She no longer left him on the leash when they walked along this trail, confident now that he would return to her. He never moved far ahead of her and would circle back frequently, almost as if he felt the need to protect her.
If the trail curved in a way that took them out of sight of each other, she would round the bend and he would be there with his haunches planted in the dirt, waiting for her to catch up.
Tonight he seemed content to pad along beside her, probably as happy as she that she had managed to leave the restaurant before midnight, for once.
Nan, the sous-chef she intended to train as her replacement—though she didn’t know that yet—wanted to practice closing the restaurant and Alex had left her to it. She had been able to leave before it was even 9:00 p.m., something of a miracle.
Nan would do fine, she told herself. She was creative and organized, a rare combination, and a natural leader. The staff already listened to her. Brazen would do well with her at the helm—assuming she agreed to take over. Alex had talked to Brodie about it and the two of them planned to approach her sometime midweek about the transition.
Everything was coming together. She had a family interested in renting her house and was already scouting online to find a place in Park City that would allow her to have a dog.
Her family thought she was crazy to leave right now, just as the restaurant was taking off. Maybe she was. The thought of leaving everything she cared about behind terrified her but she knew she had to do it.
She wondered what Caroline would have said. She probably would have shook her head sadly and told Alex she couldn’t escape herself, no matter how hard or how far she ran.
Caroline was gone and she had taken her wisdom and her strength with her. Alex missed her terribly. Without her guidance, Alex had to rely on her own decisions and this one seemed inevitable. She couldn’t stay in Hope’s Crossing while Sam was here, moving on with his life.
It sounded melodramatic, even to her, but it was easier to leave than to face everything she had turned her back on.
The moon was high overhead when she reached the Forest Service gate. She leaned on it, looking up at the wild mountains in the distance while Leo headed down to the bank to drink from the cold waters of the creek.
She would miss this splendor, but she reminded herself Utah had mountains, too. Beautiful peaks, alpine valleys, creeks. Park City wasn’t all that different from Hope’s Crossing, actually.
The restaurant she would be taking over was already well established and successful. She didn’t expect to have any problems adjusting—other than missing her family and her friends and her home.
And Sam.
She rolled her eyes at herself. How could she miss someone who had barely been in her life a few months?
She hadn’t talked to him in weeks, not since the Giving Hope Day, though she knew he had been trying to reach her.
She had seen him at Caroline’s memorial service and had drawn undeniable comfort by just the sight of his big, solid strength, but she couldn’t face him.
He had called a couple times and she had only listened about a dozen times to his messages asking her to call him before she forced herself to delete them. Once she had been at home when he rang the doorbell, and had hidden away in her home office with the door closed, feeling stupid and immature and weak. Finally he had given up and left.
She never did have a chance to see Ethan’s bedroom finished or the tree house that had begun to take shape in their backyard. Things were probably better this way. Less messy. She would slip out of town and move on and he would continue dating Charlotte and maybe marry her someday.
They would move here to Currant Creek Valley and have a few more kids, easing seamlessly into the fabric of life in Hope’s Crossing.
Leo returned to her side and stuck his wet muzzle into her hand, sensing in that uncanny way of his that she needed a little love right then.
The dog had become a wonderful companion. She had cared for him for two months now, had put ads up everywhere she could think of, had checked regularly with the Humane Society shelter to see if anyone had come looking for him. So far, nothing.
Sometime in the last month, she had gone from thinking of him as a temporary guest to wondering what she had ever done without him. She loved him and refused to give him up.
“We belong together now, don’t we?”
The dog gave her that wise look he wore sometimes, as if he understood everything she said and agreed with her.
He licked her hand and then moved back down the way they had come. After a few feet on the darkened trail, he turned back with a “hurry up” sort of look.
She smiled, despite the melancholy that clung to her like a dusting of flour after a long day of baking.