by Liz Isaacson
They’d continued texting yesterday without him, and by the time he’d gotten back to the cabin and was alone, he’d missed over a hundred texts.
“Knock, knock,” he said at the same time he opened the door. The scent of maple syrup met his nose, as did a chorus of “He’s back,” and “Hey, Cy,” and “Do you want to eat?”
“I always want to eat,” he called, taking a few seconds to step out of his boots and hang up his coat. Once he went into the kitchen, he found Colton scooting over to make room for him at the table, and he wondered if he really was the black sheep of the family or not.
He was definitely different from the others, but that didn’t mean he didn’t fit in with them. “Wow,” he said. “Belgian waffles. Looks great.” He picked up a plate from the counter and put a waffle on it before joining his brothers at the table.
No one said anything, though Cy suspected Ames and Colton were dying inside. They’d probably scripted the questions, and Cy wasn’t going to open the door for them.
“Cy, dear,” his mother said. “I heard a rumor that you spent the afternoon and evening with a woman.”
Colton snorted, the smile on his face filling the whole thing. Ames wore a stone mask, and Cy kept his in place too. “That’s right, Mother,” he said. “You know Patsy. She helped Grams at lunch yesterday.”
“Blonde?” Grams asked. “She has a kind voice.” It took her so long to say a single sentence, and while she did, Cy buttered and syruped his waffle.
“She sure does, Grams.” Cy smiled at his grandmother and looked around at the rest of his family. Colton grinned like the Cheshire Cat, and Cy rolled his eyes.
“Tell us about her,” his mom said.
“She’s nice,” Cy said.
“Pretty,” Ames added.
“Smart,” Colton said.
“Yeah, all of that,” Cy said, determined not to say any more. “I came here instead of going home, because I was hoping I could use your treadmill, Colt.”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “Anytime.”
“Great.” Cy met Ames’s eyes, and they had a whole conversation in that one moment. “Now, Grams, what did you do yesterday afternoon?”
Chapter Eight
Patsy laid the vacuum cleaner all the way flat and pushed it under the bed. Annie, who was in charge of housekeeping at the lodge, had put together a chore schedule for everyone in the family. Patsy had accepted her role in the Whittaker family, which Graham had said was the GO: General Overseer.
Andrew had said they’d be dead in the water without Patsy, and she’d enjoyed her life and job at the lodge. She did oversee everything, and everyone, and such a thing fit her personality to a T.
After she finished vacuuming, she needed to go through Celia’s receipts with her, review Sophia’s schedule with her for the next month, as her mother had fallen last week and needed extra help, and put in an order for the toiletries and supplies they needed for the guest rooms.
Sometimes her task list overwhelmed her, but today Patsy simply hummed a hymn her mom had taught her. She’d been a clean freak, and she’d designed games and songs to make tidying up the house in the orchard more fun.
Singing had been one of those things, and Patsy had loved the days they all learned a new song the most. Her mom had a beautiful alto singing voice, and Betty had inherited that. Patsy’s voice was quite a bit higher, and she’d always learned the soprano parts.
She finished up in the Princess Diana Suite—they’d named all the rooms this fall at Wes’s suggestion—and unplugged the vacuum, Cy on her mind.
It seemed the man never left her mind, as Patsy had fallen asleep with him there for the past two nights, and he’d been in the forefront of her thoughts the moment she woke.
They did text at night, and Patsy supposed that was why he lingered with her until she fell asleep. New relationships were always exciting, and Patsy knew that would fade.
Her voice quieted as she considered that possibility.
Perhaps that was the problem. Shouldn’t the excitement remain in a relationship? Shouldn’t she be chomping at the bit to see Cy, hold his hand, get to the altar with him?
She thought of Bree and Wes and how they’d gotten married the very night they’d arrived in Hawaii. Elise had given up her job and business here to move to Colorado to be with Gray. Annie and Colton had fallen in love over a Christmas just like this one, with lots of snow and holiday spirit.
Patsy had never had the fairytale romance. Never had a man come into her life and sweep her off her feet. Never even had a boyfriend who’d fallen in love with her.
She’d been in love before, and the result of that had been painful and trying, and Patsy really didn’t want to go through that again. At the same time, she’d seen her sister and her friends find their true love, and she knew it could be beautiful and rewarding.
She thought of Joe, and how his marriage had ended a few months ago. She remembered the day her father had called to say Mom had left. Even when people did try to make a life together, sometimes things fell apart. There were no guarantees in life, that was for sure.
Husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, went to war. They died in car accidents. They got sick.
Patsy’s stomach tightened, and the feeling moved immediately into her chest, then her throat. She swallowed, trying to work through this negativity.
“You don’t want to be alone forever,” she told herself. And she didn’t. Even if she ended up divorced, even if her husband died young, even if things fell apart, Patsy wanted to find someone to spend her life with. As much of it as possible.
“So don’t give up,” she murmured as she put the vacuum in the cleaning closet upstairs. Not every romance had to be the fairytale kind, and Patsy was okay with that.
She ran her hand through her short hair as she went down the magnificent staircase in the lodge to the main floor.
Stockton and Bailey, the two oldest Whittaker children, worked in the living room, removing ornaments from the tree. Bailey stood on a ladder and passed a gold ball the size of her head to Stockton, who placed it in the plastic casing and slid that in the box.
Many more boxes lined the wall separating this main room from the kitchen behind it, and Patsy was glad she hadn’t been assigned the task of getting those out or putting them away.
“Hey, guys,” she said with a smile.
“Hi Patsy,” they said together, and she continued past the long couches.
“Oh, Patsy,” Bailey said. “My mom wanted me to ask you if you’d come down to the ranch today.”
Patsy paused in front of the fireplace. A couple of years ago, when the power had gone out, they’d used it to keep warm, as well as brew coffee.
“Sure, I can,” Patsy said. “What for?” She’d grown up in Coral Canyon, same as Laney McAllister—now a Whittaker—but she was at least a decade younger.
“She said she had some pictures for you.” Bailey passed another ball to Stockton. “She said she can bring them up if you’re too busy.”
“Pictures?”
“Of the orchard,” Bailey said. “I guess you guys did a big thing when she was younger?” Bailey continued working while she talked, and Patsy did enjoy the girl. She was a hard worker, she got excellent grades in school, and she was responsible. A lot like Laney, actually.
“She has all these pictures at the orchard with one of her school classes.” Bailey stood on her tiptoes to reach the next ornament. “She thought you might like them, since they’re a piece of your history.”
“Sure,” Patsy said, her curiosity piqued. “I’ll text her.”
“Ronnie’s sick today,” Bailey said. “So she said you could come anytime. She’s not leaving the house.”
“Okay.”
Patsy did have access to a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and she’d take one of the trucks down to the ranch once she finished a few other things today.
Celia poked her head around the corner. “I thought I heard your voice,” she said. “
Are you ready for me?”
“Yes,” Patsy said, glancing at her. “Thanks, Bay. Good job on the tree you guys.” She stepped in front of Celia and went down the hall away from the kitchen and dining room that served as the heart of the lodge.
When there was something going on, either with the family or with their guests, it happened in the kitchen and dining room. Wes had suggested getting a bigger table and expanding this part of the house, though it was already quite big.
But with thirteen rooms at the lodge and more and more people joining the family every Christmas, he’d thought expanding the hub of the lodge would be wise.
Graham took everything Wes said seriously, and he’d brought a general contractor to the lodge, and plans had started to be made to add on to the house. A room that would double the size of the dining room would fit behind the garage, and Patsy had sat in on the meeting with the four Whittaker brothers and Wes Hammond while they went over designs and timelines and budgets.
Then they’d handed the project to Patsy to “oversee.”
The folder sat on the corner of her desk, because she also needed to get to that in the next several days.
She’d been on the phone for the past couple of weeks, talking to construction managers, the interior designer, and a carpenter that did custom, high-end furniture.
She was meeting with Noah on January second, in fact, as he sourced wood locally and needed time to find what they were looking for.
He’d take it from the property where it would live, if he could, and Patsy looked out the window of her office as if she could see the forest that bordered the back of the lodge.
It sat on twenty-one acres, and they used the land the most in the summer months, though they had plenty of guests who enjoyed snowmobiling and snowshoeing parties in the winter too.
Patsy sighed as she sat behind her desk. She probably needed to go over next week’s guest list and see what activities they’d signed up for.
Losing Bree had been hard—beyond hard. A catastrophe was what it was. She managed all of the events at the lodge. She organized them, she ran a crew in the stables, she led some of the horseback riding expeditions, she sent the emails and texts to guests, she put up the whiteboard announcing that day’s activities. All of it.
Patsy had been doing it for the past month since Bree had had her baby, but she knew she couldn’t keep doing it. She needed to hire someone very soon.
She picked up her pen and scrawled, job board - new events coordinator on her notepad. One more thing on her list.
“All right,” she said, looking up and smiling at Celia. “Let’s do your receipts.”
Celia was very good at keeping track of what she bought for meals here at the lodge, and she kept everything in a neat zipper pouch Andrew’s oldest daughter had made for her.
She unzipped it, and Patsy tapped to get her spreadsheet open.
They did this once a month, and they had a system in place. Celia read the numbers; Patsy typed them in. She totaled it, wrote Celia a check, and put all of that in the expense report she emailed to all of the brothers once a month.
Graham and Andrew were still heavily involved in their father’s energy company, and if there was a problem, Patsy almost always spoke with Beau or Eli.
As Celia read her last receipt and said, “That’s it,” Patsy’s phone rang.
Cy’s name sat on the screen, and the bubbling excitement started in her stomach. She swiped on the call and tapped the speaker button. “You’re on with me and Celia,” she said.
“Oh, okay,” he said, and he sounded cheerful. Patsy smiled as she started the formula in her spreadsheet. “I suppose I can ask you this in front of her, since I did announce my feelings in front of the whole crew.” He chuckled, though Patsy knew he’d been embarrassed. “I was hoping I might be able to see you today. What are the possibilities of that?”
Warmth filled Patsy as she dragged up the column of numbers. She wanted to blurt out yes, of course. Then she remembered the long list of things she had going on—and how she’d literally added two more items in the past fifteen minutes.
“Um,” she said. “Maybe tonight? I thought I’d be free by mid-afternoon, but I just learned I need to go down to the ranch and look at some pictures.”
“What kind of pictures?” Cy asked.
Patsy pulled out the business checkbook as she said, “I guess Laney has some photos of the orchard from years ago. She thought I might like them.”
“Maybe I could come look at the pictures with you,” he said.
Patsy looked at Celia, her eyebrows raised. Celia was already smiling and nodding. “You have time to see him,” she said quietly. “It’s Christmas, Patsy. Take some time off.”
Patsy’s first impulse was to resist that suggestion. She never took time off unless she was so sick she couldn’t physically work. She liked working; she always had.
“Patsy?” Cy asked.
“Yes,” she said, deciding right then and there to go against her natural impulse. She wanted to see him. “Come up to the lodge, and we can go look at the pictures together.” She maintained eye contact with Celia who mimed applauding her. Patsy grinned and shook her head, though the excitement popping through her testified that she’d done the right thing.
“What time?” he asked.
“Whenever,” Patsy said.
“All right,” Cy said. “See you later.”
The call ended, and Patsy dropped her eyes to the checkbook. “Okay, so it’s six hundred and—”
“Good for you, Patsy,” Celia said. “That seemed hard for you.”
Patsy had been working with Celia for a few years now, and they were good friends. So Patsy didn’t mind the comment, and she didn’t mind admitting, “It was. But….” She signed her name on the check and ripped it off. She met Celia’s eye as she handed her the money. “I really like him.”
It felt good to admit it out loud, though a dose of worry ate at her too. “I just hope I don’t mess it up.”
Celia’s smile slipped. “Why would you?”
“I don’t know.” Patsy leaned back in her chair. “It just seems like the last few men I’ve been out with…I’ve made a mess of things.”
“I don’t think that’s true at all,” Celia said. She carried something in her voice that made Patsy perk up.
“You have more to say,” she said.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“You won’t.”
Celia took a breath, her eyes harboring a bit of nervousness. “Well, from my perspective, Patsy, it’s not you that’s made a mess of things, other than who you choose to go out with.”
“Who I choose to go out with?”
“They’ve all been….” Celia cleared her throat. “I never say this. I don’t judge people.”
“Just say it,” Patsy said, her pulse bobbing a little too high in her chest now.
“Losers,” Celia said. “They’ve all been losers, Patsy. It’s not you; it’s them, and they just make you feel like it’s you.”
Patsy just blinked at her, her mind running through everyone she’d dated in the past few years since coming to Whiskey Mountain Lodge.
“I’m sorry,” Celia said, standing. She came around the desk, and Patsy rose to meet her embrace. “But it’s true. You’re an amazing woman, Patsy, and you shouldn’t think of yourself as the one who messes up. It’s not you.” Celia stepped back and nodded like that was that. She’d declared it and it was true.
She left the office, and Patsy sat back down, wondering if what she’d said was true.
“Hey,” Sophia said, entering the office. “You ready for me?”
“Yes,” Patsy said, reaching to save her spreadsheet and open her calendar. “Let’s do this.” She looked at Sophia as she took the seat Celia had just been in. “First, how’s your mother?”
A moment passed, and then Sophia burst into tears.
“Oh, no.” Patsy jumped back to her feet and went to comfort
her best friend and roommate. She had a feeling this meeting had just gotten a lot longer, which meant her to-do list had as well.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said as she crouched in front of Sophia. “Let’s say a prayer together, okay? Would that help?”
“Yes,” Sophia said, her voice high and nasally. “Thank you, Patsy.”
“Sure,” she said, closing her eyes as she took Sophia’s hands in hers. “Dear Lord….”
Chapter Nine
Cy pulled up to the lodge, his anxiety at an all-time high. He reached for the rubber band, which he’d remembered to put on that morning. Actually, he hadn’t taken it off last night, so he’d slept with it in place and woken with the constant pressure around his wrist.
Better there than squeezing the life out of his chest.
He’d forced himself to stop by the building in the orchard before coming up the canyon to the lodge. He’d been dressed and ready to go when he’d called Patsy, and while he didn’t want to seem too desperate to see her, he couldn’t stand to sit around his house for another minute either.
So he’d gone by the building to see how it had fared in the Christmas Day storm. The crew had been there, cleaning things up and moving forward with the project, and Cy had spoken to Chris, the construction manager over the whole thing.
That had taken about half an hour, because Cy went by the building every day. He had nothing else to do, and he couldn’t take his motorcycle out right now. So he’d filled his days with running and hanging out with Wes and Colton and stopping by the building to see how it was going.
As he gazed at the huge piles of snow that had been cleared from the parking lot at Whiskey Mountain Lodge, he had serious doubts about his decision to move his shop to Wyoming.
This was a normal winter, not something out of the ordinary. And all that snow wouldn’t melt anytime soon, though the sun had been out in full force for the past two days.
If anything, such a clear, bright day only made the temperatures colder in Coral Canyon.
