“It’s free,” I add. “It won’t cost me anything.”
She turns around to draw me into a hug. “You’re so good to me. That’s really thoughtful. And yes, time to work on my music would be so good right now.”
“Even if you can’t write any more angry breakup songs?” I tease.
“Even though you’ve ruined me,” she agrees.
“Then plan on it. Three days next week, you in a quiet cabin with your guitar.”
A gust of wind slices over the balcony and she gives a hard shiver. “I swear it’s getting colder instead of warmer the closer we get to spring. Let’s get inside so I can thank you properly.”
I press my hand to my chest, scandalized. “Sami Webster, are you trying tomake outwith me?”
“Yes, definitely.”
I scoop her up and race into my place before she can even finish the word.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sami
Iturnontheroad Josh indicated on his directions.GPS won’t get you there, he’d said. That’s how I’d found myself taking a barely paved access road from Highway 290 and bumping along it for two miles before I took “the first left past the old rundown barn,” went another mile, and now I’m taking what should be my final turn on what’s less a road and more a gravel path to get me to my destination.
I crunch and even lurch a couple of times over the rough driveway before it makes a slight turn, and there ahead of me is the small cabin Josh told me to watch for. “No wi-fi or cell service but you can text. Gas stove. Electricity. It’s outdated but it’s comfortable, and no one will bother you.”
It’s tidy on the outside and having the small place to myself makes it worth the two-hour drive from Austin. Josh told me it wouldn’t be locked, and sure enough, I walk right in with my small suitcase and the bag of groceries he told me to bring.
The cabin is slightly musty, like it’s been shut up for a while, but it’s way too cold to open doors or windows to air it out. We’re hovering just above forty in Austin, and it had only gotten colder the farther north I drove.
I set the suitcase down and go to the woodburning stove with its box of matches on top. I’ll get that going and this place will be cozy and smell like warmth and crackling wood in no time. It doesn’t take long to get it going, and once the fire is burning merrily, I shut the grate and explore the rest of the small space.
The main part of the cabin is filled with a table for four on the right, situated in front of a small kitchen. The left is a sofa, the woodburning stove, a fireplace, and a rocking chair. I find only two more rooms: a bathroom with a toilet and small shower, and a bedroom with a double bed, an armoire, and a chest of drawers with very little room to maneuver around them.
It’s tiny. Simple. Perfect.
Josh is always doing things like this for me, figuring out what I need and finding thoughtful ways to provide it. I’m learning that, by nature, he’s a problem solver. I’d apologized to him a couple of nights ago again about accusing him of trying to buy what he wanted when he proposed the fake dating thing, but he’d only shaken his head.
“You were right. It was such a habit I didn’t see it. But Ruby set me straight, and I’ve been trying to think of solving problems in ways where I don’t just throw money at them to fix them.”
Somehow, Josh has gone from “just another Bryce” to possibly the perfect man. I only wish I could find a way to do the same thing for him. He’s brushed it off any time I bring it up, but I know the tension with his dad weighs on him. I wish I knew what to do to fix it.
The best I could come up with was to refuse to come to the cabin unless he finally promised to go to his Sunday family dinner. Without me. I’d hoped it would make it easier for them to talk if Josh didn’t feel like he was going to have to defend me at any moment.
When he got back last night, he’d texted to tell me he was coming to our show. When I’d asked how dinner went, he’d only answered, “Fine.”
It was the kind of fine that meant it definitely wasn’t fine. But he’d done it, and now I’m here in this tiny, perfect cabin, and the next thing I do is crawl into the bed and sleep.
When I wake up, I’m truly rested. There’s something about not having anyone waiting on me that relaxes me like usually only a week of vacation can. I don’t have rehearsal. I don’t need to be at the nursing home. I don’t even need to be on hand to try one of Ava’s kitchen experiments or give Madi an opinion on her outfit. Josh has given me space to breathe, and I draw in a deep, grateful lungful.
Then my eyes pop open and I’m scrambling for my bag, because just like that, a lyric pops into my head, and I want to write it down and chase it.I asked for breathing room, but you only held me close. I thought I needed space to run, turns out I want you most.
I tap out the rhythm on my knee with the pen. It’s not perfect but it’s the start of something, and I settle in, letting the words come, crossing out, rewriting, and straightening two hours later with a finished song. The lyrics, anyway.
I climb off the bed and stretch. The room is cold, and I scoop up my notebook and head to the main part of the cabin. The weather has been so chilly lately, but here in this room, the warmth from the woodburning stove washes over my cheeks and into my cold fingertips. That sends another snatch of lyrics through my head, a possible metaphor about winter and fire and hearts that might not be too trite if I work with it some . . .
Hours later, I crawl into bed beneath the quilt, my brain tired, the cabin warm, and my notebook bursting with new snatches of melodies and lyrics.
Tuesday, I feed myself oatmeal and treat myself to a walk outside. Even with my fleece jacket, it’s too cold for me to stand it long. I check my phone, and while it doesn’t show cell service, it does show the temperature: a brisk thirty-six degrees. Whew. Texans aren’t built for that kind of cold. The walk doesn’t even last ten minutes before I’m inside, shivering in front of the woodstove.
