by Glynna Kaye
Taylor wasn’t a baby anymore, though. No longer a toddler easily passed back and forth. Her schoolwork and social skills with peers were both suffering—and right along with them, her ability to trust.
But if Annalise wouldn’t cooperate? Was she justified in taking her own sister to court? Or would that attempt permanently shatter the sibling relationship—and Taylor be lost to her forever?
When they reached the dimly lit parking lot, they came to a halt. Shadowed cars were jammed in everywhere, even outside the huge graveled area. She wasn’t about to wander around out there in search of the car with her aunt, who’d stumbled twice as they rounded the building. A quick search for her flashlight in the tote bag Taylor held proved fruitless.
“Aunt Vi, you and Taylor wait here. I’ll go get the car. There are chairs on the porch if you need to sit down.”
“I’m fine. Been sitting too long today anyway. It’s made me stiff.”
“Okay, then. I’ll be right back.”
Clicking the unlock button on her car key, she spotted the lights of her CR-V flash momentarily in the blackness of the sea of cars. At least she had a general idea of which direction to head. The towering pines that both lined and dotted the parking lot cast even darker shadows than the night sky. Where was the moon when you needed it?
Once deep in the maze of vehicles, she cautiously moved along, periodically flashing the vehicle’s headlights. Mountain-size four-wheel-drive pickups and SUVs that were popular in this region didn’t help her navigation skills, often blocking the guiding flash. She was rounding an extra-large pickup when she whacked her elbow on its back bumper, sending the key flying from her hand.
She let out a groan.
Please, Lord, help me find it. It would be nice to get Taylor and Aunt Vi home before dawn.
Having no idea how far the key had flown, she knelt to feel around in the gravel, panic rising. But the deep gloom cast by the hulking vehicles didn’t help matters.
Now what?
“Lillian? Are you out here? Taylor thinks you’re lost.”
Denny. Closing her eyes momentarily with a silent thank-you, she stood, spying a flashlight’s gleam in the middle of the lot. “I’m over here.”
When the beam swept the area, she raised both her arms and waved.
“Gotcha,” he confirmed. “On my way.”
She didn’t dare leave the spot where she’d lost the key to join him, or she’d never hope to find it.
He zigzagged his way among the vehicles as she died a thousand deaths at him having to come to her rescue. When he finally entered the narrow space between the two massive pickups, his flashlight lowered to the ground.
“Aha. Found you. But you know, where I come from, we have a newfangled thing called streetlights. I know it might mean leaving the wagon-train era behind, but it might be something this tiny town should consider.”
A comedian.
“Hunter Ridge is a designated Dark Sky City—one of many communities attempting to preserve the beauty of our night sky with lighting restrictions.”
“I think they’re succeeding,” he said drily, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “You should have come and found me, though. Remember, I said I had a flashlight?”
“I remember. I thought I had one in my tote bag, too, but apparently not.”
“All’s well that ends well.” He waved the flashlight’s beam across the sea of shadowed vehicles. “Flash your car’s headlights and let’s go find it.”
“I lost my key.” She motioned to the ground. “Somewhere between these two big bruisers.”
“Nice going.”
Her face warmed at the teasing tone of his voice. “I hit my elbow on that truck and—”
“Gotta watch those parked trucks every second. They can be sneaky.” His flashlight swept the ground between them. “Was it on a key chain? Brightly colored? Shiny?”
“Just the black-and-silver key. I’d taken it off the key chain so it would tuck more easily into my pocket.”
“All right. Well, it’s got to be here somewhere.”
But after several minutes of fruitless searching, he moved to the end of the space between the trucks, got down on his belly and laid his head flat to the ground.
“What are you doing?” That sharp-edged gravel couldn’t feel good.
He placed the flashlight on the ground and swept it slowly along the rocky surface. “Sometimes if you get down on the level of what you’re looking for, you stand a better chance of finding it.”
After two dozen slow sweeps of the light, she was ready to beg him to get up. But at that moment the beam halted. Then he wiggled it back and forth under one of the trucks.
“There you go. Right there. To the inside back of that front tire.” He sat up, keeping the beam pinned on the object of his search. “See it?”
She hurried over and reached under the truck. Then, standing, she clasped the key gratefully to her heart before tucking it in her pocket and turning her face toward the night sky. “Thank You, Lord.”
Denny chuckled as he joined her. “The Man Upstairs is good with a flashlight, is He?”
“As a matter of fact, He is—when He has a little help from His friends.” She smiled up at Denny in the dim light of the flashlight, then gasped and instinctively raised her hand to touch the side of his face. “You have gravel indentions. I think you’re cut, too.”
He obliviously scrubbed at his face with his free hand until she snagged it with her own. “Don’t do that. You could make things worse.”
“I’m not worried.” A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “This mug has had worse done to it. Ask your good pastor.”
He glanced down to where she still clasped his hand firmly in her own.
We’re standing too close.
She could feel the warmth emanating from him. Smell the faint, masculine scent of his aftershave. They continued to stand together in the faint light, gazing into each other’s eyes as though this were the most normal thing in the world to be doing. As if there were nothing they’d rather be doing.
“I— Thank you, Denny,” she whispered. “For finding my key.”
His gaze dropped momentarily to her lips, then back to her eyes, his voice low and husky. “Happy to help.”
She swallowed, her heartbeat quickening, unable to pull her gaze from his.
“Taylor...” she said almost breathlessly, feeling herself sway toward him as she floundered for something to say. “Taylor will crown you a hero.”
He tipped his head in quiet acknowledgment. “I can live with that. How—”
“Aunt Lillian! Mister! Where are you?”
At the sound of Taylor’s voice bellowing across the parking lot, they immediately released hands and stepped back.
Her startled gaze met his, still intent on her.
Abruptly pulling out her key, she clicked it several times with shaking hands, flashing the CR-V’s headlights and beeping the horn. Then she snatched the flashlight from Denny’s big hand and took off in the direction of her vehicle.
Chapter Eight
“You aren’t married, are you, Mister?”
He looked down at the pigtailed, overalls-clad girl who’d followed him out to the garden, where he intended to return a call from his GylesStyle assistant. For some reason, Lillian tended to frown when he took or placed calls unrelated to the Pinewood project, so he’d taken to slipping out of sight and earshot when his real life needed attention.
“Do you think I look married?” he teased.
Taylor scowled in concentration. “I don’t know.”
“What does married look like?”
Come on, Den, stop kidding the little thing. She probably has a crush on you. Wants to marry you when she grows up.
She studied him. “You don’t have a ring, right?”
He waggled the fingers of his left hand. “Nope. No ring.”
That seemed to satisfy her, for she took off running back to the inn. He smiled as he punched Betsy’s speed-dial number.
“Bets. What’s up?”
“Sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know that Vic fired Craig this morning.”
“Not funny.”
Betsy was known for starting her calls off with something outrageous, so when she got to the real reason for the call, it didn’t seem overly calamitous.
“I’m serious. They got into a big fight in Craig’s office this morning. I could hear it clear down the hall. Vic fired him on the spot.”
“Is he out of his mind?” Denny paced the patio. Craig had more experience at GylesStyle in his little finger than Vic could ever hope to accumulate in a lifetime.
“Could you hear what the argument was about? What set Vic off?” He’d always had a powder-keg temper, but to fire Craig, of all people? That was akin to cutting off your own right arm.
“It was about—” She paused.
“Spit it out, Bets.”
“It was about you.”
Denny stilled. “What about me?”
“I couldn’t hear it all. Just bits and pieces because sometimes it got eerily quiet in there, and I thought maybe one of them had dropped the other off the high-rise’s balcony. But part of it at least had to do with changes Vic wanted him to make, and Craig was digging in his heels. He said you would never make such a foolhardy decision, and he wasn’t going to do it without consulting you first. That’s when Vic fired him.”
With a groan, Denny lowered himself to a nearby stone bench.
“Then Vic charged out of the office, his face all red, and not long after that Craig left, too. I don’t know if for good or to cool off.”
“When did this happen?”
“Maybe an hour ago.”
“Thanks for letting me know. Keep me in the loop if you hear anything else.”
“Will do.”
He immediately checked his phone messages. Nothing from his buddy. He punched his colleague’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. “Craig. I talked to Betsy. Call me.”
Still stunned, he stared, unseeing, across the garden in the direction of the gazebo. If Vic started off deliberately provoking Craig, how long would it be before he went after others on Denny’s core team? Nathan? Elijah? Felicia? The rest?
“Denny?”
As if in a fog, he looked toward the inn, where Lillian stood at the back door.
“Todd’s here.”
“Be there in a minute.”
With his mother’s enthusiastic approval last week, the Pinewood’s show was officially on the road. Todd and his crew were on board, and they’d collaborated late into the night all the previous week, firming up plans. If all went well, permits would go to approval the first of next week—a major advantage to a small town, having a local contractor driving things. It didn’t hurt, either, being associated with the influential Hunter clan himself. Big ducks in a little pond.
Lillian turned as if to go back inside, but changed her mind and headed in his direction. “Is everything okay?”
He must look as bad as he felt to elicit that remark. He had no intention of discussing what had taken place at GylesStyle, but at least she wasn’t avoiding him as she had since that episode in the Hunter’s Hideaway parking lot a week ago yesterday. In retrospect, he still didn’t know exactly what had happened there. But it certainly wasn’t about a lost car key.
He shoved back the memory of her star-kissed face upturned to his and abruptly rose to his feet. “A minor business glitch. I’ll get it worked out.”
“It isn’t easy, though, is it, doing the work here at the inn when you need to be—want to be—elsewhere?”
She had no idea. “Nobody ever said life was easy.”
“No. But you seem to be a man who likes being in control.”
“Come again?”
“Never mind. It’s none of my business. Something I’ve observed.”
“Doesn’t everyone like to feel he’s the master of his fate?”
“I suppose. But it’s kind of an illusion, isn’t it? When it comes right down to it, there’s little we’re in control of, although we can control our attitude and may be able to influence some outcomes, especially when we team up with God. And that’s where the trust factor comes into play. But it’s a bigger struggle for some to come to that realization than for others.”
“And you think I’m one of those?”
“It’s clear you don’t like it when your hands are pried off the wheel and someone else is steering.”
She must have wiretapped that last phone call.
“So I can’t help but wonder,” she continued, “why you’re still here, Denny, now that you have a contractor lined up. It’s obvious Hunter Ridge is the last place on earth you want to be.”
“I’m assisting my mother because I love her, and this project brings her pleasure.” And her husband’s being a jerk to hold my career hostage. “It so happens that right now, keeping up with things on two fronts is taking extra time and effort. But I’ve juggled my share of conflicting deadlines in the past. It will work out.”
And it would, if Vic didn’t sabotage everything Denny had worked hard for. “You said Todd’s here?”
“And a couple of movers with a big truck.”
“With your few guests now situated elsewhere—Viola said they seemed quite pleased with their alternate accommodations—I told the movers we’d temporarily transfer everything, except Viola’s apartment, which will come later, to a storage facility here in town. I doubt there’s much we’ll keep, but it will be out of the way until we decide how to dispose of it.”
“A secondhand store, maybe. Or Goodwill. But I do like the daylight coming in with the window treatments gone.”
He’d hired a few high-school kids—his cousin Luke’s son and daughter and their friends—who came in after school the previous day to strip the beds, take down the drapes and pictures, roll up rugs, and box knickknacks and other miscellaneous items.
“Todd’s extended crew placed the orders for a new furnace, water heaters, appliances and cabinetry. Then we can make selections on the decorating side while Todd and company move on the structural changes.”
Not that he didn’t think her capable of doing that, but he didn’t want to see her lavish, ultrafeminine designs slipping in there when he wasn’t looking. And could he help it if he enjoyed her company?
Lillian cut him an anxious look as they headed back to the inn. “It’s six weeks until Barbie’s wedding. That hit me hard when I woke up this morning. Do you think a project of this magnitude can be done by then?”
With a GylesStyle team, no doubt about it. But he had no idea with Todd Samuels. There were many unknowns, despite tapping into a few of the usual suppliers he’d worked with in the past. As much as he joked about it, this wasn’t a reality TV program where you could manipulate the end result with tape splices and scene retakes.
Kicking down a wall was just the beginning.
“I can’t make promises. Stuff happens. But we aren’t trying to pull off anything fancy like on TV. We’re sticking to the basics—general repairs, new insulation, electrical and plumbing upgrades. Those take time, but we’ll give it all we’ve got.”
He still didn’t fully understand why keeping this Barbie Gray’s wedding at the inn was so all-fired important. But then, he didn’t know much about the ins and outs of small-town goings-on. He’d always heard little communities were microcosms of the larger world around them, but intensely more personal. He didn’t know his next-door neighbors in the condo high-rise where he lived and couldn’t imagine them taking a personal interest in his business, let alone influencing it.
He shuddered at the
thought.
After walking Lillian to the back door of the inn, he held it open for her. “Hey, guess who I saw this morning. Chicken Man.”
“Oh...really?”
“Yeah, shooting baskets with a couple of other teens outside the school. Seemed normal enough. In fact, I saw him last evening, too, when I stopped off at the hardware store. He was chatting with the checkout clerk.”
“His father owns the store, and he works there part-time stocking shelves.”
“I find it intriguing, though.” Denny playfully tapped Lillian’s arm. “Seems it’s only when I’m with you that he puts on an Oscar-winning performance.”
She placed her hand to her heart. “I can’t tell you how special that makes me feel.”
“Maybe you bring out the best in him.” He chuckled as he followed her inside. Then, even though he hadn’t felt his phone vibrate, he surreptitiously checked his messages.
Nothing from Craig.
* * *
Although Denny didn’t seem to be getting as many business call interruptions as he had the first week he arrived, he seemed to be more on edge today than any day previously. Lillian had hoped, having seen him interacting with his family on Labor Day, that being away from the city was having a mellowing effect. If so, it hadn’t lasted long.
From the apartment kitchen table, where, after work, she’d placed her laptop to do online searches, she glanced over at Taylor, who’d flopped on the floor in front of the TV. She had the closed captioning on and sound turned off so she wouldn’t bother Aunt Viola, who was in her room reviewing favorite recipes and brainstorming new breakfast menus for the inn’s reopening. “What are you watching?”
“That bride dress show.”
Again? Lillian shook her head as she scrolled down on the laptop to find a perfect match to the bedspread in Denny’s sketches.
“Do you like this one, Aunt Lillian?” Taylor pointed to the screen.
She leaned over in her chair to see better. “It’s pretty on her, but too poufy for me.”
“What did your wedding dress look like? I don’t remember it.”