“HEY, MITCH.” SHANE, Harlan’s grandson, came down the inn’s steps and headed Mitch’s way a few minutes after the town council meeting ended. “I wanted to run something by you.”
Of course, he did. Mitch drew a calming breath. The former hotel chain executive lay awake at night coming up with ideas to improve Second Chance.
Shane had a purposeful walk, a mind like a steel trap and a commanding presence. If Mitch were still a lawyer, he’d welcome a guy like Shane on his team.
Shane came to a stop in front of Mitch. “We’ve talked a lot about improving the income of Second Chance residents.” He hit just the right note of camaraderie and business. “I want your opinion on the luxury development card.”
The bottom fell out of Mitch’s stomach.
Shane continued as if he hadn’t just pulled the plug on Mitch’s world, “My grandfather was sentimental. He never owned a cell phone or a computer. He conducted business with a handshake and a signature made by putting pen to paper.”
Mitch nodded. All true.
“But he liked to make money.” Shane tugged the ends of his too-thin jacket closer together. “And money can be made—good money—by building a luxury resort in Second Chance.”
Mitch’s heart fell toward his stomach.
“The last thing I want,” Harlan had said to Mitch on more than one occasion, “is for this town to turn into a rich person’s playground.”
When Shane had first arrived in town over a month ago, he and Mitch hadn’t hit it off. Shane didn’t like how evasive Mitch was regarding Harlan’s purchase of the town. Mitch didn’t like how evasive Shane was regarding the family’s plans toward the town. But recently, they’d managed to find neutral ground, mostly because Shane had admitted all twelve grandchildren had to agree about Second Chance’s future and no one had mentioned anything about high-end development.
When Mitch didn’t immediately answer, Shane asked, “What do you think my grandfather would’ve thought about a resort here?”
The snowflakes thickened. The wind gathered. Time might not have changed the town, but Shane Monroe might.
Mitch made a noncommittal noise and looked around the stretch of road that made up the heart of town.
Most businesses were located in historic structures dating back to the town’s roots when it’d been established by one of Harlan Monroe’s ancestors. The diner and general store had been competing saloons. The inn had been everything from a barracks to a brothel, although Mitch had argued the latter when Gabby put it in a paper for school. Other cabins and businesses about town had similar Old West histories.
During the town council meeting, Mitch had come up with an idea. Apply for historical significance. Could he convince a state board that the town’s hundred-year-old log cabins were important enough to protect? Would that be enough to stop Shane from tearing them down and building his luxury resort?
“Mitch?”
“Well, Harlan...” Shut up, Mitch. “In my opinion, Harlan wouldn’t...”
Shane’s expression shuttered.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Remember the nondisclosure agreement. The one he’d signed when Harlan purchased the Lodgepole Inn. And then there was the truce himself and Shane. He had to be neutral and diplomatic. He had to—
“I hate the idea,” Mitch blurted. “Who does it benefit? Not Mack.” He pointed toward the general store, where Mack was creating a Valentine’s Day display. “There’s nothing high-end about what she sells. Or what Ivy serves. Or the accommodations I provide.”
Shane drew in a breath as if preparing to speak, but Mitch wasn’t done.
“Your grandfather didn’t just care about the town. He cared about the people.” A general statement, but one he hoped hit home. “About the community. Winter is our time to—”
“Objection, Counselor,” Shane said, using his cousin’s nickname for Mitch and holding up a gloveless hand. “Let me explain. Have you heard of the concept of due diligence?”
“I’ve heard of companies willing to take propositions off the table when they don’t fit their philosophies. Fancy hotels and restaurants shouldn’t be in Second Chance.”
“I have eleven other owners to consider.” Shane’s words took on that high-and-mighty tone that grated on Mitch’s ears. “If you think I can get a consensus without exploring all avenues, you’re wrong. Now...” His voice hardened. “I asked you a question.”
“In my opinion,” Mitch said through gritted teeth. “Your grandfather would fight luxury development to the bitter end.”
Shane studied him for a moment before nodding, grinning wryly. “Agreed. I just needed to hear it from you.”
“What?” With effort, Mitch pulled himself together. “Were you just yanking my chain?”
“Come on, Mitch.” Shane laughed and turned toward the Bent Nickel. “You know the answer to that question.”
He had been.
Mitch ran a hand over his face and then headed for the general store. He imagined the path to historical significance was paved with piles of paperwork, which would be easier to tackle later with a glass or two of wine, especially if Shane decided to pull his chain once more.
On his way back to the inn with a bottle of wine in hand, the wind picked up, rushing down the western mountain range on icy feet to dance around Mitch and any exposed skin it could find. It had been in the forties earlier, but the temperature was falling fast. More snow was coming.
“Please tell me that’s a whiskey bottle you’re carrying.” Zeke Roosevelt sat in a wheelchair by the large stone fireplace in the inn’s common room. His leg was in a splint and propped up. He wore a blue plaid shirt with pearly snaps and a pair of gray sweats with one leg cut off at the knee. His ever-present smile was worn around the edges.
The ginger-haired cowboy had been working at the Bucking Bull ranch north of town until he’d crashed his truck a few weeks ago, breaking his shinbone and sidelining him from the workforce for several months. Given the bunkhouse at the Bucking Bull had no kitchen and was separate from the main house, it would’ve been difficult for Zeke to recuperate on the ranch during the heart of winter. He’d checked in as a long-term guest, staying in one of the small downstairs guest rooms.
“It’s wine.” Mitch held the bottle so Zeke could see. “And I don’t have to tell you what Noah said before he left about mixing pain meds with alcohol.” That was a big no-no. Mitch crossed the foyer and went into the apartment he and Gabby shared behind the check-in desk.
Their living space was tight. A kitchen with a small table, a bathroom and two bedrooms. The common room served as their living room and had the inn’s only television.
“I’m not taking the pain meds Doc gave me,” Zeke called to him. “They give me bad dreams.”
If what Zeke said was true, that explained the worn-out smile. His break had been nasty—bone through skin. It’d been set with plates and screws.
Ouch.
“Still not getting any wine.” Mitch lifted the Crock-Pot lid and stirred the chili. Then he returned to the hotel desk and checked his email to see if anyone had answered the ad to replace Noah as Second Chance’s doctor.
Not a single reply.
Mitch felt as tired as Zeke’s smile. Could nothing go right today?
“Look, Dad.” Gabby emerged from her room. Instead of toting her laptop, she held up a pair of wooden knitting needles and purple yarn with a couple inches of what Mitch assumed was a scarf. “Odette’s teaching me and Laurel how to knit. I’m going to sit with her every day until we’re done.”
“That’s nice of her.” It was good for Odette to get out. The old woman routinely sewed all day, every day. “Are you going to work with Odette over at her cabin tomorrow?”
“No, Dad.” Eye roll, eye roll, eye roll. “I’m going to be knitting with Laurel upstairs. Odette isn’t coming back here until our scarves are finished.”
“You’re going to be knitting with Laurel...” Something inside Mitch sat up and blinked.
The fashionable Laurel was knitting? The two images didn’t fit.
“Yes, with Laurel.” Since Gabby’s birthday over a week ago, which was when her braces had come off, she’d become touchy about the things Mitch said. She tossed her strawberry blond hair over her shoulder and waltzed past him into the front room, sitting on the couch near Zeke’s wheelchair.
“Where’s the love?” he murmured. Where had his precious little girl gone?
“Dad,” Gabby said with the utmost teenage contempt. She glanced at Zeke from beneath lowered lashes as her cheeks turned a deep red. She had a crush on the cowboy.
Zeke was at least two decades older than she was, so anything romantic was thankfully ruled out.
“You can knit later.” Mitch wasn’t so old he’d forgotten the importance of a teenage crush, but he wasn’t going to encourage this one. “We need to clean the rooms.”
“Dad.” Gabby’s shoulders sank, and she frowned as if he’d suggested she clean the toilets with her toothbrush. “I’m busy.”
“That you are.” Mitch grabbed the basket of fresh linens on their kitchen table, an empty basket for dirty things, and a mop and a bucket filled with cleaning supplies from the nearby pantry. “You’re busy cleaning rooms.”
“Dad,” Gabby grumbled, although she set her knitting aside and followed him to Zeke’s small room and its full-size four-poster bed.
“You change the sheets and towels. I’ll clean the floors and bathroom.” He snapped on a pair of plastic cleaning gloves.
With the familiarity of practice, they went about their work and immediate worry over the fate of Second Chance faded.
The cowboy was neat, possibly because he was restricted to a wheelchair and bed. When Mitch no longer heard the sounds of Gabby changing linens, he stopped wiping down the counter and poked his head out the bathroom door.
His daughter was admiring Zeke’s straw cowboy hat. And by admiring, Mitch meant she was lifting it from where it hung on a bedpost, looking like she intended to put it on her own head.
“Leave it,” Mitch said, horrified. They’d had long conversations about a guest’s right to privacy and here she was disrespecting that right.
“I’m done.” There was mutiny in those two words, but Gabby put the hat back and smoothed the brown log-cabin quilt’s corners. “What am I supposed to do?”
“How about talk to me?” Like my little girl used to. Mitch missed her chattering. He gathered the cleaning supplies. “Can you keep up with your homework and Odette’s knitting lessons?”
“Dad,” Gabby huffed, not that he blamed her. It was a silly question. “The only homework I haven’t done is a history paper on the first governor of Idaho.”
“A term paper?” The tension inside Mitch eased. That would require a big chunk of his daughter’s time.
“We don’t call them that.” Gabby tucked the dirty linens into the empty basket, stacked it on top of the clean linens basket and carried both out, hurrying past Zeke without a word. She climbed the stairs with what looked like a drunken swagger. She’d learned long ago how to traverse the steps and the upstairs hallway like a ninja, avoiding squeaky floorboards.
Mitch’s footsteps echoed unapologetically on the stairs.
Shane’s room was next. The man’s clothes hung in the small closet—expensive dress shirts, polo shirts and slacks. Slacks, not jeans. Mitch bet there was at least one tie in the man’s suitcase.
Who brought business clothes to the mountains of Idaho in winter?
I did.
Mitch had kept five suits from his legal days. He even had some slacks—the same brand as Shane’s—in a plastic bin at the back of his closet.
The difference is I don’t wear them every day.
“Why don’t you like Shane?” Gabby asked.
He reminds me of me, back when I was a lawyer with something to prove.
He’s unpredictable and sets my teeth on edge.
Statements like that weren’t something fathers said to their impressionable teenage daughters.
“I like Shane,” he insisted instead. “We were just talking outside.”
Gabby smirked.
“I like that he’s neat,” Mitch said, sounding almost as mutinous as Gabby had downstairs.
“I like that we changed his sheets yesterday,” Gabby replied. They only changed the bed linens twice a week for long-term guests. Gabby sat down on the black, gray and white quilt, a modern kaleidoscope design. “Do you think I’m impatient?”
Mitch tried not to think about huffs and eye rolls and changed the subject, switching to his helpful dad voice. “Are you going to need a trip to the library in Ketchum for this paper?” If so, as soon as the weather let up, they could spend a day away from Zeke and the Monroes. “We also haven’t taken you shopping in a while. Are you growing again? Those jeans look short.”
“My jeans are fine, Dad. And nobody goes to the library to research papers anymore. We use the internet.” That earned him a huff and an eye roll. “What’s wrong with you?”
I’m losing my little girl.
And if the Monroes disappointed Harlan and made it financially impossible to stay, who knew if he’d ever get her back. If they returned to Chicago, his ex-wife might take an interest in Gabby again, might drag her into the country-club scene, might try to put her on the beauty pageant circuit, might try to make her value bank account balances over self-worth.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Mitch insisted, swallowing back the what-ifs. “I’m trying to be nice and treat you to a bonus since we’re having a good quarter. How about a trip to the bookstore?”
“You know I love the bookstore.” Gabby swung her feet around on the bed so she could watch him finish in the bathroom.
“I know you love the bookstore,” Mitch parroted back, heartened. He finished in the bathroom, gathered his supplies and led Gabby to the large corner room on the other end of the inn.
The wood floors creaked as he traversed the slanted hall.
“How much are we talking in terms of a bookstore spending limit?” Behind him, Gabby’s footfalls were nearly silent. “One book? Two? Fifty dollars?”
While they negotiated, Mitch opened the door to the room occupied by Sophie Monroe and her two twin toddlers, who were still outside playing in the snow.
He and Gabby paused, letting the extent of the mess sink in.
The sheets and blankets were in a tangle on both beds. The pillows were piled in a corner as if someone had made them into a fort. Clothes and shoes were scattered everywhere. In the bathroom, all the towels were wet and sat in a mountainous pile.
Gabby slipped past him. “I may need a bonus just for cleaning this room.”
She may be right.
They didn’t waste more energy talking and went to work.
Beds made, bathroom and floors clean, wet towels in the basket in the hallway, dry towels in their place, they moved to the final occupied room. Mitch always saved it for last.
“Come in,” Laurel called before Mitch could knock, adding when he opened the door, “I heard you come down the hall.” She didn’t look up, didn’t brush that red hair from her eyes. She sat on top of the sunflower quilt on the bed, bent over a pair of wooden knitting needles. She looped teal yarn around one needle, thought better of it and looped it the other way.
Mitch paused just inside the doorway, trying to reconcile the image of the stylish Laurel doing something as homey as knitting.
“Nice gloves.” Laurel nodded toward Mitch’s hands, sending the first salvo across his bow.
“Dad won’t clean without them,” Gabby said happily, earning her a frown from Mitch.
Laurel gave one of her distinctive laughs—hardy-har-har. As much as her clothes were sophisticated, her laugh was not.
He moved past his daughter into the bathroom, where he faced the shimmery pink evening gown.
“Pampering your skin is important.” Laurel’s voice sparkled with amusement.
Mitch bet if he glanced at Laurel, her blue eyes would be sparkling, too.
“Does your father also like manicures?” Laurel teased.
“He does not,” Mitch said firmly, manhood imperiled. He moved the mop about quickly, being careful not to touch the dress.
“The sheets are fine,” Laurel said to Gabby. “Like I said this morning, I didn’t get sick in them or in the bathroom. Woo-hoo.”
Mitch had to work hard not to smile.
Laurel’s most admirable trait was her honesty. Mitch valued honesty in all its forms. Now that she was feeling better, her optimism continuously tried to sneak past the defenses he put up. So what if he admired her forthrightness? Didn’t mean he lingered when he cleaned her room.
The mattress rasped as if Gabby had sat on the bed. “I can’t believe you didn’t know you were pregnant.”
Mitch frowned and swung the mop with more velocity. The last thing he wanted was for Gabby to idolize Laurel, fashionista and soon-to-be single mom.
“Sometimes the truth sneaks up on you,” Laurel said.
The mop handle tangled in the skirt of the pink dress. Frustration loosened Mitch’s filter. “I’ve been meaning to ask about this dress of yours. Does it need to hang here all the time? Are you getting ready to go to prom?”
“That dress wasn’t made to hang, forgotten in a closet.” There was starch to Laurel’s words as if she’d gotten her back up.
Good. He had yet to see her riled. Witnessing a poor-little-rich-girl tantrum would take the shine off her for both Mitch and Gabby.
Gabby poked her head into the bathroom. “That dress is so pretty.”
“And it’s been hanging in here since she arrived.” Mitch didn’t try to hide his disapproval. Maybe disapproval was the way to squelch the attraction he felt toward this particular Monroe.
“I hate to tell you, Mitch, but your closet rod is shamefully low. I had to convert the bathroom to specialty dress storage.” Laurel’s tone was more suited for a put-down in judge’s chambers than a room at the Lodgepole Inn. “If I hung that dress in the closet, the small train would brush the floor. Silk is a delicate thing—a delicate, edible thing—especially to Mothra.”
Mitch choked on a snort of laughter. He hadn’t expected a Godzilla movie reference.
“What’s a Mothra?” Gabby swung on the door frame, smiling broadly, flashing her retainer wire and those straight teeth he’d paid a small fortune to fix.
“Mothra is a giant moth that starred in some B movies. The point is, moths plant larvae on clothes so their young have something to eat when they hatch. And moths love natural fibers like silk and wool.”
“This I did not know.” Gabby beamed. Deep down she was a nerd. “Did you wear this dress somewhere?”
“Um... I made the dress.” Her voice lost its sparkle. “There’s a picture of it in one of those magazines stacked on the other side of the bed. The one with the sexiest man alive on the cover.”
“Why did you bring the dress here?” Gabby ran around to look through the magazines.
Mitch hurried to finish cleaning. He wanted to discourage Gabby’s interest in less educational things, like video games and gossip magazines.
“I brought the dress here because...” Laurel paused. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Gabby?”
“Well...” The mattress springs creaked as his daughter sat on the bed once more. “I think being a lawyer would be cool because I could help people get justice.”
Mitch’s chest swelled with pride, even as he made a mental note: talk to Gabby about the pros and cons of the legal profession.
“And then I have this rock collection and I like to look up why they all look different, so geology is in the running.”
“Really?” Mitch froze midwipe of the toilet bowl. He’d had no idea she was interested in rocks.
Still out of sight, his daughter cleared her throat. “And then there’s singing—”
Blindsided, Mitch blurted, “Singing? You never sing around the house.”
“Dad,” Gabby chastised. “Don’t eavesdrop.”
He dropped the cleaning brush into the bucket and came to lean a shoulder against the bathroom door frame. “It’s impossible not to hear your conversation when I’m scrubbing the toilet.”
“Pretend, Dad.” Gabby had a stack of gossip magazines in her lap and a cynical shine in her eyes. “Pretend.”
Laurel gave him a sympathetic look.
Mitch didn’t want Laurel’s sympathy. He wanted his little girl back. “Gabby, why would you want to be a shallow rock star?”
“As opposed to a shallow seamstress,” Laurel murmured, referencing herself, he supposed. “Or a shallow innkeeper.”
And now him.
“Whatever profession she follows,” Mitch said, reaching for one of his oft-spoken refrains, “she’ll still be the same person to me.”
“Dad. Who said anything about rock? I listen to country.” Gabby marched toward the door, magazines under her arm. “You are so out of touch.”
Mitch groaned as Gabby ran away. The inn groaned as Gabby ran away, her feet pounding on the floor until she slammed a door downstairs. Laurel didn’t groan. She studied Mitch.
Alone, Mitch and Laurel stared at each other.
Alone together, his heart began to pound.