Page 94 of Out of the Cold




Chapter Seventeen

For the first few daysafter Gabriel walked out, she spent hours wishing she’d done her usual snowshoe. If only she hadn’t been gone so long, everything would still be perfect between them. But it didn’t take her long to realize that something would have triggered him, sooner or later. All the love and sex in the world couldn’t fix something he hadn’t worked through.

She couldn’t heal him, but she still watched for him through the windows and whenever she went out.

Which was a problem.

But she couldn’t leave. Even if she could find a place to live in the Bay Area earlier than planned, she’d only taught one of the six workshops she’d committed to. Six kids had signed up, four girls and two boys. And they were really great. When she was with them, she didn’t think about anything else, and she loved reading their work and finding ways to make them feel good about how they were expressing themselves.

She had finished her second workshop that Wednesday evening when she ran into Amelia coming out of the library.

“How’s it going?” Amelia asked.

“I love it.”

Amelia laughed. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe a little. It’s easier than I expected.”

“You must be a natural.”

They pushed through the library doors and out into the parking lot.

“I’m headed to the Red Onion for dinner,” Amelia said, gesturing toward the center of town. “If you want to join me.”

Lucy hadn’t spoken to an adult in days, and she wasn’t sure what would come out of her when she did. But she wasn’t passing this up.

“That sounds great.”

Ten minutes later, they were seated in a booth. They chatted for a bit about the workshop and Amelia’s job, ordered their food, chatted more. Lucy asked her lots of questions, hoping to steer the conversation away from herself. It worked for a while.

“How’s your book coming?” Amelia eventually asked.

That wasn’t so bad. She could answer truthfully, without getting into anything else.

“Pretty good. I’m on track to finish it by my March deadline. It helps that I don’t have much to do up here.”

“I can always find ways to procrastinate.”

“I did plenty of that. Why do you think I’m here now?”

Amelia laughed. “I don’t know how you manage alone out there. I live right in town, and I still feel isolated sometimes. Everyone’s nice, but they still think of me as an outsider. And I feel like one.”

“That can’t last forever.”

“We’ll see. I’m not sure how long I’ll stay, anyway.”

“I haven’t been completely alone.” It came out without her meaning to say it, so low she almost hoped Amelia didn’t hear her.

“No?”