Helen ignored the comment and shouldered her way behind the folding table. “I got it, I got it,” she said, snatching the quarters from Laura’s hand to make change for a young couple grabbing some Sprites.
Laura stepped back, sharing a quick look with her sister. Helen wasn’t generally warm with her, but this was a new low. “You sure you’re up for this?”
Helen watched as the couple felt their tepid cans. “That’s as cold as they get,” she said flatly. “Take it or leave it.” Then she dismissed them with a brittle smile and turned to the Baileys. “I’m here, aren’t I? Though I’m still not quite sure how your sheriff convinced me to take an extra shift.” She’d grumbled the words but pasted a smile on her face, and it struck Laura as only half-playful.
It was good enough for Billy, though. He stood tall, straightening his shirt. “It’s the uniform,” he said proudly. They were playing the nearby town of Paley Pines in their annual softball game, and this year Up Country Hardware had sprung for team shirts emblazoned with a hideous royal-blue version of the Up Country logo on garish yellow. “It gets the ladies every time.”
“Gets them what?” Laura asked. “Blinded?”
Helen’s attention was in the distance, pinned on two of her three kids, roughhousing. “Where’s your sister?” she shouted. “I told you to feed her.” She and her husband had still been teens when she’d gotten pregnant. They’d married, and two more kids had followed, though lately Helen was always grumbling how she might as well have been a single mom.
It gave Laura chills. There’d be no men for her, she resolved. No way, nohow.
Just then a dirt-scuffed little girl appeared, waving her corncob like a greasy baton. “I am eating, Mama.”
Laura didn’t know kids well, but she had a feeling they were supposed to be cleaner than this. “Are you sure you’re up for working the tent? If you need to watch your kids, really, I don’t care about the stupid softball game.”
Helen swung on her. “Are you kidding? Working the tent is a break for me.”
“Stupid?” Billy exclaimed, still hung up on her dissing the big game. “Softball is a sport of great consequence.”
“C’mon, Laura.” Sorrow gave her a nudge, moving her along. “We’ll keep an eye on the kids, Helen.”
“All right, troops.” Billy swung the little girl onto his shoulders, grease and all. “Let’s go kick some butt.”
The man was a natural with kids—and of course he was. He’d bought her sister a ring, had just bought her a house, and Laura was sure it’d only be a matter of time before Sorrow popped out a whole softball team of children, probably all strapping dark-eyed boys like their father.
The pang returned to Laura’s chest, sharper now. She wasn’t jealous, she told herself, not even a little. She didn’t want a man, and she definitely didn’t want a passel of dirty kids.
Billy walked ahead, and Laura wondered just who was going to watch said kids while he was in the outfield. The prospect of serving a bunch of hungry picnickers in the hot sun suddenly seemed preferable. She turned back to Helen, calling, “You sure you want to miss the game? Isn’t Rob playing shortstop this year?”
“You got me,” Helen said bitterly, suddenly intent on counting the ones in the cash box. “I don’t know where my husband has got to.”
Feeling a stab of sympathy and womanly fellowship, she walked closer, asking quietly, “You sure you don’t need me to stay?”
“No,” Helen shot back. “I don’t need you to stay.” Her mimicking tone was as flat as her eyes.
She took a step back. “All righty then. Don’t say I didn’t offer.”
The baseball diamond was at the far end of the picnic grounds, and as they headed there, Sorrow and Billy entertained the kids while Laura trailed behind, trying to turn her mood around. Watching all these smiling faces, Sierra Falls felt more like home than ever. And yet she’d fought it for so long, fantasizing about any place but here.
It hadn’t been easy weathering her teen years in a small boondock town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada—particularly as she’d had to do it in the shadow of a sports-star brother and the family-pet little sister. She’d grown up feeling underestimated, underappreciated, and overlooked and had taken off for San Francisco the moment she graduated high school. At the time, she’d vowed not to return until she had a fast car, a killer body, and lots of money—anything to finally get some attention.
But the trouble with chasing those sorts of goals was that, for years, she’d only looked outward to feel good about herself. A high-paying marketing job had bought her that car, a personal trainer, and all the respect she’d craved, but it hadn’t been enough to fulfill her. When she hit her twenty-eighth birthday, she’d panicked. Her fiancé had dumped her and she’d lost her job because of that same man, and yet, once she recovered from the blows to her pride, it was a shock to realize how little she missed either of them.
She’d been going through the motions, and it was time to look inward and figure out why her life felt so empty. She knew she could find another fiancé and another job, but she was terrified that if she did, she’d wake up ten years later and still feel unfulfilled. She was tired of pretending she was someone she wasn’t.
She needed to unlock the clues to herself and track down how and why things began to go wrong. What did she really want from life? And why did she always feel like she had something to prove? She knew the answers waited for her in Sierra Falls.
So she’d returned home, and she wanted it to be for good, too. She was done with the city and done with men—the two went hand-in-hand, anyway, seeing as she had no interest in the guys of Sierra Falls, lawmen and laborers all of them.
Laura was surprised to be discovering a friendship with her formerly estranged baby sister, and getting respect from her normally crotchety dad. They’d handed her management of the lodge, and she wanted to do everyone proud. Wanted to turn the place around, to have her family business succeed.
And, more than wanting it, she needed it, with a desperation that surprised her. She’d had so many personal failures, but this would be her chance at redemption.
She knew she could do it, too. She was no good at the great outdoors, but the fact that their home was out in the middle of nowhere was just an added challenge. She wasn’t a big hiker and definitely had no interest in fishing, but there was one thing she was good at, and it was business. Marketing, to be specific. And she had big plans about how to use those talents and turn the Big Bear Lodge into a quaint destination resort. Besides, having spent the past several years test-driving every spa, winery, and B&B in Northern California, Laura considered herself something of an expert.
Miraculously, her dad was staying out of her hair, too. He’d been walking on air ever since they discovered gold on Bailey family land. Not that it was going to make them rich or anything—the vein wasn’t easily accessible and would cost too much to mine. But still, as a family, it felt like they were at a turning point. Everyone was putting their trust in her—eyes were on her for what felt like the first time—and she couldn’t fail.
Which made Eddie’s development project all the more infuriating.
She wasn’t dumb—she knew that if it hadn’t been the Jessups, Fairview would’ve hired some other construction outfit to do the work. But it was Jack and Eddie who’d been hired, and it should’ve been a stroke of luck. They were born and raised in Sierra Falls. They had the ears of the Fairview execs—they should’ve been talking sense into them. Finding a way to persuade them to leave the town and take their soulless hotel conglomerate elsewhere. But instead, Eddie was acting the yes man and going ahead with construction, without asking a single question.
Boutique spa resort. She scowled. As if. Fairview marketed themselves as some community-oriented, eco-friendly company, but really she knew they’d bulldoze the whole town if they thought it’d make them a buck.
She would not stand by as the Jessup brothers helped nurture to life a competing business. And Fairview wasn’t just friendly competition—they had bottomless pockets, and she was sure they’d use them to either absorb or squash the Baileys.
A man had stood in her way once before. She wouldn’t let it happen again. Never again was her mantra as she rounded the back of the bleachers. Never again, she repeated over and over in her head, and she was so caught up in her thoughts, she nearly stormed right into her sister.
She caught herself on Sorrow’s back and walked around, and who was standing there with a grin on his face? Eddie.
A wicked glint darkened his eyes. “She’s coming in hot.”
Five
Laura put her hands on her hips, looking ready to do battle. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eddie had seen the fury on her face. He knew why she was upset. He knew he should leave well enough alone. But knowing and doing were two different things.
“Well, let’s think about that.” He tilted his head, admiring her. “Comin’ in hot. Lots of levels at work there, I think. You’re hot. You’re clearly on a rampage. As for coming—”
“Jessups,” she said with disgust as she shouldered by him.
“Lovers’ quarrel?” his brother Jack muttered, and Laura shot him a look that could kill.
“Shut it.” Eddie punched his brother on the arm, then jogged to catch up to her on the bleachers. “You sure are pretty when you’re wound up,” he said to her back. He couldn’t help it—he loved nothing more than to bait Laura Bailey.
“Then don’t wind me up.”
He grinned, a thousand one-liners popping into his head.
She put up a hand. “Don’t go there.”
“Can’t help it.” He’d been going there with her for as long as he could remember.