“I shared a bedroom with you for more than twenty years. I have cooked in this kitchen while you ran the lodge since Dad retired. I held your hand through a painful divorce, and you held mine when George died far too young, and we cried together when Mama passed. I know what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling. I know you try to be practical and mathematical and all businessy, just like I know it hurts you the same as it hurts me. I can see it all over your pretty face.”
Cindy felt that face nearly crumple with tears, overcome with love for this woman.
“I’m so sorry to ruin your Thanksgiving,” she whispered.
MJ squeezed her eyes as if the words sliced her in half. “I refuse to give up.” She ground out the words. “The Snowberry Lodge is a landmark and a legacy. I will not give up yet.”
“MJ, you have to look at the numbers. This place is worth a literal fortune.”
“And you have to look at the history!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I know the value of twenty-five acres on the outskirts of Park City, Utah. But what price can you put on the blood, sweat, and tears shed by every Starling since Grandpa Owen and Grandma Irene lived and died here? What’s that worth, huh?”
Millions, Cindy thought glumly. A bunch of them.
“We’ll climb out of this hole,” MJ said, lifting her chin with confidence. “Do I know how? No, I do not. But I’m not ready to roll over and…sell.”
She practically spat the word that was so deeply distasteful to her.
“You see history and family, MJ,” Cindy said quietly. “But the guests who pay to stay here see a relic from years gone by. They see outdated furniture, ancient finishings, long treks in a shuttle and drafty cabins and…no spa.”
“We can upgrade the bathrooms, and I bet new insulation would fix the drafts.”
Remodeled bathrooms wouldn’t put this place on a lift line, Cindy knew. And an equity loan would saddle them with back-breaking debt.
She leaned into her sister. “I’m sorry I brought this up on Thanksgiving, MJ. I know you love the holidays so much.”
“But you hate them.”
“No! I don’t hate them,” she said, then laughed guiltily. “I’m not exactly…Mrs. Claus, but I don’t hate them. It’s just…never easy.”
She didn’t want to say why, and with MJ? She didn’t have to. Her sister knew the history and, as she’d just mentioned, she’d held Cindy’s hand ten years ago when Jack Kessler left on Christmas Day, moved to Vermont, and chose his career over her.
MJ gave a sympathetic look that softened every feature on a face Cindy loved. “I know, hon. And when Nic goes to see him, that’s hard.”
“I like that they try to stay close,” she said. “I don’t mind that she goes to Vermont. I understand she misses him. I…do, too, sometimes.” The admission caught in her throat, and she covered it with a tight smile.
“We all miss him,” MJ said. “He broke my heart when he left you, but I loved that guy and all his…Jackness. All that energy and positivity.” She walked over to the old glass-front hutch painted in a weathered sage, reaching for a door. “He’d know how to fix this problem,” she said, so softly Cindy almost didn’t hear her over the creak the hutch made when she opened it.
“Well, he’s not here,” Cindy said, adopting her most rational tone, the one that usually quieted MJ’s silly dreams. “And we have to solve the problem ourselves.”
“Not by selling.”
“It’s extreme, I know, but the money we’d get would set our girls up for life. And we could retire.”
MJ snorted. “And do what?”
“I don’t know. Test out that new spa at the Grand Hyatt.”
“I’d rather drown in a hot tub,” MJ said. “And our girls are just fine. They’re brilliant businesswomen, both of them. Who’s smarter than Nicole and Gracie?”
“Benny,” Cindy said on a laugh. “Your grandson is a genius, you know that?”
“Oh, I know. That boy is a brainiac, isn’t he?”
“Well, if his brain could figure out how to fill the reservation book in December, I’d get him that puppy he wants myself.”
“Gracie’s not so sure she wants that commitment.”
“She’d rather live here with a puppy than somewhere else without one, right?” Cindy challenged. “And if we don’t fill this place between now and January first, we might be selling and moving.”
