But it was Sophie’s design portfolio that closed the deal, and don’t you dare take that away from her. Kendall was going to have to push down her urge to oversee the project and let Sophie have her day in the sun. And she would be there to swoop in if anything went wrong.
Kendall pushed open the door to her bedroom and let out an exhale, then dragged her bag over to the closet. While the rest of the house was filled with antique furniture and richly colored textiles, her room was minimal, almost spare in its decor. Its only furnishings were a simple iron bed covered in a fluffy white duvet, a bench with a woven seat at its foot, a single painting on the wall, and a large, threadbare Persian rug that covered the wood floor almost to the edges of the room. Beautiful, simple, and calm. A place for focus and relaxation. Her sanctuary, one that no one, not even Sophie, entered.
Except she didn’t own it, and it could go away at any time. Would go away soon, if the rent hikes continued.
Kendall toed off her boots and placed them carefully on the shoe rack in her closet, then pulled out a pair of woven flats made from recycled plastic. The leather jacket got hung up beside her blazers, swapped out for a cozy knit cardigan. Her long blonde hair, which had started out in soft waves but gotten smushed from the ten long hours on the plane, went up into a messy bun on top of her head. Now she was ready to work.
But when she walked back out into their office space, Sophie was hurriedly packing things into a canvas messenger bag.
“What’s going on?”
Sophie looked up guiltily. “I’m sorry. I just got a call from Renee Thomas. She’s at the tile showroom and she’s found something she loves. She wants me to go over there right away.”
“Oh.” Kendall blinked. “Of course. Go. We’ll talk when you get back. I need to catch up on my mail anyway.”
Sophie grinned. “I’ll pick up something to eat and a bottle of wine on the way back.”
Kendall forced a laugh. “Make sure it’s a good bottle of wine then. Have fun. Go rescue your client from herself.”
“Right?” Sophie rolled her eyes, but the excitement in her face said there was nothing she’d rather be doing. “Back later.”
Kendall nodded and slid into her office chair, turning her back to Sophie like she’d already forgotten she was leaving. She didn’t blame her—clients did things like this all the time. They said they trusted you to pick out their finishes and oversee construction, but they still spent all their free time poring over catalogs and wandering through design showrooms. Sometimes they had impeccable taste and made your job easier; more often, you found yourself diplomatically explaining that glass mosaic tiles went out of style years ago and didn’t suit a Craftsman bungalow in the first place.
The front door closing behind Sophie just highlighted the sudden quiet in the room, so Kendall went over to the bookshelf and flipped on the Bluetooth speaker connected to her phone, then settled back at her desk in front of her overflowing in-box. Half of it was junk mail; the other half were bills, which she’d have to reconcile with her job sheets and send on to Sophie for payment. And then her fingers touched a thin business-size envelope, its linen texture standing out from all the cheap paper that surrounded it.
“Jasper Lake, Colorado?” Kendall murmured, looking at the return address in the upper-left corner. She’d been born and raised in Colorado, but she didn’t have any family there. Didn’t have any family, period. And she’d certainly never heard of any place called Jasper Lake. This better not be an “invitation” to a unique moneymaking opportunity. Kendall slid the blade of her silver letter opener under the flap and withdrew a single sheet of paper. Bold black letters at the top announced Notice to heirs followed by smaller print: In the matter of the estate of Mrs. Constance Green.
To the heirs and devisees of the above estate: This is formal notice that Mrs. Constance Green, the decedent, died on September 8, 2016, and you have or may have an interest in Mrs. Constance Green’s estate. Mr. Matthew Avery, whose address is 21 Main Street, Jasper Lake, Colorado, has been appointed as the administrator of the estate. All documents, pleading, and information relating to the estate are on file in the Clear Creek County Courthouse under case number R000049872. The last day to file claims against the estate is October 21, 2021. The assets of the estate of Mrs. Constance Green will be disbursed 30 days following the date of this notice. Executed by the administrator of the estate of Mrs. Constance Green . . .
Kendall lowered the paper to the desk when she could no longer read the print. Her hands were shaking too hard to hold the letter still.
Constance Green.
She’d never heard the name before, but they shared the same last name, and someone was informing her she’d inherited part of this woman’s estate. Surely that meant they were related somehow.
In the twenty-four years since she’d been abandoned at a day care center in a Denver suburb, she’d always imagined something like this happening. But now that it was here, she had absolutely no idea what to do about it, other than call the lawyer whose name and number were printed on the letterhead.
And maybe, just maybe, she would finally know what had happened to her mother.
Kendall hesitated for a moment before she picked up her cell phone and dialed the number.
The phone rang, and she half expected a secretary to answer, but instead a gruff voice came through the line. “Matthew Avery.”
Kendall cleared her throat, the words suddenly sticking somewhere in her esophagus. “Mr. Avery. My name is Kendall Green. I just got a letter—”
“Kendall Green!” The lawyer’s voice boomed out, now more enthusiastic than gruff. “You certainly know how to cut it close.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“The cutoff date. October 21. It’s less than two weeks away.”
“Yes, I know, but I just received the letter. I’ve been traveling for the past month, and I just got home today.”
“Right, but it’s been almost five years since she passed, and this is a rather critical situation for Jasper Lake.”
Kendall pressed her fingertips to her temples, trying to work through the stream-of-consciousness information coming from the lawyer. “For the town? I was under the impression this had something to do with a relative’s estate.”
The line went silent. She pulled the phone away from her ear to check if they were still connected, then pressed it back. “Hello?”
“Sorry. I . . .” Matthew Avery sounded discomfited. “Did no one contact you when Connie died?”
A laugh bubbled out of her, and she was aware it was tinged with hysteria. “Mr. Avery, I was abandoned at five years old and raised in foster care. I wasn’t aware I had any family left. I don’t even know their names.”
The lawyer sighed heavily on the other end of the line. “Well. I certainly didn’t expect to be the first to tell you this. You probably know your mother’s name was Caroline, and I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that. The estate in question, however, belonged to Constance. Your grandmother.”
A grandmother. She had a grandmother. Of course she had a grandmother, but one who actually knew of her existence? If she knew that Kendall was out there somewhere, why hadn’t she gotten in touch with her? And why had it taken someone five years to let her know she had died? Kendall hadn’t even met the woman, so she was shocked by the sudden pang of loss.
Avery was talking again, and she realized she’d missed a big chunk of the conversation when he said, “. . . come take a look at it yourself and decide what you want to do with it.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I know it’s a lot to take in, Ms. Green. But it is a sizable amount of property, and as you’re the sole heir, it is going to revert to the county in less than two weeks if you don’t file a formal claim against the estate. You can do it remotely, but I think it would be easier if you did it in person.”
Avery went on, but Kendall had stopped listening. A sizable amount of property. Colorado was getting
expensive, wasn’t it? That meant even in a small town, it had to be worth something. She had no time for sentiment with a massive rent hike staring her in the face.
“Of course,” she said, her voice resolute for the first time during this phone call. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Chapter Two
WHEN KENDALL TURNED OFF the highway at the sign marked Jasper Lake, she was disappointed to feel absolutely no spark of recognition. Which was silly. She hadn’t been born here, as far as she knew, and even if she had been, she wouldn’t remember it, so there was no reason she should feel any connection to this place, roots or otherwise.
No, the only thing she felt right now was lingering nausea from the bumpy descent into Denver International Airport, followed by the twisty ascent into Colorado’s high country in her rented Ford Explorer.
Or more likely, the nausea came from the knowledge that, in five minutes, she would find herself face-to-face with a piece of her past she’d never known existed.
The asphalt transitioned to hard-packed dirt, or maybe it was actually asphalt that had so much mud deposited on top, you could no longer see the black. Dirty snowdrifts, their surface pitted and gnarled by the sun’s rays, piled up on either side from where the plow had left them, the occasional pocket of fresh white standing out in a crevice. She slowed her speed when the road jostled her to her teeth, noting the log cabin–style buildings on either side of her. One advertised snowmobile rentals and white-water rafting boats; another, tackle and ice-fishing gear. A quick look at the car’s thermometer put the outside temperature at a balmy forty-two degrees at two o’clock in the afternoon.
There could be no doubt she wasn’t in Southern California anymore.
She glanced up at the navigation screen on her cell phone and made a turn onto the town’s main street, then caught her breath. Wood and brick buildings clustered together along a wooden boardwalk, their cheerily painted signs identifying them as cafés, ice cream shops, fudge factories. Every block or so, a break at the intersecting street gave a glimpse of blinding blue beyond—the eponymous Jasper Lake, its rippled surface reflecting the sun like diamonds. Even knowing that it was probably only a month away from freezing, the water lover in her yearned to dip her toes in.
But she wasn’t here on vacation. She was here to settle the matter of an unknown grandmother’s estate, and none too soon . . . It had taken her nearly a week to get things in order enough to fly to Colorado—and to find an affordable flight—leaving less than a week for her to file her claim before it reverted to the county. For reasons she still didn’t understand, it sounded like Jasper Lake had a vested interest in not letting that happen.
The dot on the navigation screen told her that Matthew Avery’s office should be coming up on her left, and she swung quickly into one of the angled parking spaces that lined Main Street, right in front of a blue-painted, clapboard-sided building marked with Matthew Avery, Attorney-at-Law. She grabbed her purse off the passenger seat, her down jacket from the back, and jumped out of the car.
And instantly regretted it. The second the cold air hit her bare skin, it sent her into a full-body shiver. Kendall fumbled her arms into the parka and zipped it up as quickly as possible, shocked by the frigid bite of the wind. How could it possibly be so cold when the sun was shining down so brightly?
“You just have to deal with it for a few days,” she muttered to herself as she stepped onto the wooden boardwalk and made her way toward the attorney’s office, her boots making dull thuds with every step. Then she froze—figuratively, this time. A hand-lettered sign taped to the inside of the window stated, Gone elk hunting.
“What?” she burst out. She twisted around, hoping to see someone—even Avery himself—to tell her this was a joke, but the boardwalk was pretty much empty.
That was just great. She had flown all this way—had let him know when she was arriving even!—and he was out hunting? Oh, excuse her, elk hunting. Because that made all the difference in explaining why he was not in his office working like a normal attorney. She pulled out her cell phone, punching numbers with angry determination, and waited as it rang.
Inside the building, an old-fashioned office phone jangled.
Seriously? He hadn’t even forwarded his office phone to his cell? She’d thought she was in the Colorado mountains, not the year 1972.
Well, in a town this small, surely everyone knew everyone. There had to be someone who had his cell phone number. She did another spin to orient herself, not that it helped much when she had no idea where anything was, and decided on the direction that led to the lake. It had more buildings than the section she’d already passed, so surely there had to be a city hall or a chamber of commerce somewhere?
There was both, she found after a single block, and they were combined into a huge building in the same log-cabin, rustic style that dominated the rest of the quaint Main Street. A dark-haired man wearing jeans, a hoodie, and a shearling-lined leather jacket was standing on a ladder just outside the front door, hanging a vinyl banner.
“Excuse me?” she called up to him.
He drove a nail through the grommet on one end of the banner before he turned his face toward her. She was hit immediately by the force of a pair of bright-blue eyes.
Well, hel-lo. Maybe this trip to Jasper Creek was looking up.
She’d thought she was immune to pretty faces by now, but her thoughts were coming just a fraction too slow for her liking. “Hey . . . I don’t suppose you know how to reach that attorney down there, Matthew Avery? We were supposed to meet today, but he’s not in.”
Something akin to recognition lit on the man’s handsome face, and he backed down the ladder. “You must be Kendall Green. Matthew told me to keep an eye out for you.”
“Oh.” Kendall was momentarily taken aback by the idea that maybe the lawyer hadn’t just disappeared without a trace. “He did?”
The man started to stick out a hand before he realized he was still holding the hammer, then swapped it to the other hand and tried again. “Gabriel Brandt. You can call me Gabe. Just about everyone does.”
Gabriel Brandt. Kendall sized him up surreptitiously. Somewhere in his early thirties, she figured, with dark hair that was longish on top and mussed from the stiff breeze that whipped down the boardwalk. He was also a couple of inches taller than her, which meant he was pretty tall, considering she was five-eleven in these boots. His jeans had a spot of paint on the thigh, and the work boots were well-used and scuffed. Town handyman, maybe? City hall maintenance?
She realized he was still waiting for her response, so she gave a half-hearted nod. “So . . . I guess you found me. Or I found you. What now?”
“Well, he left some paperwork for you to sign inside. We can start there.” Gabe Brandt moved the ladder away from the wood-and-glass door and then pulled it open for her to precede him.
Warmth from a heater on full blast hit her as soon as she stepped inside, and she shrugged out of her coat, though she kept the scarf looped around her neck. Just the few minutes outside had put a chill in her bones that would take all night to get rid of. There was a reason she’d settled in California despite her Colorado upbringing. The weather had never quite suited her, and she’d absorbed the summer heat like she could store it up for the rest of the year.
Gabe brushed by her. “Right this way.” Despite the rustic exterior, the inside was all wood and glass—high-end, like she would have designed a ski resort or mountain retreat. Various vinyl decals on the doors they passed identified the different offices contained in this one building: chamber of commerce, code enforcement, city council chambers. Finally he stopped before one that said Mayor of Jasper Lake and pushed carelessly through the door.
There was no one in the outer office, where a secretary was evidently meant to sit—maybe she was out elk hunting too?—but he didn’t seem thrown by the absence, just pushed through another open doorway to a small, nicely decorated office.
Kendall hung back. “I can
wait until someone comes back, you know. I’m not in that much of a hurry.”
“Oh, Linda had to go pick up her daughter from school. Stomach flu. Besides, she doesn’t know anything about this.” He began moving stacks of paperwork around the desk, riffling through piles and shoving them aside.
“Should you be doing that?” Kendall asked.
He looked up and a slow smile spread over his face. “Considering it’s my desk? I think it’s okay.”
Understanding hit Kendall like an avalanche, and her cheeks immediately heated. “You’re the mayor.”
“According to 642 citizens of Jasper Lake, yes.”
“But the sign said 750.”
“What can I say? A hundred or so of the others had their doubts.” He shrugged, his smile still lingering. “You really didn’t know? Matthew didn’t tell you?”
Now that she knew this guy was the mayor, she had no compunction about flopping herself into one of the armchairs in front of the desk. “Matthew has told me next to nothing. Just that my time is running out and I have to file something with the county. I don’t even know how he found me, and if I was so easy to find, why he didn’t do it five years ago.”
Gabe’s expression turned sympathetic. But instead of sitting behind the desk, he propped himself on the edge of it. “We owe you an apology for that. It turns out that the executor of your grandmother’s will was sick. He claimed he’d done everything necessary to find you, and then he died. And quite frankly, it fell through the cracks. Only when it was brought to my attention—when I took office—that the unclaimed property was going back to the county did I realize the executor’s firm hadn’t passed the files on to his successor, Matthew Avery, and it hadn’t been properly dealt with. I hired a firm that specializes in finding missing heirs, and a lot of research later, you turned up. I just can’t explain why they wouldn’t have found you five years ago.”
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