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On Wednesday afternoon, Hope was on the road to Tennessee. Deciding to drop out of her self-imposed pity-party, she called her college roommate Tara, and managed an invitation to come to Knoxville for the holidays. It wasn’t a horrible plan but it still wasn’t what Hope wanted most for Christmas.
She wanted to have her family together.
Although, if she were completely honest with herself, she was never going to have that again. It was pointless to hold on to a dream that was never going to be a reality. Now there was a depressing thought. Deciding to let it go, a quick scan through the radio stations had her finding the one that only played Christmas music.
For a hundred miles, Hope sang off-key to some of her favorite holiday songs and actually started to feel better about her circumstances. It was obvious that Ted was not going to be the family support she longed for. The more she thought about it, the more Hope realized the closeness she and her brother shared had slowly faded away over the years. They just didn’t notice it because they were busy with their own lives and still had their parents around to bring them back every once in a while.
“And we’re back to depressed,” she sighed as the miles of highway kept going by. The sky was gray and the temperatures weren’t favorable. With any luck, she’d be through the mountains and across the North Carolina-Tennessee line before anything changed or worsened. The last thing she needed was to have to do this drive in the snow. As it was, she had chosen to leave so many days before Christmas to avoid as much traffic as possible. With a hotel reservation waiting for her over the state line, even if it did start to snow, Hope was confident she’d have a place to rest for the night and not have to rush to get to Tara’s.
An hour later, her cell phone rang and she looked at it as if it were a foreign object. All of her clients knew of her travel plans and it was rare for her to get social calls. She tapped the screen on her dashboard and saw it was Merry.
And groaned.
It was highly unusual for Merry to call her, especially in the middle of the day, so Hope’s curiosity got the better of her and she answered. “Hey, Merry!” she said with a cheeriness she did not feel. “What can I do for you?”
“Hope? Hope, can you hear me?” Merry’s voice was shaky and she sounded a little bit...off. Hope was instantly alarmed.
“Merry? What’s the matter? What’s going on?”
“Hope, I can’t get Ted on the phone.” Her voice faded out and she coughed a few times before speaking again. “I...I don’t know how to get in touch with him. Do you have another number for him?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t. Why? What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I had an accident,” she sobbed. “My car is a mess and...and...I’m in so much pain.”
“Are you at the hospital? Merry, please tell me you’re at the hospital!”
“I...I’m waiting for the ambulance. I’m scared, Hope. I need Ted. Please! You have to get in touch with Ted!”
“Okay, okay...I haven’t talked to him since we had dinner Saturday night. I don’t know where exactly he was going. I’ll keep calling him.”
“No!” Merry cried. “You have to find out where he is! You have to get him to come home. Please, Hope. Please! I need him here with me!”
Hope was able to hear the sound of an ambulance siren in the background. “Merry, I want you to listen to me. I want you to hang up and let the paramedics take care of you.”
“But...but...Ted! I need Ted! Promise me! Promise me, Hope, you’re going to find him and get him here!”
“I promise. I’m going to hang up and find him right now and get him to you as soon as possible. Okay?”
“Thank you. Thank you, Hope!” Merry cried and then the line went dead.
The only problem with her promise was the fact that Hope was driving down I-40 and had no idea where her brother was. Ted had mentioned how G.B. James’ place was in the mountains but...what mountains? Where? “This is a nightmare.” Eyes back on the road, Hope waited until she saw a sign for a rest area and pulled over. If she was going to have to search and make calls to find out where exactly Ted was, she needed to be off the road to do it.
“Good thing I’m not in a rush,” she said to herself as she pulled into a large parking lot and found a place to park. “Okay, where to start?” The obvious choice was with Ted himself. She called and the phone went directly to voicemail. That usually meant his phone was off so texting him would be of no use. Next was to call his office. It was true that he was supposed to be leaving today to head out of town, but that didn’t mean he’d already left or that someone there couldn’t reach him.
“James Enterprises. How may I direct your call?” the operator asked.
Good question. “Yes, um...hi. This is Hope Cooper. My brother Ted works up on the eleventh floor...something with...financing.” She cursed herself. What kind of person didn’t know what department their brother worked in? “It’s very important that I reach him. Can you...?”
“Hold please.”
“Dammit!” The world’s worst music immediately began to play and Hope prayed someone would answer soon.
“You’ve reached the desk of Theodore Cooper. I’ll be away from my desk until after January second. Please direct all your inquiries to...”
Hope quickly reached into her purse and found a piece of paper and pen and wrote down the number just in case she got disconnected. Luckily, with a quick press of the number five, her call was being transferred.
More bad music.
“This is Diane Charles, how may I help you?”
Oh, thank God, Hope sighed. “Hi. Diane. Um...this is Hope Cooper. Ted’s sister. I was wondering...”
“Oh, Hope! We absolutely loved your cookies. Thank you so much! I have to say, I was never one for baking so I always either bought store-made cookies or got one of those cookie dough logs where you just cut and throw them on a baking sheet!” She laughed. “Sometimes I would just eat the dough raw! I know you’re not supposed to but, hey, who are we kidding? It’s delicious! Am I right?”
“Diane...”
“Those brownie thins were to die for! Honestly, I thought I would die if we ran out of them!” She laughed again. “Don’t tell Ted but...I went and took the rest of them and hid them in my drawer! I am just about out of them so if you have any extras you want to share, feel free to send them my way!”
“Yeah, yeah...I’ll see. Listen, I need to...”
“Do you bake them all from scratch or are some of them from a box mix? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a box mix. My mom uses them for all of our baking but I would imagine for all the great things you bake, it’s probably something more than that. Right? Is there a trick to getting the right ingredients? You know, are there better brands of flour to use? Or a certain type of baking pan that’s better than others? I was thinking...”
“Diane!” Hope snapped, her patience gone. “I promise I will make you a hundred brownie thins for the New Year if you can just help me for a minute. Okay?”
“Um...sure,” she said hesitantly.
“I can’t get Ted on the phone. Actually, I think his phone is off. Is he in the office today by chance?”
“No. He and Mr. James left already.”
“Okay. Great. Do you have a way to reach them?”
“You mean by phone?”
Seriously? This woman was in the finance department and she was asking these kinds of questions? “Um...yeah. Or any other way we can reach them actually. There’s an emergency. Ted’s fiancée...”
“Merry?”
“Yes, yes. Merry. She’s been in an accident. She drives one of those Smart cars. They’re very small and she says it’s totaled.”
“Oh, my...”
“When I hung up with her, the paramedics were just arriving. It’s very important I get in touch with Ted. Please. Can you help me?”
Diane was silent for a moment. “Mr. James said not to bother them unless it was important.”
“And this clearly is,” Hope prompted.
“Let me get your number, Hope, and I’ll try to get them on the phone and one of us will get back to you.”
“Thank you! Thank you, Diane! And believe me, I will get those brownie thins to you after the holidays. You have my word.” Hope gave her the phone number, hung up and prepared to wait. As much as she wasn’t a fan of Merry’s, she certainly didn’t wish the woman any harm. Hopefully, Diane would be able to reach Ted and he’d be able to go and comfort his fiancée and then meet up with his boss later.
Or not at all.
And wouldn’t that just solve everyone’s problems?
Well, not Mr. James’, but that didn’t really matter to Hope. As far she was concerned, Mr. G.B. James could go to hell. Ha! The only thing that would make that statement feel even better was if she ever had the opportunity to tell him so to his stupid face! Yeah, that’s right. Stupid. Face. Hey, every once in a while her inner twelve-year-old needed to come out and play. “Sue me,” she grumbled and stared at the phone in hand.
“Come on, Ted,” she said, as if willing the phone to hear her. “Just call me so I can relay the message and get back on the road. I’ll be quick, I promise.”
Ten minutes later, her phone was still silent. To pass the time, Hope climbed out of the car and walked into the rest area pavilion and to search for a vending machine. Nothing helped pass the time like a candy bar or a bag of pretzels. Sizing up her options, she eventually made her selection and walked back out to her car.
“Well that killed all of five minutes,” she murmured. And cursed. “Who goes away and doesn’t leave a way for people to reach them?” Just then her phone rang. It was Ted’s office. “Hello?”
“Hi, Hope. It’s Diane.”
“Any luck?”
“Unfortunately no,” she sighed. “Neither of them are answering their phones. I left messages for both of them and even called Mr. James’ emergency service and left a message with them just in case he called in. I just don’t know what else to do.”
Hope had a plan. It wasn’t even a Plan B. More like Plan W. “Do you know where Mr. James’ home?”
“The Lodge? Well sure! But it’s a long way from here. I’d hate for you to drive all the way out there and have them finally check their messages.”
“No worries,” Hope sighed. “I’m already on the road and heading west toward Tennessee.”
“Well that’s convenient!” Diane said excitedly. “You’re heading their way!”
“Really? Where? Where is his home?”
“Oh it’s not just a home, Hope. It’s a lodge. An honest to goodness ski lodge. The only problem is it’s no longer a running lodge. Mr. James just uses it as a private home now. Rumor has it it was an amazing place when it was open to the public, a real swanky place to stay.”
If it were possible, Hope would reach through the phone and strangle this woman. Why couldn’t she focus on what was important here? “And where is this...swanky lodge, Diane?” she asked patiently.
“Oh, right...it’s right outside of Sugar Mountain.”
That literally meant nothing to Hope. “I have no idea where that is.”
“It’s north of Asheville. If you’re driving on I-40, you’ll hit Asheville and Sugar Mountain is just north of there. If you’d like, I can text you the address and then you can use your GPS or something to get the directions. Mr. James doesn’t like us giving out that kind of information, but under the circumstances...” she began hesitantly.
“He won’t hear it from me that you gave me the address, Diane,” Hope assured her.
“Thank you,” she sighed with relief. “I really like my job and don’t want to do anything to lose it. What will you tell him when he asks how you found them?”
“I’m a computer whiz. I’ll tell him I did a little internet research and found his address. Don’t worry. I can’t thank you enough, Diane. Do you happen to know when they got on the road?”
“Hmm...I’d say about two hours ago. I don’t know where you are but hopefully they’ll get there first.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.” With a look out the windshield, Hope saw the first few flakes starting to fall. Dammit! “Listen, Diane, I really need to go. If you can text me the address, I would really appreciate it.”
“I will. I will. And Hope?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell Ted to please let me know if there’s anything we can do for him.”
“Thanks. I will.” Hanging up, Hope waited for the address to come through via text before she felt comfortable leaving the parking lot. This was so not how she imagined her day going. It had been a long time since she’d taken a road trip and, if she were being honest, Hope would have to say that she was looking forward to it.
“Okay, don’t look at this as a bad thing,” she said out loud, “think of it as just a detour–a minor extension of your perfectly mapped out road trip.” That didn’t sound bitter at all, did it?
Five minutes later she had the address plugged into her navigation system and was on the road again. As she drove, several things occurred to her: first, she and Ted never really fought. Ted asking her to leave the office Saturday night was the first time something like that had ever happened. She had no idea how she was supposed to respond when she saw him. Was she still supposed to be upset? Outraged? Or was she supposed to pretend like it never happened?
Second, this would be the first time she was going to meet the big, bad G.B. James. For some reason, she had always been curious about the man but never enough to actually do any homework or research on him. “With all the time I spend on the computer, you’d think I would have Googled the man.” Too late for that now. In about two hours she’d be seeing him in person.
Oh, joy.
Hope couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was just something about the man that rubbed her the wrong way. No, that wasn’t quite true; she knew exactly what it was. He was arrogant, overbearing and treated his employees like crap, no matter how much they denied it.
How was it even possible? How was she the only one to see it? If you were to listen to Ted or even to Beckett, the all-mighty G.B. James was a great guy to work for. Again, how? They all seemed overworked, had no personal lives and the man made unreasonable demands on them and their time! How could everyone turn a blind eye to it except for her?
It was kind of easy to understand Ted’s perspective; he wanted to secure his position within the company so when he married Merry, he’d have a little bit of security. The only problem was that it seemed as if it wouldn’t take much to lose that precarious perch on job security and find yourself unemployed. Case in point, Jerome. Poor, sweet Jerome. Hope couldn’t quite pinpoint why she kept fixating on the security guard; he was just a nice man, working to take care of his wife and then one day...BAM! Unemployed. And for what? The all-mighty dollar.
Like G.B. James didn’t have enough of them! The man owned resorts all over the world! Seriously? He couldn’t let one man hold onto his job? His dignity? “Oh, crap!” Looking down at her dashboard, Hope saw she was doing well over eighty down the interstate thanks to being so focused on why she hated Ted’s boss rather than the road. “Focus. You’ll get to meet the man soon enough. And maybe, just maybe...say some of the things that are on your mind.” Just the thought brought a smile to her face. Yes, the opportunity to get in the face of the head of James Enterprises was just enough to put her good mood back in place.
Cranking up the radio, she belted out All I Want for Christmas right along with Mariah Carey.
****
“How the heck long is this driveway?” Hope muttered almost two-and-a-half hours later. She’d made the turn where her GPS directed and she was driving up a winding driveway that seemed to lead deeper and deeper into the woods. Snow was falling at a steady rate now and although she had steadily continued to call Ted in hopes of avoiding this detour, his phone was still off.
At the half-mile mark, she spotted a clearing and finally the lodge came into view. “Wow,” she gasped at the sight of it. It wasn’t overly large. Considering what Diane had said on the phone, Hope was expecting something much bigger. It was magnificent to look at but Hope considered it to be more of a big, private residence than a lodge. The natural wood siding and the green shingled roof looked perfectly in place in this setting–especially with the snow falling. The evergreens surrounding it were all dusted with snow and for a brief moment, Hope almost felt like she was staring at a postcard rather than an actual structure.
Parked over to the right was a huge black SUV so she gave a little sigh of relief that obviously someone was here. She just hoped it was her brother. Parking beside it, she shut off the car and climbed out and stretched. While she loved road trips, she did not love the feeling of being cramped in the car for so long. Purse and phone in hand, she walked up the dozen wooden steps that led to the massive wraparound porch.
At the top of the stairs she stopped and turned around to look at her surroundings. “Beautiful.” There was no other word to describe it and yet the word almost seemed too small for what she was seeing. Off in the distance she could see the ski runs and the tracks for the lifts to take skiers to the top. She had to wonder if all of this really went unused now – which would just be a shame.
Turning back toward the door, she took a step forward and almost screamed when Ted appeared. “Hope? What are you doing here?” his voice held both a hint of annoyance and concern. “How did you even find this place?”
Okay, clearly there was still a little hostility left over from Saturday night. Good to know. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours! Why is your phone off?”
“What?” Ted reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone and turned it on. “Oh. We were working in the car and Mr. James didn’t want to be interrupted.”
Jerk. It was the immediate thing that came to mind but she kept it to herself. For now. “Well if you’d look at your phone, you’d see you missed about a dozen calls from me and probably at least that many from Merry! It was pretty damn selfish and irresponsible of you to just take off without telling anyone where exactly you’d be and turning off your phone!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. I’m the bad guy,” he said sarcastically. “You can’t be here, Hope. You have to leave. I’m working. This project is...”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she mocked. “Whatever. I wouldn’t be here if you would have answered your phone!”
“Get to the point!” he yelled and for a minute, they were both stunned silent.
Hope took a moment to compose herself. She didn’t like this side of her brother. He was normally fairly even-tempered and easy to get along with. Just another reason not to like his boss; he was turning Ted into a royal pain in the butt. Taking a deep breath, she decided to just tell him what she had to say. “Merry was in an accident. She...”
“What?” he cried. “When? How? Why didn’t she...?”
“Call you?” she interrupted. “Um...yeah. She did. Several times. Just like me.”
“Is she all right?”
“I honestly don’t know. She tried calling you and...”
“I got it!” he snapped again. “I screwed up! Where is she? How is she?”
“Last I talked to her, the paramedics had just arrived. She was frantic for you, Ted. You need to call her. Now.”
Ted immediately took a step away and made the call. Hope wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with herself in the meantime. She was anxious to hear about Merry’s condition but she didn’t want to hover and eavesdrop either. Moving away to give him privacy, she walked along the front section of the massive porch and took in the scenery. The snow was starting to pick up, as was the wind, and Hope shivered. Snow hadn’t seem like a possibility so she wasn’t particularly dressed for it. Sure she had on a warm wool coat, but she hadn’t thought to pack a hat or gloves.
Or boots.
Looking down at her feet, she frowned at her Uggs. Sure, technically they were boots but not in the practical sense. It was all about the comfort and the look. They weren’t going to be any kind of help if she had to walk around in a couple of inches of snow. Shaking her head, she pushed that thought aside. She’d be on her way shortly and hopefully out of the range of this storm.
Not that Knoxville wasn’t prone to winter weather. Tara had mentioned how it was going to be cold overnight but during the day they could see temperatures near fifty degrees. Another gust of wind wrapped around her and Hope found she was actually longing for those fifty degrees right now.
Behind her, Ted was busy talking and she couldn’t make out much of what he was saying. He was pacing and Hope could only pray Merry was reassuring him that she was fine and only had minor injuries and was already on her way home. It would be the ideal situation and then everyone could move on with their lives.
Two minutes later, she heard Ted curse–another first–and Hope couldn’t help but smirk. She pulled herself together before facing him. “Well? How is she?”
He was still pacing. “They’re admitting her to the hospital,” he said grimly.
“Are you serious? What happened?”
“A guy ran a red light and pretty much totaled her car. Her leg is broken, her arm is broken...” his voice trailed off.
Unable to help herself, Hope walked over and hugged him. “I’m so sorry, Teddy. What do we need to do?”
“Her parents are on their way up from Florida. She called them and they’re flying up tonight.”
“Well that’s a good thing, right?” she asked.
He nodded and then seemed lost in his own thoughts for a moment. “Wait,” he said, “how did you get here so fast? Were you following me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. Get over yourself. I decided to go to Knoxville to see Tara. We were on the phone the other night and I told her how I had no plans for Christmas so she invited me to join her and her family. I was on the road when I got Merry’s call.”
“But...how did you know where I was? How did you find this place?”
She knew she couldn’t throw Diane under the bus, so she lied. “I pulled over and did a little online research. I’ve learned enough about your boss over the years so it wasn’t too hard to find.” Liar, liar, liar!
“Oh, well...thank you for coming and telling me.” He looked nervously over his shoulder. “I need to get back inside.”
“Wait. What? You’re not serious right now, are you? You need to leave, Ted! You need to go and be with your fiancée! She’s hurt and she’s scared and she needs you!”
“Her parents are going to be there soon. She’ll be fine.”
Hope threw up her hands in disgust. “You know what? You’re impossible. And you know what else? Right now, I have zero respect for you! What kind of man leaves the woman he loves alone when she’s hurt? You know what kind? The crappy kind!” She was pacing and her voice was getting louder and louder with each word.
“Hope, you need to...”
“No,” she cut him off. “You need to man up here, Ted! You need to go in there and tell your boss you have an emergency and you have to go.”
“I drove here with him!”
“So? I’ll drive you back to Raleigh. End of story!”
He shook his head. “You’re going to Knoxville. You have plans.”
For a minute, Hope thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. “Seriously? What is wrong with you?”
“Now what?” he demanded.
“Do you honestly think I would just leave and go on my way and off to Knoxville when you need a ride home? I’ll call Tara and explain to her what’s going on. She’ll completely understand. Getting you back to Merry is the only thing that matters right now.”
He still looked uncertain. “It’s not that easy, Hope.”
She growled with frustration. “That’s it,” she said and walked toward the front door of the lodge.
“Wait...what are you doing?” Ted called after her. “Hope! Don’t go in there! You can’t...”
“Mr. James?” she called out as she stepped inside. “Mr. G.B. James? Where are you? We need to talk!”
Ted stormed in behind her and spun her around. “Have you completely lost your mind? You can’t just walk into somebody’s home and start screaming,” he hissed. “I cannot believe you!”
“Oh, yeah? Well I can’t believe you either,” she hissed right back. “If you’re telling me that your job is more important than your fiancée, we’re done. You’re my brother and I love you but if that’s your choice then I have no respect for you.”
He stood there and stared at her, his brown eyes wide. “Hope...”
“No, I’m serious, Ted. I can’t sit back and watch you work yourself to death. Life is too short,” she said and then emotion clogged her throat. “Did you learn nothing from losing mom and dad? They were still young...they had plans for what they wanted to do with their retirement. All the years dad worked so hard and he kept promising mom how once he retired, they’d travel. Once he didn’t have to punch a time card, he was going to build that gazebo in the yard she always wanted. Well you know what? That day never came. They were gone before they ever had the chance to do all the things they dreamed of. Is that what you want? To miss out on life because...because of a job?”
“Geez, Hope,” he said with a ragged sigh and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I never,” he swallowed roughly, “I never thought of it like that. I thought I was doing the right thing. I need this job and...”
“I get it. I know you need your job but not like this. Not when it means you have to sacrifice so damn much! Now come on. Go and tell Mr. James what happened and let’s go.”
“I...I just...I don’t...”
She was ready to throttle him. “Ted!” she snapped. “Please. Get your stuff and let’s go. The snow is coming down heavier and we have a long drive home.” Looking around the entryway, which was large with vaulted ceilings, she put her keys down on a table and pulled out her phone. “I’m going to go and call Tara to let her know what’s going on. Come on. You need to do this.”
Turning her back on him, she walked toward a small sitting area by a fireplace and pulled up her friend’s number. Hopefully, her brother was on his way to being the man she thought him to be and telling his boss where he could shove his job and his ridiculous demands. When Tara answered, Hope gave her the Reader’s Digest version of what was going on.
“Of course I understand,” Tara said. “Go and smack some sense into your brother’s head and get him back to Raleigh. I can’t believe he was even considering not going.”
“I know, I know. How it is that he has a fiancée and I don’t is still a mystery,” Hope joked.
“You’re telling me,” Tara laughed. “Go and have a merry Christmas, Hope. We’ll have to try this again soon. I’ve missed you.”
“I know. I miss you too. Thanks for being willing to take me in for the holidays.”
“It would’ve been my pleasure. Now go and drive safe, okay?”
“You got it.” They hung up and Hope turned around and walked back into the entryway. It was a shame she didn’t have more time because just from these two rooms she had seen, the lodge was spectacular. It wasn’t swanky in the traditional sense, but it certainly was a classy kind of rustic that was incredibly appealing. “Oh well,” she sighed and began to listen for the sound of Ted’s footsteps coming her way.
Nothing.
She walked over to the window beside the front door and looked out. “Crap,” she muttered. It was still snowing and the footprints she had made just minutes ago outside were already disappearing. “That’s not a good sign. Come on, Ted.”
Behind her, she finally heard footsteps. Turning around she gasped. “Beckett? What are you doing here?”