Finding Me (Snowy Ridge: Love at Starlight, Book 3)

by Kris Jett

  “Well,” Wynn said, “Nick is way too young for Mom and besides, he’s like a minute away from getting engaged to that cute girl who works at Patterson’s Bakery.”

  “Amber? No way. They are way too young to get engaged. What have you heard?” Jessie grilled her.

  “Nothing. They’re just always hanging all over each other. I was only speculating.”

  “Like you and Bryce aren’t all over each other every chance you get,” Jessie said.

  Wynn fake-scowled at her sister. “We are not. We only just started dating.”

  Luci cocked an eyebrow at Wynn.

  Wynn smiled. “Okay, fine. We’re all over each other. But have you seen him? Can you blame me?” Bryce was one of Wynn’s college instructors. Both of them were divorced and had been through a lot in their personal lives. Wynn wasn’t looking for love when she met Bryce. She had actually put herself on a boyfriend timeout. And dating your college instructor wasn’t something the school would boast about in their brochures. But the two had a special connection and they wanted to see how it played out. “And we’re taking things slow. Not like you and Cade,” she said to Jessie. “When are you two getting married?”

  Jessie’s cheeks pinkened. “Stop, we’re talking about Mom here, remember?”

  Luci grinned at her sister. Jessie was so completely enamored with Cade and he with her. They were completely adorable together. It must be nice. Who wouldn’t want that?

  “You know,” Luci started, “I don’t think it’s the worst idea in the world if Mom dated. It would be nice for her to have someone to share things with, you know, other than us. Love is exciting, especially new love. It could rejuvenate her.”

  “Yeah. You might be right,” Jessie said, coming around.

  “The woman still has problems commenting on Facebook though. Should we really let her loose on Match.com?” Wynn asked.

  “I can help her find someone,” Luci offered. She did have the most free time of the three. “And don’t worry, no one we know from here.”

  “Or from town,” Jessie added. “Oh man, could you imagine if she dated Ed? You know, hardware store, Ed?”

  “Free hammers and nails…” Luci mused.

  “Or Danny,” Wynn countered.

  “Free movies at the Bijou would be nice,” Luci commented.

  “No, no, no,” Jessie said. “Look outside of town for sure.”

  “I’m only teasing,” Luci said. “Don’t worry, you two. I got this.”

  Luci had been in a weird place ever since she returned home. Coming back to Snowy Ridge had felt like she was admitting she had failed. And in a sense, she did. No job, no love, nowhere to live. All she had was her family and she hadn’t even treated them well. When she first came back home, she’d acted really over the top. She had wanted her sisters to think she was this big, chic New Yorker and everything in her life was perfect. She tried hard to prove that she was much more sophisticated and environmentally conscious than the rest of her family. She smiled to herself when she pictured Jessie’s face at Luci’s attempt to feng shui the pub. Luci had thought she was oh, so impressive at the time but the reality was the complete opposite. She still ate as healthily as she could and had stuck to her daily yoga practice, but she wasn’t jamming it down her sisters’ throats anymore. Things she thought were important in New York just weren't as important in Snowy Ridge. And in a way, it was a relief.

  Luci also found that her love life came to a dead stop when she arrived back home. And maybe that was for the best. She never was any good at it and some time alone could only help. New York City dating was worlds apart from Snowy Ridge, Wisconsin, dating. There, everything was so casual. No one was exclusive. If you saw the guy you were dating out with another girl the night after you had just been with him, you just had to be cool with it. Commitment didn’t exist. Luci hated New York dating. She put up with it for years, but it wasn’t her; not really.

  Luci didn’t know what would come next for her, what her path was. But she knew that she wanted to be a better person. She had to make a lot of amends with people, especially her sisters, and it was going to take time to do it. Each box she checked made her feel more like whoever it was she was supposed to be. This project, a little mother matchmaking, might not just be good for her mom, but also good for her.

  Chapter Four

  Evan hastily pulled at the saran wrap clinging to the tray of tiny sub sandwiches and then pushed it toward the rest of the food he’d set out on the large granite countertop of the four-bedroom brick ranch house. He gave the spread another look over and then walked over to the coffeemaker and flicked it on. He detested doing open houses but Bets insisted on them. She said the bigger real estate offices didn’t do them hardly at all anymore but that was what made them cold and impersonal and what made her business intimate and trustworthy. She may have been right about that, Evan couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t think they were necessary. They certainly never sold houses as far as he’d seen. He’d handled over a dozen of these open houses since he’d started working with Bets and the people who came were just nosey and hungry. There was one couple he’d seen at four different open houses now. He bet it was their idea of a cheap date night.

  Evan supposed that his mood wasn’t helping things any. He had been in a weird funk all day and hadn’t been able to shake it. Really, ever since he’d run into Luci Foster at MoonBeans the afternoon before. He couldn’t get past how blankly she’d stared at him. Or how aqua blue her eyes were. Then again, he’d never looked so intently at her before either. At their first meeting, he was nervous and pumped full of adrenaline, rehearsing his pitch over and over again in his head. He was briefly thrown off his game when she had begun hitting on him in front of her sisters and the patrons in the pub. And then he was riddled with disappointment as he realized it had all been a big mistake and he wasn’t going to get his first big solo contract. He was so angry afterward, that he left immediately and never thought of her or that pub again. Not until the day he saw her sitting in MoonBeans.

  He was mad at himself for how he had left things yesterday. Why hadn’t he called her out right then and there? He didn’t have to be mean or anything. He could have made a joke out of it, like, ‘didn’t I try to sell a pub for you once?’ But he had never exactly been quick on his feet. He didn’t say a word; just stood there like a big idiot. The entire run-in was only thirty seconds of his entire day yesterday but he’d replayed it in his mind a hundred times at least.

  Evan knew it was stupid, ridiculous even, but he found himself intrigued by Luci Foster. It made no logical sense to him but what else could he call it? He’d spent a good portion of the evening last night googling her. She had said she was a writer and he wondered what she had written. Was she published? Was she a journalist for an online magazine or did she write for a television show? Though, if it were the latter, he figured she would be in Los Angeles or New York instead of here in Snowy Ridge. Evan minored in English Literature and was an avid reader. He’d always admired writers and even found himself minorly star struck on the odd occasion when he would attend a bookstore reading back in his college days.

  His Google searches on Luci weren’t very fruitful, however. He couldn’t find anything that she had written online. He found a few recent New York addresses for her so he guessed that was where she’d just moved back from. Maybe she was a novelist under a pen name. A famous pen name. She could have a slew of New York Times Bestsellers under her belt and just be an ultra-private person who didn’t like the limelight. Or, maybe she wrote jingles for laundry detergent. He just didn’t know and it was driving him crazy.

  Evan did find Luci’s Facebook page. She had it locked down as private so he couldn’t see any of her posts; only her friends could. And last night he sat with his mouse hovering over the “Add Friend” button for longer than he cared to admit, but he didn’t click it. He knew it would be weird. She didn’t even know who he was twenty-four hours ago, so she said. All he could see was he
r profile and banner picture. For her banner, she had a picture of a lonely park bench, probably in a New York City park he guessed, at night, lit up only from a nearby street light. And her profile picture was her, sitting in what looked like a coffee shop, behind her laptop, staring at her screen with a pensive look on her face. She had one hand pushed up into her long blonde hair and the other hovering over her keyboard. She was likely writing, he guessed, and he wondered who took the picture.

  The doorbell rang and Evan crossed the room in only a few steps and flung open the door. “Hi,” he started and then caught his breath. His mind was so stuck on Luci that he briefly thought it would be her at the door. Which was completely ridiculous. There would be no reason at all for her to be at an open house. This open house. He cursed himself silently for being so stupid and then fixed a smile on his face. “Welcome,” he said in the cheeriest voice he could muster. He stepped aside and let the young family of four, a man, woman, toddler, and newborn, in to check out the house.

  Evan locked up the house and packed the leftover food into the trunk of his car. The open house had gone well. They had a good flow of people in and out all night. A few expressed interest and took his card but he didn’t have great expectations that any of them would actually call. He’d been doing this long enough not to get excited by every tiny perk of interest at this point. Ninety percent of the time it was just polite talk.

  Evan started up his car and pulled out into the road. He wasn’t sure where he was headed exactly but he wasn’t quite ready to go home. He thought about stopping in at Starlight for a beer but quickly dismissed the thought. It reeked of desperation. Starlight wasn’t a regular haunt for him so suddenly showing up alone looked like he was up to something. He wished he had some actual friends in this town that he could call up and meet for a drink. Maybe he’d head home and give Steve, his best friend from childhood, a ring. Though Steve wasn’t likely to sit on the phone, shooting the breeze with him. He was married now and had a newborn. His free-time was spent sleeping.

  Evan drove slowly through downtown Snowy Ridge on the way back to Aunt Bets’s house. She never cooked on days he had an open house because there were always so many leftovers so they would just have those for dinner. He slowed down his car as he approached Starlight and glanced into the windows. He wondered if Luci was inside right now, working a shift. Or maybe she was at home with her family cooking dinner, or even writing. Or, she could be stepping out of a warm shower and excitedly picking through her closet looking for the perfect outfit to wear on a date that night with an interesting man she’d just met. Evan really hoped it wasn’t the last one. He pushed down hard on the gas pedal and headed for home.

  Chapter Five

  Jessie stood at the pickup counter, drumming her fingers impatiently.

  “Thirty seconds, Jess,” Ralph called from the grill as he laid slices of cheese across the burgers.

  “Sorry, Ralph. Not trying to rush you. Just feeling antsy I guess.”

  Luci stepped up next to her sister and ripped the order off of her note pad and placed it on the counter. “Last customer.”

  “Thank, God,” Jessie said.

  “Long night, huh?”

  Jessie sighed. “Yeah, I guess. I’m just ready to close up and get out of here. I hope these people eat fast.”

  “Take off. Wynn and I can close.”

  Wynn was in the office, checking in with Melody’s babysitter and freshening up before her boyfriend arrived.

  “Nah,” Jessie said. “It wouldn’t be fair. Wynn has a date after work too. I’m sure she wants to get out of here just as badly as me.”

  Luci surveyed the dining room. Several tables were eating now, two were waiting for their checks, and another two waiting for food. They should be out of here in thirty, maybe forty minutes. “Hey, is that Cade’s oldest brother over there by the window with that group of guys?”

  Jessie turned around and scanned the crowd and then smiled. “Yeah, that’s Cooper. Cade said he was trying to get out more. Thinks he’s becoming some sort of recluse.”

  “Who’s he with?”

  “Beats me. Doesn’t look like he’s having that great of a time, huh? Maybe I’ll send them over some free drinks.”

  “I’ll take them to them. Let me cheer him up,” Luci said. “What are they drinking?”

  Jessie gave Luci a curious look. “Just the Heineken on tap. Why do you want to cheer Cooper up?”

  Luci shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Uh-huh.” Jessie crossed her arms over her chest and cocked one eyebrow.

  Luci knew what her sister was thinking. That she was interested in Cooper but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Well, okay she was interested in him but not in the way Jessie was thinking. And she wasn’t about to explain it to her. Cooper was so interesting. Smart, sexy, older, mysterious, and he had that air to him like he’d been around the block a bit. Luci wasn’t sure how around he’d been but she’d heard Jessie mention once that he was divorced. He seemed wise and the brains behind the business, Triple C Snowmobile Repair, that he’d opened with his brothers Cade and Cash. It was his brain child and he was the reason they’d all moved to Snowy Ridge from Chicago earlier that year. Cooper also had this really intriguing brooding thing going on and he did this cute thing with his bottom lip when he was concentrating hard. Luci had been trying to describe it correctly for the past two days.

  Luci based the main male character of her book, Patrick, off of Cooper, and she knew if Jessie found out she’d a) tease her relentlessly and b) tell Cade who’d tell Cooper and things would get really weird with them all really fast. So, it was her secret for now. But every chance she got to study Cooper up close and personal, she took. Luci carefully poured four beers and set them on a tray to bring over to Cooper’s table.

  Jessie’s order was up. As she gathered the plates she asked Luci, “Do you mind closing out my tables? Cade’s going to be here soon and I want to get a jump on cleaning.”

  “Sure, no problem.” Luci carried the beers over to Cooper’s table and passed them around. “On the house, guys.”

  “Wow, thanks,” a short guy with a scraggily beard said.

  “What did we do to deserve this?” a lanky guy with thinning hair asked.

  “Cooper’s a friend of Starlight,” Luci said and casually placed a hand on his shoulder. She’d hoped she wasn’t coming off too forward. This was research after all. She gave Cooper a small squeeze. He had a really nice shoulder at that. She could feel his muscles through his thin shirt and he felt solid and strong.

  “Thanks, Luci,” Cooper said, smiling up at her.

  Luci could see his smile reach through to his eyes and she wondered how on earth he was single.

  Luci smiled back. “Are you guys having a nice night?”

  Cooper looked around at the table and then back to Luci. “Uh, yeah. Just relaxing you know?”

  “I do. You work hard, you deserve it. You should come in more, Cooper. I haven’t seen you around here much.” Luci wondered if she was bordering on sounding too flirty. She normally did sound flirty so that wasn’t necessarily a big deal but she wasn’t trying to pick up Cooper or anything. Just mentally taking notes on how he looked at her and how his voice sounded.

  “I will. I’m trying to be more social,” he said. “Can’t work all the time.”

  “Hey, Coop, I didn’t know you’d be here,” Cade said.

  Luci whirled around to see Jessie’s boyfriend walking toward them.

  “Cade. Have a seat,” Cooper said.

  “Want me to bring you a beer?” Luci said.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m a bit early. Whatever they’re drinking.” Cade grabbed a chair from a nearby table and pulled it next to his brother and sat.

  Luci was glad things had never gotten awkward between her and Cade. She had thrown herself at him pretty heavily when she’d first arrived in town. This was before she knew he was seeing her sister, of course. But who could blame her? He had some
of the sexiest shoulders she’d ever seen, gorgeous intense deep brown eyes, and shampoo model quality dark brown hair that you just wanted to thread your fingers through and tug on as he did naughty things to you. He was hot as hell. And not hers, which was fine. She was happy for her sister. All three of the Stone boys were sexy and definitely one of the sights to see when traveling to Snowy Ridge. She’d had a sort of date with the youngest of the three, Cash. Neither of them had had a date for the fundraiser ball they threw for Luci’s mom on Valentine’s day so they’d attended together. Cash was a player, however, and while the relentless attempts at getting in her pants were entertaining enough, she didn’t feel any kind of real spark with him. Maybe she was growing up. The old Luci would have jumped straight into bed with him. To her, Cooper was the most interesting of the three, but nothing had ever happened between them.

  “Be right back,” Luci said. As Luci headed for the bar, Jessie walked back into the dining room, made a bee line for Cade, and climbed onto his lap. So much for cleaning, Luci thought and smirked.

  Luci delivered Cade’s beer and then started doing the cleaning herself while keeping an eye on her last customers. Wynn had returned after a quick hair check and reapplication of make-up, and was wiping down tables as Nick finished bussing them. Amber had slipped in at some point and was sitting in front of the fire, checking her phone. It felt like everyone had plans they were excited to get to that night except for her.

  Luci was clearing out the last two tables checks, when Bryce walked in. He surveyed the room and nodded when he saw Luci. When he saw Wynn, his face lit up. Wynn rushed over to him and threw her arms around his neck, planting a long hard kiss on him right there in front of the last lingering diners. One of the guys from Cooper’s table let out a low whistle. After Wynn finally pulled away, she looked over at the table of guys and grinned. She was so into Bryce and she didn’t care who knew it.

  Luci’s eyes moved from Wynn and Bryce to Jessie and Cade and finally to Nick and Amber who were waving as they headed out of the pub for the night. She lifted a hand to wave and then grabbed a washcloth and began aggressively wiping down the bar.