Page 20 of Born in the Spring

I glance over toward the kitchen area, then say to Amie, low, “I want to stay at our lodge.”

Tears well in Amie’s eyes, and I inhale another tight breath as I realize I still referred to that lodge as mine and Shepherd’s. But I guess it always will be. Amie hasn’t said much to me about it in the past six months, but I do know it’s remained unused.

There are two guest lodges a little farther up the mountain, but they’re actually just smaller cabins, one for Shepherd to stay in when he wasn’t traveling, and one for Jasper.

“It’s yours,” Amie says, her voice shaky, and she swallows her emotion, blinking away her tears, before she adds, “I knew you wouldn’t be gone forever. So, we kept the lodge the way it was in case there was anything you wanted to keep, oranything that belonged to you.” She gives me a slow nod and my hand finds hers again.

You. Both of us. Me and Shepherd, together.Ours.

“I’m so happy you’re home,” she tells me with another squeeze, and I squeeze back, feeling Vanessa adding to the comfort with her hand on my arm.

“Me too,” I manage through a whisper, then glance toward the kitchen area at a glimpse of movement to see Jasper, keeping some distance, leaned back against the jamb.

His smile appears slowly, and small, once my eyes meet his, before they drift to the fireplace.

And though I know he’s happy I’m home too, the off feeling I’ve had over him since we all gathered in here finally sets in that maybe he still needed a little more space.

Eight

Jasper / Then

The night the main lodge, in front of that fireplace, became my favorite place to be, I was having a day I couldn’t wait to escape.

It was the start of a new ski season and the first of many birthday parties we threw together for Shepherd and Elara. My brother loved that their birthdays were almost next door to each other, and so did our family, having since grown to love Elara too—with Mom, the love was immediate; Dad took more time to warm to apotential distraction—so this one-party-a-year tradition was born. And all that party did for me was put a stamp on my brain that my birthday was in the summer, near no one’s.

But I didn’t escape this day with sleep. I’d put on my tank and striped pajama pants, and I was crawling into bed, when I remembered, through all the commotion, I never got a piece of the cake.

That wasn’t therealreason I shrugged into my jacket andstepped into my boots to trudge back to the main lodge after I thought everyone was tucked in for the night; I didn’t really have a reason. I just felt like I needed to be back down there.

But after lighting the fire, I still cut off the biggest chunk of cake I could from the leftovers—Mom made three jumbo sized carrot apple cakes, with the best cream cheese frosting—and padded out of the kitchen area, while chewing the biggest mouthful, just as Elara walked through the door.

We noticed each other at the same time, both of us slowing to a stop—me with bulging cheeks and frosting all over my lips, and her with her arms wrapped around a long, dark jacket. The hem fell to just above her knees, showing her legs bare, which meant underneath that fabric, she was probably wearing some kind of sleep clothes too. And I was eighteen now, so I didn’t stop myself from wondering what she chose to sleep in and how high it fell on her thighs.

Then she said something that made me remember I looked like a gorging chipmunk. “That’s what I came for.” Her eyes flitted to the plate in my hands, then back up at me, her lips forming a smile I could tell was directed at the state of my face.

I worked my jaw around that bite like I never worked my jaw around a bite before, licking off all the frosting as fast as I could. Which made her smile more. Which was exactly what I wanted her to do.

“Me or the cake?” I asked as a tease, about to add that I didn’t want to get it wrong again, when she took off her jacket, and I lost the rest.

Light pink. A flowy tank, and shorts that didn’t fall far at all, but far enough to cover herself. Silk? Whatever the material was looked as soft as I now knew she was. We’d hugged, and we’d shared grazes, and right now, my hands were squeezingthe life out of my plate.

Elara walked to the couch closest to her and folded her jacket over the back, beside mine. “I don’t mind both,” she said low, but I heard her. And suddenly we both were each other’s company.

She moved toward me, toward the kitchen area for her cake, and I bounced into a walk backward.

“I can do it,” I blurted out, then cringed at myself. I always said those four words with some doubt, and too often, like the person I was saying them to didn’t believe I could.

But that person wasn’t Elara.

“I know you can,” she said, coming to a stop as I did.

But even with herknowing I can, I really wanted to get this damn piece of cake for her, so I told her somethingIknew. “You don’t have to do everything yourself.”

In the months she’d been working here, living at the resort, I rarely heard her ask for help. Not asking over small things made sense, but she didn’t even ask over big things. And she was usually the first to offer her hand to somebody else whenever they needed one when she could. She was even doing this at the party that was halfhers, hustling around, trying to help my parents, and anyone else.

I knew it was cake, a small thing, but I was offering my hand.

She moved toward me again, but I was frozen in her smile, in the soft way she held my gaze. “Neither do you.” She bumped my arm as she passed me, and as she did that, I wanted to take her hand and keep her beside me. Feeding her the cake I’d already cut was an afterthought, but one that hurried me right after her, my eyes trailing her every sway.

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