Page 6 of The Forever Formula
Finally, I found an old post with Noah’s profile linked. My heart beat a little faster at the thought that I was about to get a better look at the man he’d become.
But to my disappointment, there wasn’t a single photo of him on the page. Instead, it was all nature shots. Fields of grain, streams, a ladybug on the tip of his finger. Noah was always into nature like that, though.
Not that I wasn’t a little let down. I mean, who doesn’t have one single selfie online?
Noah Hart, that’s who.
4
A DOSE OF NOSTALGIA
Rachel
Islept later than I meant to, and then showered. Then I spent the day washing bedding and going through old photos. I swung by the grocery store in town to stock up on some things I’d need while I was here, and before I knew it, it was time to prepare for my visit with Natalie.
Knowing that it was possible I might run into my old fling, well, let’s just say it meant I spent extra time applying my makeup, and I made sure to dress in a cute tunic and leggings. Satisfied that I looked good—but without seeming like I was trying too hard—I set off.
Walking up to the Hart house felt strange. I wasn’t sure how much more nostalgia my body could take. It almost felt like I was living in my memories more than in the moment.
The large house was always impressive to me. While my house was a modest log cabin that Grandpa bought when he was in his twenties, the Hart house always seemed like a mansion to me. Now through my grown-up eyes, I recognized it was more average-sized, maybe two thousand square feet or so.
It was still beautifully kept, though, with flowering garden beds and birds fluttering around an almost insane number of feeders. The sun was already starting to drop in the sky, and it cast a pink-and-orange glow across the view out over the valley.
“Is that our beautiful Rachel?” a shaky voice said, startling me.
I whipped around and spotted Dottie.
She looked mostly the same as I remembered. Wrinkled skin and a big smile, short salt-and-pepper curls, and her trademark golf visor from a long-ago Christmas when the boys thought it would be funny to give her an embroidered hat that readOld Balls. Little did they know she’d wear it for the next twenty years.
“Dottie,” I said as we embraced.
She rocked us from side to side. The woman might have been eighty-five, but her energy level was clearly still as high as ever.
“Tell me you’re moving back.” She pushed me away and kept hold of my shoulders in the process.
“Leave the poor girl alone, Mom.” Natalie laughed as she walked down the front steps. The gravel crunched under her feet as she walked to us. “Just ignore her, Rachel. She thinks because she’s over eighty that she no longer needs to use her filter.”
“I don’t.” Dottie winked at me. “Why get old if you can’t tell it like it is?”
I laughed softly. “Do you, Dottie.”
“See?” Dottie turned to her daughter. “Rachel loves it.”
“Rachel has been here for three minutes. She’s being polite,” Natalie said to her mother before she turned to me. “She’s going to get worse the more wine we drink. I apologize in advance.”
“I can take it,” I told her. “I’m Paul’s granddaughter, after all. That makes me a tough nut.”
“Good girl,” Natalie said as we walked inside the house.
Much like everything else in my memory, not much had changed in their house. Stacks of books on the shelves, mismatched plaid pillows, scattered throw rugs on the pine floor. It was the coziest country house in the world as far as I was concerned. The kitchen was well kept, even if it was a bit nineties in its styling.
We settled in the familiar great room with the vaulted ceiling that impressed me so much as a kid, especially when they had their twenty-foot-tall Christmas trees they had to use a ladder to decorate.
The only big difference was the photos on the walls. A lot of life had happened on these walls since I’d moved away.
“Red or white?” Dottie asked me.
“Mom, we’re a family of brewers now. It’s time to call them by their name.” She turned to me. “Cabernet sauvignon or pinot grigio?”
