Tags:
Romance,
Literature & Fiction,
Contemporary,
Contemporary Romance,
Fairy Tale,
Contemporary Fiction,
Pets,
Contemporary Women,
Women's Fiction,
Life after divorce,
Kindergarten classroom,
Arizona desert
in…well, maybe ten years.”
Laura frowned at her, looking baffled. “I don’t get it, Linds. Two nights ago you were in a miserable catatonic state. Now you’re bubbling with joy. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m your friend. I want you to be happy. It’s just…how’d you get happy so fast?”
“Don’t get me wrong, my friend. I may seem happy, but I am still hurt and lonely and devastated. A nasty, adulterous divorce will do that and more. It’s not that I’m suddenly a happy person again. I’m not. But I can be happy in the moment, and this, well, this is a great moment.”
Laura pulled open the lodge door, ushering Lindsey ahead of her.
“I don’t really know how I came back to earth,” Lindsey mused. “I think it started with the bird. He fluttered my focus off the ‘poor me’ syndrome and on to…well, just on. I’m looking forward instead of back. I’m not waiting for Anthony anymore. He’s made his choice, and as much as I hate it, I can’t change it. Now that I know for sure I have to live my life without him, I can get on with it. And that begins today. This glorious, snow-filled day.”
“You’re amazing.”
They beamed at each other. “So are you,” Lindsey assured her.
“Good afternoon ladies. Checking in?” A tall, thin man stood behind the knotty-wood registration desk, smiling at them. He wore wire half-glasses and a gray cardigan sweater with leather patches on the elbows, looking more like a retired college professor than a desk clerk. The only thing missing was the pipe, Lindsey thought, and that was probably tucked away in his pocket, waiting for the moment he entered an area void of any “No Smoking” signs.
“Yes,” Lindsey replied. “We reserved a lodge room for two under the name Sommerfield. Lindsey Sommerfield.”
The clerk’s brow wrinkled with concern as he looked over his book. “Oh dear,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
“Is there a problem?”
“It seems so. Did you bring your confirmation number with you?”
Lindsey rummaged through her bag and came up empty-handed. “I give up. I don’t know what I did with it. But it began with a ‘Y’ and there were some threes and sevens in the number. I’m sure of that.”
He nodded but maintained his frown. “Well, now. I do believe you. I certainly do. But that’s not going to do us much good right now, because I don’t have any rooms left anyway.”
Lindsey’s stomach dropped. But she’d called and confirmed!
“Why don’t you take a stroll along the rim while there’s still some daylight,” the clerk suggested. “I’ll make a few phone calls and see what I can come up with. You can leave your luggage here, behind the counter.”
It had been a chilly fifty degrees when they’d left Tucson that morning. Fifty degrees sounded warm to them now. A sign outside the lodge entrance read: “High today: 38 degrees. Low tonight: 4 degrees.”
“Now that’s cold!” said Lindsey slipping on her fur-lined leather gloves.
As he’d suggested, they headed west along the Rim Trail, stopping at every informational sign along the way.
“Look Laura. Can you believe this? It says the Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, between four and ten miles wide, and six thousand feet deep. That’s a lot of erosion!”
“It’d be cool to watch the making of the canyon on time-lapse photography. How many millions of rolls of film or memory cards would that take?” They gazed in quiet wonder at the giant canyon, and Laura let out a sigh. “I wish we could go down there, don’t you?”
“Get that thought out of your mind,” Lindsey said quickly. “We are here to relax, eat lots of good food, take nice, short walks in the snow, and maybe drink one or two too many Grand Marniers in the El Tovar bar. We are not here to exhaust ourselves.”
“Okay, I see your point. But you left out ‘flirt with all the good-looking men.’ “
“You’re kidding, right?”
“About the hiking or the