Mountain Daddy

by Layla Valentine

  After a while, Serena began to ponder what she might make for dinner that night. I gripped her hand as we descended the more treacherous parts of the hike. I felt, in my heart, that I wanted to show her something more of myself. That I didn’t want our week together to end without giving her something bigger—a kind of gift.

  When we reached her cabin, I placed my hand on the window of the truck, exhaling deeply.

  Serena gestured toward her house, whispering, “I actually have all the supplies I need for dinner. I could get started on it now, while you pick Gracie up from school?”

  I shook my head, feeling anxious. After slipping my fingers through my drying hair, I gave her a soft smile. “Why don’t we do something a bit different this time?”

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked, her eyebrows lowering. I could sense she was worried that I wanted to call the whole thing off.

  “Maybe tonight you could join Gracie and me for dinner—in our cabin,” I said, frankly surprised that I’d even allowed the words to escape my lips.

  Serena tilted her head, looking incredulous. But after a long moment, she forced the confusion to pass. Her voice was soft, gentle.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, clearly honored, knowing how big this was for me. For us.

  “Of course,” I said. “I’d love it. And Gracie would, as well.”

  “Then I’d love to,” she said, tossing her arms around my neck and hugging me tight.

  “Great. We’ll be back in about a half hour to take you up there,” I told her, remembering the small trail I’d built between the cabins, several years before. “You can’t see the place from the road. It’s a bit tricky to find.”

  “Sounds like a secret, in a magic forest,” she said, her eyes shimmering. “You are so full of surprises.”

  “You’ve been the biggest surprise I’ve had in a long time,” I told her, lifting her into me and kissing her lightly, softly. I inhaled the scent of her—somehow still flowery, despite spending the day in the turquoise waterfall. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I couldn’t help the stupid grin that found its way onto my face as I watched her skirt back into her cabin.

  Feeling jumpy, I leaped into the front of the truck and chugged it back down the mountain, anxious to be back in Serena’s presence.

  After not having another living soul at the cabin, not in the three years since I’d moved there, I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel. Would Serena find the place too rustic, too barren? Would she feel its charm? Would she feel at “home” in the only home I’d ever known?

  Chapter 8

  Serena

  I couldn’t believe he’d invited me to his cabin. I’d sensed a barrier, knowing that he didn’t allow others in his space, and thought that just having dinners at my place was easier for everyone involved. It was a neutral space. He didn’t have to reveal too much. We could just…exist.

  But something had changed during the afternoon at the waterfall. Our bodies and minds had come together so completely, so totally, that I knew I could no longer pretend I wasn’t falling completely in love with him. I sensed the swell in me, making butterflies swirl in my stomach. I wasn’t conscious of anything else but this. I was alive, awake, happy.

  I changed back into the white dress I’d been wearing earlier, and waited at the doorway, knowing that Ethan and Gracie would arrive soon. When they did, they did so on foot, darting through the trees, hand in hand. Ethan gave me a firm wave, almost like a command. I fell into the outdoors once more, my body sizzling with excitement.

  “Where’s the truck?” I asked them, patting Gracie’s back as she hugged my legs close.

  “Parked it already, so I could show you the path back to the cabin,” Ethan said. He placed his hand on the small of my back, guiding me toward a large oak, where I saw a small trail had been formed between the weeds.

  “I’m so excited to show you our house!” Gracie cried. “No one’s ever seen it before!”

  I blinked up at Ethan, giving him a meaningful smile.

  “I can’t wait.”

  We walked through the trees, following a sparse yet certain path. Gracie held onto my hand, chattering quietly about her “show and tell” from the day. She’d apparently spoken of me, about my career “in the big city,” and about how she wanted to be like me when she “got old.”

  “Old?” I asked, chuckling slightly.

  “Well, how old are you?” she asked.

  “Twenty-eight,” I said, with a heavy sigh. “Pretty old, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe you’ll be a mom soon,” Gracie said, giving me an even shrug.

  My eyes flickered toward Ethan, unable to read him. He’d retreated into himself once more, becoming darker, perhaps anxious that I was, indeed, nearing his home. My fingers flickered across my thighs as I walked. I wanted to hold onto his hand, but I held back, sensing the growing brevity of the moment.

  The cabin was tucked in the trees, completely invisible to the untrained eye. We cut through a small garden, which held bright tulips, daisies, even a rose bush, and then swept through a willow tree and several pines.

  The steps up to the cabin seemed to appear out of nowhere. Gracie leaped up on the first one, saying, “We’re here!” Her voice echoed across the lake.

  Ethan reached for his key and unlocked the front door, which was burly and thick. He shoved it open and turned, beckoning for me to approach. As I did, I felt my heart hammering in my chest. He placed his hand on the small of my back, guiding me inside.

  The place was absolutely extraordinary. Inside, the cabin was transformed, with fairy lights adorning the walls and ceilings. The windows were lined with soft curtains, which gave the interior a cozy feeling, and a fireplace along the wall was lined with large stones—all of which, I knew without asking, Ethan had picked up himself.

  The first room was a combination of living and dining room. A large, wooden dining table stood next to the window, which offered an incredible view of the shimmering lake as the sun dropped lower in the sky.

  As we walked forward, the dining room paved the way for the kitchen, which was rustic, but lined with more fairy lights. On the refrigerator, Gracie had hung several crayon drawings, one of which was of her father, chopping wood.

  “Wow,” I exhaled, feeling breathless. “This is unbelievable.”

  At first, I thought the walls were lined with artwork. But as I crept closer, I realized that each of the frames held within them polaroid photos of the metamorphosis of the cabin: from a rustic, basic shelter, to the cozy safe haven it was now.

  Other photos were of Gracie as she’d grown older, wearing footie pajamas, giggling with her head tossed back, on Christmas morning.

  I felt tears forming as I took in the images. The recording of their beautiful life together. The recording of the life Ethan had taken on when he’d been called to be a father.

  “I took these ones!” Gracie said, pointing to a lower frame, which held several pictures of the cabin and the lake. They were shaky, blurry, showing spots of light. But I could feel her intense pride emanating from her smile.

  “You really are an artist,” I told her, bringing my hand to her shoulder. “I’ve never seen such a beautiful place.”

  As Gracie scampered off to her bedroom to drop off her backpack, Ethan leaned across, kissing me lightly on the lips. I felt a jolt of excitement, knowing we were hiding our feelings from his daughter.

  Giving him a small smile, I shrugged my shoulders. “Thank you for sharing your home with me.”

  “I didn’t want to share it with anyone else,” he murmured.

  We set to work after that, with the three of us joining in the kitchen. We sipped on water, rather than wine, and put an LP on the record player—an album from the late ‘60s.

  As Ethan and I chopped and sliced vegetables, Gracie spun in circles to the scratchy tune. Her blond curls swept through the air, glittering. As she twirled, I allowed myself to imagine that this could be my life for good.
<
br />   Ethan dropped the vegetables on the baking sheet and then prepped the pasta, along with a platter of cheese and crackers, for an entrée. He passed the plates to me, and I set the well-loved wooden table.

  I tried to imagine the days past in that cabin. How, when Gracie had first arrived, she had probably sat in a booster seat, unable to peer over the table otherwise. She’d probably cried, been unruly—certainly someone a bounty hunter couldn’t deal with, not with all the training in the world.

  And yet, he’d cared for her. He’d learned how to be a father. And he’d adorned the house with fairy lights, to give Gracie a more magical life.

  How could I not fall for someone like that?

  We sat around the wooden table as the afternoon became night. I felt Ethan grip my hand beneath the table, and gave him a sly smile.

  Gracie placed a piece of cheese on her cracker and then bit into it with a mighty crunch. Crumbs filled her plate. She giggled, her eyes lighting up.

  “I hope you get to stay here forever,” she told me, her shoulders slumping down.

  “I told you, baby,” Ethan said, filling my glass with a pitcher of water. “Serena has a big job in the city.”

  “Maybe she could do it out here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know about that.” Ethan paused, sliding his fork into his pasta. “Anyway, Gracie, you don’t have school tomorrow. You have anything you’d like to do?”

  Gracie eyed me, giving me a small smirk. “I want to go hiking,” she said, sounding more certain than I’d ever been in my life. “And I want Serena to come, too. Won’t you come? Please?” She eyed me with a hopeful look.

  “Only if she doesn’t have something better to do,” Ethan said, turning his gaze toward me.

  We filled our bellies, laughing and joking. I tried to force away my feelings for Ethan, which only seemed to grow deeper and more certain with each passing moment.

  As we ate, I grew tired, my brain feeling soft and light. As if to match me, Gracie yawned with her mouth wide. She swatted her hand over it, as an afterthought.

  “Why don’t I make coffee?” I asked, standing up.

  Ethan joined me, clearing the plates and whistling. After placing them in the sink, he moved toward the record player and swapped out the record, causing the music to crackle into the air around us.

  As he passed by me, his elbow touched mine, and our eyes held onto each other—saying a million things without saying anything at all.

  I reached for the coffee filters and beans, busying myself as Ethan began to fill the sink with water. Gracie swept into the room, pointing to the coffee maker. Her eyes were dark and quick.

  “You better be careful of that thing!” she told me.

  “The coffee maker?” I asked her, raising a single eyebrow.

  “Don’t touch the button with your finger,” Gracie said, her chin quivering as she tried to suppress a smile.

  “What?” My eyes darted between Gracie and Ethan, trying to sense if I was missing something. I shrugged, sliding the coffee grounds into the filter. “I don’t know how else I would make it work, Miss Gracie.”

  “It’s an old machine,” Ethan said, bringing his hand across Gracie’s hair and ruffling it. “She’s just bringing up a past—erm—humorous occasion, you could say.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked, growing curious. “What happened?”

  “Daddy’s hair,” Gracie said, giggling. “It was all like this!” She mussed her hair, making it curl far above her head. “It had sparks in it!”

  “Oh, it did not,” Ethan said, his cheeks growing the slightest shade of pink. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “It was!” she said, continuing to laugh. “He looked crazy!”

  I began to chuckle, placing the filter into the coffee machine. It was, indeed, an old and crooked one, probably made over 20 years ago. “Where on earth did you get this thing, Ethan?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. One garage sale or the other,” Ethan said, slipping his hands through his hair. “It just the button.” He pointed to the brew button. “It shocks you if you touch it. But it’s perfectly fine otherwise. Just that one minor flaw…”

  “Just the minor flaw that it shocks whoever wants coffee,” I said, laughing fully now. I could imagine it: Ethan tossing around the kitchen, howling, with his hair in every direction. “Why would you ever replace something as perfectly functional as that?”

  “My thought exactly,” Ethan said, chuckling.

  “Oh, Daddy,” Gracie sighed. “You’re so silly.”

  After using a bit of cloth to press the brew button—avoiding certain disaster—I poured us each a cup of coffee. Gracie curled up on the couch in the living room with her coloring book, her head bowed low over her lap.

  As her crayon moved over the page, I felt an ease overtake me. It was as if this was our normal routine. Me, making coffee. Ethan, doing the dishes. And Gracie, tucked away with her art, lost in a haze of her own creativity.

  It was beautiful.

  About a half hour later, Ethan tucked Gracie into bed and slid the door closed. He bowed his head to me, whispering, “She fell asleep almost immediately. I think you exhausted her.”

  “She exhausted herself,” I said, giggling. “She’s just an electric kid, Ethan. She has a million stories, a million things to say. I’ve never met anyone like her.”

  “Her teacher says the same thing,” Ethan said, slipping onto the couch beside me. He traced a line down my back, using a single finger. I shivered. “That she’s always the first to raise her hand, to turn in her assignment, to have an idea. They said they can hardly control her, but that it doesn’t matter—because she isn’t the type to take orders. She puts herself to work, and doesn’t stop till it’s done.”

  “Ha.”

  I was beginning to lose myself in his touch. I yearned to move forward, to kiss him. But I held back. If I allowed myself to dive deeper into my feelings, I knew I’d never be able to leave.

  As the tension escalated, Ethan took the moment to move toward me, his eyes closing. But I lifted my hand, pressing it against his shoulder and pushing him away. His eyes opened, filled with curiosity.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice soft.

  “We have to be careful,” I told him, feeling the hesitation in my voice. “There’s a child involved here.”

  Ethan nodded, his lips pressing together. After a long pause, he said, “You’re probably right. I know you’re right. I just can’t ignore this.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “But we must.”

  We were on the same page. As we stepped back from each other, I felt my shoulders slump forward. Disappointment clouded me. I gave him a soft laugh, wondering at the strangeness of life. Ethan swept his hand toward the door, shrugging. “So I guess we’ll be seeing you tomorrow?”

  I swallowed, trying to gather my words. “Tomorrow’s my last day up here, you know?”

  “I do.” His eyes were deep, a darker blue than normal, expressing his sorrow. “You don’t have to make any excuses. I know what you want from your life. It’s for the best.”

  “For the best.” I echoed his words, taking small steps toward the door. “Okay. Yes. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Gracie and I will come find you around ten or so,” he said, standing in the doorway. He crossed his muscled forearms over his chest, gazing at me with those deep, penetrating eyes. “In the meantime, sleep well, Serena.”

  I wanted to tell him I’d be dreaming of him. That he’d be stuck in my mind. But instead, I turned my feet toward the dark path in the woods, shining a light with my cellphone. I felt tears begin to trace their way down my cheeks.

  After I disappeared into the night, I heard him click the screen door closed. We were separated once more. Soon, our separation would be forever.

  Chapter 9

  Serena

  It was sunset. Orange light blasted across the lake below us, as Ethan, Gracie and I stood atop the mountain after a long day of hiki
ng. Gracie was without words, for perhaps the first time since I’d met her, completely breathless as the night descended around us.

  Ethan placed one foot on a rock beside us, leaning into his knee. He looked sturdy and tough, his eyes taking in everything around us. The darkness of the pines. The light off the lake. The stars, as they began to twinkle in the coming darkness.

  “We’d better make our way back home,” he finally said, linking his hand with Gracie’s. “You’ve got a long drive tomorrow. Better get some rest.”

  It had been a gorgeous day, even better than the others, despite being tinged with sadness. We’d packed sandwiches, with peanut butter and jelly, and we’d played in the waterfall, each of us donning a swimsuit this time. We’d made up little stories to amuse one another, with Gracie coming up with tall tales about fairies and witches and warlocks, leaving me mystified at the strength of her creativity.

  “Gracie, is there anything you can’t dream up?” I had asked her, amazed.

  As we walked down the rest of the mountain, we took a small shortcut, which wound a trail around toward my cabin, before sending Ethan and Gracie along toward theirs. At the entrance to mine, I hugged them both, saying, “I’ll see you in the morning before I go.”

  When Ethan and I hugged, I felt us both linger, our chests pressed tightly against one another. His hands made lines across the small of my back, almost trying to memorize me. I knew we wouldn’t have a chance to make love again. The following day was Sunday, which meant that Gracie would be around in the morning, before I left. Besides, there wasn’t any use fooling ourselves any longer. We couldn’t be together, would never be. It was best not to indulge old impulses.

  After bidding them both goodnight, I bounded down the rest of my trail, feeling suddenly, horribly lonely. My cabin rose before me, between the trees, its screen door flapping in the slight wind. It rapped against the side of the porch. I’d completely forgotten to close it.

  “Shit,” I whispered, moving quickly inside and catching the door. As I did, rain began to spit out of the sky. I blinked upward, noticing that the stars were now covered with a layer of clouds. It would be a stormy night.