Final preparations...

When the sun finally rose, the sky was overcast. Brenda hoped it was only rain—there'd already been snow up in the mountains and she wasn't prepared to deal with any down in the valley. She hadn't slept well and was finding it difficult to motivate herself to get dressed for what promised to be another very long day. She didn't want to leave Ellis—or the warm bed—she wanted to crawl back under the covers and snuggle up to him for a few more hours. But that wasn't a luxury she could take this morning.

She'd heard the staff arriving and needed to make sure they were finishing up with preparations for the retreat. They needed to install and program the new phone system for the front desk. And, there was the matter of Mr. Yessam's breakfast—she'd left a note in the kitchen with instructions for taking care of it but no one had been expecting guests until this afternoon so she couldn't be sure anyone would even see it.

It was a gloomy day and her thoughts were equally grim. She wondered what it would be like to have a normal life somewhere in a normal place where men and women did normal everyday things and lived their lives out in the open.

In a world like that she could dream about settling down, getting married—maybe even having a child. But that had never been her world and likely never would be…and it saddened her.

Another luxury she couldn't afford—feelings, emotions. They just got in the way. She pushed them from her thoughts by mentally going over the list of things she needed to do today. It was a very long list and sobering enough to help her shake off the feelings of nostalgia.