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The sky was still dark when Mark Nelson pulled his pickup to a stop in front of the café, the only place in the small town of Dry Creek, Montana, that was usually open this early. The eatery’s door was shut, but before he could switch his engine off, a woman slipped a delicate hand around the blind covering the café’s large window and flipped the Closed sign to Open. His headlights were on and Mark saw a woman’s profile and thought he recognized the hand. He wasn’t fast enough to get a good look at the ring finger before the hand was withdrawn, but he told himself it had to be bare. He hadn’t seen Hannah Stelling in four years—not since they’d been high school sweethearts—but surely someone would have told him if she had become engaged.
Mark shut off the engine and stepped out of his cab. The gravel under his boots crunched as he walked to the café and climbed the steps.
The one fact he didn’t need anyone to tell him was that Hannah did not want to see him. He wasn’t sure why she had moved back to Dry Creek and taken a job at the café, but a dozen Return to Sender letters told him that it wasn’t because she missed him.
He paused briefly before turning the knob and opening the weathered door in front of him. The overhead light was bright inside the café and Mark involuntarily blinked. He heard the sound of a metal fork hitting the linoleum floor before his eyes adjusted and he saw Hannah staring at him across the empty room. She wore a red T-shirt and denim jeans. Her face was drawn, her auburn hair pulled back in a long ponytail.
“You.” That was all she said, but her voice was stretched so tight it almost vibrated.
He recognized the look on her face. It was the same one she’d had over a decade ago when she appeared for the first time in the open door of his fourth-grade classroom. She’d been ten years old and had just been adopted by the Stellings. Her hair, a ragged copper cap, looked like she’d hacked at it with a kitchen knife, and maybe she had. No one was with her that day; Mr. Stelling had dropped her off and then left her to make her own way into the school. Hannah’s stance in the doorway was defiant. Her jeans had a few worn places and her shoes were scuffed. The other kids were afraid to even smile at her. But looking into her eyes, Mark knew she was scared.
Since then, he must have lost the ability to read her eyes, because he could not tell how she was feeling now. Everything was silent as they stood there in the main room of the café. He heard the sounds of someone in the kitchen shoving pots around, and a radio started up on a station that must be the news. The half-dozen tables in front of him were covered with red-and-white-checked cloths, and everything looked ready for customers.
“Of course it’s me,” Mark finally said, not sure what else to do. Maybe Hannah just needed time to adjust. He surveyed every inch of her pixie face, searching for the subtle differences one would expect after a four-year absence. Her skin was ivory. Her bones delicate. Her hazel eyes so filled with shadows that they could have been black. She was twenty-one years old now, but looked the same as he remembered her at seventeen. He was only a few months older than her but it felt like he’d aged a dozen years since he’d seen her last.
He saw her lips move, but it took a few seconds for her question about whether he knew her to register with him.
“Of course, I know you.” Mark was stunned she would think he could possibly forget her. He understood people were nervous around him because he’d been lying in a hospital bed in a coma for a little over four years. Everyone had been expecting him to die, but he’d held on and then he’d woken up. Some of his memory had been slow to return, but he’d always known Hannah. She had been his best friend ever since she had stood in that classroom door.
They both seemed like different people today, though. Back then, the two of them hid nothing from each other. Given the way she was staring impassively at him, he figured that had all changed.
“I’m completely recovered,” Mark said and then paused. “Well, almost.”
He had to admit that he didn’t remember everything about the gun incident that had lodged a bullet in his brain and put him in the unconscious state, but he was fine. He certainly wasn’t going to worry her about the gaps in his memory.
“Ninety-eight