“I called it, though,” my dad replies, all smug.
“What?” I try once more.
Pops passes us each a bottle of his favourite beer, still ignoring my question.
Shaking my head, I give up.
My dad raises his bottle of Moosehead, and the three of us follow suit. Looking at me, Pops bears a shit-eating grin. “Love, son. I called it.”
I clue in to where he’s going with this and chuckle.
Cheeky bastard.
“I’m proud of you, Chance. I know you’ll be the best husband to Faith. She’s an incredible woman, and your mom and I adore her.”
“Thanks, Pops.”
“Lame,” my brother Corey jokes, and the rest of us share a look. We know better, especially Trevor, who took a long-ass time to see what was right in front of him, but that’s a story for another time.
My pops cuffs Core upside the head, and continues, “As I was saying. Let’s raise our drinks to love, and her uncanny ability to come and bite when you least expect it.” He winks at me before we all salute, “To love!” and take a long pull.
In the end, I guess Pops didn’t curse me that day, he blessed me. And love, well, she brought me Faith, and she turned out to be the best part of me. So, here’s to love, may she bite each and every one of you when you least expect it.
About Gillian Jones
Wife, mother, pun lover, part-time pantser of words. Connoisseur of red wine, lover of a good IPA. I write real-life romances that sometimes hits you in the feels.
The Valley
Bethany-Kris, Edited by Eli Peters
Kisska Matthews ran from her small Canadian town six years ago and promised she wouldn’t be back. Except life has a funny way of working, and her past seems to think it’s time to call her home—back to The Valley, her sister, and the memories she left behind.
But it wasn’t just the town she wanted to leave …
Welcome to The Valley.
The Valley
Welcome to The Valley.
The swirly, happy script of a welcome sign at the top of the hill greeted any and all drivers passing or taking the exit off the Trans-Canada highway into the heart of the town down below in the gully. Except Kisska could already see the matching hills connected by a black, steel bridge and the painted mountain looming behind the Welcome to The Valley line perfectly every time she blinked. It was there.
Imprinted forever.
She knew it was coming, and like the first time she had driven into The Valley when she was just five years old, not much had changed. Smooth, black asphalt continued on beyond the sign, another larger one about a kilometer further on the highway would point travelers to the following towns that would greet them on their way.
When the red Dodge Ram truck ahead of her didn’t turn on a blinker to take the exit for the town known for being split in two over Valley River and connected only by a single bridge, Kisska almost kept driving, too.
Six years wasn’t enough.
Those years away from The Valley—the only place she knew well enough to call her home—certainly hadn’t dulled the heaviness that came to sit on her chest when she turned on the blinker and checked her mirrors before taking the exit off the highway. Nor did those years away keep her breath from stopping as her shitty 2001 Toyota Corolla sped over the crest of the exit’s hill.
The long road down to the town was both painful and amazing. There was something to be said about the views of rural Eastern Canada in the summer. Rolling hills of dense, colorful forest stretched on for as far as the eye could see. Fields of greens and yellows chased the cars on the highway for sometimes hours. Bright, wide blue skies that occasionally filled with rainclouds that would dump hot rain for a few hours before passing on.
She hadn’t run far when she left home—just enough that people wouldn’t know her name, or where she came from, or even why she didn’t want to go back. Four hours to the city of Saint John, New Brunswick had done the job of giving her what she craved.
A place to hide.
And there, she licked her wounds.
The past was a memory that had been tattooed to the back of Kisska’s mind since the day she walked away from it. But like tattoos on the skin, her memories of what used to be were permanent. She pretended it wasn’t there, letting time do its job of blurring the edges of her memories and fading the raw scar tissue of her history into something less … tender.
But then she had to come back.
And driving into The Valley?
Population 1503.
Well, she hadn’t been ready for that. Except it was too late now. Valley River glistened with a fast current and boats passed under the bridge as swift as the water carrying them. The road on the left side of the gully passed through town to an old courthouse that was no longer used, the lawyer’s office and high school, and then beyond. Out of town where the road continued through rural outskirts and smaller counties that used The Valley as a hub of sorts.
For anything they needed.
It was the other side of town that had her pausing longer at the four-way stop even as she flicked on her right blinker to turn onto the bridge. Two banks waited at the end of the bridge, and a library just to the right where she had first learned to read back when her mother was still trying to stay sober.
She’d lived in the rundown apartment buildings on the back road, and the one over top the pizzeria that had been torn down when the river flooded the town from the spring thaw a decade ago. Even in the backroads of The Valley loomed old Victorian-style homes that had been repurposed and turned into low-income apartments that she had called home as a child.
The funny thing was … that part of her past wasn’t what sent her running from a town full of people who had judged her and determined her future to be fated like her now-dead mother’s as she struggled to grow up. Being faced with reminders of a childhood that was less than kind or healthy didn’t send the panic welling in her chest or holding back her breath, either.
So, maybe time away had done one thing for her where that was concerned. Or hell, maybe it was just the distance that gave her a sense of accomplishment when where she had come from seemed warmer for those seconds that she sat stopped at the four-way.
The man behind her in a black Tundra couldn’t quite say the same when he laid on his horn hard enough to send Kisska jerking forward in her seat. She came out of her thoughts knowing damn well her cheeks were hot with embarrassment.
She waved a hand in the rearview mirror when the guy gestured through his windshield at her to go. If she tried hard enough, then she might even be able to hear the slight twang of an accent that accompanied most people who grew up in these areas as she watched his mouth move in silent annoyance.
What the fuck are you doin’—move that piece-ah-shit car before I do it for ya.
Canadians were kind. Always. To a fault, even, considering apologies during or after accidents were not actually considered admissible statements of guilt in a court of law. Except the veil of kindness was often ripped away when they were alone in their vehicles where no one could hear their pent up frustration spill out in a way that would make any Kanuck both embarrassed and proud.