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His four-legged friend whined softly.
Noah wasn’t sure if it was from the desire to be in his lap or if the dog was in pain.
That leg...
“Come on, dog.” Noah removed his black gloves, went to the supply cabinet and rummaged around until he found a neoprene elbow brace with Velcro fasteners. He slid it clumsily on the dog’s injured back leg because neither the dog nor his weak right hand cooperated. Finally, he got it in place.
“I know what you need, but that brace will make walking easier.” Noah toggled through his phone until he pulled up a video of himself performing knee surgery on a basketball player, the basketball league’s rookie of the year from two years ago. His own alma mater had requested the rights to film the surgery to use to teach doctors. In the film, Noah’s hands moved with steady skill and smooth dexterity.
He tried to recreate the motions with his right hand—holding the knife, performing a precise cut, using a tendon stripper. His fingers felt feeble and clumsy, stretching the thick, jagged scars painfully. His hand curled into a shape Captain Hook would have been satisfied with, but one Noah hated.
Ella had acknowledged his gloved hands with nothing but a polite look. Such a non-reaction whereas every other woman he’d spent time with had made an issue of it.
Noah tossed his phone onto the coffee table and stared down at the dog. “What did it matter whether or not Ella made a big deal about the gloves?” She’d flinch away from the horrific scars on his hand, the same as any woman with any sense would.
The dog pushed his big head beneath Noah’s scarred right hand, unfazed by the ugliness of Noah’s flesh.
“I can’t help you, mutt,” Noah said, weaving his fingers into the soft golden fur at the back of the dog’s neck. “You tore your ACL.” And Noah was no longer a surgeon to the sports stars, not to mention he wasn’t an orthopedic veterinarian.
He stared out the window toward what he could see of the Sawtooth mountain range beneath the low clouds, pet the lost dog and watched the snow make everything in Second Chance look idyllic, when in fact it was anything but.
* * *
“KIDS! KIDS!” PENNY CRIED, standing on her tiptoes and pressing her face to the frosted glass. She wore a footed pink sleeper and a severe case of blond bedhead. “Sed, Mom. Sed.”
The road had disappeared beneath several feet of snow. The sun peeked through thinning gray clouds. Two stories below them, several children rode plastic sleds and inner tubes down a gentle slope beside the inn, one that plateaued long before reaching the river.
“Go see.” Coughing, Penny tugged Ella’s hand and faced the door, wanting out.
“We need clothes and food first.” If not breakfast, at least something in her stomach.
“Cos.” Penny dropped Ella’s hand and turned her attention to the sleeper’s zipper.
While she was occupied, Ella donned snow pants and a thick yellow sweatshirt, applying light makeup using the mirror in the cramped bathroom, which had barely enough space for a person to turn around in, but still managed to be charming. It had dark wood paneling and green fixtures from the forties—a pedestal sink, toilet and short bathtub-shower combo you could sit in if your knees were completely bent.
The log walls were similar to the walls of the home they’d be vacating in a few short weeks—round and yellow. The main room was small, too, with a queen bed framed with six-inch-diameter logs and dressed in a star quilt made with red and black blocks. The curtains were faded lace and didn’t block out any sunlight. It was quaint.
The kids outside shouted with joy.
“Cos,” Penny wailed, falling to her bottom on the thick carpet as she tried to peel herself out of the sleeper.
“I’ll help.” Ella made quick work of the sleeper, put a fresh diaper on her daughter and then dressed Penny in a pair of blue long johns to go under her pink snowsuit. “And now we brush hair and teeth.”
“Want sed, Mom. Want kids.” Penny ran back to the window to reassure herself the kids were still outside.
A half hour and a hurried start of coffee (for Ella), applesauce (for Penny) later, and the pair was outside in their snow gear, joined by Sophie and her two boys. The twins were already down at the bottom of the hill, having borrowed someone’s inner tube. Penny had stopped to make a snow angel nearby.
“Can I take Penny for a ride?” Gabby asked. She wore a purple jacket that made her pale red hair look blond. At Ella’s nod, the preteen put Penny in her lap and they tobogganed down the hill.
Penny’s joyful shriek combined with the hill full of happy children and the cocoon of being with Monroes made Ella want to sing with happiness. She wasn’t quite brave enough to belt out a tune in front of an audience, so she hummed, starting with Grandpa Harlan’s call to action, “Are you ready, Hezzie?”
“Now that we’re here, what’s your plan of attack?” Sophie didn’t take her eyes from her boys, who were prone to find trouble. “How are you going to evaluate the value of Second Chance in the middle of winter?”
“I have the plat map of the parcels before Grandpa Harlan purchased them and the deeds, but—” Ella waved to Penny “—I didn’t count on everything being buried in snow. I have to look at the state of each roof, the electrical, the plumbing.” And more. Ella sighed, not wanting to let down the family. “Do you think Shane will shovel a path to all the buildings for me?”
“He would if you told him we’d get out of town quicker.” Sophie pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose. She’d braided her light brown hair into two short pigtails that stuck out from either side of her knit cap like dangling earrings.
The wind kicked up powder, sending it swirling around their feet.
“Sophie, did you notice Grandpa Harlan wrote that letter around the time Bryce died?”
“I did, but...” Sophie gripped Ella’s arm. “What are you thinking?”
“That I... That Bryce’s and my situation or the way we blindsided the family...”
Sophie squinted at her. “That you’re the reason Grandpa Harlan had us all fired?”
Ella nodded.
“Just like a Monroe.” Sophie hugged Ella fiercely. “Listen, Grandpa Harlan was Grandpa Harlan right up until the very end. He made sure we’d remember him forever.” She released Ella, but held on to one of her hands. “You are not to blame. But it still stinks. It’s times like these—when I’m unemployed and about to be homeless—that I wonder if I made the right decision getting a divorce.”
“You did.” Sophie’s ex-husband had been a piece of work. Ella spared her a glance. “I meant to ask how your date went last week.”
“What a disaster.” Sophie shook her head. “The guy didn’t know the difference between a Picasso and a Matisse. One of the boys swiped my lipstick out of my purse and left me a toy car instead. And my cell phone died so I couldn’t even pretend to receive an emergency text from you.”
“But...was there any chemistry between you?” Ella tucked the memory of a chemical reaction to a doctor’s soulful blue eyes to the back of her mind.
“Chemistry?” Sophie’s bare hands fluttered in the crisp air before she stuck them back in her deep pockets. “I don’t have the energy for chemistry or any of your love-at-first-sight luck. I’m just looking for someone who shares the same interests that I do.”
A big gray truck with a snowplow attachment on the front stopped on the road nearby. Three boys tumbled out, dropped backpacks in the snow and raced to join their friends. The woman driving the truck waved and drove slowly on, clearing a path on the road and making a wide turn at the crossroads to return the way she’d come.
“Now there’s a woman after my own heart.” Sophie’s cheeks were red from the cold. “She has three boys and she plowed a path to a sled hill to keep peace in the family.”
“Your boys are angels.” Ella stomped her feet to keep her toes warm, nearly missing Sophie’s raised eyebrows. “Okay, they’re angels and a caution.”
Gabby took Penny’s hand and began the climb back to the top, dragging her blue plastic sled behind her. The twins were trying to tug the inner tube away from one another.
“Alexander! Andrew!” Sophie yelled. “Share or we’ll go inside.”
The twins tried once more to wrest the inner tube free, and then climbed up the slope together, holding it between them.
“Mitch mentioned something about the passes to civilization being closed.” Sophie’s gaze was still on her boys. “What happens if someone needs the emergency room?”
“Maybe that’s why they have a doctor in town.” Ella had successfully avoided thinking about the handsome doctor for longer than ten seconds—thirty, tops—all morning. Now she recalled the firm muscle of his leg and blushed. “I was more worried about having enough food and heat if we were snowed in. How long did Mitch say the passes will be closed?”
“Five days.” Sophie frowned. “Or was it ten?”
Ten days? Ella hoped Penny’s cough went away.
Gabby and Penny reached the rise where Sophie and Ella stood just as a man rang a bell at the top of the hill. “Who’s coming to school today?”
“You have optional school here?” Ella asked Gabby.
“We have independent study, but yeah, Mr. Garland is available to help us for a few hours every day, so it feels more like regular school.” Gabby shrugged. “At least, what I expect regular school is like.”
“You’ve never been to a traditional school?” Sophie asked, brown eyes wide behind her glasses.
“Nope. My dad moved me here when I was less than a year old.” Gabby positioned the sled at the top for another ride down, sat on the blue plastic and then helped Penny into her lap. “Last ride before school, Penny.”
“Schoo?” Penny rolled off Gabby’s lap onto the packed snow. “I go schoo.” She got to her feet and reached for the girl’s hand. “I go.”
“Okay.” Gabby stood, braces on display as she smiled. “You can help me with math.”
“I don’t think so,” Ella said gently. “Penny’s too young for school.” Not to mention she’d be a distraction to the learning environment.
Penny pouted, crossed her arms over her chest and muttered, “I go.”
“No,” Ella said, just as gently and firmly as the first time.
Sophie’s twins leaped on the blue sled and barreled down the hill, screaming in delight. When they reached the bottom, they fell over sideways and tried to pelt each other with snow.
“I wish my boys were interested in school,” Sophie murmured.
“Mr. Garland won’t mind.” Gabby swung Penny into her arms. “At least let her come see.”
Penny stuck out her lip at Ella.
“Okay.” Ella relented, clearly beaten. “Are you coming, Sophie?”
“Not yet.” Sophie waved off Ella. “I’m going to stay and let the boys burn off some energy.”
They stopped for Gabby’s laptop and schoolbooks, and then followed the other children to the Bent Nickel, saying good morning to Mitch, who was clearing a path from the inn to the coffee shop with a snowblower.
Second Chance’s schoolteacher was younger than Ella expected—in his midthirties—and attractive, although looking in his eyes didn’t make Ella feel much of anything.
Penny claimed a seat at a table with Gabby, her chin level with the tabletop, her green eyes wide as she watched the other children.
“I’m working on the great American novel,” Mr. Garland said to Ella. “In between hiking and fishing and teaching a bunch of bright kids, of course.”
“Which means his book will never be finished.” Gabby smiled widely when Mr. Garland raised his eyebrows at her. “Which is great, because I wouldn’t want any other teacher. Don’t you agree, guys?”
The other children, all younger than Gabby, agreed.
Mr. Garland smiled. “Gabby has great leadership qualities.”
“Thank you, Mr. Garland,” Gabby intoned as if by rote.
“And a healthy dose of sarcasm,” her teacher added. “Which we love her for.”
“Snark is free of charge.” Gabby opened her laptop. “That’s what my dad always says.”
“Okay, Penny, honey. Let’s go.” Ella gave Mr. Garland an apologetic smile. “The kids have school.”
“No.” Penny’s lower lip jutted out. She waved off Ella, which broke her heart. Her daughter rarely rejected her. “Go, Mom. Go.”
The schoolteacher produced a coloring page and crayons. “She’ll be fine here for a bit. It’s good to foster some independence early.”
“But...she hasn’t even been to preschool.” Which made Ella sound like one of those helicopter moms she’d heard so much about, hovering over her child 24/7.
The other children and Ivy reassured Ella they’d watch out for Penny.
“Thirty minutes,” Ella said, relenting. Besides, Penny would need some independence when Ella returned to work. Now was as good a time as any to start. “And then we’ll order a hot breakfast for you.”
Ella hurried back to the inn to get her paperwork on the town properties. She’d looked at it a few times since receiving it and had told Shane she thought there were transaction documents missing. She didn’t have any paperwork on a few of the buildings, most notably the fur-trading post and the mercantile. If Grandpa Harlan owned everything in town, why didn’t she have recent documents for every property in Second Chance?
When she returned downstairs, Mitch was sitting behind the inn’s check-in counter staring at his computer screen. Shane was drinking coffee in front of the fire. The fact that they weren’t talking made the air crackle with tension.
“Where are you off to?” Shane sounded crankier than Penny when she’d been told she couldn’t go to school. Having lived in Las Vegas and run hotels for years, she guessed he wasn’t a morning person.
“I have twenty minutes to begin the property inventory before I have to pick up Penny.” She waved the plat map and left before Shane could ask if he could come. She couldn’t afford to lose time waiting for him to get moving. On the way out, she absently registered Mitch’s odd, almost panicked expression. She chalked it up to something he’d seen on the computer screen.
Ella walked from the inn to the diner, getting her bearings on the map. And then she came upon a dead end. There was no more sidewalk. At least, not one that had been shoveled. There were at least four more buildings on her side of the highway, which... Hey there—the highway had been plowed. She slogged her way through knee-high drifts of snow to reach the cleared highway and then walked north.
The morning was still overcast, and the wind swirled around her like a champion skater.
The next building contained three small storefronts with large plate glass windows and signs that each posted a variation of Reopening in Spring. She’d have to walk through twenty feet of snow to reach the porch.
Um, no.
Best limit this trip to a scouting mission and use her impressions to form a plan of attack. She looked farther north. There were supposed to be four houses or cabins perched on the river side of the road.
Ella consulted the plat map and then surveyed the area. “Why are there only three?” Had she read the map wrong?
The wind tugged at the map.
She tried to hold the paper taut in the air, but doing so only made it billow like a sail. She switched tactics and tried holding it over her thighs, which worked better. Except... Where was she on the map again? She turned around slowly, trying to draw reference from snow-covered landmarks and—
A big gust of wind pushed her backward into a snowdrift, which, all things considered, wasn’t as bad as it seemed. She was protected from the wind and realized the plot across from the missing home had a cabin perched high above the road.
“Aha!” She laughed and tried to stand.
Except, instead of getting to her feet, she sank deeper in the snow and then began to slide backward down the hill toward the river, her stadium coat acting like a soft-sided sled and her head cutting through nature’s snow cone like a shark’s fin cut through water. She didn’t slide fast, but the incline was steep enough that her flailing arms and legs didn’t stop her. Snow clung to the nape of her neck and pushed the knit cap off her head. She slid and slid and slid until her back connected with something solid and she came to a halt, although her heart kept beating as if she was running a race.
If not for the big cold rock at her back, Ella might have plunged in the river. She could hear its throaty gurgle alarmingly close. Her knit cap and property papers were halfway up the hill.
It had all happened so fast. Epiphany. Laughter. Disaster.
Her heart rate began to steady and the cold continued to spread, starting with her neck and her toes and working toward her core.
