Page 1

Chapter

One

GRACE

Don’t look at it.

Don’t.

It’s not there.

Don’t.

Do.

It.

Ah, screw it. I’ll just skim it.

I set my Shirley Temple Ollie Pop down on my kitchen table and grab the mail off the side table in my living room.

Even with two bills sitting on top of it, I know the magazine that arrived in my mail today has an article about my family’s property, Lovers Lodge, inside.

I saw the corner of the cover when I picked it up earlier this morning, and I’ve been avoiding it ever since. It’s clearly our hotel in the picture.

With my lunch break coming to an end, if I just read it now and get it out of the way, then my brain can focus on work for the rest of the day and not obsess over the cruel words I’m inevitably about to read.

I quickly flip through it until I get to the page about the lodge.

There is another picture of the lodge during the summer months filling the top of the page, with two small circles in the corner. One has my dad’s photo, and the other has mine.

Really? They couldn’t have chosen one from the last, let’s say, five years? I look like a teenager in this picture.

I stare at my face on the page for another moment before dropping my gaze to the bold letters that start the article.

Let’s all hope the new year brings much improvement for our favorite lodge, and good luck to the daughter who holds its fate in her hands. The younger generation has its own definition of success. Fingers crossed this youngster doesn’t follow in her father’s footsteps.

That … doesn’t even make sense, but now I understand why they chose the picture they did.

What does my age have to do with following in my father’s footsteps? If anything, after last year, one would hope that I don’t follow in his footsteps. Because I know for a fact that I’m not out here promoting the image of family virtue while sleeping with every woman who walks into this place the way my father did.

No, I’m a grown woman with a vision to make this place better than ever before, while maintaining the idea that it is still the perfect spot for weddings, events, and families to get away. The perfect escape.

I should write an anonymous letter about how amazing I’ve been at running this place since my father tried to sell it out from under me five months ago. Give these reporters a new direction to follow.

Let’s not forget how Henry Richford tried to sell the lodge to King Enterprises and didn’t even tell his children, the heirs he’s spent years grooming to take over. Some might say that leads us to believe there is more going on than we know. The lodge might be giving an entirely new meaning to “Lovers” and possibly hinting that this family is no longer fit to run a business.

Shit. This is the most popular travel magazine in the country.

And by “Lovers,” are they talking about the Lovers Lodge or do they mean Lovers, Wyoming, the small town where I live?

Ugh. Please don’t let this affect the town the way it affects me.

The pressure of running a venue that is responsible for bringing in tourists who provide more than half of the town’s businesses is high.

Really high.

I groan, close the magazine, and slap it down on my kitchen table. If the lodge’s reputation is to return to what it once was, I’m the one who needs to do it. If I can’t, everyone will think these articles are right.