When the storm died down just before dawn and the glow of yellow sunlight reflected on snow began to light the backs of my heavy drapes, turning them from a dark charcoal to a gauzy grey, I slid out of bed and pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. In the kitchen, I turned on the television and invited Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood in to make breakfast with me, and for once I honestly enjoyed everything about my own kitchen. I’d designed it exactly as I wanted it, everything in the right place, and as I made crepes with berries and bacon, I didn’t think about anything in particular. Instead, the voices from the show filled the room like old friends, and I drank coffee and moved around on instinct, my head quiet for once. The scar I carried inside felt oddly still and strong as well, not angry and red like usual. I took only a second to consider what that could mean. About Rebecca. About the promise I made to her. About my capacity to maybe love again.
I didn’t know if what I felt for Mike and Finn was love, and I wasn’t going to ruin everything by thinking too much about it. I knew I cared. More than maybe I should. I knew I was invested.
And I wanted that to be enough.
“Mom?” A small voice filtered down from the lofted hallway above, where Finn had just stepped out of the guest room.
I muted the television and stepped out from the overhang of the kitchen and into the soaring great room so Finn could see me. “Hi buddy,” I said, not too loud, so I didn’t wake Mike.
“Where’s my mom?”
A second of panic flitted through me. Do I send him into my room? What would he understand about that? Do I lie to him? Go in for distraction? I settled on the last. “She’s still sleeping, buddy. Will you come help me make her breakfast?”
His little face was rosy with sleep and he looked undecided, but then nodded. He disappeared back into the guest room and then plodded down the stairs in his socks and pajamas, carrying his Batman cape. “Can you tie this for me?”
I put his cape in place, and then he ran to the big windows where at least two feet of snow piled on the deck.
“Holy snow,” he cried, his little voice echoing through the big room. “I’m going outside!”
“Hang on, buddy,” I said, joining him at the window. “Let’s let the sun finish coming up so it warms up a bit out there, okay? Then I promise we can go out and build a snowman, okay?”
His face fell for a split second, but then he smiled up at me. “Okay, but I want to have a snowball fight, too.”
“Of course,” I said solemnly. We went back to the kitchen and I got him a chair to stand on next to the stove. “Have you made crepes before?”
He scrunched his nose in confusion and shook his head. “I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a super thin pancake,” I explained. “And you roll it around in the pan to cook it, and then fill it with all kinds of yummy things. Watch.” I poured out a crepe and showed him how to coat the pan, and how to turn it. Finn did not look eager to try.
I scooted his chair to the counter instead, rethinking the wisdom of eight-year olds and hot pans. “How about if you stuff these with cheese and ham?” I showed him how to fill and fold the crepes, and though his weren’t quite tidy, they worked just fine. “Nice work,” I told him when he’d finished.
We made two more kinds of crepes, and by the third batch, Mike had joined us at the counter, sipping coffee and meeting my eyes over Finn’s head. Her expression was warm, and the glow in her dark eyes put my fears to rest.
That morning could have been awkward. It could have illustrated that every fear each of us had about getting involved beyond the professional relationship was a mistake, that going on instinct was unwise and dangerous. Instead, it all just felt right. The atmosphere inside my house was warm and full of happiness and laughter. We ate breakfast, and Finn and I put on coats and boots and stomped around on the big wide deck, building snowmen and throwing snowballs at each other. Finn made a snow angel in a patch of pristine snow under the eaves, and I helped him up so the angel was perfect, its little wings and skirt unmarred by any struggle to step out. I wished it would stay there forever, a charming frozen reminder of a perfect night, a perfect morning.
But nothing perfect lasts. If my life had taught me anything, that was it.
Sam and Miranda arrived just after the snowball fight concluded, when Finn was snuggled in a blanket in front of the fire with hot cocoa and I mopped my hair with a towel. Mike popped open her laptop on the table, and was checking email and drinking coffee.
“Hey, Chance, I—“ Sam froze mid-sentence as he burst into my living room, taking in the scene. “Oh, hey guys,” he said, his eyes sliding to mine and dancing with a mix of confusion and glee. I could tell there were thousands of comments he wanted to make about finding Mike at my house in the morning, but he managed to stuff them all down without the help of my fist, which was good.
“Hi!” Miranda might have been surprised too, but she covered much better. “I guess this answers our first question. We weren’t sure if the power came back on at the Inn, and wanted to check that Mike and Finn were all right. We came to see if you’d heard from them.”
“I have,” I said.
“We’re great,” Mike said.
“We played in the snow,” Finn added, cheeks glowing bright red from his spot by the fire.
“Okay then,” Sam said, pouring himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen and then taking a seat at the table.
“Any word on plows?” I asked. I hadn’t heard the big machines make the village loop yet. They usually cleared out the residential village last, and then only as an act of goodwill. The contract with the plow company only covered the main part of town, and we were usually lowest on their list as they cleared bigger towns farther down the mountain first. Even the highway sometimes didn’t get cleared the first day after snow, though we’d pushed hard to change that. Snow hadn’t been a factor for a lot of years—thanks to the drought. It would be interesting to see if the service team was rusty. It was work Palmer could have done if we had the equipment, but the town council wanted to keep the maintenance services diverse so it didn’t seem like Palmer had a monopoly, which we kind of did.
“Roads out here won’t be cleared for hours,” Sam said.
Miranda took a seat at the table, her nose lifted as she looked around. “What’d you make, Chance? It smells fantastic.”
“Craps,” Finn supplied.
“Figures,” Sam said, laughing. “I always told him his cooking was crap.”
“Crepes,” I amended, raising an eyebrow at my brother as I leaned against the counter. Even Sam couldn’t penetrate the shield of happiness I wore today. I felt impervious to everything except the happy glow that filled me every time I looked at Finn or Mike. “There are leftovers,” I told Miranda. “Help yourself.”
As Miranda did just that, a phone chimed in the distance, the tinny sound floating down from upstairs. Mike sprang to her feet. “Oh, that’s me.” She climbed the stairs quickly, and I couldn’t help the way my eyes tracked her body—she was graceful and fit, and I could still feel the slide of her soft skin beneath my hands. My heart gave an involuntary leap as she disappeared into my bedroom.
Sam watched her too, and when she’d disappeared, he smirked at me. “Good night?”
“Shut it,” I snapped.
Mike didn’t reappear for a few minutes, but when she did, I knew everything had changed. I could feel it in the cool breeze that followed her down the stairs, the way she bent down and told Finn to go get his things together. Her face was grim and she closed her laptop screen and made a little pile of her phone and computer on the table before turning to me, the dark eyes shuttered. “We need to go,” she said.
Miranda and Sam exchanged a look.
I took Mike’s elbow and guided her to the far corner of the room, my voice low. “Is everything okay?”
Her lip trembled for a minute, but then she regained herself. “We need to get back down. If we can get out of the village, are the roads clear?�
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I glanced out the window. There were several feet of snow out there. Even my truck wouldn’t do well in those drifts. Why the urgency? Why did her face suddenly look so bereft, so afraid? “We need to wait for the plows. I can get you to the village, but your car won’t be able to handle this much snow if they haven’t gotten the highway clear. You don’t have chains, do you?”
Mike shook her head, her eyes shining.
“I think it’ll be tomorrow before we can get you back down the hill,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest. Something was very wrong. “What’s going on?”
She bit her lip, the dark eyes scanning my face and then dropping. The connection we’d had felt severed. I shivered. Her voice was neutral, cool. “I shouldn’t have planned more than a day away anyway. Finn’s missing school, I—” she trailed off, and I sensed she was scrambling for excuses. “It looks bad, you know? Me just taking him out of school. And now…”
“Now what, Mike? What’s going on?” I knew she was putting distance between us. I wasn’t going to make it easy.
“My lawyer says the judge won’t make a custody decision yet.”
“That’s good, right?”
She shook her head, the dark ponytail swinging behind her as her eyes widened and met mine. “She’s giving Jeff a trial custody. To see how joint custody would work. I have to take Finn to him tomorrow.” Her voice broke on the last word and her face crumpled.
I couldn’t help it. Despite the distance I felt growing between us, I pulled her into my arms, hoping I could force it away, that I could carry part of this for Mike. She pressed herself into my arms for a brief minute, her body melting into mine, but then she stiffened and pulled away. “I have to get down there, get ready.”
I dropped my arms and stepped back, feeling stung and rejected. The scar inside me simmered, an old familiar pain tingling to life. It was already too late. I’d already let Mike in. “We’ll do what we can. You can take my truck, okay?”
She met my eyes again, but the connection and the fire between felt smothered under the weight of Mike’s real life. “Thank you,” she whispered, and then her lip trembled. “I’m sorry, Chance. About this, all of this…” she gestured around us. And then she cut the cord, making it clear that whatever had happened between us wouldn’t be repeated. “I can’t do this. This isn’t my real life.”
“Right.” It wasn’t going to be mine either. My real life was this big house. Empty and alone. Best get back to it and work on accepting that.
Chapter 16
Michaela
We couldn’t get out of the village, let alone out of Kings Grove.
The beautiful soft snow that lay in drifts and piles everywhere, shining in the sun and glittering like starlight, felt like a smothering gauze now—a layer of fantasy draped over the ugliness of my real world.
As soon as I’d heard my lawyer’s words on the phone, the happiness and security I’d felt the previous night in Chance’s arms melted away. I should never have let myself get so absorbed in the first place, should never have allowed the fantasy of Chance Palmer and Kings Grove to overshadow my real life and distract me from the things I needed to focus on.
Chance tried to comfort me after the phone call—he’d pulled me into his strong arms, and for a minute I let myself melt, hoping I could share some of this with him. But that was the fantasy. The reality was that getting too close to Chance had probably already damaged my case for maintaining custody of my son. If Jeff shared that he saw Chance at our house in the morning, I couldn’t imagine the judge would understand or care. She would believe Jeff’s story—that I had men dropping through the house, sleeping over casually. That I was an irresponsible mother. That I deserved to lose Finn.
I gathered my things and helped Finn pull together his little bag, as Miranda and Sam said goodbye from downstairs. I waved to them over the railing that overlooked the big open great room, and did my best not to notice the slight slump in Chance’s posture as he looked up at me.
I didn’t have the capacity to worry about Chance on top of everything else, or maybe I just couldn’t bear to, so I told myself what I needed to hear to make it easier to go. This was a business relationship that had gone too far. We’d slipped and made a mistake, and it would be better for us both to take a step back. Involvement with Chance wasn’t good for Finn—getting too close to any man who might change his mind was bad for us both. In my mind, I knew there were a wealth of reasons why allowing myself into Chance’s bed was a mistake. My heart was harder to convince, but it would come around.
“Ready for an adventure?” Chance asked Finn as we piled into his huge red truck in the garage.
“Definitely!” Finn climbed up into the seat in the back of the extended cab, buckling in. I followed him, settling in the passenger seat, and struggling to keep myself strong. It was hard in the enclosed space with Chance looking so good, smelling so incredible. I could feel him reaching for me, his eyes searching my profile for a way back in. But I knew he’d realize soon enough it was better this way. The real world didn’t have room for wishful thinking and far-fetched romances in mountain towns. Chance was the fantasy. My real life needed my attention.
“We’ll see how this goes,” Chance said, his superhero certainty muted in the face of all the snow.
He eased the truck back into the area he’d cleared with the shovel and turned it around, then we began the trek around the edge of the property, down the sloped driveway past Sam’s house and back out to the village road, which hadn’t been plowed yet.
We reached the turn out to the little loop of the village road, and Chance coaxed the big truck forward, but as the engine roared, nothing happened.
“Crap,” Chance breathed, his voice low and dark. He gazed over at me, his face serious. “Hang on.” He threw the truck into reverse and gunned it again, but again there was no result. He slid out of the truck, leaving the motor running, and I glanced back at Finn, who was smiling at me uncertainly.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I said, feeling like nothing would ever be okay again.
“Can’t we stay?” He asked. “You said three days.”
“I forgot about some important things we need to do at home. You shouldn’t be missing school anyway.”
Finn made a disappointed sound as Chance pulled the door to the cabin open again, a rush of frigid air blowing his hair onto his forehead as he looked at me. “The tires are spinning,” he said. “Mike, the snow’s too deep, even for the truck. If the road was plowed, I could get it out, but we’re not getting out right now.”
I stared at him. A little part of me got irrationally excited, thought maybe we could just call down to the valley, tell them we were stuck and that we’d just have to stay up here. Forever. But real life wouldn’t wait, and I knew it. “Maybe a little later, when it warms up a bit?”
He looked around, and I realized how foolish it had been to try to force him to drive. The snow was piled in drifts all around us. Up here, this much snow would mute the realities of life for at least a couple of days. “Think they’ll get it plowed at some point today?”
“I can make a few calls and make sure it does. But we’re not getting out right now. At least not in the truck.” He studied my face. “I’m sorry, Mike.”
I blew out a breath, feeling powerless and desperate. In the distance, a drone like a chainsaw flared to life, shattering the silence around us.
“Might be able to get you to the village,” Chance said, pulling his phone from his pocket. He still stood in the open door of the big truck, the motor idling as he leaned his elbows on the high seat. He swiped a few times and then texted someone. After a minute, he nodded, clearly having received and answer. “Cam can take you to the village on his snowmobile.”
“Snowmobile?” Finn and I repeated the word at the same time, his voice far more enthusiastic than mine.
Chance grinned at my son, and I felt my heart threaten to melt again. “Like a motorcycle in the snow, dude. They’re a
wesome. But noisy.” He looked back at me and the warm smile dropped. He replaced it with the smile he’d given me when we’d first met—the charming playboy look, the salesman. “Sound okay, Mike? We can at least get you to the village, and from there you can see what this Inn would really be like in the snow. We could even grab some skis today if you’re here anyway, or go for a snowshoe through the grove.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going snowshoeing. I needed to talk to my lawyer. I needed to worry and think and figure out how to keep my son with me. “I think I better not. I’ve got numbers to run and we need to leave as soon as possible.”
He shrugged as the drone of the snowmobile grew louder. A man in a helmet pulled up in front of the truck on a machine that looked like a wave runner, except it had bulldozer-like treads on the bottom. Behind him was a smooth flat track pressed into the top of the snow. “Hey,” the man said, pulling off his helmet to reveal a dark goatee and short cropped black hair. “Someone need a ride?”
“Thanks Cam,” Chance said, reaching in to switch off the idling truck. “They need to get back to the Inn.”
Cam glanced at Finn and I, and smiled. “Sure thing. Gotta warn you though, town’s not plowed yet either. First big snow in a long time. Everything’s rusty.”
Chance ran a hand over the back of his neck and I pressed down the memory of my own hands around that tanned smooth skin. Fantasy, Mike. Focus on reality. “Yeah,” he answered. “I’m gonna make a few calls, see what I can do.”
“Should I come back and help you get this monster unstuck?” Cam asked him, indicating the truck.
“If you have time,” Chance said. “Sam’ll throw a fit if I leave it here, not that he can get out either.”
A few minutes later, Finn and I were on the back of Cam’s snowmobile, our bags tied to the back with bungees. Cam didn’t have extra helmets, so Finn wore his and I hoped for the best. As the machine screamed to life, I looked back at Chance and waved, feeling like a part of me was being ripped from my body as we moved away, back to the Inn, hopefully back to reality. I wondered vaguely if that piece of me tearing open was my heart.
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