The View From Here

by Cindy Myers

  “I don’t care about the money,” Lucas said. “I just think it’s neat that I discovered something.” He glanced at Maggie. “Can I at least keep the stones I found?”

  “Yes, you can keep those,” she said. “But you have to promise me you won’t go into the mine again unless I or someone I’ve given permission to goes with you.”

  “I promise.” He replaced the stones in his pocket and started to move forward again, but cried out as his ankle gave way beneath him.

  “Not so fast,” D. J. said. He swept the boy into his arms. “I’ll carry you.”

  Without waiting for a reply from anyone, he started down the trail toward the cabin. The rest of the crowd set off behind them, except Maggie, who stayed behind with Jameso.

  “So who was that?” Jameso asked, when they were alone.

  “I’m not sure,” Maggie said. “But I’d say he and Olivia once had feelings for each other.”

  “I’d say they still do.” He closed and locked the gate and returned the key to its holder behind the sign. “You’d better go on in,” he said. “It’s getting colder.” Lucas still had his jacket, so Maggie knew he must be chilled, though he showed no signs of it.

  “I thought I’d walk back with you,” she said. “Come up to the house and I’ll give you a ride to town. You can get your truck in the morning.”

  He fell into step beside her on the trail. The clouds still obscured the moon, forcing them to walk slowly, picking their way by the beam of the flashlight. “What will you do now?” he asked.

  “Do about what?”

  “The mine. Lucas is right—that turquoise could be worth a lot of money.”

  “That explains where Jake got his money. He was mining the turquoise a little at a time and selling it in Montana or Denver or wherever.”

  “It’s your money now. You could travel, buy a new place. What do you want?”

  She looked at him, wondering if she was being a fool. “I don’t want Carter. And all he wanted was the Steuben glass collection he’d given me over the years. When I wouldn’t give it to him, he tried to steal it.” She laughed, remembering. “Winston kept him here until I came home and threw him out.” She didn’t mention Cassie, something in her wanting to protect the poor woman. “You’ve got nothing to be jealous about.”

  He stopped, pulling her up short. “You asked me what I thought of you. That first night, when I saw you standing on the porch of Jake’s cabin, that stick of kindling in your hand, all that red hair tumbling around your shoulders and fury in your eyes, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And you were way out of my league.”

  The sincerity of his words shook her. “We’re not playing sports,” she said. “Leagues don’t matter.”

  “You can say that because you’re the woman with a turquoise mine. I’m a man with nothing.”

  “If money was that important to me, I’d have stayed in Houston and let Barb introduce me to her rich friends.”

  His grip on her tightened. “What is important to you, Maggie?”

  “You are.” She kissed him, all the anxiety and confusion that had tormented her washed away by those two words of truth and the feel of her lips against his.

  His arms came around her, crushing her to his chest. They kissed for a long time, there in the chilled darkness, warm in each other’s arms.

  “I’m sorry I ran out on you,” he said, his voice rough against her hair when they finally came up for air. “It was a shitty thing to do. I wish I could promise I won’t do anything like that again, but with my record, it probably won’t be the last time I screw things up.” He shifted and moved back enough that his eyes met hers in the dim light. “But know I will never deliberately hurt you,” he said. “I love you, Maggie. I love you so much it scares me.”

  “It scares me a little, too,” she said. “But we can be brave together.”

  They started back toward the cabin, holding hands. She was glad of the weight of him holding her to the earth—her heart felt light enough to send her soaring off the mountain. “Do you think Jake would approve of us together?” she asked when they reached the cabin.

  “If he didn’t, he’d kick my ass. But I wouldn’t care.” He pulled her close again and cradled her head on his chest. “I promise I’ll treat you better than he ever did.”

  “I know you will. And if you don’t, I’ll be the one doing the ass kicking.”

  He slid his hand up to her neck and stroked softly. “You aren’t wearing the rings anymore,” he said.

  “No, I took them off after I kicked Carter out of town. I realized I didn’t need them anymore.” Like the glass, the rings were ties to another life. One where she’d depended on other people for her happiness. She’d tucked them in the back of her jewelry box, like souvenirs she could look at from time to time to remind her how far she’d come.

  Jameso kissed her again, his lips hot, tongue twining. Desire flared. “Come inside,” she murmured, and tugged him toward the door.

  As they crossed the porch, she felt something wet and cold on her cheek. She blinked into the darkness. “Is that snow?”

  “I think it is.” He aimed the flashlight up, at the shower of flakes drifting down on them, like glitter in a snow globe. “Welcome to fall in the mountains,” he said. “Snow now, warm again next week. The aspen will turn before you know it. The elk will start bugling. It’s my favorite time of year.”

  “I can’t wait to see it.” She smiled at the swirling flakes and thought of all the wonders she had yet to discover. “I want to see it all.”

  Chapter 26

  “This is the last of the clothes, but there’s still a lot of books and stuff.” Barb shoved the cardboard carton into the back of the truck they’d borrowed for the move.

  “The books can stay.” Maggie deposited another carton next to Barb’s. “Most of them were here when I got here, so they’ll be all right.”

  Barb leaned against the back bumper of the truck. “We should have asked Jameso for help,” she said. “This is a job that could use some muscle.”

  “I don’t want his help.” Maggie knew she was being stubborn, but that’s who she was. Considering all she’d learned about her father, her obstinacy was probably at least partly genetic. “Besides, I’ve got you.” She hugged her friend. “Thanks for helping.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it. I’ve been dying to get back up here. Besides, I never knew a mining heiress before. I want to be sure you remember me in your will.”

  “It’s not a diamond mine,” Maggie protested. “Just a pocket of turquoise. A semi-precious stone.” Though the first estimates of the money the mine might yield had been precious enough for her to live comfortably for years to come.

  “Have they started mining the stones yet?” Barb asked. “When do I get that turquoise necklace you promised?”

  “I hired Bob to oversee the job.” The old man had very solemnly sworn he would never cheat a lady. “He’s working with a couple of engineering students from Montrose. We want to keep the operation small and minimize the disruption to the area.”

  “Just don’t forget my necklace.” Barb straightened. “I guess we’d better get back to work.”

  “We’re almost done.” Maggie followed Barb back up to the cabin. It was a lot emptier now than when she’d first arrived. She was leaving the furniture, but she’d decided to take some of her dad’s quilts and the pie crust table that had sat by the sofa. Little things to remember him by; not that she was likely to ever forget.

  While Barb carried out the last packing box, Maggie went into the kitchen and pulled a box of Lorna Doones from the cabinet. She carried them out onto the porch and shook the package. In a few moments, Winston came trotting down the path from the mine and clattered up onto the porch.

  “What is that old goat going to do when you’re not around to feed him cookies?” Barb asked, watching from beside the moving van.

  “Sheep. Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. And he’ll be fin
e. He doesn’t need the cookies, he just liked them.”

  “I don’t need chocolate, but I wouldn’t want to live without it.”

  Maggie fed the last cookie to Winston, then showed him the empty box. He licked at the crumbs, then gave her a reproachful look and trotted off. She turned to Barb. “I guess that’s everything.”

  “We’d better get going, then. Not to rush you, but I don’t want to be driving this truck after dark.”

  “I just need to lock up.” Inside the cabin, Maggie grabbed her purse and turned off the lights. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t linger. She’d had plenty of time before Barb arrived to say good-bye.

  She shut the front door behind her and turned the key in the lock. Then, after only a moment’s hesitation, she reached up and put the key above the door.

  Barb drove the moving van, while Maggie followed in the Jeep, down the winding road toward town. The top of Mount Winston was shrouded in snow, though the lower elevations were clear once more. Golden groves of aspen dotted the landscape; while clumps of purple aspen lined the road. Fall in the mountains was more beautiful than anything Maggie had ever seen; she had to swallow down a knot of emotion as she studied the view out the windshield.

  They rumbled into town, past a row of deserted tourist cabins and down the quiet main street. Rick’s truck was parked in front of the newspaper, but he didn’t come out to salute the moving van. Lucille waved from the porch of Lacy’s, where Lucas was helping her to string a row of skull-shaped lights. She’d heard Olivia had decided to stay in town. D. J. was apparently still here, too.

  They passed the library. Cassie wasn’t exactly friendly these days, but she was distantly polite. Since that or open hostility seemed her two attitudes for dealing with everyone, Maggie counted herself among the lucky.

  Barb turned down a side street three blocks from the library and headed up a small hill. She parked the van in front of a towering blue spruce and shut off the engine. “Not half the view of your dad’s place, but not bad,” she observed.

  Maggie smiled at the little blue house with the wide front deck. “It has electricity, a gas heating system, and indoor plumbing,” she said. “Everything a girl could want.”

  “I’ll say.” Barb nudged Maggie in the side as the front door of the house opened and Jameso emerged. Clad in flannel shirt and canvas trousers, he might have been a lumberjack, or a miner. “I got the bed set up and the new microwave installed,” he said.

  “My hero.” Maggie hugged his neck and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Everything go okay up at the cabin?”

  “It’s fine. Winston’s stuffed full of Lorna Doone’s and I shut the water off like you showed me.”

  “You know I’ll go up there later and check.”

  “I know.” There was a time when she’d have been highly annoyed at him checking up on her that way, but she was learning to accept his need to look after her, and even to enjoy being looked after. “Thanks for letting me say good-bye today on my own.”

  “Only because I love you.”

  “I know. And I love you.”

  “Could you two lovebirds tear yourselves apart long enough to help me unload this truck?” Barb asked.

  Maggie reluctantly moved out of Jameso’s arms and headed down the walk toward the moving van. Too many times in the past year she’d packed her things and moved away from something—her marriage, her sadness, her life back in Houston. It felt good to be moving toward something now—love and possibility and a life she couldn’t have imagined before.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  The View from Here

  Cindy Myers

  About this Guide

  The suggested questions are included

  to enhance your group’s reading of

  The View from Here.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. One of the themes of the book is finding a home. What does “home” mean to each of the main characters in this story? What does home mean to you?

  2. Both Maggie and Olivia arrive in Eureka to start life over, essentially from scratch. If you were in a situation like that, would you find the prospect thrilling or frightening? Have you ever fantasized about starting over in a new place?

  3. Several characters in the story have to deal with how the choices they, or others close to them, made in the past have affected their lives. Do you think the past shapes us, or do we shape our memories of the past to fit how we see ourselves?

  4. Jameso tells Maggie that people in Eureka are proud of being independent and surviving sometimes harsh conditions. Do you think you’d enjoy living that way?

  5. One of the reasons Maggie hesitates to get involved with Jameso is that he’s younger than she is. Do you think society still frowns on women who are in relationships with younger men, or is it more accepted?

  6. Maggie and Cassie have a prickly relationship. They share a link through Maggie’s father, Jake. What qualities do Maggie and Cassie have in common?

  7. The character of Jake influences much of the action in the story, even though he isn’t alive when the story takes place. What do you think of Jake and the choices he made in his life? Have you ever known anyone like him?

  8. Lucille has mixed feelings about her daughter and grandson moving in with her. Have you been in a similar situation—either as the child who moved home or the parent who had to adjust to the return of a grown child? Was your experience positive or negative?

  9. Maggie holds on to her wedding ring and the Steuben glass long after she needs or really wants them. Letting go of these items from her past is a turning point for her. What items in your life do you hold on to or have you held on to? Why do we keep things associated with painful times?

  10. If you visited Eureka, which character or characters would you most want to meet and why?

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2012 by Cynthia Myers

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7741-1