“I PINNED YOUR quilt pieces.” Odette ushered Laurel to the worktable later that afternoon. “If you’d taken any longer, I would’ve started stitching. I tacked down my friendship quilt top, which freed up my frame.” Odette’s baby quilt was now mounted on the quilting frame, ready for permanent stitches.
“You did all that? And you pinned mine?” Laurel had been gone less than three hours. She’d had lunch and napped. Clearly, Odette had done neither.
“It’s amazing what you can do with a fancy quilt machine. Besides, yours is just a baby quilt.” The old woman lowered herself into the rocking chair and closed her eyes. “Tuckered me out, though. If there’s more to life than crafting, I don’t know what it is.”
There’s more to life...
That was one of Grandpa Harlan’s favorite starter sentences. Laurel glanced at the crazy quilt above the fireplace. Odette had said she was emotionally attached to it. Was Odette related to Harlan? If so, did her sister, Flip, have a valid claim on the mercantile? Laurel would have to make sure she was within her rights to open a business in the brick building.
That decided, she studied her pinned quilt. Traditional pink and lavender blocks that made sweet little triangular fish.
She didn’t like it. The fish represented compromise and capitulation. Out of the limelight and behind the scenes. There was playful chaos in Odette’s creation, a pinwheel quilt, while Laurel’s was ho-hum.
You don’t want boring, do you, Babies?
They most certainly did not.
Odette snored.
Laurel set the pinned fish quilt aside and dug in the basket of fabrics.
An hour later Laurel had her new blocks tacked in place. She stretched and drank from her water bottle. She was going to make a blackbird baby quilt. Granted, some of her blackbirds were various shades of dark gray, but the contrast with their yellow beaks and the shiny taupe background was striking.
“Flip was right.” Odette leaned forward in her rocker, a sad look in her faded eyes. “She put her stamp on your quilt.”
Laurel nodded. “Both of you pushed me to find...to be...” Impulsively, Laurel stood and gave the old woman a hug and a kiss to her cheek. “I’ve just realized what my imprint is—adding a bit of sparkle or a bit of shine to soften a bold statement or to bring glam to a traditional work.” She’d found it. The drive behind whatever she created. Laurel’s heart swelled.
The old woman huffed but didn’t say more.
Laurel stared at her quilt once more—pleased, satisfied, delighted. She was grinning and couldn’t wait to tell... Someone who wasn’t Mitch.
She touched the fabric, refusing to be saddened in the midst of her epiphany. “But there’s something to be said for color composition and your sister—”
“Stop right now.” Odette walked slowly to the kitchen like a long-legged ostrich, stretching and picking up her feet in exaggerated motions. “If you give Flip too much credit, she’ll take it all.”
“Forewarned.” Laurel held up a hand.
“You need to be on your way. It’ll be dark soon.” Odette opened a jar of almonds and began munching.
Eliciting a promise to leave her quilt be, Laurel bundled up—hat, scarf, jacket—and went outside to put on her snowshoes, pausing on the steps to look at the tracks Flip had left in the snow.
The sky was a subtle purple gray. The wind blew with its usual bite. She glanced to the highway and then to Flip’s tracks.
Light glowed from Odette’s windows, revealing her digging through a tub of brightly colored yarn. She might want strangers to think she was a crotchety old woman, but she was kind once you had the patience to get to know her. She suspected Flip was the same.
Both women were talented. Both had passion for their art. Both inspired Laurel to create, to reach beyond herself.
Her stomach gave a hungry growl. She was supposed to meet Sophie and the boys soon for dinner.
But she was curious about Flip and her cabin. And she wanted to tell Flip about her fabric choices.
But the biggest reason of all to talk to Odette’s sister was the mercantile.
“The first part of any business relationship is seeing if you can get along outside the business world,” Grandpa Harlan had told Laurel after she’d complained about her supervisor at Monroe Studios.
At his suggestion, she’d brought that woman coffee for a month, volunteered to sit her dog while she went on vacation and sat with her on lunch breaks, listening to her rave about her son’s skill as a soccer player. In the end Laurel hadn’t changed her supervisor’s opinion of her as much as she’d understood what kind of person her supervisor was and how best to deal with her.
Laurel walked down the porch steps and turned to the right, certain that Flip’s home couldn’t be far.
“HAVE YOU SEEN LAUREL?” Holding a hand of each twin, Sophie hurried down the inn’s stairs, looking frazzled. Her brown hair was staticky. Her red glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose. “We were supposed to go to dinner half an hour ago.”
At the check-in desk, Mitch turned the application paperwork for historical significance over, even as he felt a tremor of unease. Dr. Carlisle had said concussion symptoms sometimes showed up days later. “She’s not in her room?”
I shouldn’t have let her go to Odette’s alone.
Sophie shook her head. “All I found was her phone.”
Was Laurel wandering around, lost in the wilderness? Without her phone?
A trickle of fear slid down his spine.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” the twin with the cowlick declared, tugging Sophie toward the door.
His statement and arm pulling was mirrored by the other twin. “I’m hungry. I want snacks.” He tugged her in the direction of the alcove—the opposite direction from the door.
Sophie swayed between them. “Boys! Stop it. Aunt Laurel is missing.”
They stopped their tug-of-war and gaped at her.
Mitch came to Sophie’s rescue, doling out flashlights to the trio. Kids always liked flashlights. “Why don’t we head over to the Bent Nickel and see if she’s there?” He took a flashlight for himself. The sun had set, and it always paid to be careful. “I’ll check in with Odette.” He called her landline.
The twins made ghoulish faces with their lights, but Sophie looked relieved to be saved from being made a wishbone.
“Can I help?” Zeke wheeled across the room just as Shane came downstairs.
Sophie brought the two of them up to speed.
“Odette’s not answering.” Sometimes the old woman claimed to be too busy to bother with phone calls. Mitch grabbed his coat.
“Dad?” Gabby’s concerned expression was more pronounced given her black-rimmed eyes. “Do you need help looking?”
“No, honey. You stay here with Zeke. Laurel probably went straight to the diner from Odette’s.” But the chill deep in his bones said otherwise. “Call me if she shows up.” He pointed to their landline before Gabby could say something about not having a cell phone.
No one at the Bent Nickel had seen Laurel since lunchtime.
“We should call someone.” Sophie wrung her hands.
“The sheriff?” Shane asked anxiously. “Search and rescue?”
“The sheriff lives on the north end of town.” And let’s face it, the old man should have retired years ago. Sending him out in all this snow would result in disaster. “And we don’t call search and rescue until we’re sure a person is lost.”
“But she’s not here,” Sophie cried.
“Come on.” Ivy led Sophie to a table where her boys were sitting. “I’ll get you some tea. Mitch will be back with Laurel in no time.” But Ivy’s smile seemed as forced as her words sounded.
Outside the diner, Mitch strapped on his snowshoes. It was dark. It was cold. And Laurel was missing. Fear froze his lungs and leadened his limbs.
He wanted to find her, to wrap his arms around her and tell her one of Harlan’s stories, like the one about Harlan getting lost during a surprise spring blizzard. One of the stories Mitch had given his word not to tell.
That was how much she meant to him. If she was safe, he was willing to renege on a contract and go back on his word. If they hadn’t gotten into an argument, she might be safe right now.
A few minutes later Odette ushered him inside, looking like she was settling in to binge-watch television outside. She wore a thick pair of gray sweats, mittens, an orange scarf and thick red knit socks. “What do you mean Laurel’s missing? She left here over an hour ago before it was dark.”
“She didn’t show up for dinner.”
It was chilly in her cabin. There was a stack of blankets on the couch as if Odette was going to burrow under them.
“That girl. I bet she went to Flip’s.” Odette picked up her phone and plugged the jack in, catching Mitch’s startled expression. “Don’t judge.” She called Flip, but no one answered there, either. “Hers is probably unplugged, too.” She reached for her coat.
“Stay here.” The last thing he needed was for Odette to break a bone traipsing through the snow with no doctor in town. “I know the way.”
Odette hesitated, arms halfway in her jacket. “Is it snowing outside?”
“No.” The next storm was predicted to move in tomorrow night. The lack of falling snow was a blessing. It meant Mitch could follow Laurel’s tracks, and could tell if she’d wandered into the woods.
Odette knew it, too. She nodded and hung her jacket back on its hook. “She’s probably up there arguing with Flip. If Flip let her in. She’s stubborn.”
“Speaking of stubborn things.” Mitch went to the thermostat, which was set at sixty, and edged it up to sixty-eight. “You can afford your electricity bill. I don’t want to come looking for you and find you frozen over your sewing machine.”
“I’m too stubborn to die of the cold.” Odette opened the door and ushered him out. “Something else will get me, just like it got my man. That city girl of yours... She’s not mountain folk. You find her. You find her right quick.”
“I NEVER SHOULD have let you in.” Flip paced the small kitchen.
“But you did let me in,” Laurel said. “And then you let me look at your paintings.” She’d been looking for a long time, thinking that Sophie would love to sort through Flip’s work.
The paintings crowded her living room. There was no more space to store them, to hang them or to display them. Or to sit, for that matter, other than the kitchen table.
That would make me cranky.
“Have you always loved painting?”
“No. It’s been an outlet. Nothing more. I’m not an artist.”
“I beg to differ.”
Each canvas was different. There was a corner in the back of the room with angry canvases filled with slashes of black paint depicting loosely formed subjects—speeding cars, sneering men, things hiding in the shadows. The couch was covered with more realistic paintings, carefully stroked studies of light and nature—the majestic Sawtooth Mountains, the sparkling Salmon River in spring, cabins nestled in pine-studded groves. Nearer the door, whimsy had taken hold. Flip’s paint strokes were fewer, bigger, bolder. The pine groves were decorated with a blooming carpet of wildflowers. The moon illuminated many a red rose garden.
By looking at her work, Laurel felt as if she was peeking into Flip’s emotional journey—from sadness to a happier place. Sophie would marvel at the collection’s depth. But it left a different imprint on Laurel. Her work said there was hope.
“Look what I found.” Laurel held up an unfinished portrait of Grandpa Harlan, hidden near the bottom of a series of moonlit rose garden paintings. “You have talent. I recognized my grandfather right away.” Laurel admired the bold lines of the man’s jaw. “He used to say he brought out the best in people.”
“He would,” Flip quipped.
They both laughed, but Laurel knew it was true. Grandpa Harlan had demanded perfection of himself, his family and his workforce. Those standards had made him a multimillionaire.
The last painting in the stack was a whimsical picture of a golden moon in an almost equally golden sky. “I’d love to have this one for my nursery. The moon has a face and that face is smiling.” She turned it toward Flip, who’d stopped pacing and gripped the kitchen chair back.
“You’re flattering me now.” Her weathered face wavered from tentative pride to perplexed uncertainty as if she wanted to believe what Laurel said was true.
“I’m not.” Laurel set the moon painting next to the one of her grandfather, and moved to stand near the old woman, gently prying her hands from the chair and giving them a reassuring squeeze. “If you let me, I could sell your paintings at the mercantile. That is, if you wouldn’t mind me turning it into a place filled with beautiful things.”
“Sell what you want.” The old woman made a derisive noise. “Nobody wants my work. I paint for myself.” Flip was determined not to take a compliment. But Laurel had been giving them since she’d arrived, and Flip looked...less angry, less distant. “I started painting in the mercantile because I ran out of room here. By rights, it’s yours since I’ve only got a lease on this place.”
“Thank you. It means a lot to get your blessing. But please think about letting me feature your work. Grandpa Harlan would have been thrilled if I brought your art to others to enjoy.” Laurel was convinced of that. “I’d be honored, as well.”
Flip turned away. “If I wanted to put my paintings up for sale, I could put them in the general store.”
Laurel didn’t feel right about that. The paintings deserved more than that, they deserved atmosphere, not apples and artichokes. They were art! She cast about her brain for a way to convince Flip. “Are there other artists in town? The mercantile could be a place we show off the talents that can only be found in Second Chance.”
“You’re Harlan’s granddaughter all right.” Flip brushed her gray-brown hair toward the back of her neck and sighed. “You never know when to give up.”
“Then you’ll agree?”
“If you get Odette to agree to sell some of her things—which she won’t—I’ll let you have a painting or two.”
Laurel gushed her thanks.
Flip raised her head, looking through the dark window. “What’s that noise?” She grabbed a shotgun.
THE LIGHTS WERE blazing in Flip’s cabin and two figures could be seen through the kitchen window. On the porch a familiar pair of snowshoes leaned against the wall near the front door.
His boots on the wooden steps announced him before he could knock.
Flip opened the door, frowning, holding a shotgun. “It’s about time you came to collect this baggage. She’s been trying to fill my head with all sorts of nonsense.”
It had been years since Mitch had been inside Flip’s cabin. Back then he’d walked into her living room. He couldn’t walk anywhere in her cabin today without knocking over stacks of paintings or unframed blank canvases. Her landline was nowhere in sight. If it had rung, it couldn’t have been reached.
But he could worry about Flip later, because he’d found Laurel.
“Mitch?” Laurel had her jacket on. Her smile faded at the sight of him. “Is something wrong?”
The first rule of engagement with Laurel should’ve been not to look in her eyes. They used to shine bluer than the sky when she focused on him. Since he’d admitted he knew Harlan’s disastrous Christmas story, they’d become a flat, pale blue and sorrowful.
He’d hurt her. But he’d lost something, too. Something he’d taken for granted. Something he had no right to ask for. A chance at winning her love.
“Mitch?” she said again.
“You missed your dinner with Sophie and left your phone at the inn, Miss Laurel.” He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to turn around and leave her at Flip’s because the alternative was a long walk back to the town proper. Alone with Laurel. Under the stars.
Laurel said goodbye to Flip with a hug and a promise to keep in touch, zipped up her jacket and stepped outside with him, closing the door to Flip’s prying eyes. “Were you worried, Counselor?” She laid her gloved palm on his chest and stared up at him in a way he couldn’t resist.
He hauled Laurel into his arms and tucked her head beneath his chin. “You can’t imagine how relieved I am to find you safe.” Mitch brought her closer. “Don’t say anything just yet. Don’t say anything about things we can’t say to each other or dresses we can’t leave behind or... Just...don’t say anything.”
She relaxed in his arms. “Oh, Mitch.”
Mitch. Not Counselor.
He led her down the steps and then helped her put on her snowshoes.
They walked away from Flip’s, their route illuminated by the moon and Mitch’s flashlight. The northern part of town had only a few cabins interspersed with larger ranches that led up to the Bucking Bull. The smell of woodsmoke was faint, as were electric lights.
“We’re taking the road back,” Mitch said when Laurel tried to veer through the woods. “You should never stray off the road at night. You could get lost or injured. And without your cell phone...” They’d never find her. Or they’d find her too late.
“I never thought I’d get a lecture about not having my cell phone handy.” A gentle tease.
“I never thought I’d give one.” The tension in him eased as they slipped into familiar banter.
“Did my grandfather ever get lost in the snow?”
Her question broadsided him. “Is this a test?”
“It is if you still have the hots for me.” She slid him a sideways glance and a hint of a smile. “You made quite the impression on me and the babies when Flip opened that door and our gazes connected.”
He’d felt something, too. “I was a lawyer. Deep down, I still am. I want to tell you things...” He wanted to tell her everything. “But the terms of my silence last a full year after Harlan’s death. I can’t go against my word without a court order.” Unlike Ivy. “If this is a deal breaker...”
The wind swirled past and their snowshoes crunched ice-crusted snow.
Laurel didn’t say yes or no. She wasn’t going to make this easy on him or maybe the decision was hard on her, too.
“You know,” Mitch said, feeling a bit desperate, “there was a man who used to live out here. His parents were what someone in the big city might call dirt-poor. They worked hard for every penny they made.” Mitch shifted his feet, but never took his eyes from her. “This man... He might have been barely eighteen. He could taste a snowstorm coming. The air was thick with cold and wet. But he needed to catch a fish to feed the family, so he stayed by the river casting his fly into a small hole in the snow and ice, unwilling to give up. And then the storm hit and Har...” Mitch swallowed. “And he still hadn’t caught more than a bit of snow on that feathered hook of his. So he fought the wind and the cold and the hunger. And finally, he hooked a fish. And this young man turned to go home, only the snow was so thick he couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of his face.”
A gust of wind blew snow from the pines above their heads.
“It took him over an hour to find his way home. He knew his family had to have food, because as you know, folks can get snowed in for days up here in Second Chance.” The young man was Harlan, of course. But Mitch would deny it if she asked him.
The wind swirled, trying to throw him off balance.
Finally, she spoke. “My grandfather used to encourage me to reach for my dreams, wherever they might take me. It was nice to hear, but... I never had adequate time to explore my creativity.” Her words were soft, quickly carried away by the wind. “Last year, if you’d have asked me what my dream was, I’d have said to be a red-carpet dress designer. But I had no vision of what my dresses would look like. No unique style in the way I dressed that said I was different than some other designer. I wanted to sew and create and have others love it.” She glanced up at him and then away. “To have others love me.”
Mitch clasped her gloved hand with his own.
“Is that the right motivation to choose a career?” She closed her eyes, seeming to gather herself before looking up at him again. “My grandfather once told me I was more than Ashley’s twin. And I’ve gone through life wondering how to be more...me.” Her gloved fingers gripped his. “It’s hard to find yourself when you share a face with someone famous. When you have to wear another person’s persona and leave yours behind.”
“You’ve been very unselfish.”
“I’ve been hiding.” Laurel shook off his words. “Odette brings color to life. There’s a warmth in her work that makes you want to hug something, which contradicts the facade she presents to the world.” Laurel sniffed, but Mitch wasn’t sure if the cold had gotten to her nose or if her insight into Odette was choking her up. “And Flip... If I hadn’t seen her full collection of work, I’d never have believed there was such depth to her soul, such beauty.”
She was definitely choked up now. But she was also determined to keep moving forward, to push past adversity and unpleasantness the way she always did.
“I have so much to learn from them,” Laurel said in a distant voice. “So much to learn about myself. And when I’m in search of joy and inspiration, how can I shut out one of the people who gives me both?” She stared up at him and said simply, “You.”
Mitch’s heart was full. The future seemed less uncertain. Because Laurel would be in it.
They reached the narrow ribbon of two-lane highway at a bend in the road. Moonlight stroked over the wide, rolling valley, washing it in blue and making it look like a calm and gentle ocean.
“Oh. It’s stunning, like one of Flip’s paintings.” Laurel admired the view. “I’ve never seen the valley at night.”
Her window faced the western mountains.
“I had an intense day today,” Laurel continued. “And I have a lot to think about tomorrow. It’s rare moments of beauty like this when I understand why my grandfather loved this place. Besides—” she wore a teary smile “—I’m partial to blue.”
He stood next to her, resisting the impulse to take her into his arms again. “I’m partial to the blue of your eyes when you’re laughing.”
She gazed up at him, not laughing, wiping away a tear. “That’s kind of you to say.”
He wasn’t feeling kind enough. “I should have said I prefer the blue of your eyes. Period.” He rested his hands on her hips.
Mitch was in trouble. He could feel that trouble expanding in his chest, rising like a balloon, filling him with wonder. The trouble was love. And it was inescapable.
I love Laurel.
He loved her honesty. He loved her laughter. He loved her dogged need to negotiate peace. He loved her talent and tenacity. He loved how she wanted to protect her sister. He loved how she fitted into his arms and held on to his hand.
“We need to come to an agreement.” His voice was gruff from emotion. “A peace accord in the midst of all these Monroes.”
“What did you have in mind?” Her hands slid up his chest, giving him hope that she’d accept his terms for a truce.
But there wasn’t just peace at stake. There was love on the bargaining table. And as she’d said, love started with honesty. “Tell me what big secret is hanging over you.” He covered her hands with his, closing his fingers protectively around hers. “Let me help you and those babies.”
Her gloved hands fisted on his chest and her features stiffened, not in anger, but in anguish. “My life is tangled worse than a ball of half-unraveled yarn.” He wanted there to be no barriers between them. He wanted to help her. He wanted to admit to Laurel that he’d fallen in love with her. He wanted her to love him in return.
All his wants pressed down on his shoulders. He had to be patient. Everything in due time as if he was preparing to win a long court case.
“If I could just unravel one piece...” She lifted her gaze to his. “If I was standing on solid ground personally, with my sister. Or professionally... I’d let you help. But it’s all messy and I...I don’t think you’d like what you found if you looked at my knots.”
“You’re wrong.” He pressed her hands deeper into his jacket, over his heart. “I think you deserve to be happy, and maybe happiness is closer than you think.” When the contract expired, when her problems had sorted themselves out, they’d be okay.
“Do you really think so?”
Instead of answering, he wrapped his arms around Laurel and kissed her.
A few minutes later, when they were both cold on the outside and warm on the inside, she drew back and stared at him in wonder.
He couldn’t be sure because of the blustering wind whistling through the trees, but he thought she said, “You really think so,” before she chuckled and tugged him toward home.
“I’M GETTING BETTER with snowshoes.” Sophie passed Laurel going up the hill, singing her words instead of speaking them. “I’m so good, pretty soon we won’t need our chaperone.” She listed to one side, much as Laurel had done the other day. Only she righted herself with her poles and didn’t fall.
Laurel had mixed feelings about their chaperone. For one thing, he was an excellent kisser. For another, he’d refused to let her out alone, worried Laurel would fall again, worried Laurel might develop a concussion or wander off through the lodgepole pines.
Laurel paused, glancing over her shoulder at him, the handsome, caring man she hoped would understand the Wyatt fiasco.
“First rule of snowshoeing, Miss Laurel. Don’t stop in the middle of the hill.” Mitch wore his kind smile, the one that brought back memories of warm kisses on cold nights. “Second rule of snowshoeing. Don’t go into the wilderness without your phone.”
Well, she was fairly certain no one was going to return her calls during the hour she was over here. “I’m right across the highway from help.” From Mitch. If he’d chosen to stay back at the inn.
“I have my phone,” Sophie reassured Mitch. “And we won’t be here long. The boys might wear out their welcome at the diner.” She’d left them with the schoolkids under the supervision of Eli Garland. Sophie reached the trading post porch and waited for Laurel, Mitch and his key. “Alexander and Andrew aren’t due to start kindergarten until the fall. Mr. Garland gave me an hour.” She checked her cell phone. “That was ten minutes ago.”
“Can you open up the mercantile, Mitch? I want to show it to Sophie.” Laurel reached the porch and stepped aside to allow him access to the door, bumping into a grinning Sophie.
“He’s a keeper,” Sophie whispered her favorite line.
“That I am.” Mitch unlocked the trading post door and turned, his gaze colliding with Laurel’s. He was doing his best not to grin and she was doing her best not to tangle up their snowshoes as they’d done last night when she’d kissed him.
Sophie laughed. “I’m such a third wheel.”
“You’re not.” Laurel’s cheeks heated. She gave Mitch a gentle shove. “Let’s go. I want to show you both something.”
Mitch’s brows quirked. He moved past Laurel and led them across the snowshoe trail they’d made the other day to the mercantile.
Laurel followed, hot on his heels, ridding herself of snowshoes and poles as soon as she reached the mercantile’s porch. “Wait until you see the light in here, Sophie.” She darted around Mitch to get inside.
Sophie peeked in while she removed her snow gear. “Why aren’t there piles and piles of stuff in here?”
“Because of Flip, I think.” Laurel peered into the glass case that held the bolts of faded fabric. “She had a painting of hers on display in here the other day. It was beautiful and angled to catch the light. She has so many paintings in her cabin and no room to paint or to step back and appreciate them.”
“What did you want me to see?” Glancing around, Sophie wasn’t as enthused as Laurel was. “It looks like it’s been picked clean.”
“No. It’s been cleaned, Sophie. There’s a difference.” Laurel ran her gloved hand over the glass. “This was where ladies in town shopped. Unlike the trading post, there aren’t any bear traps, for instance. No axes. No thermal wear. Look at this.” She scurried around the display counter to point at a framed picture on the wall. “This is a fashion plate from over one hundred years ago. Women came in here to buy things that gave them joy. Just look around. Can you see it?”
Mitch smiled at Laurel, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t because he saw her vision.
Sophie frowned. “See what?”
“What this could be.” Laurel moved into the middle of the room and spread her arms. “I see a display of Odette’s quilts here. And a few of Flip’s paintings hanging on the wall there. Everything I sell would be handmade locally. Scarves, mittens, caps.” A scarf or quilt with a bit of shine or sparkle. “Maybe some of that pottery and other rustic art pieces you rave about.” There had to be other artisans in the area.
“A boutique?” Sophie pushed her glasses up her nose. “In Second Chance?”
Laurel came to a stop in front of the window overlooking the Lodgepole Inn and the valley beyond it, remembering the moonlit meadow and strong arms around her. “Yes, a boutique in Second Chance. My boutique.” A joyous place. “All I have to do is convince Odette to let me sell some of her crafts.” And maybe someday she’d sell some of her own.
“Well, if you could make that happen, I could open an antiques store in the trading post.” Sophie stepped out onto the porch and looked at the log building. “It wouldn’t be your average, stuffy mom-and-pop shop with teacups, Tiffany lamps and old books. I’m finding unusual pieces and there are bound to be more in the other buildings if what Shane told me is true.”
“You can see it, can’t you?” Laurel beamed at her cousin. “You can feel it?” The rightness of it all. “Us. Here. In Second Chance.”
“Slow down.” Mitch stepped between them. No smile on his face. No tease in his voice. “I’m not sure if anyone’s told you, but we don’t get many people stopping here to shop. Mack can back me up on this.”
“Maybe that’s because there’s not much here to stop for,” Sophie pointed out. “The town is charming. People would want to stop, get out and stretch their legs if they saw something interesting to stop and shop for.”
“You’ve seen how little traffic goes through during winter.” Mitch extended an arm to Exhibit A: the empty highway.
“Lots of businesses are seasonal.” Laurel leaned against the brick window ledge and regarded him levelly trying to discern the root of his protest.
Sophie nodded and put on her snowshoes. “I have lots of unique items to sell in the trading post. Some are worth a lot to the right collector.”
Mitch shook his head. “I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but since I’ve been here I’ve seen five or six businesses close, just in this part of town. Even with your grandfather’s low leases.”
“Well, they weren’t Monroes running those businesses, were they?” Laurel raised her chin. “We Monroes have a saying—”
“To make money, you have to be passionate about what you do,” Sophie finished for her.
“Because a passion for a business is like a rich cake with a cherry on top.” Grandpa Harlan used to say that. “You have to eat cake when it’s fresh.”
“Because there’s more to life than eating your greens.” Sophie grinned. She was in. She was definitely in.
“Is this the right time to think about this?” Mitch tried to sound reasonable, but it was clear he had strong opinions about what they were doing. He wasn’t convinced this was right for either of them. “Sophie has two young boys. You’re pregnant and have things to unravel.”
Laurel wanted to move closer, brush Mitch’s dark, wind-tossed hair from his eyes, and press a reassuring kiss to his lips. “I’m going to do this.”
“Me, too.” Sophie looked just as determined as Laurel felt.
“I’m not going to be hurt.” Laurel succumbed to the need to soothe. She stepped into Mitch’s space and held on to his forearms. “The worst that could happen is we go out of business. And the best that could happen is our efforts entice more travelers to stop, eat at the diner, buy snacks and gasoline at the general store, maybe even stay the night at the inn.”
He bent to press a tender kiss on her forehead.
Laurel wasn’t fooled. He was worried.
She was worried, too. But not about the boutique succeeding. She was worried about her ability to convince Odette to sell her work.
And without both sisters, Laurel would only have a scarf or two of her own to sell.