“Realizing what?”
“That it could be so…good. Don’t you wonder how many other people you walk by that you could get along with? I mean, the stars have to align perfectly to meet the right person. For some people it never happens.”
“I guess the stars were aligned this time around,” he said.
His words slowly faded in the chilly air, but Alison let them replay in her head. He talked as if this was the beginning of something they’d been waiting for their whole lives. Maybe she had been fated to meet Drew here, on this mountain. But it couldn’t be anything more than a casual affair. By the summer, she’d be in Texas getting ready for her new job, not living on some remote mountaintop in a cabin without electricity.
When they reached Ettie’s place, the dogs rushed out and greeted them, jumping and whining until Drew and Alison stepped up on the porch.
“Listen,” Drew said. “I want to talk to you before we go inside.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“If Ettie doesn’t want to give you permission to use her songs, then that’s it. I don’t want you to pressure her or try to make her change her mind.”
Alison opened her mouth to explain she would never do that, but before she could, the cabin door swung open and Ettie welcomed them both inside. The interior had been transformed from the day before, decorated for Christmas. Alison walked over to the hearth and looked at the hand-carved crèche on the timber mantel.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” she said.
“I got carried away,” Ettie said. “I usually don’t decorate unless I know I’ll have visitors. I thought you might like to see a few of my things. I’ve been collecting them for quite some time.”
“These are all handmade,” Alison said.
“Yes. Some of them are very old. The crèche is something my grandfather carved for me when I was little after I started to lose my sight. I used to run my fingers over the animals and arrange them around the stable.”
Alison had only seen pieces like these in folk museums. She could imagine the excitement they’d cause with local antique dealers. But these were Ettie’s treasures and they deserved to stay in the family, not get sold to the highest bidder. Alison glanced over at Drew. He was watching her carefully, as if trying to read her reaction.
“I spoke with Drew about your songs,” she said. “And I’ll understand if you don’t want to give me permission to publish them.” She paused. “But I think people would like to hear them, Ettie.”
“Do you really think so?” the older woman asked.
“I do. And I’d like to sing them.”
“Sit, sit,” Ettie said. “We have plenty of time to talk about that. Warm yourself. I didn’t think you’d come, what with the ice storm. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to make it back up the mountain.”
“Alison stayed with me last night,” Drew explained. “The rain washed out the road just below my place.”
Ettie arched her eyebrow, then smiled slyly. “Well, I hope you were a gentleman, Andrew.”
“Oh, he was,” Alison reassured her. “He was…” She drew a long, slow breath. “Perfect,” she added. “A perfect gentleman.”
Drew smiled, then they both looked over at Ettie. If Alison didn’t know better, she’d swear the older woman could see exactly what was going on in front of her. Her brow furrowed with suspicion and she shook her head. “I’ve always been of the belief that when something is right, it just is. There’s no way to fight it, no way to change it. Just like the sun rising up in the morning, there it is.”
Though Ettie’s words sounded rather cryptic, they were filled with a simple truth. Alison had met Drew twenty-four hours ago. They barely knew each other. Yet, when he touched her and kissed her and made love to her, her world felt as if it had suddenly come into balance.
“DO YOU EVER WORRY about Ettie, living up here on the mountain all by herself?”
Drew stirred the pasta boiling on the woodstove, then glanced over his shoulder at Alison. She’d spread out her papers on the table and was humming to herself as she transcribed a song she’d recorded in Ettie’s cabin. “She’s living her life the way she wants to. I can’t fault her for that.”
“But she could get hurt.”
“She has her satellite phone. I take it down to my office to charge it every so often. She knows how to call for help, not that she will. She’s pretty independent.”
“I feel kind of bad for her,” Alison said.
“She wouldn’t like to hear that.”