your boots beneath my bed | JENLISA

Chapter 6

never leave a girl alone in her first ice storm

"We'll be fine!" Jennie assured for the millionth time. "It's two days of a well-deserved getaway. You're engaged, go celebrate that!"

"Okay, but don't forget to make up the cabins for the guests. Or ask Lisa to do it," Channing said as Mikel tugged her toward the door.

"I've got it covered, Chan," Jennie said with a small smile.

"And maybe... I don't know, check on each other. I know that you don't always like going over to talk to her, but just make sure to take care of each other," Channing worried.

Jennie looked past Channing at Mikel. "Make her leave. And tell her we're going to be fine."

"Okay, okay, I'm going," Channing said, finally letting Mikel lead her outside, down the porch, and toward the car.

She followed the couple out the front door and leaned against the porch railing.

"Relax. Have some fun. Don't stress. The sky's blue and the place is in one piece. We're going to be fine," Jennie repeated with a smile.

"I feel like that's what people say before everything goes wrong," Channing said as Mikel put their bags in the car.

"Nothing's going to go wrong," Jennie called out, waving as Channing and Mikel got into the car. "Love you!"

"Love you!" Channing called back as the car pulled away.

Jennie turned back to the front door and felt her smile soften.  The tray and the plates and the glass and the silverware were all washed and sitting right next to one of the rocking chairs.

With an affectionate shake of her head, Jennie picked up the tray and walked it inside, leaving the clean dishes on the counter and hanging up the note with the others she was collecting on the fridge.

Depends on my mood. Fries when I want some junk food. Mashed potatoes when I need a little comfort. You caught me at the perfect moment for both. Thank you. Cake or Pie?

Jennie let her thumb trail over the question at the end of the note and felt her smile grow. She walked over to her journal sitting on the kitchen table and ripped a sheet out, adding to the jagged edges she now had from the many sheets of paper she'd taken out of it over these last two months.

How could I possibly choose? Chocolate cake just because, and Berry Chantilly cake for special occasions. Pumpkin pie but only in the fall, and blueberry pie when I'm in need of a little slice of home. My answer is both.

Jennie folded up the note and stood up from the table, grabbing her Carhartt jacket from the hook and sliding it on. She walked out to the Mule, shivering a bit at the biting wind that had just picked up despite the cloudless sky.

She knew Lisa would be at the barn, so she slipped the note under the doormat in front of her tiny home so that it peeked out just a little. Then she got back in the Mule and headed for the cabins to make sure they were in order, just like Channing had asked.

—

Lisa knew her voice couldn't carry across the pasture, not when the wind was whirling around her, howling through the hallway of the barn and past the animal pens outside. She'd already shut the chickens in their coop, covering all their windows and doors. She'd taken the loss on trying to get the goats and pig situated in their pen and decided to just move them into the barn.

Only a few horses were still out, stubbornly grazing and ignoring the impending storm and the freezing winds that were blowing in. Most people would say it came out of nowhere, but she'd lived here her whole life. She knew this storm was brewing from the moment she'd woken up this morning.