by MJ Duncan
Robert smiled and nodded. “I could certainly help you with that.”
“Good.” Joss swallowed hard and blinked back tears she would not allow to fall until she was alone later as she set the picture gently back in its place beside the laptop. “So, what do we do next?”
“I will draw up the paperwork that you will need to sign regarding the transfer of titles on the properties as well as the investment accounts and such, and then”—Robert looked around the small office—“I am pretty confident that Scott, Helen’s only regular employee, would be willing to help you with getting things here organized.”
Joss nodded. She had gone to high school with Scott Heitz, and they had worked at the store together during the summer holidays when they had been in college. From what Helen had told her, he was writing now—short stories, or something like that, she wanted to say—and used the busy seasons as his time to plot and outline, and his time off during the off-seasons to write full-time.
She frowned and stared thoughtfully at the door. She had been so frustrated with work and overwhelmed with the funeral that she had not even noticed that he had been absent from the events of the day.
Why wasn’t he here?
As if reading her mind, Robert said, “Scott and his wife are in Paris for their anniversary right now.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“It’s the off-season, you know, which means—”
“There’s not a lot of business,” Joss finished for him, nodding slowly as she considered the logistics of her decision. She needed to give notice at the firm, pack up her condo, put it on the market, and figure out how to physically go about relocating her entire life. The idea of walking away from everything she had worked so hard for over the last decade or so was exciting and more than a little terrifying, but as she looked around Helen’s office, she knew that it was something she needed to do. “Right, so, let’s just close up shop for a couple weeks until I can get everything taken care of back in LA and move out here. It should only be two-, maybe three-weeks tops, and I’m sure everybody in town would understand.”
“Of course they will,” Robert assured her kindly. “Are you sure about this, though?”
“Yeah.” Joss took a deep breath and let it go slowly. “I am. One question though…”
“Anything.”
Joss looked down at Willy Shakes and then back at Robert. She hated to put him on the spot like this, but she had nobody else to turn to. And, if she had to guess, she would wager that he had already been doing what she was about to ask anyway. “Can you take care of the cats for me until I get back?”
“I can certainly take care of these rascals for a few more weeks,” Robert agreed with a smile as he gave Willy’s head a little scratch. “I think Dickens is even starting to like me.”
“Really?” Joss arched brow in surprise. “That’s impressive.”
Robert nodded as he slipped the manila folder he had been reading from back into his briefcase. “I know.” He snapped the leather case shut and sighed. “Shall we go back out there?”
Joss would have much preferred to just stay where she was, but she knew that was not really an option. “Yeah. Sure.” She pulled open the door and waved him through. “Thanks for all your help, Robert. Really.”
He gave her arm a light squeeze and smiled. “It’s been my pleasure.”
Once he had gone, she looked back at Willy and shook her head. She was really going to move back to Sky. “You gonna help me keep this place running smoothly, big man?”
Willy stood up, stretched, and jumped off the desk. He brushed against her shins as if to say “Of course. Follow me.” as he walked out the door, and she smiled to herself as she closed the door behind them. Good. Because I’m going to need all the help I can get…
Two
Considering the fact that Rand, Royal, and Wilkes had been her entire life for over nine years, it was remarkably easy for Joss to give her two-weeks notice as soon as she returned to Los Angeles the day after Helen’s funeral. Her phone blowing up at her with missed calls, texts, and emails as soon as she turned it back on that afternoon in Atramentum had been a more than adequate reminder of what her life had become; and as she settled in to try to triage the mess that had accrued during her few-hours of unavailability, she became more and more convinced that she had made the right decision.
The senior partners had tried to talk her into staying—offering her everything but the moon to change her mind—but the allure of the Rockies and a small, independent bookshop was too tempting to pass up. She wanted a life outside of an office. Wanted to do more than glance at the world through a window. She wanted a life that had friends instead of colleagues, and a part of her hoped that she might even someday manage to find somebody special to share it all with.
The last two weeks had been an exhausting cycle of packing and preparing the accounts she oversaw to be reassigned to those hardy souls who were not yet weary of a five-to-nine workday. And with every file she handed off, she felt lighter and more excited she became for her new adventure.
She did not look back as she left the Pacific Ocean in her rear view mirror and joined the throng of cars clogging the 110 through downtown Los Angeles, and she cranked the radio when she merged onto the 210 headed toward Vegas, doing an energetically terrible job singing backup for Sheryl Crow. She had made the fourteen-hour drive in one-go more times than she could count in the past, but she broke the trip into two legs because the trailer she was towing behind her Jeep dictated she travel at a more lawful speed. St. George, Utah was the perfect stopping point for the night, and though the hotel was nothing special, she still slept better than she had in years. She woke up early the next morning energized and excited to get to Sky—a fact that was especially ironic considering how eager she had been to leave the town years before—and after taking advantage of the hotel’s complementary breakfast, she hit the road.
The sanity-restoring idle of the off-season greeted her as she drove through downtown Sky. The mountain was quiet for now, the swaths of ski slopes blooming with wild grasses that swayed in the breeze, and the chair-lifts above them rocked ever-so-slightly, abandoned for the moment but not forgotten. Locals lingered on the sidewalks chatting, enjoying this time to rest and recharge before the frenetic pace of yet another tourist season was upon them, and it seemed like every-other business she drove past had a “Closed” sign hung in the window. In a few short weeks hikers and bikers would descend on to town to take advantage of everything the Rockies had to offer during the warmer months, but for now the town fully embraced its more laid-back persona.
It only took a few minutes to drive through town, and five minutes after the last brick building disappeared from view, she turned off the main highway and onto a narrow gravel road. The knobby tires on her Rubicon bit into the loose surface as she drove slowly down the path. She gripped the steering wheel tightly and kept one eye trained on the trailer that was bouncing in her rear view mirror, and hoped that nobody would be coming the other direction. The gravel road served as a driveway for both the cottage she had inherited from Helen and a large mountain retreat further up by the small lake, and though she knew that her Jeep could handle going into the brush just fine, she was pretty sure the trailer she was towing would not fare as well.
She cast one last look up the main drive as she turned onto the offshoot that would lead to her cottage and idly wondered who owned the mansion now. Helen had mentioned that it had been up for sale the year before, but she could not remember if she told her who had bought it. Winters could be dangerous when large storms rolled through, dumping crippling amounts of snow, and one of the first things Helen had taught her when she came to live in Sky following her parents’ deaths was that one should always be at least acquainted with their neighbors in case something happened.
It was something she would need check on eventually, but Joss pushed all those thoughts aside as she pulled to a stop in front of the small cottage at the end of the lane. T
he exterior façade was covered with stacked stone in varying hues of gray, and the gabled steel roof was painted a dark green to match the canopy of trees surrounding it. It looked just like it had the last time Joss had visited, and there was a part of her that half-expected Helen to come out the front door, arms extended in greeting with a wide smile lighting her face.
“Right, not gonna happen,” she reminded herself as she killed the engine and opened her door.
She stood beside the car and stretched her arms up over her head, leaning left and then right, working some of the stiffness from her spine as she took a moment to take in her old home. The one-bedroom loft had been crowded with both her and Helen living there—she had slept on a pullout sofa in the main living area—but in the aftermath of her parents’ deaths, it had been eight hundred and thirty-six square feet of comfort and warmth that she would forever be grateful for.
There was a brief moment when she had been packing her things in Los Angeles that she had debated selling the cottage and buying a condo or something in town—taking over Atramentum would be reminder enough she was now alone in the world—but that moment had passed quickly. Reminder or not, there was no way she would ever be able to part with the quaint stone cottage tucked into the woods like something from a fairytale. This cottage and Atramentum had seen her through her darkest days before, and though she was older and more jaded and just looking for a chance to start over, she had faith that they would come through for her again.
Joss sighed and let her arms fall back to her sides with a smack as she started for the short cobblestone path that connected the driveway to the sweeping deck that wrapped around the front of the cottage and fanned out along the side of the house. A wood portico that had strings of fairy lights laced over and through its beams covered the seating area beside the kitchen that had an outdoor fireplace, and Joss smiled as she remembered sitting out there with Helen when she came home for the summer during college, sharing a beer or a glass of wine after a long day at Atramentum and talking about anything that crossed their minds. Helen had been more of an older, wiser sister than a surrogate parent, leading her with a gentle hand and a kind smile, allowing her to make mistakes and learn from them, ready to step-in if needed, but giving her the room she needed to grow into her own person. It was something Joss had appreciated more than she had ever been able to express and, as she pulled open the storm door to slide her key into the deadbolt on the front door, she wished she had found a way to tell Helen that.
The cottage smelled like dust and neglect even though it had been vacant for less than a month, and Joss was grateful for the warm spring weather outside as she threw open all the windows before she stood in the small foyer and surveyed what needed to be done.
She had arranged for Robert to have Helen’s furniture donated to the local charity that benefited the women’s shelter in town, so the cottage was empty except for a pile of boxes in front of the picture window on the far wall that held Helen’s books, photographs, and other personal items, as well as the flat-screen television Helen had bought the year before. Joss had not even owned a television back in Los Angeles, choosing instead to watch the few shows she followed on her laptop, so the fifty-inch screen tucked into the corner, waiting for the stand she had ordered to hold it, seemed comically huge.
The layout of the cottage was such that only the sofa from her condo in LA would have fit in the space, but she had sold it with the rest of her furniture. Moving herself without help meant that lifting heavy items like couches was out of the question, and so she just tacked a comfortable-looking corner sofa to her cart when she was browsing Ikea’s website. The warehouse down in Denver charged her an arm and a leg to deliver to Sky, but at least their guys would do all the heavy lifting and, in the end, even their outrageous fees were cheaper than hiring movers. She would still need to pick up the little odds and ends to make the cottage feel like home, but the new sofa and other items she ordered were a good first step to the fresh start she was hoping to make.
The main floor was a twenty-five by twenty-five foot square. To the immediate right of the front door was a closet that was just big enough to house the cottage’s HVAC and water heater, as well as a small, separate closet that housed a stacked washer and dryer unit. Tucked on the other side of the laundry and mechanicals was the home’s lone bathroom, which was surprisingly airy considering its small footprint.
Of course, “surprisingly airy” was the best way to describe the entire cottage. It was only two-thirds of the size of her condo back in Los Angeles, but it felt three times as big.
A large bookshelf that doubled as support for the sleeping loft served as a see-through divider of the open space. On the side near where she stood in the foyer, it created a small hallway that led to the bathroom and the black wrought-iron spiral staircase that led to the loft, and beyond it lay the main living area. A peninsula counter that did double-duty as both a work surface and eating area separated the kitchen from the rest of the space. Helen had loved to cook, and had spared no expense when she gutted the space a few years back to create the kitchen of her dreams, installing hand-milled maple cabinetry, gray granite countertops, and top-of-the-line stainless steel Wolf appliances.
It was easy to imagine the new furniture that she had ordered in the space, and Joss nodded to herself as she turned back to look at the stairs to the loft. She did not have to go up to know what she would find—a platform for a queen-sized bed tucked beneath the nearest gabled window and a small desk nestled in front of the other—but as she stared at the staircase, she had to wonder how in the hell the delivery guys were going to get her new mattress up to the bedroom.
After a moment of trying to figure it out, she shook her head and gave up. “You know what?” she declared to the empty cottage. “Not my circus, not my monkey.”
Robert’s guys had somehow managed to get the old one out, surely the delivery guys who would be arriving later that day would be able to get the new one in.
Joss checked her watch and sighed. There was just over an hour until the beginning of her scheduled delivery window. In an ideal world, she would be able to get as many of her things into the cottage for the truck arrived so she would have a better idea of where she wanted the delivery guys to set it all up, but to manage that, she was going to have to get moving. She left her sunglasses on the windowsill beside the front door and made her way back down the porch step to start unloading the trailer.
She worked quickly, shuttling boxes and clear plastic cartons with multi-colored lids from the trailer to the general area their contents belonged inside, building small towers to be deconstructed and sorted later. And she was glad she had been too busy working to acquire many tchotchkes as she hauled boxes up the narrow staircase to the bedroom, shoving them in the closet so that they were out of the way. For being as small as it was, the cottage had a ton of storage built into it, and the few things she brought with her would fit with more than enough room to spare.
With most of the boxes out of the way, she was able to lift a handful of hangers from the shower rod she had rigged to serve as a makeshift closet at the back of the trailer. She would not have much use for her old work clothes here in Sky, but they were too nice to just give away. And, she figured, if she ever found somebody to date, they might come in handy.
She smiled at the thought as she hopped back to the ground, and had just hooked the curve of the hangers over her fingers and draped the plastic-covered clothes over her shoulder when something crashed into her legs. She swore loudly in surprise as she went down, dropping the clothes she had been holding as her hands scraped over loose gravel in a painful attempt to cushion her fall. Her heart raced as she tried to see what had run into her, but she did not need to look far as a large tongue licked up the side of her face, leaving a slobbery trail from her chin to her temple.
“Fucking hell. Really?” Joss sat up and shook her head. A black Great Dane wiggled happily in front of her, the white blaze on its chest bobbing
back and forth with every energetic hop as it stared at her with what she swore was a self-satisfied smile on its face. “Are you the one who took me out?” she asked the dog as she climbed to her feet.
The dog cocked its head, its tongue lolling to the side as it stared at her.
“You need to work on your approach, buddy. That is not how you pick up women,” she lectured as she scratched the dog behind the ear, her olive-toned skin pale against the dog’s dark coat. She spun the large red collar on the dog’s neck to look for a tag, and pulled her phone out of her pocket as she read, “George Dylan. 2 North Star Drive.” She gave the dog an appraising look. Her cottage was at 1 North Star Drive, which meant that George was one of her neighbors who lived in the house up the road by the lake. “Hello, neighbor.”
George’s tail wagged in an energetic circle that had his whole body shaking.
“Pleased to meet you, too,” Joss chuckled as she began dialing the contact number on George’s tag. She had just finished punching in the area code when a panicked, slightly breathless female voice rang out from just beyond the tree line, “Goddamn it, George! Where are you?”
Joss looked at the dog and grinned. “I think your mom’s pissed.”
George’s tail dropped, and he looked warily over his shoulder at the woods.
“No, you can’t run away.” Joss gripped his collar tighter. “I’ve got him!” she hollered back, and she chuckled at the way George buried his head into the back of her knees to hide. “You are so busted,” she teased the dog as she crouched down and scratched behind his ears.
George licked her face and rolled over, and Joss laughed as she began rubbing his belly. “Oh. George is a girl,” she observed as she scratched up and down the dog’s ribs. “My bad.”
George, for her part, did not seem to mind being misgendered as she squirmed on her back, trying to force Joss’ hands where she wanted them.
The sound of branches snapping beneath hurried footfalls drew Joss’ eyes to the trees, and her jaw fell open when the woman who had been chasing George jogged out of the woods. The woman was of average height—though her height was the only thing that was “average” about her. On a scale from one to ten, she was easily a twelve, and Joss licked her lips as she watched her jog across the clearing, her thick blond hair bobbing around her shoulders with every step like something out of a shampoo commercial. She was dressed casually in a pair of dark wash jeans and a deep green fleece pullover that, Joss noticed as the woman stopped in front of her, highlighted the bright green eyes that stared at her from behind the woman’s ridiculously sexy black-framed glasses. Her cheeks were pink with exertion and her lips were curled in a smile that was unabashedly relieved, though she did seem to be striving for annoyed as she stared George down.
