Before something happened with Pford that there was no coming back from.

SIX

As Sutton Smythe gripped the rough railings of the cabin’s porch, she took another deep inhale of the forest. The view before her was classic eastern Kentucky, the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains offering a rugged terrain of stoic evergreens and leafy maples, high rocky cliffs and low flowing rivers.

This was God’s country, where the air was clean, the sky was as big as the land, and you could leave your city problems behind.

Or at least one felt that surely such issues should fade in the face of the dappling sunlight and the childhood-summer-camp nature of this retreat.

“I made some coffee.”

As Dagney Boone spoke up behind her, she closed her eyes briefly. Yet when she turned around from the view, she had a smile on her face. The man deserved the effort. Even though he’d made it clear he was attracted to her, and wanted to pursue a relationship, he was content to sit things out as a friend for as long as it was required.

Even if that was forever.

God, why couldn’t she just open her heart to him? He was handsome and smart, a non-douchebag widower who took care of his three kids, mourned his dead wife, and conducted himself with honor and commitment in his job.

“You are a gentleman.”

Dagney held out the heavy mug, his eyes warm and steady. “Just the way you said you liked it. Two sugars, no cream.”

To avoid staring at him, Sutton made a show of inhaling the fragrant steam. “Perfect.”

The floorboards of the porch creaked as he went over and sat down on the swinging bench at the other end. Easing back, he kicked out with his hunting boot, the chains releasing a sweet chiming sound as he pendulum’d back and forth.

As he looked at her, she refocused on the view, leaning up against a vertical support and crossing one foot over the other.

“You’ve done a historic thing,” he murmured.

“Not really.”

“Gifting thirty thousand acres to the state? Saving these four mountaintops from the coal companies? Allowing the families who have been here for seven generations to stay on their land? I’d say that is very historic.”

“I would do anything for my father.”

As she thought of the man she loved so much, that once tall, majestic force of nature now crippled and wheelchair bound from Parkinson’s disease, her sadness overwhelmed her. Then again, depression had not been far of late. In the last couple of days, all she had known was sorrow, and though experience had taught her that whatever moon or star in her This Sucks quadrant would inevitably move on to someone else’s life, it was hard to think she was ever going to feel happiness again.

And so, yes, to try to get away from herself, she had taken this trip out here with Dagney, the two of them making the three-hour drive from Charlemont with a packed dinner and breakfast, and all kinds of boundaries, emotional and physical, in place. She had been hoping she could clear her mind on the principle that geographical distance sometimes helped—and it wasn’t just the travel time. These hunting cabins, isolated up on their mountain and maintained by one of the rural families she had gotten particularly close to, were as far removed from her life of luxury as you could get: no electricity, barely any running water, and BYO sleeping-bag bunks.

“Don’t mourn him before he’s gone, Sutton.”

It was a shock, but not a surprise, that she thought first of Edward Baldwine.

And as she switched tracks away from him, it was something she was long used to doing. “I know. You’re so right. My father is still very much alive. Yet, it is so hard.”

“I understand, believe me. But you know, when my wife was . . . coming to the end of her illness, I wasted so much time trying to brace myself for what it would be like when she was gone. I kept trying to anticipate how I was going to feel, what my kids were going to need from me, whether or not I was even going to be able to function at all.”

“And it was totally useless, right?” When he didn’t say anything, she glanced over and prompted him with, “You can be honest.”

“The reality . . . was so much worse than I imagined that I shouldn’t even have bothered. The thing is, if you’re being forced to jump into ice-cold water, dipping your toe in the stuff and trying to extrapolate that sensation all over your entire body?”

“Silly.”

“Yes.” Dagney shrugged and smiled into his own mug. “I probably should stop talking about this. Everyone’s journey is their own.”

Pivoting toward him, she was struck by how attractive he was. And how uncomplicated. How reliable and non-dramatic.

Too bad her heart had chosen another.

“Thank you for last night,” she said awkwardly. “You know, for not . . .”

“I didn’t come out here for sex.” He smiled again. “I know where you stand. But as I told you before, if you want me to be your rebound from Edward Baldwine, I’m more than happy to play that role.”

His tone was gentle, his face and body relaxed, his eyes clear.

Maybe I can get there, she thought. Maybe with him, sometime in the future, I’ll be able to get there.

“You’re such a good man.” She didn’t even attempt to keep the regret out of her voice. “I really wish—”

With a lithe surge, he got off the swing and came over. Standing in front of her, he met her in the eye. “Don’t try to force anything. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got my kids to take care of and a big job, and honestly, you’re the first woman who’s gotten my attention in the four years since my Marilyn died. So you reallllly don’t have a lot of competition.”

Sutton smiled a little. “You are a prince.”

“Not my title and well you know it.” He winked. “And I’m uncomfortable with the idea of monarchies. Democracies are the only way to go.”

Leaning in, she kissed him on the cheek. And as she looked back out over the view, he said, “Tell me something. Where do you actually wish you were right now?”

“Nowhere.”

“Okay, now I have another question. Are you lying to yourself or me?”

Sutton shook her head ruefully.

“Is it so obvious?” She put her hand on his forearm. “And I don’t mean any offense.”

“None taken. Especially if you tell me the truth.”

“Well, there’s an event back in Charlemont today that I’m torn about.”

“Is it the hearing on developing Cannery Row?”

“Ah, no. It’s a private thing, actually.”

“We can head back now?”

“It’s too late. But thank you—”

The sound of an ATV approaching through the trees brought both their heads around—and a second later, an old man dressed in hunting camo, with a shotgun strapped to his back, motored into the clearing. With a rough sack in his lap and his well-lined face, he was every bit a mountain man, someone who had been born and been living off these hard hills for the six or seven decades he had been alive. In fact, it was difficult to place Mr. Harman’s age. He could have been fifty or eighty. What Sutton knew for sure, though, was that he had been married to the same woman since he was sixteen and she had been fourteen, and they had had eleven children, of which eight had survived to adulthood.

By now, he was a great-great-grandfather.

As he got off his machine, Sutton waved. “Mr. Harman, how are you?”

As she went over to the shallow steps off the porch, she saw Dagney glance off to the side and shake his head. Then he joined her.

Mr. Harman narrowed his eyes on the other man like he was wondering how much it would take to taxidermy the guy. “The wife made you breakfast.”

“Mr. Harman, this is my friend, Dagney. Dagney, this is William Harman.”

Dagney offered his palm. “Sir, pleased to meet you.”

“We didn’t stay together,” Sutton said quickly. “I was in this cabin—he was in the other one, right over there.”

“I did make her coffee just now,” Dagney explained as he clearly got the gist. “But that is all. I went to my own bunk when it got dark at ten. I swear on my wife’s soul, may she rest in peace.”