Snowed in with the Single Dad

by Melinda Curtis

  “That’s nice of her.” It was good for Odette to get out. The old woman routinely sewed all day, every day. “Are you going to work with Odette over at her cabin tomorrow?”

  “No, Dad.” Eye roll, eye roll, eye roll. “I’m going to be knitting with Laurel upstairs. Odette isn’t coming back here until our scarves are finished.”

  “You’re going to be knitting with Laurel...” Something inside Mitch sat up and blinked.

  The fashionable Laurel was knitting? The two images didn’t fit.

  “Yes, with Laurel.” Since Gabby’s birthday over a week ago, which was when her braces had come off, she’d become touchy about the things Mitch said. She tossed her strawberry blond hair over her shoulder and waltzed past him into the front room, sitting on the couch near Zeke’s wheelchair.

  “Where’s the love?” he murmured. Where had his precious little girl gone?

  “Dad,” Gabby said with the utmost teenage contempt. She glanced at Zeke from beneath lowered lashes as her cheeks turned a deep red. She had a crush on the cowboy.

  Zeke was at least two decades older than she was, so anything romantic was thankfully ruled out.

  “You can knit later.” Mitch wasn’t so old he’d forgotten the importance of a teenage crush, but he wasn’t going to encourage this one. “We need to clean the rooms.”

  “Dad.” Gabby’s shoulders sank, and she frowned as if he’d suggested she clean the toilets with her toothbrush. “I’m busy.”

  “That you are.” Mitch grabbed the basket of fresh linens on their kitchen table, an empty basket for dirty things, and a mop and a bucket filled with cleaning supplies from the nearby pantry. “You’re busy cleaning rooms.”

  “Dad,” Gabby grumbled, although she set her knitting aside and followed him to Zeke’s small room and its full-size four-poster bed.

  “You change the sheets and towels. I’ll clean the floors and bathroom.” He snapped on a pair of plastic cleaning gloves.

  With the familiarity of practice, they went about their work and immediate worry over the fate of Second Chance faded.

  The cowboy was neat, possibly because he was restricted to a wheelchair and bed. When Mitch no longer heard the sounds of Gabby changing linens, he stopped wiping down the counter and poked his head out the bathroom door.

  His daughter was admiring Zeke’s straw cowboy hat. And by admiring, Mitch meant she was lifting it from where it hung on a bedpost, looking like she intended to put it on her own head.

  “Leave it,” Mitch said, horrified. They’d had long conversations about a guest’s right to privacy and here she was disrespecting that right.

  “I’m done.” There was mutiny in those two words, but Gabby put the hat back and smoothed the brown log-cabin quilt’s corners. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “How about talk to me?” Like my little girl used to. Mitch missed her chattering. He gathered the cleaning supplies. “Can you keep up with your homework and Odette’s knitting lessons?”

  “Dad,” Gabby huffed, not that he blamed her. It was a silly question. “The only homework I haven’t done is a history paper on the first governor of Idaho.”

  “A term paper?” The tension inside Mitch eased. That would require a big chunk of his daughter’s time.

  “We don’t call them that.” Gabby tucked the dirty linens into the empty basket, stacked it on top of the clean linens basket and carried both out, hurrying past Zeke without a word. She climbed the stairs with what looked like a drunken swagger. She’d learned long ago how to traverse the steps and the upstairs hallway like a ninja, avoiding squeaky floorboards.

  Mitch’s footsteps echoed unapologetically on the stairs.

  Shane’s room was next. The man’s clothes hung in the small closet—expensive dress shirts, polo shirts and slacks. Slacks, not jeans. Mitch bet there was at least one tie in the man’s suitcase.

  Who brought business clothes to the mountains of Idaho in winter?

  I did.

  Mitch had kept five suits from his legal days. He even had some slacks—the same brand as Shane’s—in a plastic bin at the back of his closet.

  The difference is I don’t wear them every day.

  “Why don’t you like Shane?” Gabby asked.

  He reminds me of me, back when I was a lawyer with something to prove.

  He’s unpredictable and sets my teeth on edge.

  Statements like that weren’t something fathers said to their impressionable teenage daughters.

  “I like Shane,” he insisted instead. “We were just talking outside.”

  Gabby smirked.

  “I like that he’s neat,” Mitch said, sounding almost as mutinous as Gabby had downstairs.

  “I like that we changed his sheets yesterday,” Gabby replied. They only changed the bed linens twice a week for long-term guests. Gabby sat down on the black, gray and white quilt, a modern kaleidoscope design. “Do you think I’m impatient?”

  Mitch tried not to think about huffs and eye rolls and changed the subject, switching to his helpful dad voice. “Are you going to need a trip to the library in Ketchum for this paper?” If so, as soon as the weather let up, they could spend a day away from Zeke and the Monroes. “We also haven’t taken you shopping in a while. Are you growing again? Those jeans look short.”

  “My jeans are fine, Dad. And nobody goes to the library to research papers anymore. We use the internet.” That earned him a huff and an eye roll. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I’m losing my little girl.

  And if the Monroes disappointed Harlan and made it financially impossible to stay, who knew if he’d ever get her back. If they returned to Chicago, his ex-wife might take an interest in Gabby again, might drag her into the country-club scene, might try to put her on the beauty pageant circuit, might try to make her value bank account balances over self-worth.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me,” Mitch insisted, swallowing back the what-ifs. “I’m trying to be nice and treat you to a bonus since we’re having a good quarter. How about a trip to the bookstore?”

  “You know I love the bookstore.” Gabby swung her feet around on the bed so she could watch him finish in the bathroom.

  “I know you love the bookstore,” Mitch parroted back, heartened. He finished in the bathroom, gathered his supplies and led Gabby to the large corner room on the other end of the inn.

  The wood floors creaked as he traversed the slanted hall.

  “How much are we talking in terms of a bookstore spending limit?” Behind him, Gabby’s footfalls were nearly silent. “One book? Two? Fifty dollars?”

  While they negotiated, Mitch opened the door to the room occupied by Sophie Monroe and her two twin toddlers, who were still outside playing in the snow.

  He and Gabby paused, letting the extent of the mess sink in.

  The sheets and blankets were in a tangle on both beds. The pillows were piled in a corner as if someone had made them into a fort. Clothes and shoes were scattered everywhere. In the bathroom, all the towels were wet and sat in a mountainous pile.

  Gabby slipped past him. “I may need a bonus just for cleaning this room.”

  She may be right.

  They didn’t waste more energy talking and went to work.

  Beds made, bathroom and floors clean, wet towels in the basket in the hallway, dry towels in their place, they moved to the final occupied room. Mitch always saved it for last.

  “Come in,” Laurel called before Mitch could knock, adding when he opened the door, “I heard you come down the hall.” She didn’t look up, didn’t brush that red hair from her eyes. She sat on top of the sunflower quilt on the bed, bent over a pair of wooden knitting needles. She looped teal yarn around one needle, thought better of it and looped it the other way.

  Mitch paused just inside the doorway, trying to reconcile the image of
the stylish Laurel doing something as homey as knitting.

  “Nice gloves.” Laurel nodded toward Mitch’s hands, sending the first salvo across his bow.

  “Dad won’t clean without them,” Gabby said happily, earning her a frown from Mitch.

  Laurel gave one of her distinctive laughs—hardy-har-har. As much as her clothes were sophisticated, her laugh was not.

  He moved past his daughter into the bathroom, where he faced the shimmery pink evening gown.

  “Pampering your skin is important.” Laurel’s voice sparkled with amusement.

  Mitch bet if he glanced at Laurel, her blue eyes would be sparkling, too.

  “Does your father also like manicures?” Laurel teased.

  “He does not,” Mitch said firmly, manhood imperiled. He moved the mop about quickly, being careful not to touch the dress.

  “The sheets are fine,” Laurel said to Gabby. “Like I said this morning, I didn’t get sick in them or in the bathroom. Woo-hoo.”

  Mitch had to work hard not to smile.

  Laurel’s most admirable trait was her honesty. Mitch valued honesty in all its forms. Now that she was feeling better, her optimism continuously tried to sneak past the defenses he put up. So what if he admired her forthrightness? Didn’t mean he lingered when he cleaned her room.

  The mattress rasped as if Gabby had sat on the bed. “I can’t believe you didn’t know you were pregnant.”

  Mitch frowned and swung the mop with more velocity. The last thing he wanted was for Gabby to idolize Laurel, fashionista and soon-to-be single mom.

  “Sometimes the truth sneaks up on you,” Laurel said.

  The mop handle tangled in the skirt of the pink dress. Frustration loosened Mitch’s filter. “I’ve been meaning to ask about this dress of yours. Does it need to hang here all the time? Are you getting ready to go to prom?”

  “That dress wasn’t made to hang, forgotten in a closet.” There was starch to Laurel’s words as if she’d gotten her back up.

  Good. He had yet to see her riled. Witnessing a poor-little-rich-girl tantrum would take the shine off her for both Mitch and Gabby.

  Gabby poked her head into the bathroom. “That dress is so pretty.”

  “And it’s been hanging in here since she arrived.” Mitch didn’t try to hide his disapproval. Maybe disapproval was the way to squelch the attraction he felt toward this particular Monroe.

  “I hate to tell you, Mitch, but your closet rod is shamefully low. I had to convert the bathroom to specialty dress storage.” Laurel’s tone was more suited for a put-down in judge’s chambers than a room at the Lodgepole Inn. “If I hung that dress in the closet, the small train would brush the floor. Silk is a delicate thing—a delicate, edible thing—especially to Mothra.”

  Mitch choked on a snort of laughter. He hadn’t expected a Godzilla movie reference.

  “What’s a Mothra?” Gabby swung on the door frame, smiling broadly, flashing her retainer wire and those straight teeth he’d paid a small fortune to fix.

  “Mothra is a giant moth that starred in some B movies. The point is, moths plant larvae on clothes so their young have something to eat when they hatch. And moths love natural fibers like silk and wool.”

  “This I did not know.” Gabby beamed. Deep down she was a nerd. “Did you wear this dress somewhere?”

  “Um... I made the dress.” Her voice lost its sparkle. “There’s a picture of it in one of those magazines stacked on the other side of the bed. The one with the sexiest man alive on the cover.”

  “Why did you bring the dress here?” Gabby ran around to look through the magazines.

  Mitch hurried to finish cleaning. He wanted to discourage Gabby’s interest in less educational things, like video games and gossip magazines.

  “I brought the dress here because...” Laurel paused. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Gabby?”

  “Well...” The mattress springs creaked as his daughter sat on the bed once more. “I think being a lawyer would be cool because I could help people get justice.”

  Mitch’s chest swelled with pride, even as he made a mental note: talk to Gabby about the pros and cons of the legal profession.

  “And then I have this rock collection and I like to look up why they all look different, so geology is in the running.”

  “Really?” Mitch froze midwipe of the toilet bowl. He’d had no idea she was interested in rocks.

  Still out of sight, his daughter cleared her throat. “And then there’s singing—”

  Blindsided, Mitch blurted, “Singing? You never sing around the house.”

  “Dad,” Gabby chastised. “Don’t eavesdrop.”

  He dropped the cleaning brush into the bucket and came to lean a shoulder against the bathroom door frame. “It’s impossible not to hear your conversation when I’m scrubbing the toilet.”

  “Pretend, Dad.” Gabby had a stack of gossip magazines in her lap and a cynical shine in her eyes. “Pretend.”

  Laurel gave him a sympathetic look.

  Mitch didn’t want Laurel’s sympathy. He wanted his little girl back. “Gabby, why would you want to be a shallow rock star?”

  “As opposed to a shallow seamstress,” Laurel murmured, referencing herself, he supposed. “Or a shallow innkeeper.”

  And now him.

  “Whatever profession she follows,” Mitch said, reaching for one of his oft-spoken refrains, “she’ll still be the same person to me.”

  “Dad. Who said anything about rock? I listen to country.” Gabby marched toward the door, magazines under her arm. “You are so out of touch.”

  Mitch groaned as Gabby ran away. The inn groaned as Gabby ran away, her feet pounding on the floor until she slammed a door downstairs. Laurel didn’t groan. She studied Mitch.

  Alone, Mitch and Laurel stared at each other.

  Alone together, his heart began to pound.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “GABBY’S ONE SHARP COOKIE.” The beginnings of a smile teased the corner of Laurel’s wide mouth.

  Her kissable mouth.

  She picked up one of three teal balls of yarn on the bed and tossed it from one hand to the other. “She knew you didn’t approve of her reading my gossip magazines and she absconded with several copies.”

  Holy smokes. She had. Mitch had been too distracted by Laurel to pick up on that.

  “Welcome to Gabby’s teenage rebellion.” Laurel scooted away from the headboard and faced him squarely, crossing her legs at the ankles, her knitting discarded. “We all go through it.”

  “You’re saying I’ll survive.” Would he also survive the Monroes being in Second Chance?

  Laurel nodded. “You know Gabby’s not serious about any of those occupations.” Laurel placed a pillow in her lap and rested her elbows on it, as casual with Mitch as if he’d been one of her best girlfriends. “She isn’t going to hunt for rocks or take off one night to Nashville. She’s going to fly rockets to Mars or find a cure for cancer.”

  The scary part was, Mitch agreed with his guest. His daughter had a curious streak. Point her in the right direction, and she’d accomplish anything she set her mind to. But she was also a gregarious child, easily distracted by the opportunity to be with people of any age.

  And Laurel was the squirrel who was currently distracting Gabby. “Did you ask Odette to teach you how to knit?”

  “In a roundabout way.” She plumped the pillow, unable to sit still.

  “You’re bored,” he accused.

  “Yes. I’m counting down the hours to my doctor’s appointment.” Laurel leaned forward, gaze focused on his face, clearly intrigued. “You know, when I was battling morning sickness you talked to me differently.”

  Frustration clawed its way up his neck, given a leg up by a little bit of shame. “Let’s be honest...” Not completely h
onest. He wasn’t going to tell her he wanted to lean forward and kiss her sometimes. “I realize my daughter is going to leave Second Chance one day.” Hopefully, not at the end of this calendar year when Harlan’s protection ended. “But I’d like her to be happy and confident with who she is and how she dresses. When she looks at those magazines, she’s going to be comparing herself to color-corrected, touched-up photos and begin to think she’s lacking.”

  “You don’t know that.” But Laurel frowned.

  “I do. My ex-wife was never happy in her own body.” At the end of their marriage, she’d had a line of credit with a plastic surgeon as well as a personal shopper, aesthetician and physical trainer. He’d looked at Shannon but had been unable to see the woman he’d fallen in love with in law school. And she’d been unable to see the man disillusioned with the law and the trappings of wealth.

  Mitch stripped off his gloves, pulling the cuffs around his palms and fingers so he could reuse them another day. He gathered the cleaning supplies, along with the basket of clean linens Gabby had left near the door.

  “Counselor?”

  Reluctantly, Mitch turned.

  Her gaze was direct. Her eyes the soft blue of the paper stapled behind legal briefs. She had a little bit of makeup on, barely anything, really. She wore leggings and a tunic that covered everything appropriately. There was nothing come-hither about her appearance or the way she looked at him. Yet there was something about this woman that reached around logic and reality, that shook him to his core.

  Attraction, his brain whispered, leading into thoughts of kisses.

  Annoyance, he corrected stubbornly. She was the reason Shane was staying.

  “Do you want some advice about teenage girls?” Laurel asked.

  Mother of Pearl, no. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Of course.” He didn’t trust her smile. “I can give you my thoughts today when it’s just you and me. Or we can talk tomorrow when you clean. With Gabby.”