Sable Peak (The Edens)

“Na-na. Pa-pa.” Alaina pointed a finger over my shoulder to Mom and Dad’s house.

“We’ll go visit Nana and Papa in a minute, Sprout. We have to go see Vera first.”

“Oh.” Her favorite new word. “Ve-wa.”

Allie’s syllables were all divided with a slight pause. She was learning new words and using new sounds each day. But her favorite names she’d spoken for months.

Daddy. Nana. Papa. And Vera.

Her legs kicked as we walked through the barn’s small door.

My heart beat a little faster as I climbed the stairs to the loft, the anticipation of seeing Vera doubling with every step.

It had been a week since I’d taken Vera on that flight. A week of self-mandated distance. These past seven days had been a test. I’d wanted to see how often she crossed my mind—so often that I’d stopped counting.

This morning, Allie and I had driven into town to get a package from the post office, and Vera’s private pilot materials had been waiting. I’d decided then and there that we’d had enough distance.

My stomach knotted as I knocked. The last time I’d been this nervous to see a woman had been in, well … it had been a long time ago.

Footsteps sounded and then the door swung open. Vera’s eyes widened, her hands instantly tucking locks of damp hair behind her ears only to untuck them just as quickly. “Um, hi.”

“Hi.” Damn. I’d missed that pretty face. Her skin was fresh and clean, her cheeks flushed and those freckles on full display.

“Ve-wa.” Allie careened forward, arms wide for Vera to catch her.

“Hey, Jellybean.” Vera beamed at my daughter, her eyes sparkling as she lifted Allie from my arms to kiss her cheek. “What are you doing today?”

“We just came from town. Hit the post office. Stopped by the coffee shop for some breakfast.”

“Muff-in,” Allie told her.

“Yummy.” Vera tickled her belly and shifted sideways. “Come on in.”

“Thanks.” I pulled the backpack off my shoulder and set it on the kitchen counter beside a pile of textbooks, Vera’s laptop and a collection of maps.

Sable Peak was circled in a yellow highlighter with a larger perimeter drawn around the area. “What’s this?”

“Oh, nothing.” Vera folded the paper in half, pushing it aside. “Just making note of hiking trails. Since we flew that way, I thought it would be fun to hike that area more this summer.”

“Ah. Well, if you give me a heads-up, I’ll go with you. I know you’ve done it by yourself before, but that area has been known to have bears.” Plus the terrain was steep and rough, so it didn’t get a lot of visitors. The cell reception was shit too, and if something happened, I didn’t want her stranded out there alone.

Sure, she’d lived for years in the wilderness and had more survival skills than anyone in the greater Quincy area, but that didn’t mean I wanted her alone in the mountains.

“Okay.” She nodded, then pointed to the backpack. “What’s all this?”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

I unzipped the bag and started hauling out books. “Got your stuff in today.”

“Oh.”

Oh. There was a reason it was Allie’s new word. She’d picked it up from Vera.

“That’s a lot of books.” Vera gave Allie an exaggerated frown.

There were six in total, each one thicker than the last. “There’s a lot here. Don’t get overwhelmed. We’ll go through it all step by step.”

“Where do I even start?”

“This one.” I tapped the largest book with a plane on the cover. “It’s a good holistic resource of everything you’ll need to know. The others drill into certain topics. Read the first chapter. Then we’ll review it together.”

She sighed and cast a glance toward the other books on the counter. “Okay.”

“There’s no rush. If you can tackle a chapter a week, great. If not, we’ll stretch it out.”

“All right. When do you want to meet?”

“We’ll plan flying time around your schedule and the weather. But for the ground school material, how about we get together on Friday evenings?”

It was the one night a week when Lyla was guaranteed to close the coffee shop. My sister would work late, stocking up inventory so she could take the weekends off and leave the shop to be run by Vera or Crystal, her other barista.

“Fridays work for me.”

“Mind if we meet at the cabin? That way Allie will have her stuff and be less of a distraction.”

Vera smiled down at Allie, bending until their foreheads touched. “Are you a distraction?”

Allie giggled, a sound so pure it was a treasure.

Vera puffed out her cheeks so Allie could squish them flat.

God, they were good together. So good it gave me pause. If I fucked this up, it wouldn’t just be Vera who suffered. Allie would too.

Except I couldn’t stay away. I didn’t want to stay away.

I walked the length of the loft to the living room windows. Dad had moved the horses to the pasture alongside the gravel drive. While the rest of them were grazing, Saturn stood tall and proud in the distance, his sleek, black coat shiny in the morning light.

“Have you ever ridden a horse?” I asked, turning from the glass.

“No.”

“Want to learn?”

“Someday.” Vera nodded. “Your dad offered to teach me this summer.”

Fuck that. I’d be the one to teach her to ride and to fly. I wanted to teach her anything and everything. I wanted time with Vera. We just needed more time.

Maybe if I’d given her that time a year ago, we’d be in a different place. Well, I’d give it to her now. Starting with Fridays at the cabin.

“Dow.” Allie squirmed, so Vera set her on her feet. My daughter raced straight for the TV remote on the coffee table.

“Are you supposed to play with remotes?”

Allie ignored me completely.

“Sprout,” I warned.

Vera let out a quiet laugh as she walked to the oversized leather couch and curled in a corner. She was in a thick, maroon sweater today. The color made her eyes look like pools of melted chocolate and gold. Her hair was drying slowly, lightening into strands of amber silk.

Beautiful. So damn beautiful.

“Can I see that for a minute, Jellybean?” Vera held out her hand, palm up.

Allie walked straight over and gave up the remote. “Dizzy.”

“Dizzy?” Vera looked my way.

“Disney.” It was always streaming at our house.

“Ah.” Vera navigated through the TV’s menus until she found a show for Allie to watch. Then she turned down the volume and took the batteries out of the remote before giving it back.

“Huh. Why didn’t I ever think to take the batteries out? That’s brilliant.”

Vera’s cheeks flushed.

Goddamn, that blush. I’d missed it this week. Like I’d missed the sweet smell that infused the loft.

I stared, unabashedly, taking in the delicate details of her face. The adorable chin. The straight line of her nose. She had the prettiest eyelashes.

Vera caught me staring and gave me a sideways glance. “What?”

“Nothing.” I tore my eyes away, shifting them to Allie, who was sucked into the cartoon. My attention stayed on her for about ten seconds before it swung back to Vera.

She was watching Alaina too, smiling as Allie danced to a song, until she caught me staring again. “Mateo.” That pink color in her face brightened. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Not nothing. You’re looking at me like you want to say something.”

I did want to say something. I wanted to tell her that she was beautiful. That I liked when her face was clean so I could see all of her freckles. That I’d always thought blue eyes were my favorite, but that her shade of rich, walnut brown had taken the top spot.

But she wasn’t ready to hear any of that. And I wasn’t ready to tell her. Not until I was sure how to do this. Sure I wouldn’t mess it up.

So instead, I just said, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For pushing me to fly.” We both knew that the only reason I’d gone was because she’d instigated it. “I missed it. More than I realized.”

“I had a good time.”

“Do you really want to learn to be a pilot? Or are you just trying to coerce me into flying more often?”

The corners of her mouth turned up. “Both.”

I chuckled. “Sneaky.”

Vera tucked a lock of damp hair behind her ear, then pulled it free.

“You do that a lot. With your hair. Tuck and untuck. I haven’t figured out what it means yet.” My hunch was shyness. But maybe she was just nervous around me.

She averted her gaze, staring at an invisible spot on the floor.

“You hate broccoli,” I said. “Whenever Mom makes it for dinner, you always dish a few pieces on your plate to be polite, but before each bite, your lip curls or you scrunch up your nose.”

To my knowledge, I was the only one who’d picked up on it too. Mom kept cooking broccoli.

“Your favorite color is green. Dark green. And you’re a fast runner.”

She seemed to prefer hiking for exercise, but I’d watched her go out for a run from time to time. Vera had a long, easy stride. She ran with grace, poise and speed.

“Why are you saying all of this, Mateo?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

I might not have let myself cross a line. I might not have noticed her crush. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t seen her. Learned about her. Paid attention to her.

“Sometimes you’ll laugh so hard you snort,” I said. “Instead of getting embarrassed, you just laugh harder. And you don’t drink. That night at Willie’s was the first time I’ve seen you order anything at a bar but Coke.”

Vera wrapped her arms around her middle. “We don’t need to talk about Willie’s. Ever.”

“We can.”

“I don’t want to.”

“All right.”

She blew out a long breath. “Why are you here, Mateo?”

We both knew it wasn’t just to give her those ground school materials. I could have dropped them off already and been halfway home by now.

Before I could answer her question, before I could tell her that I’d just wanted to see her, a tiny person crashed into my shins.

“Daddy.” Allie raised her arms in the air. “Up.”

So much for the cartoons. I bent and picked her up, setting her on my side so she could look out the windows.

“Ho-sis. Wook it.” She pointed through the glass. “Ho-sis.”

“Those are the horses.”

Vera stood from the couch, smoothing down the front of her sweater. Then she cleared her throat and walked to the kitchen. “Thanks for bringing this stuff over. I’ll dive in after I finish studying today.”

I wasn’t ready to leave. But she was ready for us to leave.

That shifting, the shuffling, wasn’t just happening to me. It was happening for Vera too. So I’d give her a chance to find a new balance.

I crossed the loft with Allie perched on my arm, pausing by the door to give her a wink. “See you Friday.”

She tucked and untucked a lock of hair. “I’ll be there.”