by Liz Isaacson
“What is it?” He bent and picked up the dog, who snuggled right into his chest. “Did she tell you while I was outside?” He did like this dog, and he considered—again—getting a dog for himself. Over the past few weeks as he’d done his research and then started looking for a puppy for Elise, the thought of getting one for him and Hunter had crossed his mind many times.
He wanted a dog who would run with him, and the golden retriever and Labrador breeds would make great running partners. He hadn’t pulled that trigger yet, because he was already asking Ames to watch Hunter while Gray left town. He couldn’t ask him to dog-sit too. Ames already had dogs he brought home from the police station, and Gray knew his brother wouldn’t like taking care of a puppy.
He half-wondered how Elise was going to do it. There was way more snow up here than in Denver, and she’d need to take Hutch out a few times each night in the beginning. She’d said she wanted the dog, and Gray had asked her several times if she was sure. He’d cited the potty training and the leash training and all of that, and she’d said she could do it. That she wanted to do it.
“All right,” Elise said, reappearing in the kitchen doorway. “Close your eyes.”
“Oh, boy.” Gray chuckled as he set Hutch on the floor, straightened, and dutifully closed his eyes.
“Remember, you’re very hard to shop for,” she said. Her voice came closer, and the other chair at the table scraped as she sat down. “Okay, open your eyes.”
He did, turning toward Elise and finding a plain wooden box on the table. It wasn’t wrapped, and someone had clearly made it by hand. “What’s this?” he asked, reaching for it. “Did you make this?”
Her laughter filled the kitchen, and she said, “Gray, do you really think I can make a box like that?”
“I don’t know.” He smiled at her. “Where’d you get it?”
“I bought it at a craft fair,” she said. “Boutique. Whatever you want to call it.” She nodded to it. “Open it.”
Gray admired the handiwork for another few seconds. The box wasn’t very big, probably about six inches wide and five inches tall. It was fairly deep though, probably a foot long. The lid had been sectioned into two, with a smaller one at the front, and a much bigger one that took up the back two-thirds of the box. It had been stained a beautiful reddish-brown, where all the grain of the wood shone through in a darker brown.
He lifted the lid on the front third of the box and peered inside. It held note cards—a whole bunch of note cards, and his curiosity had him reaching inside to see what they were.
He pulled out a decent chunk of cards and read the first one.
“Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” -Dean Karnazes.
He looked up, his admiration for Elise growing by the second. She said nothing, to her credit. Gray looked back at the running quote, noting that she’d illustrated it by hand. Done only in black pen, she’d drawn a pair of running shoes, one perched on top of the other, as if he’d just kicked them off his feet after a long run.
Gray put the top card on the table and looked at the next one.
“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” -John Bingham
She’d hand-lettered the words FINISH LINE in that same black pen, and put bright yellow lines around it, as if it had been bathed in light from heaven.
“Elise,” he said, his voice choked with emotion.
“I put them in order from today until the day of the Colfax Marathon,” she said. “The most inspiring quotes. So when you get up and you don’t feel like running, you can read one, put those shoes on, and get out the door.”
He looked away from the cards and at her. She wore a fair bit of anxiety on her face, probably hoping for a good reaction from him. Gray knew she’d worked hard on this, and it was the single best thing anyone had done for him.
He swallowed and shook his head. “You are amazing. This is fantastic.”
“Yeah? You like it? Remember—you’re very hard to—”
“I love this.” Gray put the cards down and closed the distance between them, kissing her again. He wanted to say I love you, but he didn’t dare, because it felt silly to say that so soon after their relationship had begun. “Thank you,” he whispered against her lips. “Thank you so much.” He kissed her again, not allowing himself to get too hot like last time. Then he went immediately back to the cards.
“You drew on every one.”
“Yes,” she said. “Remember how I said I have a lot of time in the winter?”
He glanced at her and read the next card. “The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.” -Haruki Murakami
Gray thought that last one could be applied to life—he just tried to do better every day over the day before. He cleared his throat and put the cards back in order. “I don’t want to look at them all right now.” He put them back in the box. “There’s way more than sixty here.”
“I kind of got carried away,” she said. “But once you do Colfax—and qualify—you can save the others for when you’re having a bad day while you prep for Boston.” She tapped the top of the box that was still lidded. “You’ve got to open this.”
Gray fitted the lid back on the front part of the box that held the cards and removed the lid on the back. It was empty inside, but she’d put little flags on the lid itself, and he quickly realized they were reminders.
May 21 – Colfax Marathon – qualify!
June – Don’t quit running!
July – Run in the 5K at the Coral Canyon Fourth of July celebration!
Gray grinned and started to chuckle. “I see what’s happening here.”
August – Get your Boston application ready!
September 9 – Apply to run in Boston!
End of September – Get notified of acceptance to run in Boston!
October – Only 6 months until Boston (and cake)!
November - Don’t stop running yet!
December – Take your training indoors!
“You mean my overuse of exclamation points?” Elise giggled as she smoothed down one of the colorful flags. “Yeah, I got a little excited. But ‘take your training indoors’ seemed pretty lame with just a period.”
Gray looked away from the reminders, her confidence in him astounding. “I haven’t even qualified yet.”
“You will, Gray.” She shook her head, her smile in place. “You know you will.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Well, I know it,” she said. “So just go with the flags, okay?”
“Okay.” He looked at the empty box. “What do I put in here?”
“Your bibs, your registration card, the email you’ll get when you qualify for Boston. It’s like a keepsake box for this next year of your running life.”
Gray put the lid back on the box. “This is literally the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
“Please,” Elise said, scoffing. “Your parents gave you two billion dollars when you turned twenty-one. This is a box with some note cards in it.”
Gray looked at her, hoping he didn’t come across as too intense. “Elise, this is so much more than that.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and glanced over to the stove. “You really like it?”
“I love everything about it,” he said. “And I’ll get to see your handwriting and your drawings everyday. It’s perfect. Amazing. And it really is better than the two billion.” He meant it too, and her gaze finally flickered back to hers.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered.
“Me too, sweetheart.” They stood up together, and Gray gathered her close to his heart and held her tight. He had no idea what the future held for them, but in that moment, he had to believe that they’d be together. He hadn’t felt this strongly about anyone since his ex-wife, and he’d just known with her too.
“
Okay,” Elise said several moments later. “Let’s eat, because I just felt your stomach growl, and that is just not okay.”
He laughed then, the mood lightening between them. The distance and the long drive were both against Gray, but he was determined to find a solution they could all live with—him, her, and Hunter.
He didn’t know what that looked like yet, but he would figure it out. Oh, yes, he would.
Chapter Sixteen
Bree scurried around the kitchen, putting out napkins and the fancy paper plates Wes had bought at the store. Annie, Elise, Sophia, Patsy, and Celia had been in the kitchen with her for the past hour, each of them cooking up something for the wedding celebration that was about to begin.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang, and all six women looked toward the front door.
“I’ll get it,” Wes said. “I think it’s my family from Ivory Peaks.” He’d offered to help several times, but Bree kept shooing him out of the kitchen. She’d finally texted Colton to get over to her house so he could entertain his brother, and Colton had done exactly that.
The men had been hanging out in the living room, something playing with a low volume on the television while the women worked in the kitchen.
Her stomach swooped at the sound of more voices, but she reminded herself she’d met Wes’s parents. They were lovely people, and she’d enjoyed her time in Ivory Peaks with them very much. They both liked her too.
Only she knew there was more to her swooping stomach than just nerves.
“Mom,” Colton said. “Dad.” He got up to hug them both, and Bree watched their exchange with fondness.
She wiped her hands on her apron and left the kitchen. “Chris,” she said to Wes’s father. “Welcome. It’s so good to see you.” She hugged him and then turned to his mother. “Hello, Bev. How was the drive?”
“Just fine,” the woman said. “We rode with Ames, and he’s such a good driver.”
“Oh, he’s just average,” Colton said. “Don’t let her fool you. She just thinks he’s the best because he doesn’t speed.”
“I’ve ridden with Wes,” Bree said with a smile for Bev. “Ames is surely better than that.”
“Hey,” Wes said, slipping his hand around her waist. “I heard that.”
“I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret.”
“Everyone knows you’re the worst driver of all of us,” Ames said, joining the group.
Bree smiled at him. “Hey, Ames.” She gave him a quick hug too. “Thanks for driving.”
“Hey, I drove too,” another brother said, and Bree turned to Gray.
“Of course you did.” She hugged him hello too, dying to know how things were going between him and Elise. Her best friend had been fairly tight-lipped about the relationship, and Bree knew she got more information than Colton. And that Colton was dying a slow death because of it. “Welcome. Where’s Hunter?”
They’d all come out to the farmhouse while Bree and Wes had been there, and she did like his family very much. She’d definitely hit the in-law jackpot with the Hammonds, and she found the boy and hugged him too. “How did your dad do with the drive?”
“Just fine,” Hunter said. “Felt like it took forever, though.”
“That’s because we were behind Uncle Ames,” Gray said. “And he drives so slow.”
“I was going the speed limit.”
“Not the whole time,” Gray said with a cocked eyebrow. “We could’ve shaved at least an hour off that drive.”
“You didn’t have to follow me.” Ames shot him a dirty look.
“And trust me, on the way back, I won’t.” Gray grinned at him, clearly not fazed by Ames’s sharp eyes. Bree kind of was, though. He was a cop, and she wouldn’t want to cross him.
Gray stepped away from the group and toward the kitchen, and Bree tried to focus on the conversation at hand and watch him at the same time. She completely failed, because she didn’t hear a word anyone said. Instead, she saw Gray start a conversation with Elise that had them both smiling in a way Bree had only seen a couple of times before.
He didn’t touch her; she didn’t touch him. They didn’t sneak off together. But they clearly had the air of two people who liked each other very much, and Bree’s heart leapt with happiness for the two of them.
“They look happy, don’t they?” Colton asked, his voice right at Bree’s ear and barely loud enough for her to hear.
She didn’t flinch or look at him. “They sure do.”
“Do you know anything else?”
“She hasn’t said much in the past couple of weeks.” Bree knew Gray had come for Valentine’s Day, and that according to Elise, it had been “the best few days of my life.”
Six weeks had passed since then, and to her knowledge, Gray hadn’t come to Wyoming, and Elise hadn’t gone to Colorado. “Their self-restraint is astronomical,” she whispered. “I mean, they haven’t seen each other in a long time.”
“He’ll get her to go get something from the truck with him,” Colton said. “Twenty bucks.”
“I’m not betting against you.” She elbowed him. “For all I know, you told him to do that.”
Colton chuckled and didn’t deny it. “Oh, look, she’s taking him outside to see her dog.”
Bree watched Elise open the back door, where a fit of barking started. Gray stepped out with her as Elise’s silver labradoodle came bounding up to her.
The doorbell rang again, and Bree turned toward it. “I’ll get it,” she said. “It’s probably the Whittakers.” With Wes’s family already here, she wasn’t sure who else it would be.
She opened the front door, and sure enough, Graham and Laney stood there with their kids, Bailey and Ronnie. “Come in,” Bree said. “Thank you for coming.”
April had just begun, and a lot of the snow had melted. Some stubborn patches stuck to the grass in shady spots, and Mother Nature would likely blow at least one more storm through Coral Canyon before she gave way to springtime. But at least it wasn’t the bone-chilling cold of winter.
Graham stepped inside and hugged Bree. “We wouldn’t miss it.” He took his family into the living area, but Bree kept the door open as Andrew and his family came up the sidewalk.
More hugs, and Bree took their youngest from Becca, saying, “I’ve got a cookie for you Glen. You stay with me.”
She’d just started to close the door when Elise said, “We’re heading out, Bree. Gray brought all the rolls, and we need to get them from his truck.”
“Okay.” She held the two-year-old on her hip as Elise and Gray went out onto the porch, their fingers twining together. She leaned into him, and Gray placed a kiss on her temple. Colton had been right. Bree closed the door and hoped they’d get a few minutes of privacy before more people showed up.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, the house continued to fill with children and adults as Beau and Eli arrived with their families. Then Rose and Violet showed up, and with their triplets and twins, the sound of high-pitched children’s voices made Bree a little weepy.
Her parents arrived next, and Bree hugged them for several long seconds at the front door. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I know it’s a long way.”
“We have nothing else going on,” her dad said. “This sure is a nice house, Bree.”
“Thanks,” she said. She’d had nothing to do with the house Wes had bought in Coral Canyon when he’d come last year. But she did like the house, because it had plenty of space, big windows, and a cozy feel to it.
Elise and Gray still hadn’t come in with the rolls, and Bree cast one more look over her shoulder before closing the front door. “Straight back, Dad. Go say hi to Wes.” They’d met him at the lodge when Bree had first gotten him back into her life. They’d gotten along well enough, though Bree still suspected her parents would’ve liked to have been present for the actual wedding.
“Are we all here?” Wes asked, glancing around. “Yes, there’s Bree’s parents.” He wore a bright smile as he came
over and greeted them. “I was just looking for you guys. You made it.” He hugged them both too, and Bree’s heart grew and grew and grew.
She hoped it would keep growing, because she needed the room. She looked around at all the people who meant so much to her, and tears filled her eyes.
“Is everyone here?” Wes asked, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“Elise and Gray are outside,” she said quietly. “But other than that, yes.”
Wes said, “Cy’s not. I’ll call him. Put Colton on Gray and Elise.”
She nodded and deftly wove through the crowd to where Colton hovered near the cupcakes—big surprise. She leaned in close and said, “That thing about them sneaking out to the truck? They did, and they’re not back.”
“And we’re starting?”
“As soon as Cy gets here,” Bree said. “Wes went to call him.”
Colton nodded. “Let’s see how long that takes.”
Bree turned to Celia and asked, “And we’re ready to eat?”
“Yes,” Celia said, grinning. “This is so great, Bree. We should have celebrations like this more often.”
“More often than Christmas?” Bree giggled and shook her head. “You’re crazy. Besides, I’m pretty sure you feed most of these people every Sunday.”
“And more,” Sophia said. “With the guests.”
“Exactly.”
“This is different, though,” Celia said. “There’s so much energy here.”
The house was full of good vibes, and Bree did like it. She could barely believe everyone fit, but they seemed to, and Wes and Colton had set up chairs and tables for everyone to eat as well.
“Cy’s here,” Wes called, and the last Hammond brother entered the fray. There was much back patting and welcoming as Colton slipped out the door and into the garage. Bree barely had time to meet Wes’s eyes before he said, “Okay, we’re ready to start. Everyone quiet down.”
She went to his side, clasping his hand in hers. Colton slipped back inside, with Elise and Gray right behind him. Gray moved to stand beside his son, and Elise hustled back into the kitchen, put down a few bags of rolls, and then stood halfway behind Celia.
