Page 74 of One More Kiss

Coming Back Around

Eve L. Mitchell

Peyton

Why am I so nervous to be back on this mountain?

That was the single constant thought that I’d had ever since the bus dropped me off at the foot of the peak two hours ago. I’d then waited to be picked up, and as I sat in the car listening to my friend Milly from high school talk on and on about people I’d long since forgotten, I kept thinking, why am I so nervous?

My great-aunt died and left me everything she’d ever owned, which was really generous of her—and I was honoured, especially as we hadn’t been that close. But we’d been family, and I was here, at the request of the will, to find out what “everything” actually meant.

I had one other distantly related cousin still living, and I wasn’t sure if they were also being summoned back to the mountain as I was. But if I was a stickler for details, surely “everything” meant everything?I wasn’t being greedy, I was just being pedantic. I hadn’t expected anything at all, so whatever “everything” meant was more than I was expecting, and I was grateful to be thought of at all.

Especially here.

On this godforsaken mountain. Sometimes I said it with humour, and sometimes I said it in scorn.

I grew up here, and as soon as I was able, I left for college and after freshman year, I never looked back. I’d kept in touch with my great-aunt, but if or when we met in person, she came to me. This mountain lost its majesty for me a long time ago.

“And did you know that Drew and Amanda married?” Milly asked me as she looked over at me quickly.

“Who?” I had a vague recollection of an Amanda, but Drew, I was blank on.

“DJ and Manda.” Milly didn’t hide her irritation. “My God, Peyton, it’s only been five years since you left; you can’t have forgotten everyone!”

“Um, no, I remember DJ…”

“Tall, wide, played defence for the Warriors,” she fired at me rapidly and then sighed again. “Farted all the time.”

“Ohhh, McFarters?” I said with a little laugh. “You should have led with that! I don’t think I knew anyone who called him DJ…or Drew.” Drew McMasters was exactly as Milly described him, but all of his good looks and skill on the field were overshadowed by his flatulence. I mean, the guy could clear a room in seconds. “Is Amanda nose blind?”

Milly giggled as I pinched my nose, and then she proceeded to tell me he had changed his diet and was now much better. As she spoke, in detail, about his changed eating habits, it reminded me why I was averse to small towns and communities. You really shouldn’t know so much about a relative stranger’s digestive system.

“Won’t you be freaked out that you’re in the house where Donna, you know…”

“Died?” I asked Milly with a grin. “Not really, my aunt was old, and she’d lived there for a long time now. I’m sure some part of her will always be in that house.”

“Like a body part?”

Turning in my seat, I looked at her. “What?” She couldn’t be serious. “My aunt died of complications after a stroke; what part of her body do you think broke off, fled the hospital, and took up residence in her home?”

Milly’s eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Well, I’m not shocked that your sarcasm hasn’t dulled any.”

“I still speak it fluently,” I said with a small smile as I turned my attention back to the passing scenery. “I do appreciate you picking me up,” I added quietly. I may be running an internal monologue of complaints about Milly’s chattiness, but she had still reached out to express her sympathies on my great-aunt’s passing, and when she found out I was coming back to tidy up her affairs, she had offered to get me from the bus station.

I’d flown into Denver and then caught the bus that dropped me off at Oakridge, because the bus to Drayton Springs didn’t run that regularly. I’d still have needed someone to collect me from Drayton, because my aunt lived further up the mountain. The ranch house sat amongst land that she owned, but she leased it out now and again to whichever one of her neighbours asked first.

Did “everything” include the land? What was I going to do with all those acres? I had been living and working in the city. I didn’t have a fancy job or a fancy house, but I got by, and I had never been “hands-on” with the ranch. My apartment had a decent landlord, who charged a reasonable rent, and it was within walking distance of my job. I was an elementary school teacher, teaching second grade in a small private school.

As we drove through Drayton, I turned in my seat to look at the coffee shop that seemed to have been added onto the store.

“Wilsons opened a coffee shop?” I asked Milly as the Main Street fell behind us.

“Yeah, Rhett Wilson has a gold mine on his hands there,” Milly laughed lightly. “He’s too ambitious for this town,” she added, and her tone made me look at her in question.

“If he’s getting business, then he obviously knows what the town needed.”

Milly sniffed derisively. “Whatever,” she mumbled.

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