Love Far from Home Box Set Read online

  “You haven’t changed either,” Andrea said, eying her up and down. “Except your hair’s a little longer. Did you get highlights?”

  “Only the natural kind.” Cassie self-consciously tucked her hair behind one ear. She wasn’t used to wearing it down, and tonight, she’d even styled it with a blow dryer. Not to mention that she wore a fully coordinated outfit and makeup — all very much out of her workday norm. “My hair gets bleached from being in the sun so much at work.”

  She couldn’t help but feel pleased that Andrea had thought she’d gotten her hair done professionally. Sometimes, instead of wearing a ponytail to work, she had it in a French braid, and she’d always thought that the resulting sun-bleached streaks looked a bit like the work of a salon.

  The hostess counted out three menus and led them to a table in the back of the rustic-looking restaurant. The place felt like a log cabin, with wood paneling covered the walls, which were decorated with pioneer-era items: a washboard, a lantern, horse shoes, even a rusted old piece of a plow hanging from the ceiling. Scattered throughout the place were big, black-and-white prints of old settlers. As Cassie took her seat, she eyed the slightly blurry picture next to their table and couldn’t help but wonder about the people in it — a family in front of a farmhouse. The woman held a baby on her hip. The man stood beside her, and two other children stood in front of them. Everyone, even the baby, stared at the camera with straight faces.

  But their eyes spoke to Cassie — especially the woman’s. What had her life been like? Had she been happy? Cassie looked at the man, then back at the woman. Had they been in love? The wife looked tired, and the man seemed stern, but that could have been from weariness too. Perhaps fatigue was a way of life back then.

  Cassie’s friends had already taken their seats on one side of the table, so she sat on the other side. Tammy grabbed Andrea’s left hand and thrust it under Cassie’s nose. “Look at that rock!”

  Cassie forced her thoughts away from the couple on the wall and took Andrea’s hand. The ring had a round solitaire on a silver band and a halo of smaller diamonds around it. Simple but beautiful. “It’s gorgeous.”

  Tammy jumped in again. “Wait ’til you hear how Luke proposed to her.”

  Before Andrea launched into the story, which she was clearly eager to relate, the waitress came for their drink orders. With those taken care of, Andrea leaned forward and sighed blissfully. Cassie knew to wait for the story — no prompt was needed.

  “We’d been dating for a while,” Andrea began.

  Cassie quickly shook her head. “Not so fast. Start at the beginning. I need the whole story. How did you meet?”

  Andrea smiled, making a happy noise. “Oh there’s so much; we’d be here all night. But, okay, I’ll give you the highlights.”

  “He rescued her,” Tammy interjected, “like Prince Charming saving the princess in the tower. That’s how they met.”

  “Oh?” Cassie turned to Andrea, resting her elbow on the table with her chin in her palm. “Do tell.”

  “I got a flat tire,” she said. “And I had no idea what to do. I did think to get the jack out, but then I just stood there on the side of the road like an idiot. A hundred cars must have passed before a white truck pulled over.”

  Tammy held up a finger and added, “Like a prince on a white steed.”

  That was almost too much sugary sweetness, even coming from Tammy, the incurable romantic. Cassie stifled a laugh, but Tammy chuckled too and said, “Admit it. It was like that.” She tapped Andrea’s arm and insisted, “Right?”

  “I suppose,” Andrea said.

  The waitress returned with their drinks, and Andrea twirled a straw in her glass as if lost in the memory. “I will say this — before Luke, I didn’t believe in love at first sight. Sure, I’d had relationships move quickly, but when I laid eyes on Luke, it was … magic. Did you ever see that ’90s movie Sleepless in Seattle? It was like that — the moment our eyes met through his windshield, it was magic. And I just … knew.”

  The story really did sound like a movie. Tammy seemed to be floating vicariously in seventh heaven as she listened, even though she’d heard the story before. Cassie, though, couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy.

  “You knew,” she said, repeating Andrea. “Knew what? That you’d marry him?”

  “No, not that,” Andrea said, still twirling her straw. “But we had an immediate connection that told me he wasn’t some random stranger I’d never see again. It was as if I already knew him.” She smiled into the distance for a moment then gave a dismissive wave with one hand. “I’m sure you had the same thing with… what was his name again, Mike?”

  “Matt,” Cassie said, searching her memory for a similar magical moment but coming up empty.

  “Right. Matt. I’m sure you felt something different about Matt the first time you met.”

  “Oh, well, sure,” Cassie said. She took a sip from her straw, swallowed, then managed to add, “Of course.”

  What else could she say— the truth about how she didn’t even remember meeting Matt? Certainly not the sad fact that she’d never felt anything like the magic Andrea described. Cassie continued to sip intently as her memories played in her mind, but Andrea kept talking.

  Cassie’s first summer working at Yellowstone, she and Matt had crossed paths many times. They attended the same crew meetings and had overlapping shifts. But her first memory of him wasn’t until mid-June, when he sat by her during a meeting. She noticed that he took notes almost exactly the same way she did — similar headers, bullet points, and even similar words. Only two things were missing: margin doodles and purple ink.

  That was literally the extent of Cassie’s first distinct memory of Matt. She still wasn’t sure when he’d noticed her — before or after that. Later, they’d compared meeting notes and laughed at the similarities. They’d exchanged numbers. And what began as a friendship gradually turned into more. By the time she returned to her teaching position that fall, everyone knew they were an item.

  Tammy batted Andrea’s arm repeatedly, bringing Cassie back to the moment. Apparently, Tammy felt that the story wasn’t being told fast enough. “Tell her about your first date.”

  “Oh, that,” Andrea said, waving the idea away even as she blushed and smiled as if she was privy to a secret no one else knew — one she wanted to share.

  Have I ever blushed like that when talking about Matt? Cassie was pretty sure she hadn’t, but she pushed away the discomforting thought and encouraged Andrea. “Come on, tell me.”

  Andrea willingly regaled Cassie with the story, though Tammy kept talking over her to fill in details. Before long, Cassie knew everything about Andrea and Luke’s first date, from the incredible lobster dinner to the long walk along Newport Beach, where they’d walked hand in hand as the ocean lapped their bare feet until the sun set behind the water. Then they sat on the sand, talking until the stars came out, at which point they lay back to look at the sky. What came next was, according to Andrea, the natural romantic progression — making out on the beach.

  “I swear, I’d never done that on a first date before,” she insisted. “Because hello, potential creeper. But with Luke...” She sighed, looking over Cassie’s shoulder as if seeing through the roof to the same constellations from that night. “Everything has been different with him from the moment we saw each other.” She blinked, which seemed to return her from the past. She grabbed a roll from the basket, tore it in half, and slathered it with butter. “You know what I mean, I’m sure.”

  “Well, yeah,” Cassie said. “Of course.” She’d repeated herself — and she was lying again. Could they tell?

  On top of not remembering her and Matt’s first meeting, Cassie knew that their first date was hardly the stuff of rom-coms or fairytales: just a trip to a drive-in for shakes and fries. Their first kiss had taken most of their first summer to happen.

  As for making out, that had happened, but not often, and it hadn’t happened for a while.
Long-distance relationships were hard. Yet what was their excuse now that they were together again for the summer?

  Neither of her friends seemed to notice her hesitation or change in mood, as evidenced by how Tammy jumped in with more about Andrea and Luke: The flowers and chocolates he sent regularly. The love letters. How he’d proposed by leaving her clues that led her to the same beach from their first date. How he’d scattered rose petals along the sand as a trail to follow until she found him around a bend, kneeling beside a flickering candle, his arm extended with a ring box in his palm, opened to reveal the diamond.

  “Wow,” was all Cassie could manage. She struggled to find more words. “Sounds like — something right out of a movie.”

  Tammy sighed dreamily. “Totally.”

  Clearly pleased with the attention, Andrea pointed at Tammy with her left hand, clearly showing off her giant diamond. “Your turn,” she said. “Tell her about Scott.” Her eyebrows went up and down.

  With a giggle, Tammy dove in, relating similar tales of romance and being swept off her feet.

  Cassie listened, part numb, part disturbed, but mostly filled with a growing sense of unease building in her chest that pushed out other emotions. And then she realized: In a few minutes, they’ll ask for stories about Matt. The unease turned into panic.

  What would she say? What could she say? Nothing about meeting him. Or how they usually went out to eat at local places and watched DVDs — Bozeman had the nearest theater, assuming you didn’t count the IMAX in West Yellowstone, which played one thing: a movie about the park.

  She imagined telling them about gutting and skinning trout with Matt — and almost guffawed. The idea of touching fish organs with their French manicures would make her friends come unglued.

  As for dates at romantic locations, the Fountain Paint Pot area probably counted as the most dramatic site they’d been to together, but it didn’t really count as romantic. The sulfur gas constantly seeping from the ground made the area smell like rotten eggs. She and Matt had visited it at least a hundred times; she had a lot of happy memories there.

  But she imagined telling them about walking hand in hand through clouds that smelled like flatulence. To say it paled in comparison with nighttime strolls along the beach was beyond an understatement.

  The waitress arrived with their salads, interrupting Tammy’s narrative. “Okay, I have a surprise,” she continued. “Something I haven’t even told Andrea.” She bit her bottom lip and paused for effect. “I’m engaged too!”

  “No way! That’s so great!” Andrea said, hugging her. Then she pulled back and reached for Tammy’s left hand, which was bare. “I knew I would have noticed a ring. Where is it?”

  “It’s coming,” Tammy said. At Andrea’s disappointed look, she hurriedly added, “No, it’s not like that. The ring is the most romantic part.”

  Andrea gave Cassie a dubious look. In return, Cassie shrugged. She was the least experienced among them; she had no idea what to think.

  But Andrea crossed her arms as if challenging her cousin to a romance-off. “Not having a ring is more romantic than a sunset beach proposal?”

  “Definitely.” Tammy looked so pleased she might as well have been rubbing her hands together gleefully. “He’s getting the ring made. He designed it himself. I’ve seen the drawings, and it’s gorgeous. Diamonds and white gold spiral like an open rose as a symbol of our love. He’d planned to propose after it was ready, but he couldn’t wait. So he took me to the top of the Space Needle and proposed in front of a hundred other people.”

  She went on to describe how they’d eaten at the SkyCity restaurant — she’d ordered the Peking duckling and two other things, neither of which Cassie could pronounce. Scott sprang for a 2007 Italian red wine. After dinner, they went to the observation deck, where an a cappella group was waiting to sing their song, “The Glory of Love,” in front of the crowd atop the Space Needle. He’d convinced her to slow dance to the song, and as the singers ended their final note, Scott lowered to one knee and popped the question.

  “You’re right,” Andrea conceded with a sigh. “That’s pretty darn romantic. Do you have pictures?”

  “Of course.” Tammy whipped out her phone, and soon the two of them were showing pictures from their proposals.

  Cassie shook her head in amazement. “You both have totally fairytale stories.” She imagined the crowd’s oohs and aahs at the Space Needle.

  Even though she felt genuine happiness for them and their storybook lives, her heart ached. She didn’t have anything close to that with Matt. Shakes and fries couldn’t compete with Italian wine and Peking duckling, whatever either of those tasted like.

  Fancy food aside, Matt would never make a public scene with a proposal. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care, right? He happened to be a private, quiet guy. Matt had put out several fires in the park, rescued a drowning child from a park river, and more. She’d lost track of how many times he’d been hailed a hero, yet somehow he avoided the limelight.

  A public proposal like Tammy’s would never happen. Neither would a private one like Andrea’s, planned to the tiniest detail. Matt didn’t think like that.

  Maybe that’s the problem, Cassie thought. He doesn’t think.

  Had he thought about their future, or was she simply a summer girlfriend to him? They’d talked about the future in hypothetical terms, and that had been enough to keep her thinking that their relationship was moving forward. But now, she didn’t know.

  What if Matt didn’t care enough to be with her as they grew old? What if he had no intention of vowing to care for her and love her forever?

  He always says “I love you,” she reminded herself as she skewered some lettuce with a fork. Except it’s really just “Love ya.” Suddenly, the casualness of that phrase made it mean less than the three simple yet classic words.

  She wouldn’t put it past him to propose — if he ever thought to — by doing it offhandedly in his truck. He’d probably adjust the AC then say, “Hey, so what do you think about August fifth? A chapel down in Island Park is free that day. We could run over and get hitched.”

  When their entrées arrived, Cassie’s salad looked barely touched. She’d almost forgotten that she’d ordered the steak cooked medium.

  That’s how Matt likes it. For a few seconds, she did nothing but look at her plate, one hand gripping a fork, the other a knife. She forced herself to cut the meat. It was warm and pink inside, and so tender that it practically fell from the knife. It probably tasted amazing too, but she had no appetite for Matt’s favorite dinner.

  Luckily, Tammy saved her from having to eat. “Now it’s your turn. Tell us about Matt. Do you have any pictures of him? You really need to join Facebook already.”

  Cassie’s knife squeaked against the plate. She set down the utensils and cleared her throat. Of course she had pictures — many on her phone. Luke and Scott looked like models out of a Calvin Klein ad.

  Matt didn’t. He was broad shouldered and muscular from work, not a gym. Otherwise, he was average by most standards. She thought he was good-looking, but he wasn’t like the classic movie heartthrobs. He was strong, kind, and smart. Cassie found his intelligence especially attractive.

  “We met at the park,” she began, not mentioning pictures and hoping they wouldn’t ask again. She looked from Andrea to Tammy and back, trying to decide what to say about her boyfriend. They’d dated for over two years — this was their third summer — but even so, there wasn’t much to tell.

  She pushed around a piece of broccoli with her fork. “We met in a meeting, actually.” She glanced at Andrea then back at her plate and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You know how it was. I noticed him, he noticed me, and the rest of the meeting is a blur because I couldn’t stop thinking about him.” Basically true. She’d wanted to flirt with him, and she had watched his notes. But it wasn’t love at first sight.

  “Awwwww,” Tammy said, drawing out the single syllable.

  “So wh
at was your first date?” Andrea said eagerly.

  “Our first date,” Cassie repeated, still playing with broccoli. Did watching Old Faithful erupt three times in a row, then cleaning up the trash left by tourists between eruptions, count as a date? Because technically, that was the first activity they did together. He’d gotten off work before she did and then hung around while she finished her shift.

  But she’d had fun that day. At one point, when there was a lull in tourists, Matt ran forward and meant to step onto and over a bench, but his toe caught as he ran. He landed face first on the wooden walkway. She’d laughed so hard, she cried. Even now, the memory made her smile.

  I can’t tell them about that. It’s too ordinary and doesn’t really count as a date anyway.

  An idea suddenly came to her. “We drove up to see a football game at Montana State.”

  Tammy cooed and leaned forward. “I bet it was chilly, and he brought a blanket to snuggle under.”

  “Yeah.” Cassie nodded.

  Matt did bring a blanket on their first real date, but he’d given her the whole thing after seeing her shiver in the night air. And it wasn’t at a football game. It was while fishing at dusk with four other couples. They hadn’t even held hands.

  She remembered spending hours on the edge of a river, casting her line and reeling it in, warm because of Matt’s blanket, although her face was cold. He sat beside her with his own rod, and they talked. They lapsed in and out of comfortable silences. What she’d felt on that riverbank was as close to pure happiness as she’d ever experienced.

  Or at least, she used to think so.

  At last dinner ended. Outside the restaurant, Andrea and Tammy said how they hoped the three of them could get together again before they went home.

  “That would be great,” Cassie said, giving them each a hug.

  “Promise you’ll get on Facebook already,” Tammy said. “That’ll help us keep in touch.”