*Mark ran an eye around his establishment. He’d only been back an hour but word about tonight’s meeting had already gotten around and everyone had pulled together, industrious as ever.
They’d cleared away the renovation equipment, dusted everything in and out of sight, and he and the Buckners had arranged all the chairs in rows and a head table for the committee.
The bar sparkled with a cleanliness and a freshness he’d never thought possible three days ago.
If his family wasn’t in danger, he’d welcome the rush of adrenaline he got just thinking about how well tonight’s first Rejuvenate Surrender meeting might go for all these good people. As though he were a genuine guy, buying a bar in an out of the way place and hoping for a tree change. One that might include a romantic interlude with a beguiling and fascinating woman.
Damn Donaldson! Damn Boomer! And damn his father forever for putting him in this position. If he’d met Lauren under any other circumstances, he’d have asked her to dinner within minutes of saying hello. He knew that now, after being with her, flirting with her, getting to know her and to like her.
Whatever had happened to her at the house earlier, he’d gotten the scare of his life, but she’d practically kicked him out the door, refusing to tell him what had made her so deathly pale.
It had to have been something physical. An illness. Would she see a doctor? Should he call one?
“Don’t touch this urn, Mark!” Ingrid called out from the dining area. “There’s a knack, and if you don’t handle it like it was a little lost lamb, you’ll get an electric shock.”
Mark turned from the bar. “Do you think perhaps we ought not to use it?”
“And have no coffee to offer? Marie from Hopeless is bringing cake. We’re already the poor relatives; we don’t want to rub it in.”
She went back to the kitchen and Mark pulled his phone from his pocket.
Perhaps he ought to call Marie.
“You were over at the house?” Marie said, interrupting him as he explained the reason for his call. “What did you feel?”
“Feel?”
“Think, I meant think.”
“Uh…it’s great. Great place. Have you heard from Lauren? She had a funny turn or something at the house. I was worried, but she wouldn’t tell me what had happened and sent me packing. I thought she was going to faint.”
“We Mackillops are always having turns. Tell me about them! The turns I’ve had with all the strain I’m under right now would make a lesser woman gray. Imagine that happening with no decent hairdresser in sight.”
“So, you’ve spoken to her and she’s okay?”
“Such a sweet man to worry! How many cakes shall I bring tonight?”
“Um…whatever you think.”
“Spoken like a diplomat. See you at seven o’clock.”
Marie cut the call and Mark slid his phone into his pocket, somewhat relieved but not fully convinced. Marie hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen her niece’s features pale, her body still, and her eyes blank out, as though she’d been taken over by some force.
He ran both hands over his head, squeezing his fingertips into his skull. A force? He was going mad.
Hortense marched out of the kitchen. “Did you hear?” she asked. “Hopeless! They’re getting a mobile coffee van! They’re taking all the big ideas for themselves. They plan to tour the valley with their Hopeless cupcakes!”
“You mean the Hopeless sponge cake? Marie’s bringing some for tonight’s meeting.”
“I mean the cupcakes!”
Ingrid ran up beside her and slapped her arm. “I was going to tell him! We’ve just heard,” she said to Mark. “They’ve created a cupcake. It’s likely to be as famous as the sponge.”
Hortense shook Ingrid off, still glaring at Mark. “They’re branching out and what are we doing? Offering electrocution with a thirty-year-old urn.”
“That urn’s seen us through many a wedding and a funeral,” Ingrid stated, looking affronted.
Mark sighed. They were arguing and the meeting hadn’t even begun.
His cell phone beeped with a message. Boomer. “Hope you’ve gotten your act together, Sterrett. We’ll be there tomorrow morning, nine a.m. Be ready for us.”
Mark squeezed the phone in his hand, wanting to crush it. He’d thought he had a couple of days before they got here. Now he had hours.
Nobody in this town would let the developers know their plans, but if all they did was argue tonight, nothing would be finalized. Not even a broad scope blueprint or a strategy. The wavering and stumbling would be noticeable. It wouldn’t take Donaldson’s long to learn there wasn’t a single thing that had been agreed on, and that was when they’d leap in. They were bringing the press; they’d use them. Show the town and its people as a ridiculous oddity. Surrender would get tourists, all right—and they’d all be laughing.
“We need something grand,” Hortense was saying. “Something shiny and new and ultimately profitable.”
“Like what?” Ingrid asked, looking askance.
“Like my new coffee machine.” Mark slid his phone into his pocket. “I just bought the saloon a brand-new stainless-steel, top-of-the-range espresso machine.” He hadn’t, but now he’d have to. How much would it cost? A couple of thousand? “It should be here the end of the week.” Once he’d ordered it.
“See?” Ingrid said, looking smug. “Mark’s got it all under control.”
“One coffee machine isn’t going to turn our fortunes around. What about that pink blog van they’ve got in Hopeless?”
“We don’t need a blog van.”
“So how are we going to deal with PR and marketing? From our kitchen tables?”
“We need ideas first, Hortense! Without them, we won’t be PRing anything.”
“So what’s your idea, Ingrid Gerdin?”
“I haven’t had time to think about it. Too busy arguing with you.”
Ingrid marched back to the kitchen, Hortense grumbling as she followed. “What’s the point of having a meeting if nobody brings ideas?”
Mark walked to the open door and stood in the doorway, inhaling air like a drowning man.
Donaldson’s was arriving tomorrow. He no longer had days to work out what he was going to do. These people deserved their chance to make their town shine and thrive, and that meant he was going to have to go over Lauren’s head tonight and push the meeting along and drive any suggestions he thought might work.
Then there was the other major issue. How would a saloon work alongside Lauren’s idea for the house? There hadn’t been time to discuss it before she’d kicked him out the door. Not that she need worry about it, because Mark wasn’t staying, but she was going to hate him for taking over her meeting.
What option did he have? What damned option had he ever had since this whole damn thing began? One little half a million-dollar embezzlement misdemeanor later and his father’s actions had put more than his family in a vulnerable position. The playing field had widened. The involvement of innocent people spreading like wildfire to include Lauren and all the good people of Surrender. Perhaps the whole valley.
He hoped to God his father was firmly tied in chains wherever he was being held in Bermuda. Sweating it out. Because his son certainly was.
*
Lauren had run so hard and fast up the hill to Ava’s cabin, her chest was heaving and her hair sticking to the back of her neck by the time she got there.
“He was just at the house!” she said as she plonked herself in the Adirondack chair next to her grandmother, a hand on her chest to control her breathing. “Everything was fine—then suddenly he was on the stairs and they gave way! I didn’t even move! It happened so fast—”
Ava took hold of her arm. “Take another breath, child.”
Lauren hauled in more air. “I felt nothing while he was there, Ava, then a minute or so before it happened, I sensed something, like a change in the atmosphere.”
“What was he talking about when this happened?”
“The house. He said he could see it as a wedding venue.”
“What else was he talking about?”
Flirting.
Ava turned to Lauren when she didn’t answer, her face a mask of patience, but there was a smile in her eyes.
Lauren felt her face heat up. “Do you know about the visions I’m having?”
“I sensed.”
“He’s in them, Ava.” Mark was around at a time of great turmoil for her and for everyone. But why wasn’t she envisioning herself in ten years’ time chatting with Mrs. Fairmont? Or Hortense? Or Molly and Pepper? Why him?
“This is the learning stage,” Ava said. “Your gift isn’t fully developed. There could be more than your visions.”
“But am I seeing the future?” Lauren exclaimed, thumping the arm of the chair. “And why does it involve him?”
“Is there an attraction?” Ava asked.
Lauren threw herself back in the hard seat. “I want to like him, and I don’t get any feeling he’s a bad person. But he is lying, and I don’t know anything about the real man.” Yet uncannily, she knew almost everything about the man she saw in her visions.
“Don’t get downhearted, child. You haven’t got time.”
“It’s just that I don’t know what’s happening to me, and I don’t know where it’s going to lead.”
“What did you think would happen in your life? We sisters let you granddaughters go your own ways. We respected your wishes and didn’t push you to accept the skills we knew you had. There was a reason for that. You each had to learn the way. Your own way, in your own time.”
Lauren drew a long breath. “Are you saying we were never likely to get away with being normal?”
“What good would normal be to a Mackillop?”
As in, a Mackillop soothsayer? Lauren hugged herself. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this. I can’t do what you do.”
“You can’t run from who you are. But you’d better get your skates on and prepare yourself for this meeting. There’s cynicism and unrest coming.”
“From where?”
“Have you got plans for the town?”
“I’ve come up with a few ideas now.” Solutions that would help the whole town restructure their businesses and create new ones. “Our women have been held back. Giving them the chance to learn, the chance to broaden their outlook on life and business is going to benefit everyone in town. Especially now we’re about to forge ahead. That’s what I want from Sage Springs.”
“Give them a chance and watch them fly.” Ava smiled. “I liked your idea when you found it in Dallas, but it wasn’t the place for you and it wasn’t the time.”
Lauren hugged herself harder. She’d stay in the valley forever now. It wasn’t so daunting a thought these days. She’d changed. Life had changed her. She might get lonely sometimes, but who didn’t?
“I wish you’d come to the meeting, Ava.”
“Marie will be there.”
And she’d be supportive, but she wasn’t a soothsayer. She wouldn’t read between the lines.
“Don’t discount Marie’s abilities,” Ava said. “She’s a special woman. She brought you and Pepper up after your mothers died like you were her own. You both were, in many ways. All three mothers were cousins, too, remember. And they were like you, Molly, and Pepper. More like sisters.”
“Why didn’t Marie get the Mackillop gift?” Her mother had it, as had Pepper’s. They’d both embraced it from a young age—then they’d been lost in the prime of their lives and anything they might have taught their daughters lost with it. Until Marie took over. But Marie had taught in a different way, a nurturing, ordinary way.
Ava reached out and gently put a fingertip to Lauren’s forehead. “Watch. Listen. Trust. Just don’t be tricked by the words and actions around you. It’s your heart that gives you the real understanding.” She settled back in her chair. “Now scoot. I’ve got work of my own to do.” She untied her bag of runes from the belt on her waist. “And Lauren,” she said as Lauren stood. “Watch your back.”
“The last time you said that, Mark crept up on me outside the gates to Sage Springs.”
“Did you tell him to come see me?”
“Yes, but I don’t think he will.”
“Leave that problem to me.”
Lauren kissed her grandmother’s cheek but paused before heading off. “Do you think he’s a good man?”
Ava met her eye. “Watch. Listen. Trust.”
Still no indication that she was seeing the future and she wasn’t going to force herself to like Mark more than she ought to, given she’d only recently met him. But a surge of fluttering butterflies rose in her chest at the thought of him being a decent man. He couldn’t have portrayed Danton without throwing a little of Mark into the equation. No more than Lauren had been able to portray Scarlet without putting her real self into the balance.
Maybe she’d let him flirt tonight. Just to see where it headed.