by Liz Isaacson
“I heard it’s supposed to snow again tonight,” Annie said instead of rushing up to the table where she’d tried to teach Colton how to play cribbage.
“Yeah, I heard that too.”
“Maybe I should have Em text her boyfriend. I think he was going to try to come up tomorrow.”
“I think they’ll close the roads,” Celia said, pausing on one recipe.
“I’ll let her know.” Annie finished her coffee and put her mug in the sink before going upstairs, where she did find Colton sitting at their table, hundreds and hundreds of pieces in front of him.
“Do you like puzzles?” she asked.
“As well as anything else,” he said.
She sat down across from him as the screen of his phone brightened. He looked away from the pieces and texted whoever had messaged him.
“It’s my brother,” he said. “I guess the cousins are in the building today.”
“I thought that wasn’t until the thirtieth.”
“So did Wes.” Colton put his phone back and tapped the box. “It’s a fairy garden.”
“I see that,” she said. “Not very Christmassy.”
“That it is not.” He fitted a piece into the outer edge and glanced up at her with a smile.
Annie warmed from the inside out, and she started looking for the edge pieces too. He hadn’t sorted them out at all when he’d turned the pieces over, and Annie started making a pile of them.
They’d talked about their families, and his job a little bit, and her cleaning company. Her phone chimed, and she looked at it to see Emily had confirmed the bad weather and she’d texted Kelly to see if he could come up that evening.
“I think my daughter’s boyfriend is going to propose to her this Christmas,” Annie said. “And I don’t know how to deal with it.”
Colton looked up, compassion and surprise in his eyes. “Is that right?”
“I think so,” Annie said.
“Does she think so?”
“I don’t know,” Annie said. “I think they’ve talked about it a little bit, but not much.”
“Do you like the guy?”
“Yes,” Annie said. “He’s a good man, and he has a good job.”
“You sound like being a good man and having a good job is a bad thing.” Colton watched her with an interest in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. “And you like a man who’s about to lose his job.”
“But has billions in the bank,” she said, the perfect comeback.
He chuckled and shook his head. “A man still has to have something good to fill his time.”
“So what will that look like for you?” she asked.
“Honestly? Right now, I don’t know.” He looked at her pile of edge pieces. “Have you been hoarding those?”
“I sorted these,” she said. “Don’t you know that’s how you do a puzzle?”
Colton’s eyebrows went up, and he reached for the box. He opened it and looked inside, making a big show of trying to find something.
“Huh, there aren’t any instructions inside.” Annie rolled her eyes, really enjoying flirting with him.
His phone went off again, and he busied himself with texting for several minutes. Annie had the bottom of the puzzle put together by the time he put his phone down again.
She saw what stressed looked like on his face, and she wished there was something she could do to erase it. At the same time, it made the smile he gave her so much softer and so much sweeter.
“I told my girls about us,” she said.
“Yeah? And?”
“And nothing. I’ve dated before.”
“Do they think I’m a good man with a good job?”
Annie giggled. “Does it matter? They’re not in charge of who I go out with.”
“To be technical,” he said. “We haven’t really left the lodge together at all.” He looked up from the array of puzzle pieces on the table. “We should fix that as soon as we can.”
“We should.”
“Dinner? Tonight? We can drive down to town.”
“It’s supposed to snow.”
“I have a four-wheel-drive truck.”
Annie didn’t want to say no to him. It couldn’t snow that much in the time it took to get dinner, could it?
Her stomach flipped, because she’d always been so nervous sending Ryan out into bad weather. Sometimes good weather made her anxious.
But Colton’s dark eyes called to her, and she really wanted a date with him, away from all the craziness of the lodge. Who knew? Maybe she wouldn’t even like him when she wasn’t in such a comfortable place, surrounded by her support system.
“All right,” she said. “Dinner, tonight. Me and you. In town.”
“Perfect.” He picked up his phone again, though his brother hadn’t texted. “Now, we just need to find the perfect place.”
“I know lots of places,” she said.
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I get to pick, and it’s going to be a surprise.”
Chapter Twenty
Wes woke to a text, but it wasn’t Jill or Laura or Kent. “Thank you, Lord,” he muttered as he lifted the phone to look at it.
Colton had messaged him, saying, Too much snow to go out with Annie. I’ll have to tell you about her once we do go out.
Wes marveled at the fact that Colton had another girlfriend already. Wes had thought his brother would never date again, but Colton had gotten right back on the horse. Wes hoped he wasn’t rushing things, but Colton usually didn’t.
He’d dated Priscilla forever it seemed, and their engagement had lasted for over a year. So he was probably fine.
Bummer, he sent back to his brother. Do you think she has any friends up there interested in a soon-to-be unemployed man with no ambition?
Haha, Colton sent back. And actually yes, there are single women here in Coral Canyon.
Wes scoffed at the idea.
He hadn’t dated anyone seriously in probably two years, and he only went out when society deemed it necessary for him. And then, he asked someone he’d known for years that he could enjoy the fundraising dinner with, or the complimentary theater tickets, or whatever else black tie event he’d been invited to.
He only went with women he knew he wouldn’t fall for. Wes had done that twice, bought the diamond ring twice, been down on one knee twice.
And then he’d cancelled both weddings after only a few weeks. He wasn’t sure if he was afraid to commit, or if he just hadn’t been able to see himself with Claire or Lauren long-term.
He got up, because once Wes woke up, he wasn’t going back to sleep. He moved over to the windows in his bedroom, and looked out over the city. Or at least he tried. The snow had arrived in Denver too.
But instead of it making his heart sink to the soles of his shoes, the way it probably had for Colton, Wes seized the opportunity this snow gave him.
He returned quickly to his bedroom to get his phone from the nightstand, and he texted Jill, Laura, and Kent.
Lots of snow this morning. I’m headed to Ivory Peaks for the holidays, so can we reschedule this meeting?
He hated that he’d asked, but he could put his foot down in a second text if he had to.
Thankfully, Kent responded first, and he said, My front door is frozen shut, so yes, let’s reschedule.
Relief flowed through Wes, and he jumped in the shower before anyone else added their thoughts to the group text. He packed a bag quickly, checked his phone and found that both Laura and Jill had agreed.
Not that he cared. He hadn’t dressed for a meeting, but for a drive through the snow as he ventured northwest to Ivory Peaks.
His parents were getting older, and if Wes thought about it, so was he.
“Forty-seven,” he told himself as he walked toward the elevator that would take him from the penthouse on the thirty-first floor to his truck in the parking garage.
Forty-seven was almost fifty, and Wes hadn’t quite thought about his age in those terms yet.
/> He got behind the wheel of the boxy truck that was more sport utility vehicle than pickup, tossing his bag on the seat beside him. He wondered what it would be like to just drive. Drive until he couldn’t drive anymore, the way Colton had done.
And look at him—he’d found another girlfriend. Wes reminded himself he didn’t want another girlfriend, and he made the appropriate turns at the appropriate times to get out to his parents’ farm in Ivory Peaks.
The familiar town square shone through the snow, and Wes slowed to take in the beauty of it. Lights filled the sky, creating an eerie environment with red, green, blue, and white filling the sky like so many alien spaceships.
He’d enjoyed the drive, where there was no pressure to have his clothes pressed into perfectly straight lines. No one was looking to him for the eloquent statement. He didn’t have any appearances to keep up.
As he approached the small farm with the big house in the center of it, some of the expectations descended onto his shoulders again.
His father would want to talk about the campaign, though Wes hadn’t confirmed nor committed to anything yet. He pulled into the driveway and dashed through the snow to the front door.
“Ma,” he called as he stomped the snow from his feet just inside the house.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “It’s Wes.” She came bustling out of the kitchen to hug him, and Wes smiled as she did. “Hey, Ma. How are you?”
“Staying warm,” she said.
“Where’s Dad?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I didn’t think you’d come until tomorrow.”
“It’s snowing,” he said as if that explained it all. And in Colorado, it should.
He thought about what life might be like if he didn’t have to worry about what the weather was like. He could stay home if he wanted to, doing whatever it was that people did when they didn’t leave their houses.
And he knew in that moment that he wouldn’t fight Laura to keep HMC under his management. He’d done great things at HMC; he knew that.
And he was ready for something else.
What that something else was, he didn’t know. But Wes would figure it out. One thing he’d always done was land on his feet, and he would this time too.
“So,” his mother said. “Come get some coffee.”
“I brought some,” he said, as he’d driven through on his way out of the city. But that didn’t matter. His mom would pour him a cup anyway.
As she did, she asked, “Are you seeing anyone new?”
Wes didn’t roll his eyes. He didn’t automatically deny it. His mother had asked him that same question so many times, he’d thought about recording an answer to play back for her.
“You know what?” He reached for the coffee mug. “I’m talking to a woman, yes.”
She didn’t need to know he’d only spoken to Bree on the phone one time, or that he didn’t know her last name.
“Is that so?” his mother asked, and she sounded like she didn’t believe him. “Who is she?”
“I’m not ready to say,” he said, putting a diplomatic smile on his face. He hated this smile, but it worked, and he really needed it to work right now. “When is Gray coming?” He sipped his coffee though his blood was already zipping through his veins.
“He’s supposed to be here by noon,” she said. “And he’s bringing lunch, so I hope you’re not too hungry.”
“I’m fine, Ma.” He looked around the kitchen and into the family room. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s in his office.”
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Wes said. He took his coffee with him, glad he’d been able to escape from more of his mother’s questions.
She might have turned seventy a few months ago, but she was still as sharp as a tack. And she really wanted her sons to get married, and one of Wes’s biggest regrets was that he hadn’t been able to give her that yet.
Gray had been married before, but he’d since divorced, and Mom still didn’t have a daughter-in-law to go on shopping and lunch dates with.
He knocked on his father’s open office door and entered. “Hey, Dad.”
His father looked up from something on his desk, and Wes wondered what in the world it could be. All of the Hammond boys had gotten their work ethic from their father, who still had plenty of good to do in the world.
Wes wanted to tell his father that he wasn’t going to run for governor, but the first thing his dad said was, “I’ve got a spec sheet on Hancey,” and he sifted through a couple of papers before finding the one he handed to Wes.
He didn’t look at it, and his father had his back turned as he went back to his desk. “Dad,” Wes tried again. “I’m not sure I want to do this.” He should’ve been stronger, just like with the text that morning.
And his dad wouldn’t give him the out Kent had.
“Oh, everyone feels like that,” his dad said. “Study the specs and draft a speech, and you’ll start to feel it.” He gave Wes a smile, but Wes didn’t return it. His dad was already back to his work, and he didn’t notice that Wes didn’t return the smile.
Pure exhaustion pulled through him, and he wished he hadn’t come to the farm quite so quickly. He didn’t want to stay in the office and discuss politics, but he didn’t want to join his mother in the kitchen and talk about his non-existent girlfriend.
Thankfully, his phone chimed, and he said, “I have to take this.”
He left the office and went down the hall to his old bedroom to check the text from Colton.
Just tell Dad you don’t want to be governor.
How did you know I was just talking to him? Wes asked.
Gut feeling.
Wes sighed as he sat on the twin bed, the frame creaking under his full-grown weight. His phone rang, and Wes swiped on the call from Colton. “Hey.”
“Did you tell him?”
“You texted ten seconds ago.”
“So you’re not going to tell him.”
Wes sighed, wondering how he could harness happiness again. He hadn’t felt it for a while, and he hadn’t even known it until that moment. “It’s Christmas.”
“Oh, brother.”
“And I need a gift from you.”
“What’s that?”
“Uh...Bree’s number?”
“Bree who?” Colton sounded genuinely confused. “Wait a second. Bree—Bree?”
“I may have told Mom I was talking to a woman, so she’d stop badgering me about not having a girlfriend.”
A couple of beats of silence passed, and then Colton burst out laughing.
“All right, all right,” Wes said. “Can I have her number or not?”
“I’ll have to ask her first,” Colton said. “But I think I can give you that gift this Christmas.”
“Great,” Wes said. “Merry Christmas, Colt.” The call ended, and Wes flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Gray and his son, Hunter, couldn’t arrive soon enough.
His phone chimed, and Wes wanted to turn it off. He held it above his head and looked at it.
The text had one name: Breeann Richards.
And one number.
For the first time in a long, long time, a real smile spread Wes’s mouth.
Number one, he wouldn’t be a liar now. And number two, he knew Bree’s last name. Now he just needed to figure out what to say to her when he talked to her for the second time ever.
Chapter Twenty-One
Colton woke on Christmas Eve, wishing the snow hadn’t kept him from taking Annie to dinner the night before. He’d wanted to walk the shops on Main Street she’d told him about, looking for a few gifts.
The Whittakers had been kind and gracious to let him crash their holidays, and he wanted to get them a little token of his appreciation. But the weather would likely make it impossible for him to have gifts for anyone by Christmas.
Frustration built behind his tongue, and Colton stayed in bed, trying to breathe deeply to get the emotions to loosen an
d leave his body.
He literally didn’t waste time trying to control something he couldn’t control. He’d learned that at an early age, when all his friends had made it onto the Academic Olympiad—except for him. They had class together, and worse, lunch right afterward. So they’d talk about their competitions, and what they were learning, and about all the cool science experiments they got to do—without him.
Yes, tenth grade had been miserable for him. He’d gone to as many of their tournaments as he could, cheering them on as they won and won and won—until the championships.
Then, the question that Quinton Dean had missed had been one Colton knew. A biology question about the rate of respiration. Colton could still hear the groan from the team at Peaks High. Ilima Orion had even glanced back at him in the audience, as if she’d known that their team would’ve won if only Colton had been on it.
But he couldn’t control that situation, and he certainly couldn’t control Mother Nature. “Bless them all,” he whispered up to the ceiling. “Bless them with health and wealth and happiness.” That was a good gift, right? A prayer in someone’s behalf?
Colton thought so, because his faith in a loving God had been coming back to him slowly over the past few days. This family possessed something magical, and Colton couldn’t help feeling like the Lord had led him up this dead-end road to this lodge, right before the snow had gotten so bad that he couldn’t get out.
Had God also led him to Annie?
It was hard to push against that, because all the signs seemed to point to yes, He had. After all, Colton believed he’d been led to the lodge, and Annie had been at the lodge....
He shut down the line of thought and went to get in the shower. The first bathroom door was locked, though, and when he tried the second, he found it locked too. He retreated a few steps to lean against the back of the couch while he waited.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and Annie’s youngest daughter came out wearing a bright blue bathrobe. “Sorry,” she said. “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”
“Nope,” he said with a smile.
Eden smiled too and took a step toward the bedroom she shared with her family before turning back to him. “You like my mom, right?”
