Snowed in with the Single Dad

by Melinda Curtis

  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 ju
st 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.”