It was not something that she was used to. Fortunately, she had warm clothes from the Alaskan cruise. She could hardly afford a cup of coffee these days. Winter said a quick prayer for happiness. The long driveway to the ranch house looked longer now that she was out of the cab but she’d insisted that she wanted to get out there. The last few days had been a whirlwind and she needed to catch her bearings. The suitcase weighed her down as she trudged up the drive. The snow was hard packed, but it still made walking hard. She wondered what Stone would say since she’d told him that she’d be on a later flight. There was no way she could do the whole airport thing of acting happy. This wasn’t her choice it was a necessity. She thought she’d be sad to leave her hometown behind, but it felt freeing to walk among people who didn’t judge her. By the time she’d left, the gossip had grown into a story of her with two men at the same time. It hurt since she’d known her neighbors all her life.
