“Earth to Laurel.” Sophie snapped her fingers in front of Laurel’s face.
“I’m going to tell them,” Laurel reassured her cousin. It was a delicate matter. Wyatt still believed he’d slept with Ashley. How would he feel when he learned he hadn’t? What would he do?
Sophie slid her red glasses up her slim nose and gave Laurel a look of disapproval, one that worked equally well on four-year-old boys and twenty-seven-year-old pregnant women.
Laurel squirmed. “I’ll tell them after my doctor’s appointment.” Weather permitting. Her appointment was at least an hour’s drive away in Ketchum. “With a medical all clear, I can go home and tell everyone in person.” By then, she’d have her speech down.
Her head pounded. She wasn’t looking forward to that discussion. Her father—who’d fired and evicted her in favor of inheriting millions—would worry that a man wasn’t in the picture. Her mother—who considered Laurel her least successful child—would ask her why a man wasn’t in the picture. Her brother Jonah would offer to pound the man who’d once been in the picture. Ashley would do some calculations and ask if Wyatt Halford should be in the picture. And then...
Everyone would realize that Laurel—the family member most likely to show up for someone else’s crisis—was having a catastrophe of her own.
Her immediate family was in the entertainment industry. Dad ran Monroe Studios. Mom was a talent manager. Jonah, a script writer. Ashley, an actress. Laurel an on-set costume designer. Everything she did reflected back upon them. Impersonating a famous actress, sleeping with a famous actor and then having his baby was the kind of sensational news story Hollywood hungered for. It would overshadow every project, every business deal, every media interview her family was involved in from the moment the world found out about it. As for Laurel and her aspirations to be a red-carpet dress designer? Her revelation would bring rain on that parade.
“There’s no shame in putting yourself first for once.” Sophie was still riding the disapproval train, which was headed straight for Laurel. “Especially now.”
Laurel refrained from mentioning that putting herself first was how she’d gotten into this mess.
The twins crashed into log walls on either side of Laurel’s headboard and cried, “I beat you!” simultaneously. They flopped on Laurel’s bed and continued to shout, “I won!” and “No, I won!” at each other.
“It was a tie!” Laurel drew them into her arms and gave them each a kiss. “A race too close to call.”
“Behave, my adorable little heathens.” Sophie set the fruit on Laurel’s nightstand next to a large water bottle and an extralarge box of unsalted crackers. She pushed her glasses up her nose and gathered her brown hair from her shoulders as she peered at the stack of gossip magazines on the floor. “You need to get rid of these rags. That magazine article about Ashley making that pink dress.” Sophie picked up steam. “That’s just wrong. Don’t let Ashley take credit for your talent.”
“Let’s not blow this out of proportion.” Because the entire pink dress fiasco was Laurel’s fault. She was going to have to clean up the dress mess, but it took a backseat to her pregnancy.
“Please. Ashley owes you a public retraction. When I think of all the times you saved her butt...” Sophie tugged down a new red-and-blue Nordic sweater she’d ordered online. She’d embraced mountain fashion in a way Laurel never would. “Listen to me. You’ve saved my behind a time or two. And there’s a time or two more ahead, I’m sure. In fact, I’m waiting for you to get your sea legs back and help me explore the old buildings across the road before you leave.” Which were rumored to be stuffed with junk and “treasure.” Having been an art history major, Sophie considered herself qualified to differentiate between gems and junk. “And we’re going in just as soon as you get the all clear from the doctor.”
“I can’t wait.” Actually, Laurel could. She didn’t like the cold, cobwebs, bugs or varmits—as Roy over at the diner called the rats and raccoons he said inhabited the old trading post and mercantile. “You know, you won’t find a da Vinci in there.”
“A girl can dream.” Grinning, Sophie pulled her boys off the bed. “Like you used to dream about weddings, wedding dresses, flower girls and ring bearers.” She smoothed Alexander’s cowlick.
“Weddings?” Alexander ducked from Sophie’s touch. “Not that again.”
“We had to hold ring pillows for hours at Uncle Todd’s wedding.” Andrew referenced their paternal uncle.
A wedding?
The semi returned to park on Laurel’s chest, making her wheeze, making her head pound harder. Wyatt didn’t want to marry her. As far as she knew, he hadn’t even called Ashley or sent her flowers afterward.
Mitch would have sent flowers.
Laurel stifled a groan.
Mitch would have invited me to stay and then cooked me breakfast in the morning.
There was no stifling the groan this time.
“That’s our cue to leave, Aunt Laurel,” Sophie singsonged, herding the boys toward the door. “We’ll return this afternoon for a book or a movie if you feel better.”
Quiet descended. Laurel plucked at the seam of the handmade quilt beneath her, stared at the ceiling and contemplated her single status.
Not that I’m in love with Wyatt.
But no wedding bells meant single motherhood. Laurel sucked in a breath as she contemplated her future. Kids were a huge responsibility.
The semi took on additional cargo. It was increasingly difficult to breathe.
Women juggle careers and kids by themselves all the time.
That was what Sophie had done. She’d been the Monroe art collection curator until the reading of Grandpa Harlan’s will. Of course, Sophie’d had permanent fatigue lines on her face that her cute glasses couldn’t hide. And granted, she had twins, but that was little comfort. Twins and the Monroe family went together like mosquitos and still water.
Twins.
A second—heavier—semi parked on Laurel’s chest.
What if I’m having twins?
Before Laurel had time to hyperventilate, there was a timid knock on her door.
“Laurel?” It was Gabby. “Can we come in?”
We? Gabby and Mitch? What happened to not encouraging the Monroes?
Laurel smoothed her hair, imagined Mitch’s broad shoulders filling the doorway and invited them in.
Gabby entered first.
“Hope we’re not intruding.” An old woman appeared behind the preteen. She had a yellow knit cap on her short, coarse gray hair and wore three layers on top—a black turtleneck under a thin white sweater under a handmade, gray cable-knit cardigan that stretched to her knees. Her neon-red snow pants rustled with every step.
“Odette!” Laurel pushed herself up higher. She was surprised to see her, but unable to resist checking the empty hallway for one handsome, grumpy innkeeper.
“That’s me.” Odette blocked Laurel’s sight line. The old woman was an artisan with yarn and cloth. She knit with precision. She quilted with small, even stitches, and paired fabric of different colors and prints better than some fashion designers Laurel could name. Before Laurel had known she was pregnant, she’d asked—more like begged—Odette to teach her how to quilt.
It wasn’t that Laurel’s sewing skills needed improvement. She was a master with needle and thread. It was that every fashion designer had a passion that drove them, an imprint that made their work immediately recognizable and gave it that special something. Laurel had yet to find her signature.
Clothes she’d made before flitted through her mind...
The sleek black pantsuit Laurel had made for her sister to wear to a charity luncheon.
The gauzy pink-and-white sundress Ashley had worn to a friend’s beach wedding in the Bahamas.
A pink sheath. Rose-splattered pants. A brocade ball gown.
They’d all been nice. Well constructed. Well designed. But they lacked a je ne sais quoi—that special something that made one’s heart light up with joy.
But when Laurel looked at Odette’s quilts, she felt a stirring of something inside. A sense of excitement she hadn’t felt before.
Odette dropped a tan canvas bag brimming with pastel yarn on the bed. “I’ve come for your first lesson.”
“Can I stay and learn, too?” Gabby asked in a small voice she seldom used. Few people cowed the spunky preteen.
Odette eyed Gabby severely as if the young girl had sassed her. “I tried to teach you once before.” And by the tone of Odette’s voice, Gabby had failed.
“I was just a baby then,” Gabby said solemnly with that retainer lisp.
“That was last summer.”
“Exactly.” The girl nodded. “I was eleven.”
“All right,” Odette huffed, removing the knit cap from her coarse gray hair. It sprang free, revealing its true porcupine nature. “But this is your last chance.”
Gabby thanked the old woman profusely.
Odette unloaded yarn balls and wooden knitting needles from her bag, tossing them on the bed the way children toss tissue from a gift box as they search for the prize at the bottom.
“Are there quilt quarters in that bag?” Laurel asked, thrilled to be receiving a lesson but confused by all the yarn.
Odette’s shoulders stiffened. “You can’t master quilting until you develop patience and precision.”
Laurel had patience. For a week, she’d rested in her room all day waiting for her morning sickness to recede.
She opened her mouth to say something, but there was a warning in Gabby’s eyes and the yarn balls on the bed and Odette’s annoyance in the air, so Laurel swallowed back her curiosity and guessed, “You teach patience and precision through knitting?”
That earned her an approving nod. “Darn tootin’!” Odette finished unpacking the yarn and set her bag aside. Balls of bright purple, subtle teal, soft peach and oatmeal cream were scattered near Laurel’s stocking feet. “We’ll start with a scarf. Choose a color to begin.”
Gabby nudged the pink aside and snatched up the vibrant purple.
Laurel picked a ball of teal, reminded that her career was at a standstill, of Ashley and Wyatt, and of truths that needed to be told. She had no interest in knitting, but if this was a test to move to quilting instruction and a mental space where she might discover an expressive passion for fashion, Laurel was determined to pass.
CHAPTER THREE
“HEY, MITCH.” SHANE, Harlan’s grandson, came down the inn’s steps and headed Mitch’s way a few minutes after the town council meeting ended. “I wanted to run something by you.”
Of course, he did. Mitch drew a calming breath. The former hotel chain executive lay awake at night coming up with ideas to improve Second Chance.
Shane had a purposeful walk, a mind like a steel trap and a commanding presence. If Mitch were still a lawyer, he’d welcome a guy like Shane on his team.
Shane came to a stop in front of Mitch. “We’ve talked a lot about improving the income of Second Chance residents.” He hit just the right note of camaraderie and business. “I want your opinion on the luxury development card.”
The bottom fell out of Mitch’s stomach.
Shane continued as if he hadn’t just pulled the plug on Mitch’s world, “My grandfather was sentimental. He never owned a cell phone or a computer. He conducted business with a handshake and a signature made by putting pen to paper.”
Mitch nodded. All true.
“But he liked to make money.” Shane tugged the ends of his too-thin jacket closer together. “And money can be made—good money—by building a luxury resort in Second Chance.”
Mitch’s heart fell toward his stomach.
“The last thing I want,” Harlan had said to Mitch on more than one occasion, “is for this town to turn into a rich person’s playground.”
When Shane had first arrived in town over a month ago, he and Mitch hadn’t hit it off. Shane didn’t like how evasive Mitch was regarding Harlan’s purchase of the town. Mitch didn’t like how evasive Shane was regarding the family’s plans toward the town. But recently, they’d managed to find neutral ground, mostly because Shane had admitted all twelve grandchildren had to agree about Second Chance’s future and no one had mentioned anything about high-end development.
When Mitch didn’t immediately answer, Shane asked, “What do you think my grandfather would’ve thought about a resort here?”
The snowflakes thickened. The wind gathered. Time might not have changed the town, but Shane Monroe might.
Mitch made a noncommittal noise and looked around the stretch of road that made up the heart of town.
Most businesses were located in historic structures dating back to the town’s roots when it’d been established by one of Harlan Monroe’s ancestors. The diner and general store had been competing saloons. The inn had been everything from a barracks to a brothel, although Mitch had argued the latter when Gabby put it in a paper for school. Other cabins and businesses about town had similar Old West histories.
During the town council meeting, Mitch had come up with an idea. Apply for historical significance. Could he convince a state board that the town’s hundred-year-old log cabins were important enough to protect? Would that be enough to stop Shane from tearing them down and building his luxury resort?
“Mitch?”
“Well, Harlan...” Shut up, Mitch. “In my opinion, Harlan wouldn’t...”
Shane’s expression shuttered.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Remember the nondisclosure agreement. The one he’d signed when Harlan purchased the Lodgepole Inn. And then there was the truce himself and Shane. He had to be neutral and diplomatic. He had to—
“I hate the idea,” Mitch blurted. “Who does it benefit? Not Mack.” He pointed toward the general store, where Mack was creating a Valentine’s Day display. “There’s nothing high-end about what she sells. Or what Ivy serves. Or the accommodations I provide.”
Shane drew in a breath as if preparing to speak, but Mitch wasn’t done.
“Your grandfather didn’t just care about the town. He cared about the people.” A general statement, but one he hoped hit home. “About the community. Winter is our time to—”
“Objection, Counselor,” Shane said, using his cousin’s nickname for Mitch and holding up a gloveless hand. “Let me explain. Have you heard of the concept of due diligence?”
“I’ve heard of companies willing to take propositions off the table when they don’t fit their philosophies. Fancy hotels and restaurants shouldn’t be in Second Chance.”
“I have eleven other owners to consider.” Shane’s words took on that high-and-mighty tone that grated on Mitch’s ears. “If you think I can get a consensus without exploring all avenues, you’re wrong. Now...” His voice hardened. “I asked you a question.”
“In my opinion,” Mitch said through gritted teeth. “Your grandfather would fight luxury development to the bitter end.”
Shane studied him for a moment before nodding, grinning wryly. “Agreed. I just needed to hear it from you.”
“What?” With effort, Mitch pulled himself together. “Were you just yanking my chain?”
“Come on, Mitch.” Shane laughed and turned toward the Bent Nickel. “You know the answer to that question.”
He had been.
Mitch ran a hand over his face and then headed for the general store. He imagined the path to historical significance was paved with piles of paperwork, which would be easier to tackle later with a glass or two of wine, especially if Shane decided to pull his chain once more.
On his way back to the inn with a bottle of wine in hand, the wind picked up, rushing down the western mountain range on icy feet to da
nce around Mitch and any exposed skin it could find. It had been in the forties earlier, but the temperature was falling fast. More snow was coming.
“Please tell me that’s a whiskey bottle you’re carrying.” Zeke Roosevelt sat in a wheelchair by the large stone fireplace in the inn’s common room. His leg was in a splint and propped up. He wore a blue plaid shirt with pearly snaps and a pair of gray sweats with one leg cut off at the knee. His ever-present smile was worn around the edges.
The ginger-haired cowboy had been working at the Bucking Bull ranch north of town until he’d crashed his truck a few weeks ago, breaking his shinbone and sidelining him from the workforce for several months. Given the bunkhouse at the Bucking Bull had no kitchen and was separate from the main house, it would’ve been difficult for Zeke to recuperate on the ranch during the heart of winter. He’d checked in as a long-term guest, staying in one of the small downstairs guest rooms.
“It’s wine.” Mitch held the bottle so Zeke could see. “And I don’t have to tell you what Noah said before he left about mixing pain meds with alcohol.” That was a big no-no. Mitch crossed the foyer and went into the apartment he and Gabby shared behind the check-in desk.
Their living space was tight. A kitchen with a small table, a bathroom and two bedrooms. The common room served as their living room and had the inn’s only television.
“I’m not taking the pain meds Doc gave me,” Zeke called to him. “They give me bad dreams.”
If what Zeke said was true, that explained the worn-out smile. His break had been nasty—bone through skin. It’d been set with plates and screws.
Ouch.
“Still not getting any wine.” Mitch lifted the Crock-Pot lid and stirred the chili. Then he returned to the hotel desk and checked his email to see if anyone had answered the ad to replace Noah as Second Chance’s doctor.
Not a single reply.
Mitch felt as tired as Zeke’s smile. Could nothing go right today?
“Look, Dad.” Gabby emerged from her room. Instead of toting her laptop, she held up a pair of wooden knitting needles and purple yarn with a couple inches of what Mitch assumed was a scarf. “Odette’s teaching me and Laurel how to knit. I’m going to sit with her every day until we’re done.”
Snowed in with the Single Dad Page 3