Up to Snow Good: A Small Town Holiday Romance

by Kelly Collins

  “I’m sorry about that, I was desperate. I thought your father would dump me after your grandmother passes. He doesn’t need me and will toss me out because he’s been using me.”

  The woman could get a walk-on job as an actress with her dramatic flair and fake tears.

  “I think you’re both getting your money’s worth.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I’m afraid it is.” Max looked her over. “You told him about the water park? How did you hear about that?”

  “I didn’t, I swear it. I was on your side. After I said those things to you, I felt terrible about it and went to your father to smooth things out. I figured it would put him in a loving mood, and maybe he’d see you and your girl, and he’d be inspired—become the way he used to be.”

  Max shrugged and turned to his SUV. “Good luck with that. Don’t forget, a leopard never loses its spots.”

  “Where are you going to go? This is your home, and you’re still the future of Hunter Properties. You’re still the life’s blood of this family.”

  “Not anymore,”—Max said, shaking his head,—“never again.”

  “Don’t say that,” Jane said with increasing urgency.

  Max turned, using what was left of his strength to hold back a terrific tirade, but any appeal to her conscience would be a waste of time.

  The best thing to say was nothing at all. The best course of action was to walk away. He was in his SUV, tires squealing, as he drove away from his childhood home before he realized he didn’t have anywhere to go.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Lauren

  Lauren was beyond consoling. Her blood ran cold in her veins, her body cramping and clenching with her gut-wrenching sobs. She’d run upstairs to the privacy of her bedroom, slamming the door before collapsing on her bed.

  Multiple emotions came in waves: repulsion, and shame, and then anger and embarrassment. She was feeling everything wrong, and all of it at once.

  How could I have been so stupid? They told me, they tried to warm me; Sam, even Ruthie. But no, I had to think I knew everything; I had to believe in love.

  The sorrow came in hot sobs that pushed through her body and out of her eyes, her mouth and her nose, filling her ears with the twisted cries of her tortured soul.

  Now she’d lost it all—her family—her home. It would crush Mom and Dad to know she let all their work slip away. She didn’t even make it six months before she let it fall apart.

  Her brain started pounding along with her heartbeat, sad certainties replaced by cold questions.

  What was he doing? He knew the whole time his father would take the lodge, so was it that important to take her to bed? Or was that just something he and his father worked up to make things that much worse and give them that extra bit of satisfaction?

  Max seemed so sincere, and she’d told herself he really cared.

  Another chill passed through her, telling her how wrong she was. That was always his part of the family plan. He was the face, and his father was the brains and muscle. She was the sucker, the patsy, the pigeon.

  She sobbed until she had nothing left, her face burning with salty traces of countless tears. Exhausted in body and soul, she was left with a beaten spirit.

  She had to admit that she never had a chance against a man like Eaton Hunter. She guessed Sally was right; some people just aren’t cut out for business, and she was one of them. If that was what it took to have a successful business, to be a person like Eaton or Max Hunter, then she wanted nothing to do with it.

  Even the townsfolk were all so ready to turn their backs on her and each other. Was that success? Was that survival? That was not the person she was or wanted to be.

  It was only then she flashed on the sad fact that it had been in that very bed that Max had finally won her over. She’d given herself to him, readily rushing in like the simple fool she’d always been. That first night and every night since had been gripping and thrilling, which made it more twisted and spoiled the memory. She allowed him to have her in every way: heart, body, and soul. He’d taken the last dream of her childhood, and her hope for a happy future.

  A hot wave pulsed through her, new strength surging in her tissues. “No,” she told herself, “I will not let Max get me down.” The man tried to destroy her. She would not let this dream die, especially not because of the Hunter men. There had to be a way to preserve her legacy, and she would find it.

  The lodge door opened downstairs with a distinctive thunk. It reminded her that she was still the owner and general manager of the resort and her place was down there to greet her guests, keep up appearances, and carry on.

  She almost vomited when she saw the young, handsome man standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “No, Max.”

  “Please, Lauren, give me a chance to explain.”

  “A chance to lie more convincingly? You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here like this.”

  “Listen, Lauren, hear me out. There’s something going on, something more complicated than we know.”

  “Yeah, and I wonder who’s behind it? You and your father?”

  “Not me, Lauren, not me.”

  “You knew about that loan document my father signed.”

  “I thought I’d gotten him to quash it. If I thought it might have been relevant, I’d have told you.”

  “Relevant to whatever scheme you two are cooking up?”

  He moved closer. “Look, I wasn’t happy or proud of it, but I knew if I could get him to withdraw it, it would never be a threat to you. That’s all I cared about, then and now.”

  “Yeah, and you think I’ll just decide to trust you again, believe in you? I mean, even if you don’t know exactly what’s going on with your father, you’re still his pawn.”

  “I was always trying to steer things in the right direction. Why wouldn’t I? I’m in love with you. I always have been, and I always will be.”

  Lauren crossed her arms in front of her chest, hoping her growing doubt wasn’t showing.

  “You thought you could just swoop in and marry me and get the lodge for free.”

  Max shook his head. “I can see how that would be your perception. I guess, all things considered, I’d think the same thing if I were in your position.”

  Lauren shook her head a bit, but it brought her no clarity. She searched for the answers to the riddles surrounding her. “You said he’d given us his blessing. Was that a lie, or were you just wrong?”

  “I watched him tear up the contract, though he says now it was just a copy, and I don’t doubt that. I took him for being sincere at the time; at least, I wanted to. Remember me saying it worried me, and I didn’t trust him.”

  Lauren remembered words to that effect when they were becoming closer, becoming entwined. “But what changed his mind?”

  “The water park idea I mentioned to you. Whoever you told is betraying us. I’m not sure how, but somebody brought word of that back to my father.”

  “So, what does he care if I turn my lodge into a water park, especially if he’s just going to take it?”

  “He wasn’t going to take it, or even force you into a sale if that wasn’t what you wanted. At least not as far as I’m concerned, I can’t know exactly what he was thinking or planning, and I still don’t.”

  “Now you’re telling me it was his idea to build a water park here?”

  “Yes, it was his idea, and he is reneging on his promises because he thinks we’ve swindled him.”

  “How can I be sure that isn’t what you were planning the whole time, and you just thought you’d nudge me there little by little? My God, I almost fell for that too.”

  He shook his head. “No, Lauren, I came to you to protect you from whatever my father would try to pull. When you mentioned repurposing the land, the idea just kind of came up. You were the one who brought up the Yule Village in the first place. The water park was for a different season.”

  “Well, that may be true, bu
t you came to me knowing your father would swipe the lodge no matter what I did.”

  “No, I didn’t.” A tense silence followed before he went on, “Look, I know there’s a lot to wonder about, and I’m not asking you to trust me.”

  “Trust you?”

  “No, I’m asking you to help me. Whoever brought word back to my father about that dumb water park idea is working against us, working me against my father, and that person’s working against you too. If it’s good for my father, it’s bad for you. All I want now is to make this right. If I can leave you in peace with your lodge, I’ll disappear from Moss Creek and never come back. I can’t do it without your help. The only person I’ve mentioned it to is you.”

  “What are you saying? That I have some connection to your father?”

  “No, of course not. What I’m saying is that somebody you know has a connection to him, somebody you trust, and it isn’t me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Max

  It relieved Max to have won Lauren’s attention. Her trust was more than he could ask for. They had already sacrificed their romance, but she was still in the midst of dangerous people who were conspiring to steal her family home.

  If he could correct that, he’d leave her in peace. If not, he’d leave her in shame. She’d never have him the way she would have before; everything had changed for the worse, nothing would ever be the same.

  “I mentioned it to Sam.”

  “Your accountant? The asshole who kicked me out of your house.”

  “Yes, he’s the business manager for the lodge. We were taking a meeting, and he’s been pressuring me to sell.”

  “Oh, has he?”

  She nodded. Her anger had ebbed, and a new perspective seemed to wash over her, bringing her one step closer to not hating him so much.

  “Anyway,” Lauren went on, “we were brainstorming, the same way you and I were when you mentioned it to me.”

  “Exactly, we were brainstorming, that’s all. Perfectly innocent.”

  Lauren nodded.

  He wanted her to believe him. He went on, “He must have gone back to my father with that information. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “What does?”

  “Think about what Sam said. It’s not that he didn’t know about the letter when he brought it to us. He said it had only been sent to him that day, not that he didn’t know it was coming for years. I don’t know, but the way he said it made it sound like he knew about it too.” As Max thought it through, pieces fell into place. “In fact, I would guess Sam has been on my father’s payroll for a long time, a man placed inside the enemy camp. How better to make sure the debt never got paid? How better to make sure he’d wind up with that lodge, and everything the Matthews family ever had?”

  He had to get Lauren to refocus on a new set of facts, a new set of questions to be answered, and challenges to be dealt with. She had to reconsider everything and everyone she knew.

  “Sam,” she said as if thinking it through. “Was he in your father’s pocket all those years, reporting back to him? There were hundreds of dollars that seemed to disappear, just enough to keep that loan from being paid.”

  It made sense; it made too much sense.

  “Something else,” she said, her voice quivering with uncertainty. “Sam asked me if I was interested in him, personally.”

  “You mean romantically?”

  She nodded.

  Anger rose in him like an inferno. “And he was coming against you the whole time! That’s what you thought I was doing. My God, I’m lucky you’re talking to me at all.”

  She said nothing, leaving a cooling chill in the surrounding silence.

  “The real question is, what do we do about it? What can we do about it? I’m not letting my father take your lodge, I can promise you that.”

  “That’s sweet, but like you said, what can anybody do? With the weather and the animals, maybe it is time to pack it in.”

  “No, that’s not the solution.”

  “At least you could still have a family; only seems fair that one of us should come out of this not alone.”

  Max took her hands. “No, he’s no family to me, not anymore. And you never have to be alone, not if you don’t want to be, not as long as I’m around.” He shook his head. “There has to be a way out of it. Obviously, Sam won’t be any help.”

  “Could he be? Could we get him to turn on your father?”

  “I doubt that my father would make himself vulnerable to that. He’d use a man like Sam but wouldn’t let himself be used by him. If he was our accountant, maybe, but my father’s smarter than that.”

  Lauren sat, looking exhausted by the stress. “I suppose we could go see a lawyer,” she said. “Maybe there’s one in Moss Creek your father hasn’t corrupted yet.”

  It was a good thought; it was promising, and it spoke to Lauren’s indomitable spirit, one of the things about her that excited and attracted him most. But the thing that really stood out to him was when she said, "we." Maybe her including him in her plans, meant she had reconsidered his innocence and was going to give him another chance at the happiness he was certain had escaped him.

  If given this opportunity, he wasn't about to let her down, not again.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Lauren

  It had been as they had feared. Max’s father had reached out to every lawyer in Moss Creek, rendering them unable to represent anybody else in the matter of the fate of the lodge.

  Lauren’s heart sank, but Max pushed forward. There was a resolve in his eyes that she found not only inspirational but necessary. It didn’t seem to have the same effect on portly Mayor Shipley.

  He looked over a copy of the letter of agreement between Frank and Eaton, shaking his head and sending his jowls into a gelatinous jiggle. “It’s quite an arrangement, I’ve seen nothing like it.”

  “We don’t think it’s on the level,” Max said. “We think he put the accountant in as a plant, and that Sam was embezzling money to keep their profits low, making it impossible to pay back the debt. That means the agreement wasn’t in good faith, and it could be challenged on that basis, couldn’t it?”

  Mayor Shipley shook his head and looked at his deputy, Carl Roberts, who sat in a chair next to the desk. “I’m not a lawyer,” Mayor Shipley said.

  “But I am,” Deputy Mayor Roberts said, seeming to attract the ire of his boss. “There could be a way to challenge the contract in court, yes, but you’d need a full copy of the lodge’s bank records, you’d need the books and the tax return filings. The buyout could be forestalled, but you’d have to keep up your mortgage payments in the meantime, and that could be years. Do you think you can manage that, realistically?”

  Lauren glanced at Max, but she could see in his expression that he didn’t hold out much hope. He said to the mayor, “If we can prove this man was working for my father to doctor those books and embezzle the money, that would be a felony, and I can hold that over my father’s head.”

  “Unless you’re worried about being an accomplice,” Mayor Shipley said. “Though I shouldn’t get involved with this any further. It’s an election year and important to avoid scandal.”

  “I can prove that I’m not an accomplice,” Max said, turning to Lauren, who nodded in agreement. Hot doubt festered in her belly, making her skin prickle with a million invisible needles.

  “Going after your father would destroy more than your company.”

  “It’s not my company,” Max said, “I don’t want any part of that blood money. I’d pay the debt off now if I could, but I’m not entitled to any of the holdings until I turn thirty-five.”

  “He’s got you by the short curlies,” the deputy said. “I don’t see how you can fight this.”

  “If I have to expose my father for the ruthless bastard that he is or threaten to do it to get him to back off and leave the lodge alone, then that’s what I will do.”

  “He’ll hogtie you legally,”
Roberts said with a sad shake of his head. “I’m not saying that because I don’t want to see you succeed. Even though you might be right, the red tape will strangle you both.” After a long, sad silence, the mayor glanced approvingly at his deputy, Roberts could only shrug and add, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Max said in a voice that only stirred and stoked Lauren’s nervousness. “Are you sorry? Or are you in my father’s pocket too?”

  The mayor and his underling exchanged glances, and Lauren knew there was something to what Max said, though she could only guess at anything beyond that.

  Max went on, “I know how my father operates, I know you’ll both be beyond implication. But don’t talk to me as if I hadn’t been raised at the man’s knee. I know how he uses others to his benefit while allowing them to think they're making their own choices. His way is over, gentlemen, his time is passed. Whatever you may think now, however much power he may wield, his way isn’t the future, and you both know that. It’s not the future of Moss Creek. If you’re willing to be influenced by him now, just keep in mind that I’ll be the one controlling the influence later; me and the other voters of Moss Creek.”

  Mayor Shipley said, “I appreciate that you’re upset young man, and I sympathize, but there is little I can do to mediate in such a matter. I urge you to get a qualified lawyer.” With a glance at his deputy, Mayor Shipley went on, “If you really think that’s a prudent course of action. I wish you the best of luck in any case.”

  Lauren wrapped her hands around Max’s calming him. She could feel the passion of his position pulsing in his veins. He maintained his composure and seemed to allow Lauren to lead him out of the office and down to the car with minimal ill will.

  “I can see why my father played things a certain way,” Max said, shaking his head.

  Lauren rubbed his back to calm him.

  “If others won’t play fair, and you come up to a stone wall, how better to deal with it than just to plow right through it?”