by Liz Isaacson
“It is?” Cy and Sophia said at the same time.
He looked back and forth between them. “Yep. Micah Walker finished all the remodeling, and he put me in touch with a realtor, and I signed all the papers to get up for sale, oh, I don’t know. Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Wow, I hope it sells fast,” Sophia said.
Ames didn’t much care if it did or not. He felt foolish enough about the whole Three Rivers situation as it was.
Cy leaned closer to him and whispered, “You didn’t tell her you put it up for sale?”
Ames suddenly wished he’d sat down by Wes. At least he’d be distracted by Michael, who was currently fussing over the noodles Bree put in front of him.
Ames just shook his head, glad when Patsy asked Grams how she’d met Grandpa. Grams loved talking about her late husband, and she entertained their end of the table until it was time for cake.
Ames sang along with everyone else. He laughed and hugged his grandmother, thinking that it might be the last time he did. He helped clean up the dishes, and he told Gray he’d take Hunter to get shoes if he didn’t mind hanging out at his house afterward for a little while.
“Can I take Hutch?” Hunter asked. “I can play with the dogs in the backyard. Maybe I can call Phil, and he can come to Uncle Ames’s.” He looked at Gray with such hope in his eyes, and Ames was transported back to when he was almost fifteen years old. He’d have done anything to be with friends, as they were astronomically more important than his family.
Now, he only wanted to spend time with his brothers, their wives, and kids, and his parents. It was funny how time changed things.
“Sure,” Gray said. “Take Hutch. You’ll have to talk to Uncle Ames about having Phil over. It’s his house, and I think he wants you to help him work.” Gray raised his eyebrows at Ames, who nodded at his brother.
He put his arm around Hunter and said, “I’m sure you can have a friend over. Get Hutch, and let’s go.”
Hunter bustled off to do that, and Ames turned to find Sophia. She sat on the floor in the living room, Jane on her lap and Michael threading a shoelace through a card with an extreme look of concentration on his face.
Sophia had her finger right on the next hole, and Michael got his chubby fingers to get the lace in the right spot. The world narrowed to the three of them like a spotlight from heaven had shone down right on her. Everything else faded away, and Ames was really glad he’d taken Hunter’s advice.
He couldn’t imagine what saying goodbye to her would feel like, and thankfully, he didn’t have to do it until Monday.
“Hey,” he said gently. “We’re ready to go. Do you still want to come?”
“Yes.” She lifted Jane up to him, and he took the little girl. She looked at Ames with wide eyes, and he smiled at her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek while Sophia stood up.
Baby Jane smiled and reached for Ames’s cowboy hat. He pressed it on his head and said, “You can’t have that, baby,” before turning to find Gray or Elise. He didn’t see them, and Patsy said she’d take Jane, so Ames passed the girl to her.
“Have fun,” Cy said as Ames walked behind the couch. “We’re playing cornhole at seven. You should be back to defend your title, or you’ll have to forfeit.”
“Oh, jeez,” Ames said, and he walked out the front door with Sophia, the two of them laughing about defending a cornhole title. Things between them almost felt normal, and Ames started to consider that perhaps he could go to North Carolina and pause his relationship with Sophia and things would be fine.
Perhaps.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sophia’s heart pounded at the sight of the farmhouse. She’d loved her time in Colorado, and she regretted that she’d once said she wouldn’t leave Coral Canyon for this place. She loved the Hammond family, despite her earlier vows to not let them take over her life.
It just goes to show how wrong first impressions can be, she told herself.
“Well,” Ames said, bringing his truck to a stop behind a couple of others. “Here we are.”
“Mm,” she said, looking at the house. She was going back to Wyoming tomorrow. He wasn’t. She’d go back to her real life at Whiskey Mountain Lodge, and he wouldn’t be there.
He wasn’t leaving for North Carolina for another week or so, but he had to go through his house and get packed before then. She’d helped a little bit this weekend, but not much. In the end, Ames had opened a few kitchen cupboards and said, “Maybe I can buy new dishes to use there,” and Sophia had followed his lead.
They’d gone through his hall closet to pull out a few towels and sheets, and he’d half-heartedly put those in a box. Hunter’s friend, Phil, came over, and then Ames and Sophia had sat in the swing on the back porch and watched the two teenagers play with the four dogs. Ames had been quite different this weekend than he’d been in the several weeks leading up to the trip. He’d held her hand and asked her to dinner. He’d kissed her with more passion, and he’d told her about the things he’d been doing to get ready to go, about the house in Three Rivers, and about the construction on the dog facility in Coral Canyon.
He’d spoken to her the most about that, because she was going to help him with it while he was gone.
“I don’t want to say goodbye in a big group,” he said. “Tomorrow, at the airport.” He got out of the truck while Sophia was still trying to process his words and pull herself back to the present.
He opened her door while she did that, and he stepped into the space between the door and the truck. “I don’t want to say goodbye at all, but especially then.” He slid his hand along her leg, and then up the side of her hip.
She reached up and took off his cowboy hat. “I’m sorry, Ames.”
“We don’t need to talk about it anymore,” he said, his eyes burning with an energy she’d rarely seen. They usually only blazed like this when he was angry. “Okay? Can you just kiss me? This will be the last time for a while, so I’ll try to make it good.”
Sophia pushed her fingers through his hair, and he leaned into her. Because she was still in the truck and he wasn’t, she sat higher than him. He pressed his cheek to her chest, and she held him. Her cells started to bubble, and her lungs seized.
This was goodbye. She had to say goodbye right now.
It wasn’t September twenty-eighth, and somewhere in the back of her mind, that was the day she’d been preparing for to say goodbye to him. Not today.
She pulled in a breath and held it, the moment between them tender and sweet. He lifted his head, and she bent down, and he kissed her. He’d always made it good, but tonight, she noticed how slow he moved, and how deep he went.
He pulled away too soon and leaned his forehead against hers. “I do love you, Sophia.”
She felt shaky as she said, “I love you, too, Ames.”
He backed up and nodded, grabbing onto the door so she could get out. She wondered if her legs would be able to hold her, but when she slid from the truck and hit solid ground, she didn’t fall.
He didn’t actually say the word goodbye. He just threaded his fingers through hers as they went in the house together. She was staying with Gray and Elise in the main part of the house, and Ames had a blow-up air mattress in the generational house where his parents lived. So he paused at the end of the hallway leading back to the bedrooms and looked into the living room, where three of his brothers loitered with their wives. They’d put on a movie, but Sophia didn’t want to join them.
“How was dinner?” Cy asked, looking over to them.
“Great,” Ames said. He nudged Sophia down the hall and out of sight of everyone else. “I’m headed over to my parents’.”
“Okay. I’m just going to go to bed.”
“I’m sure you can sit with them.”
She shook her head, feeling about five seconds away from crying. “I’m tired anyway, and I have to do dinner at the lodge tomorrow. I’ll need all the sleep I can get.” She looked up at him, expecting a smile. S
ometimes he tucked her hair behind her ear. This time, he simply looked at her, really looked. He seemed to want to find something, and it was extremely urgent that he did.
She wasn’t sure if he found it or not, but he did lean down and kiss her again. “See you in the morning,” he whispered, and then he was gone.
Sophia leaned against the wall, telling herself not to slide down it and start sobbing. Not yet, she coached herself. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
She barely made it into the guest bedroom where she was sleeping before the tears fell, though, and she didn’t slide down to the floor but buried herself in the blankets on the bed.
September became October, and Ames sent a bunch of pictures of himself on the first day of training. He sent pictures of him working with his dogs, and him working with a new dog named Rosco.
Sophia decorated her cabin and tried new recipes with the guests at the lodge. It snowed the third week of October, and she wasn’t ready to face another winter, let alone another winter alone.
Halloween came, and Sophia walked around wearing a black dress and a pointed hat with Bree, Wes, and Michael. The almost-two-year-old was fascinated with everything, and it took forever to get from house to house. But Sophia didn’t want to sit home by herself, in the lonely, cold cabin behind the lodge.
As she walked at a snail’s pace, she couldn’t help but think of the wassail she could make, and how much Ames would enjoy it. They could eat sloppy Joes and apple pie, and watch a scary movie while they cuddled in front of the fire.
Her fantasies were so out of control lately, and she didn’t know how to rein them in. She’d texted Ames earlier that day to find out what he was doing for Halloween, and he hadn’t answered.
She texted him a couple of weeks later to find out if he’d be flying to Coral Canyon for Thanksgiving. Their communication had fallen off in the past two or three weeks, and she told herself it was because his training had intensified. She was basically telling herself what he’d told her, because she didn’t want to believe any differently.
She didn’t want to believe he had time for a video chat but simply didn’t do it. She didn’t want to believe he read her texts and chose not to answer. She didn’t want to even entertain the idea that their pause would become a break—or that it already had.
He answered with a quick, No. I’ll tell you more later, and the text made everything in Sophia’s life better.
But later never came. The next time she called, he didn’t answer. He texted hours later to say he’d been in class, and he’d call now, but he was so tired, and he’d talk to her on the weekend.
Two went by, and she didn’t hear from him.
She spent Thanksgiving Day with Julianne and Melinda, the two new hires to the lodge in the last year. They’d hosted it at the cabin where Bree and Elise used to live, and Sophia hadn’t spent the day alone. That was something, but Sophia was beginning to wonder how much it really was.
Her mother hadn’t called her. Her father didn’t either. Neither of her brothers. As she walked back to her cabin, alone in the dreary, cold night, she considered calling all of them, just to see how they were doing. It was a day of gratitude, after all.
She looked up into the sky, but it was very, very dark. No moonlight shone down, and no stars winked at her from heaven. Clouds had rolled over the mountains that afternoon, and Sophia wouldn’t be surprised if she woke in the morning to a foot of snow.
The world would be frozen, and it wouldn’t thaw until March. She wished God would freeze her heart too, because it cracked a little bit more every day, and that hurt. It hurt so much, she didn’t know how to go for a moment without thinking about the pain.
Once she’d made it back to her cabin and pushed up the thermostat a couple of degrees, she pulled out her phone. “Why does no one ever call me?” she wondered, her voice full of that agony that ran through her veins. She sat on the couch and leaned her head back, looking up to the ceiling. “Why hasn’t Ames called?”
She felt like a call to him would be akin to her forcing their relationship to continue when he didn’t want it to. I do love you, Sophia.
He’d said that to her. Right out loud. She hadn’t doubted him for a moment. Maybe he really was just busy.
On Thanksgiving? her mind whispered, and there was no argument back. There were no classes today. He could find five minutes to make a phone call. He simply hadn’t.
She tapped and tapped, and lifted the phone to her ear as the line rang.
“Sophia.”
“Hey, Mom,” Sophia said. “Happy Thanksgiving.” Her voice cracked on the last syllable, and she pressed her eyes closed against the flood of emotion.
“To you too,” her mother said quietly. “Is everything okay?”
“No, Mom,” Sophia said, her eyes flying open again. “Everything is not okay. Why don’t you ever call me? Am I just so horrible that you can’t even call me?”
“No,” she said. “That’s not it at all.”
“Then what is it?” Sophia demanded, her tears pouring down her face. “I feel like I’m trying to get to you, Mom. I’m trying to have a relationship with you, but you don’t want it.” No one wanted a relationship with Sophia.
She’d never felt so alone in her whole life, not even when everything in her family had fallen apart.
“It has nothing to do with you,” her mom said, her voice low and gauged. “It’s all me, Soph. I don’t call, because when we talk, I end up feeling so guilty. I know I haven’t done right by you, and it’s honestly easier to ignore than it is to try to fix it.”
Sophia looked straight ahead, her tears blurring the loveseat in front of the window. She had no idea what to make of that.
“I don’t call, because my life is a mess,” her mom said. “And I don’t want you to know that. I don’t want you to think I’m some…some loser who’s lost everything. But the truth is, that is who I am.” She sucked in a breath and lowered her voice again. “So I don’t call. I’m sorry it hurts you. Of course it does. I just don’t know how to…do anything different. I’m a failure. That’s just the truth of the matter.”
“Mom,” Sophia said. “You’re not a failure.”
Her mom said nothing, but Sophia could hear a dog barking somewhere on the other end of the line, so she knew she hadn’t hung up. She needed to go get another foster dog, and she determined she’d go in the morning. She needed to drive by Ames’s construction site too, because she owed him an update, though he hadn’t asked for one.
“Mom,” she said, her mind flying through everything in her life now. Ames. Her father. North Carolina. Rescue dogs. Ames.
“Is Dad still in North Carolina?” she asked.
“No,” her mom said with a long exhale. Her voice was pinched too. “No, he moved to West Virginia a few years ago.”
Sophia closed her eyes, only one thought in her brain now. Get to North Carolina.
“Mom,” she said again, her voice pitching up. “I need some help. I met this guy, and I fell in love with him, and he’s stopped talking to me.”
“I can’t help with relationships,” her mom said gently. “That’s where I’m the worst.”
“He’s currently living in North Carolina and going to the dog training academy there. I didn’t go with him, because….” She let her words trail off, because her reasons now were beyond stupid.
“You hate North Carolina,” her mom said softly. “That’s why you didn’t go.”
A sob came out of Sophia’s throat as she nodded. It was answer enough for her mother, who said, “Oh, my sweet Sophie. I’m so sorry.”
They cried together for a few minutes, and then Sophia drew in a long breath. She needed to get control of herself. “He’s pulling away from me,” she said. “My natural instinct is to let him go, just like I let you go.”
“Don’t,” her mom said. “Hold onto him, Sophia.” A few seconds passed, and her mother’s voice was full of tears when she said, “And hold onto me, too, if you can. I l
ove talking to you. Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to forgive myself, and I’ll be strong enough to call you first.”
Sophia swallowed, refusing to let herself start crying again. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, Soph.”
The call ended, and Sophia listened to her mom’s words repeat through her head. Hold onto him, Sophia.
But how could she hold onto something that she couldn’t grasp? She was trying to hold water with her bare hands.
She needed a plan. She needed to confront him and find out what his plan was. The last time she’d done that, they’d taken a huge step forward in their relationship. Could it work again?
She quickly typed out a text and sent it. To give herself a break, she left her phone on the couch and went into the kitchen to make coffee. She forced herself to wait while it brewed, and she only went back to her phone once she had a cup of fresh coffee, all creamy and sugary, in her hand.
Several minutes ago, Patsy had texted back, Yes, all the Hammonds will be in Coral Canyon for Christmas. We’re hosting at our house, and you’re invited. Ames didn’t tell you?
Sophia burst into tears again, because no, Ames had not told her.
He’d be done with his first program by then. She knew the calendar, and she knew the police dog training ended before Christmas. They’d spoken little about their holiday plans, because well, they’d hardly spoken about anything over the course of the last six weeks.
She tapped to connect a call to Patsy, and her best friend answered with, “Sophia, Cy is on the line with Ames, and he is not happy.”
“Which one?” Sophia asked, not caring that Patsy would know instantly that she was crying. “Cy or Ames?”
“Either one of them,” Patsy said. “Ames didn’t tell you about Christmas here, so Cy is mad about that. Ames is mad that he has to answer to Cy about his relationship with you.” Her voice got softer and softer as she spoke. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We didn’t know you two had broken up.”
