Page 8 of Chocolate Cherry Cabin

Oh, stop thinking about that!

Hannah had spent the next several months trying anything and everything, from hypnotism and self-talk to watching her hydration and blood sugar levels, to trying the Applied Tension Technique, as well as exposing herself to slasher movies with fake blood squirting everywhere—all in an attempt to alter her fight-or-flight reaction and save her dream career.

Nothing had worked. Eventually she’d had no choice but to throw in the towel, tip up her chin, block out the pain and focus on what she had: Calvin. She’d stopped talking about medical school, and when anyone asked about it she casually said she’d decided she’d rather start a family than spend the next decade in school.

She thought they’d see right through her. But everyone had agreed, saying how much better it would be to avoid that kind of pressure and expense.

Everyone except Louis. And she’d hated him for it.

* * *

“So you’re a pilot?” Hannah asked.

She wouldn’t look at him, and was wiping down the kitchen counter even though it didn’t need it. The small, cozy house smelled like baking. It was the Hopewells’ cabin, one of the older buildings in town, but it had been modernized and was sunny. It felt like a home filled with love.

“Cool!” Thomas exclaimed, looking up from the bowl of cereal he’d been inhaling. “Do you battle starfighters?”

“No,” Louis said, not bothering to fight a smile. There was something about the kid’s enthusiasm that reminded him of Hannah in high school. Well, before she’d decided to settle for marriage instead of a career. “I mostly just take myself out for jaunts. I used to take tourists for rides, though. But no shooting. No leaving the solar system.”

Thomas gave a fake pout. “That sucks.”

“Hey,” Hannah scolded, giving him a patent mom look that for some crazy reason made Louis feel homesick.

“Nobody ever does anything cool.”

“Hey!” Louis protested with a laugh.

Thomas swiped at his milk mustache from drinking the last liquid in his cereal bowl. He bounded up to Louis. “Want to see myStar WarsLEGO collection?”

“Put your bowl in the dishwasher, please,” Hannah said. “And maybe later. I’m sure Louis has more unpacking to do. Moving is a big job, remember?”

She was looking better now and had more color in her cheeks. She hadn’t taken off her jacket, and Louis wondered if she didn’t want him to settle in and stay for a visit. Or maybe she was simply eager to get back to hanging her lights.

“We moved here last year,” Thomas informed him. “Mom and Dad each got their own house. I have two bedrooms!”

“Wow.”

Louis glanced at Hannah, who was rinsing out the cloth. He guessed that she’d put a lot into being a mom and wife, and had to be feeling devastated and a bit lost now.

“Time to go play, Thomas.”

The boy slipped from the room and moments later Hannah put a hand on Louis’s arm. He glanced at it, unsure what was about to happen. Surely not a kiss. A grateful, you are so wonderful for dealing with my son, his nose, the laundry…

No, she was guiding him out of the kitchen and toward the front door.

“Thank you for your help.”

Louis spotted the upright piano in her living room as they passed. He stopped, not wanting to leave. “You still play?”

“Yes.”

There was a bottle of wood polish and a rag sitting on top, waiting for her. A half-finished job. Just like the Christmas lights still dangling from her eaves.

He wanted to tell her how she’d inspired him to give music a try after watching her play the piano for kids at the Sweetheart Creek Christmas concert years ago. How he made his own music now, some of which he shared with his hockey players to help soothe their pregame jitters.

“Do you experience low blood pressure?” he asked.

“You can’t fix me,” she retorted, her voice edged with annoyance. “I am the way I am, and I’m happy that way.”

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