How foolish she’d been in her anger. No wonder the birds hadn’t been singing, the forest had been so quiet. The animals had been smart enough to keep hidden from the encroaching storm. They knew not to get caught in the unforgiving torrent of snow that weighed heavier and heavier upon her shoulders, making each step so much harder to take.
Uncontrollable shivers racked her body as she bent her head and moved forward with as much momentum as she could, but when she turned back around to see how far she’d come, she wasn’t able to tell. Her footsteps were quickly erased by the layers of fresh snow on top of them.
Her fingers shaking, she reached into her pocket. It was time to admit defeat and call Cam, to let him know she was wandering in the woods. Even if she was lost, he would know how to find her. He knew this area far better than she did.
Nothing in the first pocket. When she reached in the other, her fingers came up empty. Had she really left her phone behind? What the hell was she thinking?
Grace didn’t give up, didn’t call defeat, not ever. But as the piercing cold took a new turn—her body was not even able to shiver anymore, it was so exhausted—she knew she was going to lose this battle.
Wanting nothing more than to sink to the ground and let the snow bury her the same way it was burying her path home, she still trudged along, moving slower than she’d ever moved before but knowing there was no way she would give up without one hell of a fight. Her clothes were heavy, the cotton feeling permanently plastered to her skin. When a strange warmth spread through her, Grace was too tired to panic.
She’d taken survival classes. She knew it wasn’t a good thing that she wasn’t as cold as she’d been a few moments before, or that all she wanted to do was close her eyes. She moved ahead, her eyelids feeling as if weights were dragging them down. Closing them for just a moment, she took another step, and another.
And then Grace smiled, because the sun broke through the sky and shined down on her, warming her from the outside all the way in. It was only a small break in the sky as she glanced around at the falling snow all around her, but in her one special place, it was warm.
And she was no longer hurting. She was no longer moving . . .
“I need both of you to quit fighting long enough to try to let me mediate here,” Cam said with a heavy sigh.
“Listen to me, Camden Whitman, you were a stubborn, pigheaded pain in my butt not too long ago, so don’t you dare use that tone of voice with me.”
Cam had to fight hard not to smile as the retired city librarian, Darcie Stuller, who had to be somewhere in her nineties, and her equally opinionated neighbor, who was in the same age bracket, squabbled over dog poop.
“Don’t you listen to her, Camden. She lets little Toby come into my yard and poop on purpose. Do you hear me? On purpose!” Linda Reedy shouted as she shook her arthritic fingers in the air.
“I would never do such a thing. Toby is good to Linda. He wouldn’t do such a tasteless thing as . . . do his duty . . . in a yard,” Darcie said with a vicious glare.
“It’s not the dog who has a problem; it’s you!” Linda shouted. “Ever since my rose beat your rose ten years ago in the county fair, you’ve had it in for me.”
“Ladies, this is getting us nowhere. Do you realize the cost to go to litigation over this matter?” Cam said as calmly as he could manage.
There were times he loved living in Sterling, because it was a small town where crime was virtually unheard-of. But at times like this, he didn’t exactly enjoy his job.
“I heard there’s a place that can swab the dog’s mouth and then test the poop and prove beyond a doubt who the culprit is,” Linda said with triumph.
Cam had to really fight a smile. “Yes, Ms. Reedy, there are labs that will do this, but it’s very expensive. It would be much better for both of you if we could simply solve this matter right here, right now,” Cam told them, looking each of the women in the eye.
“If I don’t take a stand now, she won’t stop terrorizing me,” Linda insisted.
“What if we can agree right now that Ms. Stuller won’t let Toby come into your yard and that she’ll make sure to have the dog walker pick up all feces from here on out?” Cam asked, praying this would end.
“I want an apology, as well,” Linda insisted.
“I’m not apologizing to that old bat! I did nothing wrong,” Darcie snapped.
“Listen!” Cam interrupted before this got heated again. “You two were best friends for most of your lives. Now you’re letting minor disputes harm that friendship. I know that you both love each other, though it’s buried very deep down right now, so if you don’t do something to fix this before it’s too late, you’re going to have severe regrets. Neither of you is getting any younger.”
“Did you just call us old?” Darcie gasped, her wrinkled cheeks flushing.
“Don’t you speak to us that way, young man. You’re never too old to get your ears boxed, you know,” Linda added.
“Let’s get out of here, Linda. I don’t want to listen to this nonsense anymore. Young men thinking they’re so smart just because they hang a piece of paper on the wall.” Darcie got slowly to her feet.
“I agree, Darcie. I’m sorry. It was probably that snotty little kid’s dog from down the block. We’ll sit out there all day if we need to, so we can catch him and call the sheriff,” Linda said.
Cam sat there motionless as the two women left his conference room. When he was sure they were gone, he tossed down his pen, and finally let out the laughter that had been bubbling up for the past hour as he listened to the women bicker.