Snow Angel (The Hope Falls Chronicles) (4 page)

To her, being in Hope Falls felt like she had been transported into a Thomas Kincaid painting. The

entire town was postcard perfect. She didn’t miss the fact that she was one lucky girl getting to spend a

significant amount of time here.

That luck, however, was not translating to her house-hunting efforts. In fact, the apartment above Sue

Ann’s Café was looking more and more appealing. After seeing six properties, Lily had come to the

conclusion that
settling
was most likely her only option. Four out of the six properties Lauren had shown her had had everything that Lily needed. Space, hardwood floors, updated appliances. But they also all had

one thing in common—all three were totally secluded.

She had been nervous just being
at
the properties and she’d been with Lauren the entire time. She

couldn’t imagine what she would have felt like being out there alone. Which, logically, Lily knew was a

completely ridiculous reaction. Whether or not there is a neighbor for a mile should have no relevance in

Lily’s house hunt. But…it did.

Maybe next year it wouldn’t
, Lily thought to herself, trying to put a positive spin on her neurosis.

“Okay, I think this one might be the one,” Lauren said confidently.

Lily felt the car coming to a stop, and she looked up, squinting in the sun, to see a quaint cottage-style

house. It looked to be right out of the pages of a fairy tale book. There was a brick walkway leading up to the large wooden door. The house was painted a deep eggshell with a red trim.

“It’s really cute,” Lily said as she stepped out of Lauren’s BMW. She sensed something shift inside of

her as she walked up the brick path. She paused but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what the odd

sensation was.

Looking at her surroundings, she saw that there were two houses on the street besides the one she stood

in front of. So, there were neighbors. That was a definite plus.

Lauren had walked ahead of her to open the front door, and Lily followed her inside the house. The

feeling that had crept up inside of her intensified, and she realized suddenly that it was
calm
. She was feeling an overwhelming sense of calm and peace.

“This is a furnished one-bedroom, one-bath, cottage-style home. Upgraded kitchen and bathroom.

Hardwood floors throughout except the bedroom, which is carpeted.”

Lauren listed the features of the home as they walked through the house. Lily followed closely behind

her down the short hall to the bathroom and bedroom, excited to see what each room held. Both were

clean, cute, and small. They continued their tour to the kitchen. What she had seen so far was very cozy and welcoming. The kitchen was no exception.

The only issue that she could see with this place was space. The front room and bedroom were small

—
really
small. Even if she moved the furniture, she wasn’t sure she would have enough square footage to dance.

Hmmm
. If she
had
to settle, this place wouldn’t be bad at all.

Lily ran her fingers across the cold tile counter top in the small, cheery kitchen. The walls were painted

a muted yellow and there were white curtains hanging across the picture window behind the sink. There

were all new appliances, and another bonus was that the one-bedroom house came completely furnished.

“And the pièce de résistance! Drum roll please,” Lauren said with a sparkle in her eye. “The detached

garage has been renovated into an office space that would work perfectly as a studio.”

Lily spun around. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Lauren confirmed happily. “Let’s go check it out.”

Lily tried not to get too excited. She knew that what some people considered a studio or office was not

anything more than a closet or shed. Her attempt to control her enthusiasm was failing miserably though. As she walked behind Lauren down a small path in the backyard she felt like a kid at Christmas about to open

her presents.

Not that she had ever really had a normal Christmas experience. She had gotten some presents in her

childhood but they had never been Barbies, Cabbage Patch Kids, a bike, or cute clothes. She had received

practical things from charities and churches. Things like backpacks, socks, jackets, and shoes. Not attractive things, but at least functional. And although she had always appreciated them, she had also wished that she could be like her classmates, the ones who wrote Christmas lists and then came back after winter break with the things that they had put on their lists.

After Lily’s mom had passed away when she was three, she had been put into the system. It started with

foster care until the age of twelve, at which point she had been moved to group homes. Between the ages of

twelve and sixteen, she’d been in a dozen group homes. Then she had been completely taken off the grid,

which had come with its own set of fears and terrors, but it had been better than the life she’d had to endure up until then.

To this day she wasn’t sure which she had preferred between foster homes or group homes. She

guessed that it was pretty specific to the facility or home. Some had been tolerable, a couple had been

decent, but a good forty percent of them had been horrific. She shuddered now at some of the memories

that surfaced.

“This is it. Voila!” Lauren said as she opened the door grandly and flipped on the light.

Lily stepped into the room and felt tears well in her eyes. It looked to be about four hundred square feet

with hardwood floors and one entire wall done in mirrors. It was a dancer’s dream space. She felt the tears fall down her cheeks as she spun around to look at it from all angles. It was…perfect.

“Also, it seemed like being isolated was not something you were comfortable with. There are five

houses within a mile of this property, which sits on a cul-de-sac. Two which are relatively close, and one of them is owned by the newly appointed Chief of Police.”

“I’ll take it,” Lily blurted out.

Lily couldn’t believe that this place was real. Not only did it have an incredible studio and neighbors

within a stone’s throw, but one of her neighbors was law enforcement. For once in Lily’s life, things were all falling into place.

Chapter Four

Lily swallowed over a large lump in her throat as she started up her Jeep and pulled out of the diner’s

parking lot. This was all happening so fast. She had seen the house for the first time a little over two hours ago and now she was going over to sign papers and move her things in. When she had given Sue Ann the

key to the apartment and told her about the little house she had rented, Lily had not been able to hide her excitement about the space. She had practically gushed as she described the studio.

To Lily’s surprise, Sue Ann had seemed genuinely happy for her. Not in the generic, impersonal, “Oh

that’s nice, dear” sort of way either. Nope, the older woman had squealed and thrown her arms around her,

pulling her into a big hug. A real hug, filled to the brim with emotion. And that emotion had seeped into

Lily’s entire being.

Then, in a move that had shocked Lily down to her bones, Sue Ann had supplied her with at least eight

meals all packaged and ready to go. The cherry on top was that Sue Ann had remembered a brief

conversation they had had at the wedding about Lily’s clean eating and had specially made her dishes with

that in mind.

The whole exchange felt unreal to Lily. Starting with the fact that she had happily spilled the news about

her newly acquired rental property to a woman she barely knew. That behavior was very out of character

for Lily. She tended to keep things close to the vest. Up until two years ago, she’d
had
to. Sharing personal information hadn’t been an option.

Then the fact that Sue Ann had not only been ecstatic about her news but also her generosity in making

sure that Lily had personalized meals and didn’t have to worry about getting to the grocery store right away was mind-blowing. The people that Lily had met here so far seemed to be cut from a different cloth.

Driving down the main strip of Hope Falls, Lily was struck once again by the charming character of the

town. The wooden sidewalks could have been straight out of the Wild West; she half-expected to see horses

tied up along the street. There was an adorable bookstore called Read Between the Lines, and next to that

was an old-fashioned ice cream parlor aptly named Two Scoops.

Scanning Main Street, Lily did a double take as she saw a huge Great Dane trotting down the middle of

the road just as happy as could be. She quickly looked up and down the street, alarmed, trying to see if she could locate the dog’s owner. She didn’t have any luck with that, but she did notice that a lot of the people walking on the sidewalks were waving and greeting the dog. He didn’t seem at all concerned about his solo

walkabout and neither did anyone else.

Hmm
, she thought.
Maybe he is like the town mascot or something
.

She pulled up to a four-way and saw The Lanes, which looked like a fifties-themed bowling alley.

Across from the bowling alley sat a large building with gigantic lettering on the side that read Hope Falls Twin Cinemas.

Perfect! Lily knew that that was where she would be spending most if not all of her free time. She had

always found comfort in going to the movies. Dancing was her therapy and movies were her escape. For

the one and a half hours that she sat in the plush reclining chair watching the drama, comedy, action, or

romance play out on the huge screen in front of her, she completely lost herself in that fictional reality.

Sometimes she would see the same movie multiple times in the theater. She had seen Love Actually a

record twenty-five times during its theatrical release. She was sixteen and it had been an especially hard

year. She’d had a friend who worked at the movie theater, so for a short span of about six months she got

in free. During her all-access stint she had also seen Lost in Translation, Finding Nemo, Kill Bill, Elf, Mona Lisa Smile, Underworld, Peter Pan, X2, and Old School all at least ten times each.

Without those movies, she wasn’t sure that she would have made it. They were a stress relief, a break

from her own disaster of a life, and in a corny way they’d given her hope that her life would get better. That somehow she could make her life better if she just kept going. Those movies had inspired her to not give

up.

Now, as she turned onto Pine Tree Circle, it hit her that even though it had taken a decade, her life was

almost exactly how she had always dreamed it would be. She had the job of her dreams and the house of

her dreams—for the next six months at least.

That short timeframe might bother some people, but Lily was used to living her life in short increments

of time. So in her mind, these next six months
were
her life. She lived in the moment.

Lily had made a point to only focus on the positives in her life. It was a survival tool that she had

learned at an early age. So she chose to ignore the little niggling feeling she had in her chest—emptiness.

Loneliness. She knew that it was due to the fact that, even though she did in fact have her dream job and

her dream home, she didn’t have her dream man.

Lily had never really let herself care about the fact that she hadn’t ever been able to have a true

relationship. Any real connection to another person. Her lack of having something real was partly because

of life circumstances that were out of her control, but she also had to admit it was partly because she was only attracted to bad boys she knew were no good for her.

She never spent too much time or energy worrying about her love life or lack thereof. She’d had more

important things to occupy her mind—like survival. But in the last couple of years since she hadn’t been

living at such a heightened state, she had really started to feel the absence of having someone special in her life. Not that there was any way she could ever let someone in. Not
really
. That would require trust. And she just didn’t trust.

But today was way too good of a day to let herself think or worry about that. Life was good…today.

As she pulled into the driveway, she saw that Lauren was already there, her BMW parked in front of the

sweet cottage home. She was meeting Lily with the lease, application, and keys. As Lily hopped out of her

car, all of the melancholy she had been feeling over her single status disappeared and was instantly replaced by exhilaration as she practically skipped up the brick walkway.

When she looked up at the cottage-style home, a realization washed over her like a warm shower spray

—as of today, this was where she
lived
. She had a place she
loved
that was hers. For the first time in Lily’s life, she felt like she belonged somewhere.

The second Lily’s feet hit the porch, Lauren opened the front door and smiled broadly as she said, “You

made good time. I was expecting Sue Ann to keep you there for a good hour at least.”

Lily laughed. It seemed Lauren knew the proprietress of the quaint café quite well. “She said that since I had told her that I was going out with you today to look at places, she planned ahead. She sent me on my

way with enough food to feed me for a week.”

“That’s Sue Ann,” Lauren nodded as the stepped into the kitchen. “So here is the application and lease.

Make sure to fill in and sign and date wherever you see a red arrow.”

Lauren handed the stack of papers to Lily along with two sets of keys. As Lily filled out the paperwork

accordingly, Lauren’s phone buzzed. Lily glanced up just in time to see the expression on Lauren’s face