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.”

“Actually, I can,” Kendall said. “I started my own business four years ago. Until then, I would have been pretty much off the grid. I didn’t even have a checking account.”

“Ah. Well, that makes sense. They mostly search public records in order to narrow down the most likely candidates for a given name.”

“What no one has explained to me is the sense of urgency. What’s the big deal if the property went back to the county anyway? I mean, thank you for bringing it to my attention . . . but why are you so invested in doing the right thing? You could have just let it revert.”

“This isn’t your run-of-the-mill housing track. This property is . . . special.”

Kendall stared at him. “Special? Special how?”

He stayed silent for a long moment, studying her. “I think maybe it’s better if you see for yourself.”