“No.” I hadn’t even known there was an attic.
“Fabulous. I get to show you. Nobody ever goes up there, and it’s one of my favorite places on the ranch.”
I followed her into the house and upstairs to the far bedrooms. I’d explored when I’d first arrived at the ranch, but I’d spent barely any time in this area after determining it was comprised of two rarely used guest suites. Between them was what, I’d assumed, was a linen closet. However, when Amber opened it, there was a hidden staircase.
“I’m warning you,” she said before climbing up, “there might be spiders.”
I shuddered dramatically. I’d always been horribly afraid of eight-legged creatures. “I’m guessing there might also be mice.”
She mirrored my horror. “I’ll take on the arachnids, you take on the rodents.”
“Deal,” I said with a laugh. Then we went up, one after the other, and we were two young, courageous girls again, out seeking our next adventure, like no time had passed at all. It felt easy, like getting on a bike after not owning one in a decade. It felt like the kiss of an old lover, lips fitting together as if made in the same mold. It felt better than I could have imagined.
It felt like coming home.
At the top of the stairs, I discovered the attic wasn’t as dark as I’d expected. Light streamed in through a window on the east wall. It was there Amber led me, carefully stepping over an assortment of paint cans and brushes and worn suitcases and long forgotten Christmas decorations. This had been the house where Reeve had grown up, yet I’d seen nothing to indicate as such in the rooms below. Among the dusty boxes that lined the walls, I felt for the first time that a family had once resided here, and I had a pang of sadness for the parents Reeve had lost when he was only sixteen.
When she reached the window, Amber turned back to me. “The pane sticks, and I can’t do any lifting yet. Would you mind?”
“Not at all.” I traded her places, and, after flipping the latch to unlock it, I pushed the frame up as far as it would go. Outside the window, there was a flat section of roof that butted up to the eave behind it. “I’m guessing we’re going out?”
“You got it.”
I climbed out first, then turned to help Amber, who groaned as she hoisted herself up.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” I said, wincing in sympathy.
“Nah. It’s totally worth it for the view.” She gestured behind me, and I spun carefully to look.
“Oh, my God,” I gasped. The landscape was breathtaking. On the ground, there were too many trees surrounding the main house to see the green meadows beyond and the yellow flowers that blanketed the hills. Beyond that, snow-capped Rocky Mountains extended so high that the peaks disappeared into the nearly cloudless sky.
“It’s why I always liked to come up here. It’s peaceful.” Amber sat down on the eave, and, when I looked at her now, she seemed less familiar than she had a moment before. In so many ways, she was still the woman I’d remembered. But in just as many, she wasn’t. The Amber I remembered hadn’t ever found beauty in nature – she’d preferred shiny jewelry and expensive cars. She’d been happiest in large crowds with her music turned so loud that she could feel it thunder her feet. Peace and quiet and solitude were things that had always made her restless.
Of course, we weren’t kids now. But we were still young, not even thirty. And Amber suddenly seemed very old for her age.
She pulled a cigarette from the pack she’d gotten from Buddy and cupped her hand over the end to light it. When it was lit, she took a long puff, then sighed, smoke curling into the air as she did.
“God, I needed that.” She leaned back against the roof, cradling her head in the crook of her arm.
“You know what this reminds me of?”
“Of course I do,” she said, as if it were ridiculous that she wouldn’t be thinking exactly the same thing. “I think about that night a lot.”
I did too. It had been the first night I’d ever hung out with her. We’d snuck onto the construction site of an apartment building and smoked a pack of cigarettes on one of the balconies while we’d flirted with the men in hard hats and shared things we’d never shared with another person before. It had been the birth of our friendship.
Now, as our relationship was reborn, it seemed fitting that we were in a similar location.
I crossed to stand by her. “Can I have a drag?”
She held the cigarette out toward me, but asked, “Do you want one of your own?”
“I think a drag is enough.” I took a puff and immediately had to stifle a cough. “Damn, I haven’t had one of those in years. How the hell did we smoke so many of them?” I cringed as I handed the cigarette back to her.
She laughed softly. “We got used to the abuse.”
Those were loaded words. Words that spoke volumes about so many aspects of our friendship and the men we’d chosen and the lives we’d lived. They were words that could be understanding but also very bitter. And when I looked her in the eye, I knew she meant them in every way they could be meant.
I had to tell her about Reeve. Now.
She inhaled her cigarette, staring up at the sky as I took a seat beside her. “Amber —”
“You know,” she said, cutting me off, her voice tight as she held her breath. She exhaled before going on. “When I left you that message, it wasn’t because Reeve wouldn’t let me leave the ranch.”
My neck prickled, and I had that sudden gut-dropping fear that I’d been lied to. “He didn’t keep you here?”