“Then why is walking through this snow wearing me out?”
Van laughed. “Just wait until we have to drag the tree.”
“I think we should have considered cross-country skis.”
“We should have. A snowmobile would have been a good idea too.” He grinned as his words came out in vapor puffs. “Next time.”
Those words were so simple and yet held more meaning than I could comprehend.
Next timeinferred there would be more times like this, more times with the two of us and adventure. It was unfamiliar to me to imagine spending so much time alone, only the two of us. Skylar was all about appearances. Together meant out to eat at one of Chicago’s finer restaurants, the symphony, or the philharmonic, where we were going the night I walked out on him.
Van’s and my journey continued for another fifteen to twenty minutes, at times walking through knee- and thigh-high accumulations of snow. The good news was that due to the excessive cold temperatures, the snow was basically powder and easier to be displaced than heavier snow farther south. Cresting a hill, I saw what Van had described. The giant pine trees were gone, replaced by smaller ones.
At first, I was preoccupied with walking between the trees, comparing their height to Van’s and mine. Even the smaller ones seemed too big when I thought about putting it in the one-room cabin. When I looked up, the cold air caught in my lungs.
The scene before me was simply spectacular—the crystal-clear sky above and the beautiful white bowl.
“This view is gorgeous,” I said, my words floating through the air in puffs of vapors. “I bet it’s amazing in the summer.”
Van pulled me close, looking down at me. “My view is stunning, no matter the season.”
“Honestly, Van, how did you choose which home to keep? If they all had beautiful views like your house, it must have been difficult.”
“Location. I wanted to be remote. Where we are is a lot closer to the edge of the property and to the civilization of Ashland. Some of the homes were older. I weighed the pros and cons. The one where we live won. I had it gutted. The contractor said it had the best bones, making it sturdy. It was also near the size I wanted.” He grinned. “With room for expansion. More. Bigger. Better.”
I spun toward the younger trees. “I feel bad that you’re going to chop down one of these. They’re just babies.”
“There are hundreds if not thousands on the property.” He lifted my chin with his gloved hand. “You have a beautiful heart, Julia. I tell you what, we chop down one for our celebration and in the spring, we plant ten or one hundred more.”
“We can do that?”
“We can do whatever we want.”
After we decided on one of the smaller pines, I stood back as Van knelt in the snow and began chopping the tree. First, he chopped off the lower branches before his ax began notching the trunk.
As the ax flew with vigor and force, I wrestled with the dichotomy of the man Donovan Sherman. The man my parents warned me about was such a small part of him. I truly didn’t know all there was to know about him, but I was getting to know the man that others didn’t.
A smile came to my cool lips as I remembered the way Van warmed our dinner and cleaned the plates after we ate, and the way he fed me with coffee and nectarines. This man working up a sweat in the cold air was the one who chopped wood for a fireplace that saved me from freezing.
Would the people who only know Van as a business tycoon recognize the man before me?
“Timber,” Van called as the pine fell to the soft snow.
He handed me the ax. The pass-off made me wobble as I tightened my grip. “That’s a lot heavier than I thought.”
I wasn’t good at judging weight, but now that I held the handle of the ax, I was even more impressed with the way only a few minutes earlier, Van had been rapidly reeling it at the tree’s trunk.
“Here’s the hard-work part.”
Van held tight to one of the bottom branches as he began to drag the tree, backtracking our journey back to the cabin. Our speed was slower as we continued toward the cabin. As we neared, the thin plume of smoke could be seen coming from the chimney. By the time we made it back, the sky was beginning to lose its sunlight, with shadows appearing on the eastern horizon.
The heat from the fire within the cabin hit like a wall as we entered. The layers that were so essential outside were now stifling. Sighing, I removed the mittens and ugly orange hat, hanging them from the pegs near the door. It didn’t take a mirror to know my hair was a mess. Pulling the tie from the end, I ran my fingers through the length and piled it all high on my head.
If it was going to be messy, why not be a messy bun?
As I began to lessen the cumbersome layers, Van dragged the tree to the hearth. He said it was only for a little while to melt the snow.
With the addition of a few more logs, the fire roared, its flames crackling within the sandstone hearth.