“Could she have worked remotely?”
Wyatt raised his glass. “Yes, she could have. She just didn’t want to.”
“With your family history . . .” Tess said, afraid to finish the sentence.
“It was sort of crazy, wasn’t it?” Wyatt finished that thought. “I see that now. It made me realize we just couldn’t have worked, in the end. Family, roots . . .”
“It’s so important,” Tess said. “Eli’s dad didn’t really get it up here, either. He liked visiting, but I don’t think there was any way he would have agreed to live here full time.”
“When did you guys split up?”
“It’s been going on a decade now,” Tess said.
“Your son was how old?”
“Twelve.”
Wyatt winced. “That’s hard.”
“It was,” Tess said. “For both Eli and me. But we got through it. And Matt was great when Eli was hospitalized.”
Wyatt’s eyes grew wide. “Oh no.”
“Yeah,” Tess said. “Car accident. Actually, his dad, Matt, came in from Las Vegas, where he lives now with his new wife, and spent several weeks with us as Eli got back on his feet.”
“It sounds like your relationship is okay now, then,” Wyatt said.
“Oh yeah,” Tess said. “It has been for a long time. We needed to be good coparents for Eli. And we were. It’s sort of wonderful now because so much time has passed, we can just appreciate what we genuinely liked about each other and don’t have to deal with what we didn’t.”
“Not all divorced couples are so civil,” Wyatt said. “I haven’t so much as talked to my ex since we split.”
“I get that,” Tess said. “You didn’t have any kids to tie you together.”
The conversation turned to other things, then. Where they went to college, significant experiences. Funny tales from childhood. Painful ones, too. “The great telling,” Tess’s grandmother used to say. The time in a relationship where you reveal who you are through the important stories that shaped who you were. Tess thought of Joe then, and realized these were the stories she’d remember if she were lucky enough to reach his age. She had a feeling that this night, with the way Wyatt was looking at her, and the way she was looking back, could become one of those stories.
She had a vision just then, a picture of the two of them snuggling together on this black sofa, a bowl of popcorn on Wyatt’s lap, and the three dogs curled up by the fire.
Was this a flash of their future? As she sat listening to this man talk about a crazy trip he had taken with some high school friends, the world seemed to melt away. All Tess could see was his chiseled face, his green eyes, and his infectious grin. And for the first time in a very long time, she had hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The walk back to La Belle Vie was chilly. Tess could see her breath. She took Wyatt’s arm and snuggled close to him as they walked.
She noticed his dogs pulled their leashes taut, straight out in front of Wyatt, as though they were pulling a sled side by side.
“They love this weather, don’t they?” Tess asked, warmed by what seemed like smiles on the dogs’ faces.
“They are in their glory in the winter,” Wyatt said. “If it’s not below zero, I’ll let them stay out in the backyard for hours. This year, there’s so much snow, both of them dug snow dens.”
“Just like wolves,” Tess said. “Or sled dogs on the trail.”
“Exactly like that,” Wyatt said.
Snow began to fall then, a light, dusty snow that clung to the branches of the majestic pines lining the streets and settled on Tess’s hat and eyebrows. She put her head back and stuck out her tongue to catch a few flakes. Wyatt did the same.
“December snow,” he said, grinning. “Nothing better.”
The two of them stopped for a moment, there on the sidewalk, and took in the scene around them. Snow frosting the pines and the malamutes’ fur. Lights burning in the windows of the grand and not-so-grand homes in the neighborhood, evoking thoughts of happy families enjoying meals around the table together. Utter silence—not a car or a pedestrian or even another dog traveling on the streets of town—as the snow fell lightly around them. It was like Tess and Wyatt were in their own magical, snowy world, inside a snow globe depicting the perfect winter night.
“This is so beautiful,” Tess murmured in a whisper.
“Yes, you are,” Wyatt said. He pulled her into a kiss, their mittened hands curling around each other as the snow fell. A surety descended upon her then, a certainty about what was electrifying the air between them. This is the man I’m going to grow old with. It was early in their relationship, and despite Tess thinking it was foolish to rush in so quickly, she simply knew he was the one for her, as surely as she knew Eli and her parents would love him. His humor. His steadfastness. His love of and loyalty to family. How easy he was to talk to. How she wanted to hear his voice first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And the intangibles, too, like the way he made her feel, deep inside.