Page 130 of Snowed In With the Mountain Man
And so she walked. The weather was nice enough, though snow was still piled up on heaps at every crosswalk. But the sun was shining, and the wind wasn’t bad, and she needed fresh air more than she needed to get to work on time.
She wrapped her coat around herself tighter as she reached an intersection and waited for the walk sign. As she stood there, she took it in. All of it—the people, the skyscrapers, the sounds, and the traffic.
She didn’t hate it. In fact, she felt a swell of affection in her heart for this place that had been such a part of her for so long. How many times had she lost that feeling of loneliness because she’d been swallowed up by a crowd?
More than she could count.
In stadiums, at Madison Square Garden, but also on sidewalks like this one when she felt like she was part of this city—a small but integral cog in the wheel, so to speak.
Something bittersweet rose up in her as she looked around. Once upon a time, she used to swear that she could see the energy that pulsed through the streets and seemed to vibrate overhead.
It fed her, made her feel connected.
She stopped just across the street from her office building.
But did it anymore? Just because she’d needed this place once, did that mean it was where she had to be forever?
Was it still what she needed?
Her thoughts grew bittersweet as memory after memory of her life here with her sisters hit her anew. One after the other, some good and some bad.
Someone jostled her elbow, and that was when she realized she’d been so lost in memories, she’d nearly missed the sign that it was time to move.
And that was it, wasn’t it? She blinked dazedly as she kept walking. It had been so hard to make things work for so long that when she’d found what worked, she’d stuck with it. Right or wrong, good or bad, she’d clung to what was working in her life.
Even if she’d been miserable.
Even if Daisy had gone off on tour and Rose had fled to Montana.
Even if all the reasons she’d put down roots here were gone.
“Dahlia, are you coming?” The receptionist paused beside Dahlia on the street, fixing her with a curious look as she glanced toward the front door.
“Oh. Yeah. Um… I forgot my coffee. I’ll be in soon.”
The receptionist shot her a quizzical frown but walked inside.
It wasn’t just rare for Dahlia to stand outside her office building. It would be weird for anyone to stand still in the city. If you stayed still for too long, you’d get run over.
So she’d moved. She’d hustled. She’d spent the last decade doing nothing but spinning wheels, trying to keep her head afloat so she could be a rock for her sisters.
And she was tired.
She nearly sank down onto the curb as it hit her. She was bone weary, and she hadn't even realized it until she’d been forced to stop. Until she’d been stuck in a cabin and forced to relearn what it meant to relax. To talk. To laugh. To enjoy all the simple things.
She walked in a daze to the coffee kiosk nearby and ordered a cup. Black. “Like my soul,” she’d once joked to JJ. He’d rolled his eyes and given her that lopsided grin that said she was full of it.
The memory made her chest ache, which was nothing new.
She’d been aching for weeks now, and it kept getting worse instead of better with each passing day.
The sweeping landscape and wide-open spaces of Montana had taken her breath away. She loved the rugged mountains, raw in their beauty, unforgiving in their presence. They stood tall and strong the way she always wanted to.
But that wasn’t what she loved about that ranch or Aspire.
It was the people.
Thepeoplehad her heart.
