the summer.” His smile faded. “It was the last time that all of us were together here.”
Amy squeezed his hand and he smiled. “We had a lot of good times in the cabin.”
Drew turned on the gas logs, and they sat on the floor in front of the hearth while they ate the lunch Amy had packed.
Neither one spoke. Drew seemed to be lost in thought, and Amy did not want to intrude, but after a while, he looked up.
“Thank you.” He leaned over and kissed her. He seemed to be speaking of more than the food, but she decided not to ask. They sat for several minutes, relaxing and staring into the fire, before they got up and went for a walk.
A path led down the mountain toward the lake. Halfway down, Amy stopped and gazed about. “It’s beautiful here, even though it’s winter. And so quiet.” She stopped talking and listened. The only sound was that of the breeze rustling through the trees. “I noticed it back at the grocery store too. There is no sound.”
“It is a good place to relax. It’s not so deserted in the summer, of course. Jennifer and Matthew had friends who they only saw during June and July. We would hear them screaming as they ran through the woods in marathon games of chase.”
They reached the lake and walked out on the pier. “Is there no one else here?” Amy looked around at the houses and the two small stores that hugg
ed the shoreline.
“I haven’t seen anyone, but I’m sure we’re not totally alone. The Martins live here all year.” Drew pointed toward one of the houses. “They own the general store. It’s a good place for conversation and morning coffee, and the prices aren’t bad either. The store is closed until the skiers begin to show up, but I saw Tim Martin at the window as we came down the path.” He glanced around. “Probably a couple of others are here, too.” He smiled. “Most folks don’t go for walks when it’s this cold.”
“It’s snowing.” Amy held out her hand to catch the flakes that drifted from the dark clouds. “I’ll bet this place is gorgeous in the snow.”
“It’s magical.” Drew took her hand and they started back up the hill.
“I haven’t been here since Di passed away. I wasn’t sure what the cabin, the town, would be like without her.” He squeezed Amy’s hand. “Thanks for coming with me. I really was dreading the trip.”
“It still hurts, doesn’t it?”
Drew nodded. “Not as much as it once did.” He stopped walking and put his arm around her. “And then, there is you.”
Amy smiled and looked into his eyes.
“I love you, Amy.”
“I love you, Drew.”
They kissed and Drew held her for a long moment, while Amy closed her eyes. She felt warm, in spite of the wind and the snow. Elaine and Barb were both wrong. She had not been looking for love again, but she had definitely found it.
As they resumed their climb, the snow began to fall harder. “We’d better pack up and get on the road. We need to be back to the highway, heading down, before the roads get slick.”
By the time they reached the house, the snow was beginning to coat the car. Amy looked around in alarm. The snow was startling to stick on the house and the trees, too.
“I need to check the logs. I’ll only be a minute.”
He headed up the steps and Amy followed behind. “I left my book inside.”
Drew held the door open for her, but as she placed her foot on the top step, it hit a small patch of white and slipped out from under her. Amy turned as she fell. Her right foot hit the ground and buckled under her, twisting painfully.
As Drew reached for her, her vision blurred and she felt lightheaded, until everything went fuzzy and dark.
***
She awoke on the sofa in the family room. Her ankle throbbed. Drew was holding a plastic bag full of ice, against her leg.
“What…what happened?” She focused her eyes on the fireplace to stop the room from spinning. A fire was burning, and she was beginning to feel the warmth.
“Good. You’re awake.” Drew took a deep breath. “I was about to call the EMTs.” He rubbed her ankle. “It looks sprained.”
Amy glanced at the window. Falling snow obstructed her view as if it were a curtain, only the faintest outline of the evergreens that stood beside the porch were visible. “We need to go, don’t we?” She started to stand, but cried out as her foot met the floor.
Drew caught her and placed her back on the sofa. “It’s all right. It’s all right. You can’t walk to the car, and I can’t carry you over the snow. Even if I could get you down the steps and to the car, we might not be able to reach the highway. We’ll have to wait it out.”
“Wait it out? How long?”
“At least until tomorrow. I’ll call down the mountain and ask about the forecast.”
“But we need to get home. Cathy will be frantic, and we have no food, and where will we sleep?”
Drew chuckled. “Call Cathy. We have plenty of food, a warm room, good company. We’ll be fine.” He walked to the front window. “The driveway is covered in snow already. It’s falling hard.”
Amy groaned and leaned back. “Will we lose power?”
“Doubtful. The lines are below ground. Tree limbs in the backyard and ice on the lines aren’t issues.”
“They certainly were when I was a child. I recall once, I was about twelve, I think, when we had six or eight inches of snow. It all fell in about four hours. The lights flickered a couple of times, then, about mid-afternoon, they were gone. Dad had already built a fire, so we were warm, but we had cold cuts and canned baked beans for supper. And breakfast.” She laughed. “Of course, when you are twelve, that’s an adventure.”
Drew returned to his place on the sofa, and Amy leaned against him, then they sat quietly for a few minutes.
“It would be terrible if we did lose power,” Drew said quietly.
“It would be.” Amy nodded. “Here, with you, in the dark, all night. Just terrible.”
***
The snow stopped shortly before night set in.
“Four inches I would guess.” Cell phone reception had been disrupted and Drew had walked out near the car to see if he could get a signal. “Cathy is sorry about your ankle, but she is confident that you can find a way to enjoy yourself.”
Amy shook her head. “Depend on Cathy.” She sighed. “Of course, she will call her sister and Elaine will go ballistic. If you hear helicopters hovering above, it will be because she called the National Guard.”
“She can’t be that bad.”
“Every bit that bad.”
Drew pulled out a blanket to cover Amy and he went to cook dinner.
“Do we even have any food?” she called after him.
“Of course. I stopped for groceries. Remember?” Drew peered out of the kitchen. “I won’t say it’s nutritionally balanced, but we have steak and instant mashed potatoes.”
“Sounds good to me.” Amy snuggled under the blanket.
A few minutes later, Drew came in and began to turn on the lamps in the family room.
“Please don’t. It’s so cozy here, just sitting in front of the fire. Can’t we leave it like that?”
Drew smiled at her and then went back to the kitchen to resume cooking their meal.
***
After dinner, he settled onto the sofa beside her.
“Where are we going to sleep tonight, Drew?”
“Well, you can’t climb the stairs, so I’d suggest that you stay here on the sofa.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“Of course.”
The room was dark, except for the fire flickering across the room. Amy lay against him, staring into the darkness.
“What are you thinking about?”
“About how much fun I’ve had today.” Amy snuggled closer. “How much I’ve enjoyed myself.”
“Fun? A five-hour drive, a sprained ankle…”
Amy’s voice was low, just above a whisper. “Good company, good conversation…you told me you love me.”
“And you love me.” Drew wrapped his arms around her.
“How could a day be any better?”
Amy drifted off to sleep, but Drew remained awake, gazing into the fire. He’d felt sick at his stomach that morning as he’d dressed for the trip, almost afraid. He had started to call Amy to cancel, but then he had become angry. “You’re a psychologist,” he had told himself. “You know better than to behave like this.”
He laughed softly now, at how he had felt. He was happy that Amy had made the trip with him. He had feared that visiting a place that held so many memories of Di would depress him. Instead, with Amy beside him, he had the feeling that the good times were not yet over. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
***
“You spent the night with that man in a cabin in the mountains?” Elaine’s voice registered disbelief. “How could you? Why would you do that?”
“Elaine. Cathy told you what happened.” Amy sighed. She didn’t understand why her daughter was so upset. “I sprained my ankle and I fainted. When I awoke, the snow was so deep that we couldn’t get out.”
“How deep was it?”
“Drew said there were about four inches of snow.”
“Drew said? You didn’t check yourself?”
Amy shifted her position on the sofa where she lay with her foot propped
on pillows, an ice bag covering her ankle. “Elaine, if I had been able to walk out to check the amount of snow, I would have been able to walk to the car to leave. I did look out of the window, and it looked pretty deep.”
“People drive in four inches of snow all of the time.”
“You know full well that half an inch is enough to paralyze Charleston, and driving on a one-lane mountain road in the snow would be plain crazy. Why are you so upset, anyway? You haven’t said a word about my ankle.”
“Mother. Where did you sleep?”
“Where?” Amy realized what Elaine was asking and felt herself becoming angry. “On the sofa in the family room. In front of the fire. We spent the night in each other’s arms, making wild, passionate love and—”
“Mother, you didn’t!”
“No, Elaine,” she snapped. “Of course we didn’t. We did fall asleep on the sofa, but even if we had slept together, it would not be any of your business—” Amy cried out in pain and then dropped the telephone while she moved her foot back onto the pillows. She thought of hanging up, but decided not. When she returned to the call, Elaine still seemed to care about only one thing.
“You could be concerned about me, you know, Elaine. Drew had to help me to the car this morning. I still can’t really walk, and I’ll miss work tomorrow.
“I am concerned about you, Mother. What are people going to think?”
“They will think I sprained my ankle. Besides, who is going to know what I did or where we slept?”
“Mother can’t you see that he’s using you? He’s lonely. You’re lonely. He’s wealthy. You are not. When he gets what he wants, and it sounds as if he came awfully close, then he’ll drop you like a rock in the July sun.”
“Elaine, be reasonable…”
“I can’t believe that I’m having this conversation with my mother.” Elaine clicked off.
Amy sighed. She couldn’t believe the conversation, either. Elaine didn’t like Drew, and she had been hostile since Amy had told everyone how they had met. The weekend had just added fuel.
To Fall in Love Again Page 16