Or did he see the most real version of myself?
I squashed that voice right back down.
Gretchen looked at me closely. I felt her brain spinning, could see her making plans and I didn’t like it. “Is there any way you could track him down?” she asked.
I knew Gretch better than I knew myself. She would push for whatever she thought was best for people. Her heart was in the right place but sometimes it bulldozed over everything else.
“I don’t want to look him up,” I said.
“You work so hard at the Lodge. You deserve to have a little fun too,” Gretchen said.
I’d been digging my nail into the woodgrain of the table, studying the different names people had carved. When I glanced up again, Gretchen’s eyes were glued to my face like she was trying to peer into my soul.
I knew that look. That wasthe look. “Gretchen, don’t. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“I didn’t say anything.” She held her hands up innocently.
“You’re scheming,” I said. Turning to Suzie, I added, “Note this look, Suze. This is when she’s about to meddle.”
“I’ve seen it before.” Suzie laughed, then added, “I think growing up together gave you two mind reading powers. How long have y’all known each other?”
“Inseparable since the third grade,” I said hoping the conversation change would derail Gretchen from her train of thought. “She socked Ben McClure in the arm when he called me a giraffe on the playground. She got held after school for it.”
“She picked me flowers and waited to walk me home so I wasn’t alone,” Gretchen finished.
Gretchen smiled at me and the anxiety I’d felt about leaving Sanders eased a bit.
“Y’all make me jealous. I never had a friendship like that,” Suzie said.
“You do now,” Gretchen said and slung an arm over Suzie’s shoulder.
“No ex left behind.” Suzie held up her beer.
“No ex left behind,” Gretch and I repeated and tapped our plastic cups.
This was what mattered. The thought solidified all the unsteadiness I’d been feeling. Like riding a mechanical bull and trying to walk afterwards, I’d been wobbling since I got home from Denver. Sanders had been a lovely distraction, but being back here with my girls, remembering all the good in my life, focused me on what I wanted now. I had the stability of a good job and good friends. That was enough. Next week I’d demand the promotion that I deserved and prove to this town that I had been worth saving.
“Enough about me,” I said, more than ready to be done talking about myself. “What the heck is going on with Kim?”
Chapter 6
Sanders
Istood outside the arrivals area of the Knoxville airport, the swampy Tennessee humidity a far cry from Denver’s clear, mountain air. I held the phone close to my ear and braced myself for Skip’s backlash.
“Tennessee, I am in you,” I announced into the phone.
“Tell me why you felt the need to fly out there?” he asked in his usual quiet tone.
If I was the bright and shiny packaging of Outside the Box with my award-winning charm, then Skip was the internal machinery that made it run. I typically attracted clientele and Skip made them stay. When we first started our corporate adventure company together, the idea was new and it took our power duo to get to where we were. Now companies all over the world sent their employees into nature in hopes of innovation and team building. And I had come close to ruining it all. I was going to fix it all.
“I’m getting us more business. You said this Donner Lodge was looking into OTB. Green Valley is an up-and-comer. It was named one of the top-growing small-town communities in Small Town USA magazine.”
Skip made a soft sound almost like a sigh. “And this has nothing to do with your sudden interest in Roxy Kincaid?”
“If this meeting goes well, we could get some more clientele,” I sidestepped.
“I was going to go myself,” he said. Even through the phone I could picture his hairy face twisted with concern. That was his role though. He was the thoughtful, tentative one, I was the impulsive, fun one.
