Helping your family is the equivalent of helping your family’s business.
—Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Business and Love
After two days in bed feeling like Death had put out the welcome mat, Cecily awoke on Saturday morning to the realization that she was going to live, after all. She called Charley to let her know she’d be able to work that night. Then she enjoyed a long, hot shower followed by a breakfast of fruit and her mother’s homemade white-chocolate-lavender scones. That, along with two cups of tea, left her feeling ready to get back to work. It was now almost ten in the morning. Samantha should be awake. She’d check to see how the kickoff for the Mr. Dreamy competition had gone.
It took several rings for Samantha to answer with a weak hello.
“Were you still asleep?” Cecily asked. Samantha probably got in late. She should have waited to call.
“No.”
Then why did she sound so funny? “Are you okay?”
“I have the mother of all headaches,” Samantha said. “I think I had one too many chocolate kisses.”
There had been an inspired idea. Not that Cecily was fishing for compliments or anything, but… “How did those turn out?” Okay, so she was fishing for compliments.
“Fabulous. They’re also death in a glass. My head feels like somebody stomped on it.”
“How many did you have?” Her sister had never been a big drinker. It wouldn’t take much to put her under the table.
“I can’t remember.”
“You know, most of us get this drinking thing sorted out by the end of college.”
“Well, I’m a late bloomer.”
“Can you remember anything about last night?”
The only answer Cecily got was silence.
“Oh, no,” she groaned. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Samantha said irritably. “The kickoff was a smashing success with shirtless men and girls going wild. We’ll probably have a population explosion nine months from now. And yes, I made sure to put in a plug for Sweet Dreams.”
“That’s all good.”
“Yes, it’s all good. Everything’s good.”
“Okay,” Cecily said dubiously. “Do you still want to work this afternoon?”
“Not particularly,” Samantha said, “but we need to. Let’s meet at the office around one. Maybe by then these rhinos stomping around in my head will have settled down for a nap.”
They ended the call and Cecily sat at the kitchen table, idly twirling a lock of hair and wondering what had happened the night before that her sister hadn’t told her.
Mom came into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of tea. “Did everything go well last night?”
“It sounds like it.” Why didn’t it feel like it?
Mom sat down at the table and studied Cecily. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I guess not.” Mom looked worried, so Cecily added, “I’m sure everything’s fine.”
Mom didn’t say anything to that. She just kissed the top of Cecily’s head and disappeared into her bedroom.
Cecily remained alone in the kitchen. When she’d first offered to come home and help with the festival, she’d had a vague feeling that her family needed her, that destiny was waiting for her in Icicle Falls.
So far her destiny seemed to consist of irritating her sister and running unimportant errands. As for Mom, well, all she really needed was time and that obviously wasn’t something Cecily was in a position to give.
“Why am I here?” she muttered.
The cuckoo clock on the kitchen wall struck the hour and the little cuckoo popped out the door to tell her just what he thought of her. She left before he could finish.
* * *
Blake had several errands to run this morning, but a visit to his grandmother topped the list. Janice Lind was one of the town’s old-timers. She’d been a young woman when Icicle Falls pulled itself from the brink of extinction by transforming a collection of boarded-up storefronts and empty streets into an alpine village. Blake’s maternal grandfather, Tom, whom everybody called Swede, had been the town’s only mechanic for years. He’d owned the gas station where Blake’s dad worked as a teenager before he married Blake’s mother and went into car sales. Even Blake had worked at the station a summer or two. Since he was the only boy in the family, both his dad and his granddad had plans for him. Gramps had wanted him to run the garage after he graduated. Dad had wanted Blake to come and work with him selling cars in Seattle. If he’d done either, he could’ve connected with Samantha under different circumstances. Maybe they’d have been an item by now. He frowned as he made his way up the front walk to his grandparents’ cozy log home.
She must have seen him coming because he was halfway up the walk when she opened the door, a slim modern granny with a flour-dusted apron over her slacks and tiger-print bifocals dangling from a chain around her neck. “This is a nice surprise,” she greeted him.
A surprise? Rather like learning he’d been entered in the Mr. Dreamy contest.
“I’m making oatmeal cookies.”
“My favorite. You must’ve known I was coming.”
“Well, they’re almost your favorite. I’m trying out a new recipe,” she said, leading him into the kitchen. “This one uses Sweet Dreams chocolates. I figure it can’t hurt to try and impress the judges.”
He wished all Samantha Sterling needed to be impressed with him was home-baked cookies. He took a seat at the old red Formica table. Gram’s kitchen always smelled great. This morning the aroma of the day was spices mixed with coffee. Not only did the place smell good, it looked like a stage for some cooking show. Everything was state-of-the-art, from the stainless-steel fridge to the ceramic-top stove. Copper pans polished to a high sheen hung from a rack over her counter, and two baking racks were stacked with man-size cookies.
She poured him a mug of coffee and set it in front of him, along with a plate of cookies. “If they’ve got chocolate, I’ll pass.”
“Silly,” she said, tapping his shoulder playfully. “I made a special batch just for you. No chocolate, only raisins and nuts.”
“In that case.” He took one and stuffed half in his mouth.
“How is it?”
“Good,” he said around a mouthful of fabulous. “Where’s Gramps?”
“At the garage, doing some paperwork. And making sure the new mechanic really knows what he’s doing.” She shook her head. “Your grandpa just can’t stay away from there. So much for semiretirement.”
Blake had known all along that his grandfather wouldn’t ease up, no matter how many mechanics he hired. Running that garage and filling station was his passion. Lucky guy. He’d found something he loved to do and been able to do it his whole life.
Once Blake had believed that banking was what he wanted, but life in the real world hadn’t matched his vision, especially lately.
“Did the people from Sweet Dreams contact you?” his grandmother asked, bringing up the very reason he’d come. She was smiling like she’d done a wonderful thing.
“That’s why I came by.”
The smiling stopped. “Oh. I can see you’re not pleased.”
“I don’t want to be in a male beauty pageant.”
“Oh,” she said again, sounding downright disappointed. “I saw all those wonderful prizes and…well, you truly are the handsomest young man in Icicle Falls.”
He had to smile at that. “I think you might be prejudiced.”
“I most certainly am not,” she said stoutly.
“I appreciate the thought.” Not really, but she’d meant well and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “But it wouldn’t look right. Not fitting the position of a bank manager.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Your mother and I just felt it would be fun for you.”
So his mother had been in on this, too. Why was he not surprised? He supposed he could be thankful that only one of the women in his life was currently living in town. He shuddered to imagine the mischief his mother and grandmother would dream up if they were both here. Factor in his sister, and he’d have had a triple threat.
“We hoped maybe it would loosen you up a little,” Gram continued.
“Loosen me up?”
She reached across the table and laid a hand on his arm. “You used to be such a happy young man. You seem so serious these days.”
“I’m happy,” he insisted. But as he did, he realized that he hadn’t laughed once since he’d moved back. Taking over the management of a troubled bank and feeling like some sort of cartoon villain whenever he saw Samantha Sterling was sucking his soul dry.
“Are you?” Gram said, and observed him over the rim of her coffee mug.
“For the most part. I have a lot of responsibility at the bank.”
“Your grandfather has a lot of responsibility at the station and your father has a lot of responsibility at the dealership. They still enjoy themselves.”
“That’s different. They don’t have people’s lives depending on them.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? No families to support? No families working for them?”
She had a point there.
“Everyone has responsibilities, dear.”
“I guess you’re right,” he conceded. “But I still don’t want to be Icicle Falls’ first Mr. Dreamy.”
Not that he would have been. These days he was anything but Samantha Sterling’s idea of a dream man. Somehow, someway, he had to do something to change that.
* * *
Grief was a heavy burden to carry but guilt was even worse and Muriel didn’t think she could bear the load any longer. Her poor daughters were working so hard to clean up the mess she’d created. She had to do her part.
But how? She knew nothing about business. Yes, she’d worked at Sweet Dreams off and on over the years but she’d never been involved in any aspect of running the company. Her most important business had been her family. It still was and now she needed to help them put Sweet Dreams back in the red. Or the black. Or whatever it was. She might not know business, she told herself, but she knew people. She had friends in this town, people who’d want to help if she just asked.
Cecily had gone over to Samantha’s—Muriel wasn’t sure for what, but it most likely had something to do with the festival. So the house was hers.
A couple of weeks ago she’d have taken advantage of that time alone to look through photo albums or sleep or simply cry. She’d cried enough tears in the past few weeks to make the Wenatchee River flood. Nights were the worst. She felt her loss acutely when she climbed into bed and no strong arms reached out to hold her. Trying to fill up that big bed all by herself reminded her how utterly adrift she was.
But with the daylight hours, more pressing concerns took precedence. If they couldn’t save the company she wouldn’t have to worry about being alone in her big bed or this house. The house would be gone, like the company her grandmother had founded.
There was no time for moping. She grabbed the phone. She couldn’t run a business, but she knew how to get donations. She’d made these kinds of calls raising money for the food bank when she and a couple of friends at Icicle Falls Community Church first started it years ago. It was time to make some calls again, this time for some personal loans.
She’d begin with Del Stone. If he was as interested in her sober as he was drunk, then maybe he’d like to put his money where his mouth was and help her out.