Page 16 of Cold Foot Komodo

“You’re a nurse?” an older, familiar woman asked.

“Sasha, you remember my mother, Beth,” Wreck said.

They’d met at talked briefly surrounding Wreck and Timber’s wedding. “Of course I remember you,” Sasha said.

Beth pulled her in for a hug instead of a handshake like the others had done. “Oh honey, we’ve been counting down until you got here.”

“You have?”

“Oh yeah.” She eased Sasha back to arm’s length, and the look in her eyes was so tender. “Your sister has told me so many good things about you. I saw you at their wedding, but I never got the chance to really talk to you.”

“Are you…” Sasha was a little overcome with emotion over the warm welcome. “Are you living here too?”

“Nope. I’m down in Darby, a few neighborhoods south of you. I’m not trying to move in on my son and his new bride, or what they’re building here.”

“I told her that was stupid,” Timber announced. “We’re still trying to convince her to change her mind.”

“I like my space,” the woman said, releasing Sasha’s shoulders.

“Me too,” Sasha agreed. “Well, since we are both down in Darby, maybe we can meet up one of these nights. My neighbor said there is a good bar that serves some excellent wings, if you ever get bored.”

“I’m in,” Beth told her.

And Sasha smiled from her inside out. She felt like she’d made a friend already.

When she looked around, Reed had disappeared. His truck had been turned off, and she scanned the clearing but couldn’t find him anywhere.

“Do you want the official tour before we eat?” Timber asked excitedly.

“Um, sure!” She yelped as her sister grabbed her hand and yanked her forward.

“Places, people!” Timber called out.

Sasha watched the shifters of Wreck’s Mountains scrambled to the different cabins, like this was rehearsed. “Timber, you don’t have to go through all this trouble. Let’s just eat.”

“I want you to choose this place,” Timber uttered honestly as she pulled Sasha up the stairs of the A-frame cabin on the left. The front shingles had been painted dark brown.

When Timber pushed the door open and Sasha ducked under the low-hanging welcome sign, she gasped. The cabin was much bigger inside than she’d realized.

The bottom floor was a living area and kitchen, and dining table, with what looked like a bathroom and laundry room in the back. There were stairs on the left side that led up to a huge loft, but that wasn’t the best part of it all. From here, she could see that the upstairs bedroom loft had a full wall of windows at the back of the house that looked out onto the snowy woods.

Timber clapped her hands together. “There’s push-button fireplaces!”

“Whaaat,” Sasha whispered as she watched Timber flip a switch near the fireplace. Flames leapt up on fake logs.

“It puts out heat, too! Wreck and I have spent like five nights down here on the sleeper sofa, watching movies and falling asleep by the fireplace!”

“Timber,” she whispered, taking in the granite countertops in the kitchen, the dark-stained wooden cabinets, the pictures of her and Wreck from their wedding day positioned on the dark-wood mantle over the fireplace. The floors were natural wood with fuzzy rugs. The kitchen had all stainless-steel appliances, and the bedroom above looked like it belonged in some Pottery Barn catalog.

“I’ll open a bottle of wine,” Wreck murmured, his arm slipping from around Timber’s shoulders. He turned and pointed at Sasha. “Timber said you like red wine? From your wine-and-gossip nights?”

Sasha laughed and nodded. “Red is perfect.” She looked back at Timber. “Are you happy?”

She could see the truth in Timber’s eyes as she nodded and said, “Yes. Stupidly happy. I mean, we have a lot of work to do to build this Crew, and we’re all kind of in transition, and sometimes I freak out—”

“Freak out why?” Sasha asked.

Timber puffed air out of her cheeks. “You know why.”

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