“Thanks, Mr. Masters.”
His mother looked less pleased. “I wanted to get to know her.”
“We can hang around. We’ll have dinner after,” his father said reassuringly. That was the thing about Don and Felicia, if his mother wanted it, his father did his darnedest to make sure she got it.
Tom surveyed the ice-cream parlor. It was full and school was about to get out. A new wave of people was due to arrive. He’d come back at this time to make sure Chloe had help.
“She is short-staffed, Mother. Once the coffee machine went in, the business has gone from dead to pumping in a matter of days.”
“You’ve been helping out, right, son?” His father’s tone said he hoped so because that was the right thing to do.
“I have, that’s why I’m back now.”
“Well, go help.”
He downed his coffee and was on his feet. “Okay.”
Chloe was behind the coffee machine trying to get her brain around the madness of her life. This was a hell of a day to wake up with a hangover.
She felt Tom move in next to her at the coffee machine.
“So, interesting day, huh?” he said in a low voice.
“Yeah, you might say that.” She didn’t look at him. She wasn’t sure if he would be mad or how he’d really feel about his folks being here.
“Sorry about my folks, they’re kind of hands-on. I’m not sure my mother got the memo that I’m actually all grown up now.”
“Hasn’t she seen you with your shirt off?” she said, trying to keep it light.
“Apparently, I don’t affect her the way I affect you,” he said, bumping her with his hip. Finally, she turned her head to look at him and he was grinning down at her.
“You’re not mad at me?” Was this guy for real?
“It’s not your fault. I should have known they’d see the paper or hear about it; they have friends everywhere. I’m just sorry you had to face them alone.”
“I tried not to say much. They probably think I’m mute or just rather dim.”
“I’m sure they think you are quite lovely and a little overwhelmed,” he said, frothing the milk for some cappuccinos. “Has it been like this all day?”
“Yeah, there was a bit of a lull around one. Todd was a great help. He only just left. His elderly neighbor took a fall, and Viper has already visited today. We took a gamble he wouldn’t be back in the half hour before you arrived.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. I guess I could ask the same about your truck. That reminds me. I’m still mad at you because you didn’t tell me.”
“And I brought you ‘I’m sorry’ flowers.”
“I thought they were ‘I love you’ flowers for the crowd,” she replied.
“No, they were ‘I’m sorry’ flowers and ‘I want to kiss you again’ flowers and not in front of the crowd.”
“Oh.” He wanted to kiss her again. That was good news.
“My folks are staying for dinner. Is there a good hotel nearby?”
She shook her head. “Definitely not.”
“The dinner or the hotel?”
“Hotel.” She thought for a moment. She couldn’t picture his folks at Uncle Linc’s house in the spare room. But shouldn’t they offer? “They could stay with us, well, me, in the spare room.”
“And I would have to stay in with you?” His voice was a whisper.
“Unless you tell them the truth.”
He looked over at his smiling parents who were watching them and who had flown back from Mexico the moment they’d heard of his engagement. Maybe now wasn’t the right time to come clean. “I’ll ask them to stay.”
This bizarre day was just getting more bizarre. Tom had been sent with his mother, by Chloe, to the store nearby so that she could make dinner for her future in-laws.
“She’s a very good cook,” Tom said to his mom as they wheeled the cart through the supermarket. “More home-style of course.”
“Well, she’s cooking at home, so that makes sense. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good home-cooked meal. What a treat!” His mother couldn’t be more enthusiastic about staying over at Chloe’s if she tried. The truth was his mother was a small-town girl at heart. She’d come to work in his father’s ski lodge as a dancer for the winter entertainment and he’d fallen instantly in love with her. She’d never gone home, and now that he thought about it, she hadn’t lived in a house in forty years, and he of course had never lived in one.
“I guess our life is a little unusual, Mom.”
She gave a warm laugh. “Just a little. How does Chloe feel about that?”
“She’s pretty unsure, honestly. She likes me, but the whole hotel thing is out of her comfort zone. We’re planning a long engagement.”
“That’s a good idea. It’s been a whirlwind romance, after all,” she said, placing items in the basket. “Eggs. Cheddar.”
He marked them off. “Yeah, I guess our life is normal to me.”
“Of course. I remember when I met your father, I mean the lodge was small then and it was the only property and the thought of living there was strange to me. It wasn’t what I pictured.”
“Didn’t you picture being a famous dancer in New York?” he asked, loading some vegetables into the cart.
“Exactly, so a ski lodge where I would be surrounded by snow and never have any privacy or even a proper home was about as far from my vision as it gets. Even a house in the suburbs, well, at least I knew what that life looked like. That I could get my brain around.”
“But you came around, obviously. Being like everyone else didn’t matter to you so much.”
“Your father wore me down with his charm. Also, he told me if I didn’t like it after a couple of years we’d leave.”
“Really? I never knew that.” Tom had just always assumed his mom loved the lodge.
“Oh yes.” She picked up a tomato, deemed it unfit, and returned it to the pile. “And we nearly did early on, before you. And over the years there have been a few times I wondered if I made the right call, especially in those early years, but I love your dad and he loves that resort and you love it.”
“So you stayed for us.”
“I stayed because I loved you both and I wanted you happy. I still wonder, though, I mean, you’ve never had a normal home. Oh yes, and then your dad bought the Mexico resort so I could escape to the sun whenever I wanted. That sure helped,” she said with an easy smile.
They had everything on the list and approached the checkout. “You don’t think a normal home is maybe overrated?” he asked.
“You know, we had a happy home and you had such energy and that winning personality, you didn’t need that. Some people do. Lots of people do, in fact. I look at what a lovely man you are and I don’t worry about that anymore.”
“But you think Chloe might.”
“Honey, I don’t know her, but she seems a bit wary by nature. She might want to be normal to blend in.”
And that was it. That was exactly what she wanted. She’d run away from a crazy life to have a normal one. Moose wasn’t sure he could ask her to give that up.
They walked back to Two Scoops, past the old Post Office.
“What a charming old building,” his mother said.
“Yeah, it’s got potential. Hopefully someone does something with it soon.”
“It does seem a shame to see a lovely old space like that sitting idle.”
Exactly what Tom had been thinking for weeks now.
He thought about that during the next half hour as they all helped Chloe close up.
“I’m not used to quite so much help,” Chloe said, smiling.
“Sorry, we’re all doers rather than sitters,” Tom’s father apologized, stacking a chair on the table. “When Felicia and I took over the lodge, it was much smaller then, I fixed everything myself, we did the housekeeping when it was busy, all sorts of things. As it grew, we became less hands-on but we still like to help.”
/> “Like Tom.”
His father laughed. “Yeah, like Tom.”
Tom had grabbed a mop and was giving the floor behind the counter a once-over. “I have a lot of energy.”
“Oh my, when he was a little boy . . .”
“Mom.” His voice held a warning, which his mother promptly ignored.
“He was so cute. Always helping. Such a sweet boy. What about your parents, Chloe, where are they?”
“My folks are in Texas.” She kept it short.
“Brothers and sisters?” she asked.
“I have two brothers.” He hadn’t known that. “One older and one younger. They’re still in Texas.”
“Your mom must miss you.”
“I’m sure she does,” was all Chloe said. Looking at his parents here, parents who had hopped on a plane and come home the minute they heard their son was engaged, parents who were stacking chairs and smiling at her, he was all of a sudden painfully aware of what she’d given up already and how important it was that no one forced her to make that choice again. Not Viper and not him either.
She gave him a soft smile. How could they make this work? She was right, their lives were so different. He was going to take over a chain of boutique resorts. How could he live here and help in this business? And how could he ask her to change her life again? But how could he lose her? She was all he thought about. Just being near her made him happy.
One day at a time, he told himself as he bent down to finish mopping the black and white floor.
Chloe stopped them at the front door.
“Before you go in, two things.” Her parents hovered on the steps anxiously. “First, we had a little break-in a few days ago, and so I haven’t had time to replace some things, and second, you’re going to see a lot of Elvis.”
“As in Presley,” Tom added.
“Yes, my uncle who owns the house is a collector.”
“I met him once, Elvis of course not your uncle,” Felicia said. “At a party in New York. Not very chatty. But the man could sing.”
Okay, she hadn’t expected that. Chloe turned and opened the door and let Tom’s family come on in.
“Isn’t this sweet?” Felicia said.
“Did they catch whoever broke in?” Tom’s father asked.
“Not yet. Probably just a crime of opportunity,” Tom replied.
“Have you lived here long?”
“A little over a year. I’m planning to redecorate but there are so many options I never decide.” That wasn’t a total lie. As of last night, she planned to redecorate and there were too many options to make her mind up in one day.
“Is your uncle not returning?”
“He seems to prefer Florida for the social life and the climate.”
“We have a resort there. He should swing by, anytime.”
“I’ll tell him,” she said, smiling sweetly as Tom moved past her to put the groceries in the kitchen. “I’ll just race upstairs and change before I start dinner. Tom, you get your folks a drink.”
She raced to the spare room that Tom had been sleeping in and removed any trace that he had been there and quickly hid it all in the laundry hamper in her room, except a spare shirt she strategically threw over the chair in the corner. And a bottle of his deodorant she left on the bedside table. She had no idea if he was the type to throw his shirt on a chair or where he was when he applied his deodorant but that was as good a guess as she could muster.
She quickly changed into a simple shirt dress and ballet flats and fluffed out her hair and added some lip-gloss and mascara. She couldn’t help but notice how glamorous and put together Tom’s mother was. A little mascara wasn’t exactly too over-the-top. She wanted to look nice but she was who she was, a small-town girl, and that wasn’t about to change.
In less than ten minutes, she was bounding down the stairs to the living room, which was filled with the sound of laughter. She stopped for a minute and took it in. This was what a family looked like. They were, she expected, not a conventional family, but they were kind and they cared about each other and they clearly liked each other.
“Look at you!” Tom said, standing when she came down and leaning in to kiss her cheek. “You look beautiful as always.”
She couldn’t help blushing, again. Was she ever not blushing around Tom? “Thanks.”
“I found a vase and arranged those flowers for you, honey,” Felicia said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it is. Thank you.”
“Do you want a drink?” Tom asked.
“I might just get dinner started. I’m sure everyone is hungry,” she said.
“There’s no rush. We eat at all sorts of times in our business.”
“Well, I’ll just get started,” she said as sweetly as she could. She was nervous and she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Keeping busy would be the easiest path.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Felicia said. Not exactly what she was hoping for but still.
“It’s just meatloaf, nothing fancy,” she said. “And a cobbler.”
“Don may never leave,” her pretend future mother-in-law said, following her to the kitchen.
Tom wasn’t quite sure what he should do. He was fairly certain Chloe didn’t want to be alone with his mother but he couldn’t really see a way around this.
“So, she seems like a sweet girl, Tom,” his father said, coming to stand next to him by the fire he was watching. “Very pretty, I can see why she turned your head.”
“She is.”
“And she looks at you like you’re Christmas, that’s an attractive quality in a woman,” he added.
Did she? Maybe she did? He hoped so. “Well, I hope she likes me, Dad.”
“Of course she does. The question is, is that enough?”
He had a feeling his father was the skeptic in the group. “Well, you know it’s been a whirlwind courtship so we’re not rushing into the marriage just yet.”
“That’s wise. Marriage is hard. You want to be sure.”
“Of course,” he said.
“Seems like you guys might have quite different backgrounds and life experiences.”
“That’s true but you know what they say about opposites attracting.”
His father laid a hand on his arm. “I do, son, and your mother and I were opposites so I get it. All I’m saying is it takes a little bit more effort to find common ground in those cases.”
“True, Dad, but the women who have had a life like mine seem to only want me for my money, or they bore me. I’m not bored by Chloe and I feel like she likes me for me. Surely that has to be the most important thing?”
“Of course it is, son, of course.”
In the next room, he could hear his mother asking Chloe where she learned to cook. “Shall we join the ladies?”
“My mother taught me, of course.”
“In Texas?”
“Yes.”
“It smells great in here already,” Tom said.
She just gave him a wan smile and continued doing what she was doing.
“So how did you two meet?’ his father asked.
“We have a mutual friend,” she said.
“Chase is engaged to Lucy who is from here, and I met some of their friends at their engagement party, so I came to town to visit and then I saw Chloe, and boom.”
She blushed a sweet pink and shook her head. “I don’t think you took one look at me and went boom.”
“I did,” he said sincerely.
“It happens that way. I was like that with your mother, she was not that keen.”
His mother patted his father’s hand. “I was playing hard to get. Clearly, you won me over.”
Chloe laughed. “That’s very sweet.”
“Just like I won you over?” He leaned in and kissed her cheek, stealing a slice of tomato from the chopping board.
She looked up at him and smiled. It was that smile he loved that would stay with him forever. “That’s it exactly.”
; “So, Tom says you haven’t visited the resort yet. I hope you like it when you do,” his mother said, going where no one had dared go before.
“Well, I can’t ski,” she said. “So that’ll be new. Not much snow in Texas.”
“Not so much. Wow, well, you can learn. Tom has been skiing since he could stand.”
“I’m not super sporty,” she said, here insecurities peeping through. “I didn’t play many sports as a child.”
“More of a reader?”
“I did a lot of crafts,” she replied.
Tom decided it was time to go there. “Chloe’s family is in a very strict Christian community. They had fairly specific views about gender roles.”
“Really?” his mother said. He waited and he watched Chloe tense up next to him but continue to dice vegetables. “How fascinating.”
God, he loved his mother. She must have been thinking and wondering a million things but that wasn’t the wrong answer.
Chloe had survived dinner. She really would have liked a medal. Instead, she was now going up to her bedroom to share a bed with a man for the first time and not just any man. Tom.
Tom who was about the sexiest guy she’d ever met. Tom with the kind heart, winning smile, and spectacular abs. Tom who walked around the house half naked so who even knew what he slept in. Tom who seemed to have made it his mission to rescue her on a daily basis.
She went into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror.
Who was she? She hardly recognized herself anymore. The girl looking back in the mirror had her face, but this life, this wasn’t her life. She came home alone, watched television, and did handicrafts.
She didn’t have millionaires to dinner and sleep with fake fiancés. In fact, generally speaking, she didn’t even tell lies, let alone ones of this size, to whole towns and whole families.
Tom appeared in the doorway behind her. He’d come in and shut the bedroom door.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his large frame filling the doorway, his hand holding on to the top of the frame, his face shadowed with concern.
“Yeah. Just wondering how we ended up here.”
“Your bedroom?”
“Yeah, well, specifically my bedroom, generally in this situation, I guess.”
Any Way You Want It : An Upper Crust Series Novel (The Upper Crust Series Book 5) Page 9
