by Liz Isaacson
Frustration dove through her as she removed her coat and gloves and hung everything up. The kitchen table where Beau and Andrew had been playing cribbage with her mom had been abandoned, the game still set up.
She cocked her head at the cards and slim board with the pegs still poking out of it. “Where do you think they went?”
“Basement?” Eli guessed as he came around the corner from the mudroom. “I’m going to go check on a few things before I come down.” His hand slipped along her waist, touching her but not staying long. He moved down the hall and into the office, and Meg didn’t want to go downstairs by herself.
But Stockton was down there…and her mother, most likely. So she went in the opposite direction and down the steps behind the giant Christmas tree in the foyer. A yawn widened her mouth and she paused on the steps until she had her footing. A bit dizzy, she continued downstairs and found the party had indeed moved down here.
The counter in the kitchen was covered with chips and cookies and cans of soda. The theater room boasted a sound-proof door, but it wasn’t closed. The music from the movie inside nearly knocked Meg off her feet, but she continued on to make sure her responsibilities were covered before she went to take a nap.
Sure enough, Stockton sat in a huge recliner with Bailey, and Meg told him that his dad was upstairs if he needed anything.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Laney said from where she was cuddled into Graham’s side. “And your mom.”
Meg smiled and said, “Thanks, Laney,” before turning to her mom. “You’ll be okay down here?”
“Fine, fine.”
“I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m going ot go lie down in my bedroom.” Meg leaned over and placed a kiss on her mother’s cheek, a bit surprised at the action. Her mom was obviously surprised too, because she looked at Meg then—really looked at her.
“Why didn’t you sleep well?”
Meg didn’t want to get into everything from how her mother had spilled her infertility to the entire family to how she’d had to watch Eli kiss another woman. Not only that, she’d taken comfort from Celia, not her mother, and that was another issue Meg needed to deal with. Or maybe she didn’t. She wasn’t exactly sure. She just knew she was tired and didn’t want to watch whatever action flick they had amping up on the big screen.
“Pull that door closed, would you, Meg?” Andrew asked as she passed him, and she did, sealing the light out and the sound in. She snagged a cookie on her way past the counter and went back upstairs.
She poked her head into Eli’s office and said, “They’re all in the basement watching some movie with great big robots. Lots of fun snacks down there, though.” She lifted the last bite of her cookie before popping it into her mouth.
Eli glanced up from his laptop. “Do you have a sec?”
“Sure, I was just going to take a nap.” She stepped into the office instead, surprised and a bit worried when Eli got up and closed the door before facing her. “What’s going on?”
“I need to know if you were serious about quitting,” he said.
She hated it when he adopted his business persona with her. So she cocked her hip and put one hand on it to give him some sass back. “No, Eli. I’ve decided I can’t leave Stockton.”
His whole face lit up with hope. “Are you serious?”
Meg sighed and looked away, toward Graham’s messy desk. “Yeah, I’m serious.”
Eli whooped and she barely had time to look at him again before he caught her around the waist. “He’ll be so happy. Heck, I’m happy.” He set her on her feet again and kissed her, this time with less tenderness and a little more oomph behind the movement.
Meg liked nothing more than kissing Eli, and she lost herself to the taste and touch of him, slightly drunk when he pulled away. “Thank you so much, Meggy.” He bounced back over to his desk and shut his laptop. “I’ll be downstairs. You sure you don’t want to come snuggle with me?”
Still reeling from his gratitude, Meg managed to shake her head. “Too obvious.”
Eli laughed. “As if everyone doesn’t already know.”
The thought only made Meg cringe away from putting herself in Eli’s arms where everyone could see. “Not Stockton.”
A cloud passed over Eli’s face, and then he nodded. “All right. Enjoy your nap.” He took a step as if he’d go around her, but she blocked him.
“You didn’t—I mean, are you only—did you only kiss me so I’d stay here and be Stockton’s nanny?”
Eli looked like she’d thrown ice water in his face. “What? No.”
But Meg cocked her head, trying to hear between the letters he’d spoken. “It feels weird, doesn’t it? You paying me to take care of him, but kissing me in secret? Like, I don’t want to be that kind of girl.”
“You’re not that kind of girl.” Emotions warred their way across Eli’s face, and Meg could see that not everything was as black and white as they’d like it to be.
“You’re going to keep paying me, right?”
“Yes.”
Meg relaxed a little, but the situation hadn’t changed. “Is this weird? Or am I just…I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either.” Eli’s earlier happiness had fled, and Meg hated that she’d done that.
“Maybe I should quit. Then you can pay someone you aren’t kissing.”
“You can’t quit.” He exhaled harshly. “People meet and date at work all the time.”
“Not the boss and his employee.” This back and forth was the exact reason Meg had always kept her crush in the simple stages—and secret. Kissing and holding hands, they complicated everything.
“Yes, the boss and his employee,” Eli said. “You’re doing your job. We just happen to have a relationship on the side.”
“So maybe we shouldn’t kiss while I’m working.”
“Sure, if that’s what you want. It’s Christmas Day.” He stepped toward her, an edge of desire driving away the frustration that had entered his gaze. “You’re not on the clock today. That’s why I didn’t want you picking up his coat and stuff.”
Meg giggled as he drew her into his arms. “You keep telling yourself that, Mister Whittaker.”
“What? It’s true.” He gazed into her eyes. “And I’m going to kiss you again, because tomorrow you’ll be back at work, and I won’t get to do it.” He did, and this kiss held something just a bit different for Meg. What it was, she couldn’t say, but there was definitely something new there. When Eli pulled back, he didn’t smile at her, didn’t have that soft look of adoration or love in his eyes.
It was almost like he was analyzing a high-profile proposal he’d written for a big event at one of the resorts where he’d worked. She’d often go over them with him, to help him win the events and bring more business to the hotels.
“Okay,” he said, accompanied with a nervous chuckle. “I’m gonna head downstairs, and….” He moved to step past her and they ended up going the same direction, performing a sort of strange little dance filled with awkwardness.
Meg finally put her hands on his shoulders, trying not to feel the muscles beneath his shirt. “You go this way.” She sort of pushed him to the right while she went left. “And I’ll go this way.”
Eli laughed, breaking the tension in the room. He grabbed onto Meg and twirled her around, causing her to laugh too. He paused, and now when he looked down at her, it was with all those emotions she’d come to expect from him.
“I really like you,” he murmured, and those were almost as good as his tender, insistent kisses.
Later that night, with snow falling outside the windows of the lodge, Meg took her mug of hot chocolate to the table, where another rousing game of cribbage had just started. Beau and Andrew had teamed up against Meg’s mother, but they still hadn’t managed to beat her yet.
“It’s just the luck of the cards,” she’d said on the last one, her face a mask of pure joy. Meg had literally never seen her mom look so happy. She’d existed in mi
sery for so long, Meg thought she must like feeling that way.
When they lost again, and Andrew threw up his hands with, “I don’t know how she does it!” her mom turned to her.
“Want to try, Meg?”
Andrew and Beau turned toward her, insane looks of hope in their eyes. “Can you beat her?” Beau asked.
“I don’t think it’s possible,” Andrew said. “She’s like a machine.”
“It’s just luck,” her mom said, beaming. “Honest. Meg’s beat me before.”
“I haven’t played cribbage in a long time,” Meg said, holding up her hands. “I’m a master at Go Fish though. Or checkers. I’ll play that.”
“Meg,” Andrew said, clapping his hands and exchanging a look with Beau. They must’ve had some sort of secret Whittaker brother language, because all of them—Beau, Andrew, and Eli all picked up the chant with the second, “Meg.”
“Meg, Meg, Meg.”
She rolled her eyes though pure giddiness romped through her. “I can’t beat her,” she said, but her voice was nowhere near loud enough to be heard over three men.
When Beau started pounding on the table in time with the chants, Meg picked up the deck of cards and shuffled them amidst cheering. Once it died down, she said, “I’m not going to win.”
She dealt the cards to her mom and then herself while her mom moved all the pegs back to the starting line. Laney brought another bowl of popcorn to the table and eased into a chair down on the end.
Meg met her eye, and Laney smiled as if to say, See? What a difference twenty-four hours makes, right?
After that, Meg concentrated, trying to make sure she laid away the right cards and playing things just right to add up in her favor. In the end, she shouldn’t have dealt, because her mother got to count out first—and she won before Meg could even count.
“And that’s two more.” Her mom looked so happy as she moved her peg, and the rest of the crowd groaned. Everyone had gathered around to watch the epic match, and Stockton, who had climbed into Meg’s lap about halfway through turned to her and gave her a big hug.
“Don’t worry about it, Meggy. I can’t beat Bailey at the racecar game.”
“The racecar game?” She lifted her eyebrows at him and then looked at Laney.
“Oh, it’s this video game we have,” she said. “Bailey’s been playing it for years and knows all the shortcuts.”
Meg snuggled with Stockton and said, “It’s okay when you lose to your mom. Or your best friend.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Stockton turned back to the game, but no one else had picked up the cards.
Meg leaned into the little boy and said, “You should make her a crown before she goes.” She caught her mother’s eye, and something meaningful passed between them. Meg wondered if her mom had this kind of fun, happy, easy relationship with Carrie and Brittany. That was probably why they could stand having their mother over for all the holidays when Meg couldn’t.
A moment of sadness pinched behind her lungs that she’d basically given up on her mother all those years ago. “I’m sorry,” she said way too quietly for her mom to hear. But somehow the message was conveyed, and suddenly Meg wished her mom could stay for longer than one more day.
Chapter Eleven
The old-school landline phone rang on the desk where Eli worked. He looked at it for a moment, not quite sure when it had sounded last. Then he sprang into action and answered it, because it was the number he’d published for reservations at the boarding stable.
“The Whittaker…uh…Whiskey Mountain Stables.” He pressed his eyes closed as a slip of foolishness stole through him. Most of their clients at the stables came through bookings at the lodge, so he was a bit out of practice.
Graham chuckled at the other desk, but Eli purposely turned away from him.
“I’d like to book eleven horses,” a woman said. “For a day ride. My family and I are staying at the Grand Teton Lodge, but they don’t have horses.”
“Well, ma’am, we do, and if you’ll tell me what dates you and your family need the horses, I’ll see what I’ve got.” He only had two bookings on the ledger right now, and they were both for guests already staying at the lodge.
He pulled the pricing schedule toward him as she recited the dates, and he shoved his laptop off the desk calendar that contained the bookings for the stables and the lodge. That way, he didn’t have to be present at the desk to take reservations.
“Let’s see….” He clicked his tongue. “June sixteenth is available. Our fee for eleven horses for the day is six hundred dollars.” He waited for the woman to haggle over the price, but she didn’t. She simply agreed and gave him her credit card number so he could reserve the date and the horses with a non-refundable deposit.
He hung up, feeling very accomplished. While he didn’t need to work for money, it was nice to actually achieve something.
“Oh, you’re so proud of yourself.” The teasing quality in Graham’s voice eased the sting of the words a little bit.
“Well, we can’t all run huge energy companies.” Eli flicked his brother a glance but didn’t give him his full attention. It had driven Graham—and their parents—crazy as a teenager. But Eli didn’t have a whole lot to celebrate lately. Last winter, he hadn’t really tried to do much more than buy more horses and make sure they were trained. He made sure Stockton was settling in okay and built a website for the stables, got brochures and pamphlets and other marketing materials ready.
If there was anything Eli was good at, it was marketing materials and advertising events. By the time spring came, he’d booked the stables for the entire summer. He’d visited other stables, interviewed their managers about the horses, their prices, all of it.
He’d been planning a big marketing push for after the new year, and this phone call proved that people planned their family reunions and camping trips months and months in advance.
“Andrew helps with Springside,” Graham finally said, as if he’d been thinking of a comeback all this time.
“With the public relations.” Eli refrained from rolling his eyes. His tone had suggested it already.
“And Dwight,” Graham said. “I hardly do anything.”
“Well, you sit at that desk a lot for not doing anything.”
“So do you.” Graham got up and came around the front of his desk before perching on the edge of it. “What’s eating you?”
Meg. “Nothing.” Graham positioned his laptop back in front of him, wishing he could iron his feelings flat so he could examine them more easily.
“You and Meg seemed to have a good Christmas.”
“We did.”
“Did you kiss her?”
Eli gave up his pretense of working and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, okay?”
Graham didn’t grin or act like that was great news. He folded his arms and said, “That’s a big deal for you. What with Caroline and all.”
Caroline. A knife twisted in Eli’s gut, then his heart.
“Don’t look like that,” Graham said. “This is good, Eli. She really likes you, and you obviously like her.”
“Yeah, I know.” He wasn’t sure Graham could understand his predicament. He’d spoken about it with his mom, who hadn’t tried dating yet after the death of her husband. But she’d expressed some similar concerns to Eli, but hastened to say, “But you’re so young, honey. And Stockton would thrive with a mother.”
He’d wanted to tell her that Meg was the best surrogate mother he could provide for his son. But was she the best match for him?
“It’s not like you’ll get remarried tomorrow,” Graham said. “Enjoy yourself. Go slow. Kiss her a lot.” That smile Eli had expected sprang to Graham’s face. “Don’t worry so much.”
“Easy for you to say.” Eli stood and stretched his back. “And I know I’m not getting remarried tomorrow. We’re driving Meg’s mom back to Colorado tomorrow.” He gave Graham a smirk and said, “I’m going out to the stables.”
Gr
aham chuckled. “Gonna go tell your secrets to Second to Caroline?”
Eli yanked open the office door. “That’s right.” He didn’t wait for Graham to continue ribbing him, or giving him advice, even if it was useful. Eli had been the first brother to find a wife, and it felt wildly unfair that Caroline had been taken from him.
As he pulled on his boots and zipped his coat, he wondered when he was going to stop thinking life was unfair.
Help me be grateful for what I have, he thought as he exited the lodge and started the quick walk to the stables. Unfortunately, his talks with his favorite horses didn’t help his melancholy mood. And of course, the animals didn’t have any answers for him for how to deal with his growing feelings for Meg or his lingering doubts and guilt over Caroline.
“You want her to stay?” Eli was sure Meg had been possessed by a different spirit. “Your mom?”
She wound her fingers around and around each other, her tell of her nerves. “She’s just been…it’s been kind of nice having her here. She’s…different.”
He supposed it didn’t matter to him, other than he’d have his normal Meg back, and their normal life, and they could plan the New Year’s Eve party together without the scrutiny of her mother.
“Have you talked to her about it?”
“Well, no.”
“I think that’s your first step.”
“I can drive her myself,” she said. “I know you’re busy.”
He wasn’t busy but he didn’t correct her. “I don’t mind driving with you.” It had been a fun trip for him, and he’d forever remember it as the time when he’d truly allowed himself to feel something for a woman other than Caroline.
“I guess I’ll go find out then,” she said. She walked away, her head held high, but Eli could sense her nerves hanging in the air. He prayed that her mother would be kind to her, the way she’d been on Christmas Day.
He watched her go and had just lifted his coffee mug to his lips when Stockton entered the room, his hair rumpled and still wearing his pajamas. “Hey, bud. Have you eaten breakfast?”
