by Liz Isaacson
She reached for the doorknob, and the door closed between them. Relief covered the tense situation, and Annie breathed out harshly. She wound up the cord on the vacuum and reached for the trash bag. It could wait in the closet, just like there would be time to do the laundry tomorrow.
With everything put away, Annie unlocked her room and went inside. Her daughters hadn’t come downstairs yet, and Annie sighed again as she sank into the armchair in the room. Room four was bigger than room three, and Annie realized as she looked at the two queen beds that she couldn’t have traded with Colton. Emily and Eden were staying here with her.
Annie changed into her pajamas and went to the door, opening it and peering out before making the move to the bathroom next door. The four rooms down here shared this bathroom, and the one around the corner, and Annie figured she’d run into Colton again sooner or later.
Back in the room and ready for bed, Annie climbed under the covers just as her phone chimed. She picked it up and saw Graham had sent a link to the group string. Everyone at the lodge for the next couple of weeks was in the group text, and Annie knew where the link would go before she tapped on it.
The holiday schedule.
Excitement built within her, because she did love the Christmas holidays at Whiskey Mountain Lodge. They’d have baking competitions, meals together, game night, movies throughout the afternoons and evenings, fancy brunches, snowshoeing, horseback riding, cross-country skiing, arts & crafts, among other things.
Bree tried to add something new to the schedule every year, and since this was only the third year, Annie expected big things. She tapped, but before the website opened, the door did too, and Emily and Eden spilled into the room, both of them laughing.
“Oh, sorry, Mom,” Emily said when she turned and saw Annie sitting in bed, the pillows all propped up behind her. “Tired?”
Annie put a smile on her face, because she loved her daughters deeply. “Yeah,” she said. “A lot of cleaning in a short amount of time.”
Emily came over and hugged Annie, who patted her back. “Thanks for coming up,” Annie said.
“Yeah,” Emily said, smiling warmly when she pulled back.
“What’s Kelly doing the next couple of days?”
“Oh, he’s working right up until three o’clock on Christmas Eve,” Em said. “He said he’d be up by dinner and the tree lighting though.”
“Sounds good.” Annie looked at her phone again, and the list of activities stretched before her. She’d forgotten about hunting down the perfect Christmas tree, the signups for decorating, the kid’s class for ornament construction, and the children’s caroling. Of course. Who wouldn’t want all the Whittaker grandchildren to knock on the door and sing a rousing rendition of Frosty the Snowman?
Annie smiled just thinking about it.
“I’m going to go shower,” Eden said, taking out her toiletry bag. She disliked talk about Emily’s boyfriend, and it had taken Annie six months to figure out why. She’d finally taken Eden to dinner at Devil’s Tower and said, “I need you to tell me what’s going on with you and Em.”
Jealousy, that was what. Eden had cried and cried while they ate their towers of onion rings and stacks of salad. Annie’s heart had gone out to her in every way, and she’d moved from across the booth to sit beside her daughter and console her.
Emily was the pretty one, Eden had said. The one who got all the boys in high school and gets them all now that she’d returned to Coral Canyon from college. She’d earned a business and bookkeeping degree, and she ran all the paperwork and money in the cleaning business Annie had founded fifteen years ago. She’d done it for something to do after Eden had started kindergarten, but she’d been relying on the income from Swept Away for a solid decade since her husband had died.
All at once, she knew why she was nervous around Colton. She pushed against the feelings building within her. She’d felt utterly abandoned when Ryan had died, though his death had been an accident.
She hadn’t wanted Ryan to fly that day, though. She’d begged him not to go.
She would not do the same again, especially not for a man she’d just met. And he wasn’t planning on staying for any significant amount of time in Coral Canyon—and she wouldn’t be begging him to stay.
“Eden, wait,” Annie said, coming back to the moment. “There’s a guy next door.” She swallowed, the word “guy” coming out of her mouth oddly. “That man—cowboy—who showed up right before we ate? Patsy put him in four.”
“Okay,” Eden said, and then she ducked out of the door, leaving Emily and Annie alone.
Emily changed into her pajamas too, pulling her long, blonde hair out of its ponytail and letting it flow down her back. “I told Eden to sign up for an app to meet someone.”
“You did?” After Annie had learned why Eden practically ran from the room every time Em mentioned a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, or even “some guy I went to coffee with once,” she’d kept it to herself.
Only when the girls had come to one of the worst arguments of their lives, had Eden looked at Annie with tears streaming down her face and said, “Tell her.”
So Annie had told Emily how her sister felt, always being in the shadows. Always being overlooked. Always needing to shop in the plus section while Emily could practically still wear things from the junior department.
“And what did she say?” Annie asked. It had been six months since everything had come out, and while the tension still ramped up from time to time, at least they’d been able to deal with it instead of letting it fester, grow, and then explode.
“She said she’s going to look into it.” Emily peeled back the comforter and went around the bed, untucking the sheets that Annie had worked so hard to put in. She grinned at Annie. “But I’m on that app, and she signed up months ago.”
“What else can you see?” Annie asked as Emily tilted her phone toward her. Maybe a tiny part of her wanted to know the name of the app too.
She already knew Eden had signed up for the dating app, even if she didn’t know the name of it. In the last few weeks, she’d been talking to a guy named Mitchell, too, and she’d sworn Annie to secrecy.
“I can’t see anything,” Emily said, and Annie relaxed a little. “Just her profile, and that she’s single. I can see when she’s active.” She peered closer at her phone. “And she’s active right now.”
“She just wants to find someone,” Annie said, trying to play things off as casual. “We need to be gentle with her.”
“I am being gentle with her,” Emily said, but Annie knew Em simply didn’t get it. She hadn’t ever been passed over for her sister or her best friend. It wasn’t her fault; she couldn’t understand.
Emily tucked her legs underneath her and faced Annie, and the sleep Annie wanted started to fade. She loved talking to her daughters, though, and she’d given up plenty of hours of sleep to stay up late and bond with Emily and Eden.
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me—what?” Annie searched her oldest daughter’s face.
She held up her phone, a twinkle in her eye that Annie did not like. Not one little bit. “You should join the dating app.”
“Oh, no.” Annie scoffed, though she’d literally just thought of doing so twenty minutes ago. “There’s not going to be men my age on that thing.” She shook her head and left her phone lying in her lap. “And I’m not looking for someone the same age as my daughter.” She cocked her eyebrows at Emily.
“But you are looking.” Emily tried to bite back her smile, but she couldn’t, and it spread across her whole face.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Annie leaned back against her pillows and looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe? I don’t know.” She’d loved Ryan so much, but she didn’t want to be alone in her later years. Now that she was closer to fifty than forty, maybe she should get more serious about finding someone to sail into her silver years with.
Silver….
Annie closed her eyes as Emily
started talking. “Here’s a guy who’s forty-two, Mom. That’s not too young for you.”
“I should hope not,” Annie said. “That’s only four years.”
“This guy is fifty.”
“I don’t want a ‘guy,’” Annie said. “I want a man.”
“Fine,” Emily said, the bed creaking as she got off of it. “Look. This man is fifty. And he’s cute.”
Annie opened her eyes and took her daughter’s phone. The man’s picture filling the top half of the screen smiled back at her with crinkled, blue eyes, straight teeth, and plenty of charisma.
“That’s Will Mayers,” she said. “He cheated on his wife, who left eight months ago to live with their daughter in Butte.” She rolled her eyes and handed the phone back to Emily. She had caught the name of the dating app, though, and she would consider joining.
She’d pray about it, if Emily would ever stop talking. But she prattled on about another man, and how Annie couldn’t expect that every man would cheat just because he had once.
She closed her eyes again, aware when Eden came back into the room, because Emily braided her hair, and the conversation switched to the schedule of activities at the lodge.
Annie conjured up the picture of her husband. Ryan had been a man’s man, with big, broad shoulders, dark, sexy hair, and the ability to grow a beard in twelve hours or less. He’d flown a helicopter for twelve years, taking tourists up into the most remote parts of the Grand Teton Mountains. In the winter, when he couldn’t fly as often, he worked as a backcountry guide, taking people up to spots of snow that had never been touched by humans before.
He’d loved Annie with his whole heart, and she’d been gloriously fulfilled and happy with him too. He’d always listened to her before, when she said she had a hunch he shouldn’t do something, or that the girls shouldn’t go to whichever neighbor’s house.
But for some reason, the day she’d asked him not to take the tour to the top of Mount Moran, he’d gone anyway.
He hadn’t come home.
Annie drew in a deep breath and started a prayer in her mind. Help me, Lord, to be where I need to be, so I can meet who I need to meet. I would like to…meet a new man. Someone who will love and cherish me, and someone who I can love and cherish too.
Practical. Direct. Annie didn’t need to tell God everything she felt; she believed He already knew. He knew even the knotted bits, the parts Annie didn’t understand herself. And He’d always provided a way for Annie to take care of herself and the girls. She didn’t need another client, or a way to pay the bills.
She needed someone to start taking care of her heart.
What about Colton Hammond?
The thought ran through her head, and she couldn’t help wondering if the Lord had put it there, or if she just had the handsome cowboy on her mind.
Chapter Four
When Colton woke the next morning, the tip of his nose felt ice cold. He shivered as he rolled over and pulled the blanket up to cover his face. Being in the basement, the only window in the room sat above the desk, and it was still dark.
He’d been surprised at how sound-proof the room was, and after he’d changed into his pajamas and gone to bed, he hadn’t heard anything. No one coming down the stairs. Nothing from next door or across the hall. No footsteps above him.
The little of his face exposed to the air felt the winter’s chill, and he knew something was wrong. The furnace had gone out in the lodge, or maybe Mother Nature had blown such a huge storm into the lodge that he was the only one left, the ceiling above him the only thin layer protecting him from the icy air outside.
He always had enjoyed an active imagination, and he told himself to calm down and go back to sleep. He wasn’t the only person left in the lodge, the only room untouched by gale-force winds that had carried everyone into the surrounding forests.
His need to use the bathroom prevented him from falling asleep again, and he finally got up, the cold now a tangible being he could not ignore. Something had gone terribly wrong in the lodge.
The blackness around him was absolute, and when he reached for his phone, he found it only had fifteen percent battery life left, despite him plugging it in the night before.
“Power’s out,” he murmured to himself. “That would explain why the furnace isn’t working.” Or the pilot light had gone out, or the furnace simply couldn’t keep up with a lodge of this size. Anything was possible, and his imagination started running again.
He cracked his door and listened. No one seemed to be up and about. If possible, the air in the hallway was even colder than in Colton’s room, and he hurried into the bathroom. After locking the door and taking care of his business, he went back into the basement room. He had no idea where anyone was, besides Annie, and he cast a look at room four, the door of which stood just a few feet away.
An eerie sensation swept over his skin, and he scanned the huge basement room again. He could hear nothing, sense nothing. But he knew he couldn’t just go back to bed. If the furnace was out, someone needed to start investigating why, and he’d seen the giant fireplace upstairs. They wouldn’t freeze to death—up there.
Colton shivered as he stepped over to Annie’s door. He knocked, his fist against the wood sounding like a gunshot in the relative quiet of the lodge. “Annie,” he hissed. He leaned as close to the door as he dared without touching it, and he heard nothing.
He knocked again, a little louder this time. “Annie, it’s Colton. There’s—” He cut off when the door opened, and a woman stood there that was not Annie. She lifted her phone and shone the flashlight in his face.
He held up one hand, instantly annoyed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought Annie was in this room.”
“And you came to see her?”
“It’s freezing,” he said. She had to feel it. “I don’t know where anything or anyone is. I figured Annie was the best bet to make sure we don’t all freeze in our beds.”
The woman lowered the light, but all Colton could see now was blackness beyond her. Every time he blinked, he had a large, white spot in his vision.
“Mom, this guy needs you.”
Mom rang through Colton’s mind. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Annie was forty-six-years-old, and she’d obviously been married before. His curiosity piqued, and he couldn’t believe it. He told himself he wasn’t interested in knowing who the guy was, or why Annie was no longer with him.
None of your business, he told himself, mentally folding his arms. That was that. He just needed Annie to help him get this place heated again.
Another shiver racked his shoulders just as Annie appeared, hugging herself. “You’re right. It’s freezing down here.”
“Is it a basement issue?” he asked. “Or is this abnormal?”
“It’s abnormal.” Annie reached out and pressed the light switch on her wall. The light stayed stubbornly off. “There’s no power.”
“There’s a fireplace upstairs. Should we go build a fire?”
“Yes,” she said. “And there’s one down here too. But there’s nothing on the second floor.”
“Heat rises,” Colton said. “If you’ll show me where things are, I can get started.” He thought about waking the others, bringing them all out into the common areas of the lodge so they’d be warm enough.
But they needed to get the fires going first.
“Let me get my phone so I can see,” she said. “And we’ll need to call Patsy and Bree and find out if their cabins have power. If they don’t, they’ll be much colder than we are.” She ducked back into the darkness, and Colton waited in the hall.
Another shiver prompted him to go grab his coat out of his room, which he did, rejoining Annie in the hallway a moment later. She too wore a coat, and she had her flashlight shining toward the ground.
“The wood is all upstairs,” she said, leading the way.
Colton followed her up, where the air was slightly warmer on the main level. But not much. She took him past the ki
tchen and down a hall that led to a back door. On the left sat a laundry room, and past that, a tiny room held firewood.
He loaded up as much as he could carry, and she lit the way for him to take it into the living room. They made three trips before Annie went into the kitchen and started rummaging through drawers, muttering to herself.
Colton thought of what she’d said while vacuuming. Maybe you can join one of those dating websites once the New Year starts.
For some reason, he’d thought that whichever dating site she joined, he’d join too. Which was absolutely ridiculous.
He wasn’t dating right now. “Ever again,” he muttered to himself as he knelt in front of the fireplace and started stacking the wood. He’d been a Boy Scout as a teen, but a lot of years had passed since then. Many of those had been spent in a lab, an office, or a conference room, not out under the starry sky, a campfire lazily flickering in front of him.
In that moment, he wanted the lazy campfire. The starry sky. The easy, laid-back life of a cowboy. He had plenty of money. Why couldn’t he become a full-time cowboy? Wear the hat all the time, and go horseback riding, and maybe work on the family farm in Ivory Peaks.
There would be no press out there. No one to care who he’d been dating and for how long. No one to answer to.
Even as he thought that, he knew it would never be, especially at the family farm in Ivory Peaks. There, he’d had to answer to his mother, and his father, and his grandmother.
“Matches,” Annie said, finally coming back into the room.
“Thanks.” Colton took them from her, his hands almost numb. His fingers stuttered, and he dropped the book of matches she held. They both reached for it at the same time, and the next thing Colton knew, his hand and Annie’s hand were pressed together, the book of matches pinned between their palms.