Flannel and Frost
Copyright© 2026 by Art Samms
Chapter 1
Willow Creek, Colorado, sat quiet and resolute in the shadow of the mountains, a speck of stubborn life stitched into the hem of the Rockies. The town was cradled in a high valley, hemmed in on all sides by ridgelines still brushed with snow even as the season shifted. Spring had begun its slow but steady thaw, coaxing life out of the cold-hardened soil. Meltwater trickled down the slopes in silvery veins, feeding the narrow creek that meandered through the east side of town and gave Willow Creek its name.
The town itself was small—barely more than a handful of cross-streets—but it was well-worn and well-loved. The main thoroughfare, Alder Street, ran north to south, lined with low brick buildings that had stood for generations. Most of them bore hand-painted signs above their doors: The Hollow Bean Café, Cline’s General Supply, Aspen Ridge Outfitters, and Gibson & Sons Auto Repair, whose faded garage door was perpetually propped open like a halfhearted yawn. Some places had wooden sidewalks that creaked underfoot, especially in front of the hardware store that wasn’t a hardware store yet—just a dusty storefront with paper taped over the windows and a notice about future renovations pinned to the door.
There were no traffic lights. Just a four-way stop at the center of town, and everyone understood it was more suggestion than rule. Pickup trucks and aging Subarus shared the road. Locals waved without thinking, from behind steering wheels or across parking lots, even if they didn’t quite remember your name.
Beyond the shops, Willow Creek spilled out into a patchwork of homes—modest bungalows with metal roofs, cabins nestled between cottonwoods, and the occasional A-frame with sagging decks and peeling paint. Dogs roamed without collars. Wind chimes clinked lazily on porches. In the distance, the mountains framed everything in jagged silhouettes—still winter-white above the tree line, but softening lower down, where spring grasses were just beginning to assert themselves.
The air smelled faintly of pine sap and wood smoke, and a breeze stirred the last of the dead leaves in the gutter. The sun had a little more heat in it than the day before.
From the corner grocery—a squat building with faded green trim and a rack of seed packets in the window—a strikingly pretty woman stepped out onto the sidewalk. She was in her thirties, fair-skinned with long dark hair pulled back loosely, dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and worn boots. A canvas tote hung from one arm, heavy with groceries. She paused outside the door, squinting against the light as she looked up and down the street. A crow called from a rooftop nearby. The woman adjusted the strap of the bag, then turned north and began walking, her steps unhurried, her eyes thoughtful. The town moved around her in quiet rhythms, and the mountains stood watching, ancient and unmoved.
The efficiency apartment above the old barber shop had the personality of a storage unit—one narrow window, one narrow counter, and a bed that looked as though it might sigh under the weight of an actual human. Ryan Meadows sat at the card table he was using as a desk, shoulders hunched, the glow of his laptop casting a weak, bluish square on his face. The tax software stared back at him with the accusing blankness of a half-finished confession.
Cardboard boxes lined the wall, stacked in uneven towers, some still sealed with the moving company’s tape. Others sat open only at the corners, as though he’d begun to pry inside but lost the will before committing to it. A winter coat lay draped over one of them—still dusted with the pale, powdery residue from the drive west. The place held a persistent odor of sawdust drifting up through the floorboards, mixed with the ghost of shaving cream from the barbershop downstairs.
The apartment was quiet in the way rural places could be—deep, steady, unbroken. No traffic hum. No sirens. No neighbors stomping around or arguing. Only the wind slipping past the window and the intermittent drip of the kitchen faucet that refused to fully shut off. In the city, silence was a luxury he could never afford. Here, it pressed in like a weight on his ribs, threatening to expose every thought he’d managed to outrun.
He exhaled through his nose, rubbing the heel of his hand over his jaw. The cursor on the monitor blinked, patient and unhelpful. Boxes needed unpacking. The shop down the street needed gutting before it could become a hardware store. His life—whatever shape it was going to take now—needed some kind of forward momentum.
Yet he sat there, stuck in a pocket of stillness, feeling the question drift up that he’d tried to ignore since the moment he crossed the Colorado state line.
What the hell am I doing?
A floorboard creaked under him as he leaned back, making the room seem even emptier. He wasn’t sure if he missed the noise of the city or if he simply missed being someone whose life had a predictable rhythm, even if that rhythm had been slowly killing him. Here, without any of the old distractions, it was just him—his thoughts, his mistakes, his exhaustion.
He closed the laptop slowly, as if doing so might buy him relief. It didn’t.
Silence filled the room again, settling like dust.
Finally, Ryan stood from the card table, stretching the stiffness from his back, and wandered toward the one window in the apartment. Outside, the mountains loomed—soft with late snow, sharp in outline. He rested a hand against the cold glass. You could see the sky here, huge and untamed. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like.
Boston had never looked like this. In the financial district, the only sky he saw was a narrow ribbon wedged between glass towers, a pale sliver that never entirely changed color. Days blurred into nights beneath fluorescent lighting and screen glare. He’d lived inside a cube—both literal and metaphorical—where the hum of servers was the closest thing to wind, and the only weather he experienced came through the body temperature of conference rooms.
He remembered the firm’s tone—polished, relentless, always just shy of predatory. “Just one more report.” “Just stay on-call for this client.” “Just push through this quarter.” The word just had become a trapdoor under his feet. He couldn’t recall when he’d last cooked for himself, last laughed at something not tied to office sarcasm, or last slept more than five consecutive hours. Emotion had started slipping out of him in ways he barely noticed. Numbness arrived quietly. A slow frost.
There were nights—too many—when he’d eaten lukewarm takeout at his desk, staring at spreadsheets until the columns swam. Nights when he told himself, It’s only temporary. But temporary had become years.
The breaking point hadn’t been dramatic. No big blow-up. No ambulance or confrontation. Just one late evening, alone in his apartment, when he realized he was sitting on the floor in last week’s dress shirt, staring at his hands and feeling absolutely nothing at all. Not sadness. Not stress. Nothing. The kind of emptiness that scared him more than any panic attack could have.
So, he’d quit. Just like that. Packed fast. Ran before he cracked in a way that couldn’t be undone.
He shut his eyes now, breathing in the quiet mountain air. Even here, a thousand miles away, memories tugged at him.
His family.
That wound was deeper. Less obvious, more jagged.
He could still see the dining room back home—his mother’s hands trembling as she cleared dishes that weren’t truly dirty, his father staring through him as if he were a stranger in their home. The weeks after his younger brother’s funeral had been a blur of casseroles, condolences, and silence that grew wider each day. Grief didn’t unite them. It fractured them. They each retreated into private caves, nursing blame, regret, and bitterness.
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