Page 21 of Out of the Cold

Heart pounding, she pushed the curtain aside and drank in the pink and lilac sky. She was still sitting there with her face pressed against the cool glass when Gabriel emerged from his cabin in sweats and a hoodie and headed around the side of his house toward the trail.

She sat up straight. She might not be as strong and capable as Gabriel, but she wasn’t as incapable as he thought she was. Or maybe she was, but she could learn.

She wasn’t in the hospital, and she wasn’t sick anymore. There was no excuse for running home now.

It was time to grow up.

What was the point of surviving if she didn’t live a good life? If she didn’t find love and happiness?

Still, the days stretched out before her, all the empty hours like so many blank pages waiting to be filled. If she was going to stay here and finish her book, she needed some structure.

After taking Hilde out, she made a cup of coffee, then sat down at the table, opened her notebook, and sketched out a schedule for weekdays and weekends.

Sitting back, she regarded it with a satisfied smile.

She could do this, and she’d start today.

It was a relief to lose herself in writing over the next few days as Maggie sat for the medical school entrance exam after fighting to take it. Surrounded by men giving her withering looks, she held her head high even as nausea and doubt plagued her.

“Do not let the female in our midst distract you, gentleman,” the proctor said. He didn’t even glance at Maggie. “Simply go about your business and show her who really belongs here.”

She could feel Maggie’s adrenaline and fear, her overwhelming relief as she stood up after four hours of writing and handed her exam in.

Maggie was all the things Lucy wanted to be. She didn’t wait for life to give her what she wanted or settle for what others were willing to offer her. Things were going to get even more difficult for her soon. Men were going to make her life hell once she got accepted into the medical school. She was a threat to their way of life and everything they knew about the world, and they weren’t going to take it lying down. But Maggie was tough, and even though she had doubts, her resolve never wavered.

Lucy had never had that kind of resolve about anything, not until now. She hadn’t needed to. She had a family who had been her strength and kept her from falling. But she was standing on her own two feet for the first time, and it felt great.

Her stomach growled, reminding her it was time for lunch. She’d gone too long without seeing anyone else, and she was starting to talk to herself. Time to go to town and see some human beings.

She stopped first at the post office. It was too soon for her to have received any mail from people back east, but even so, her heart leapt at the sight of something in her post office box. Unfolding the bright yellow flyer, she saw it was a circular from the town about events that week—talks at the library and historical society, an outing with a local ornithologist, and children’s story hour at the bookstore.

She was totally going to do some of the things on the flyer. Maybe even all of them.

Well, not the children’s story hour.

Back on the street, she took a deep breath and started walking toward the shops at the other end. It was cold today, cold enough to bring home the fact that she didn’t have the right clothes for living up here.

She walked up one side of the main drag, dipping into boutiques to linger over cashmere sweaters and artisan jewelry, working her way toward Turn the Page, a surprisingly large bookstore with the latest bestsellers in the window. Opening the door, she stepped inside, smiling as she looked around. Why had she taken so long to come here? All her worries faded away when she was in the company of books.

She scanned the new fiction for something to read, agonizing over several hardcovers before deciding to buy all three.

Finally, when she couldn’t pretend any longer that she didn’t care, she headed for the young adult section to see if they carried her book. She did the same thing at every bookstore she visited. Most of the time, she found her book on the shelf. But there were times she didn’t, and it was always difficult talking herself out of her disappointment. She wasn’t a big-time author and shelf space was scarce, so that was life.

Her eyes skimmed the titles, searching for the authors whose last name started with P—Parsons, Partridge, Pearl, Pearson, Pitman. It took her a moment to recognize her own book.

She must have made some kind of noise, because one of the staff members, a handsome man in his forties, looked up from where he was straightening books on a nearby table. “Did you find something you like?”

“No. I mean, yes. I was looking for this...” she stammered.

“That’s a great story. If you’re looking to buy something for a teenage girl, you couldn’t do better.”

“You really think so?”

“As long as she likes historical fiction. That one takes place in the early twentieth century.”

“I actually wrote this,” she confessed. “That’s why I was so happy to see it here.”

“How about that?” he said, coming over and holding out his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Lucy. I’m Hector Diaz, the owner. We don’t often get authors here. It’s a little too far off the beaten track. What brings you here?”

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