AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How the hell had that tidbit about the beginner run made it into the paper? He hadn’t told anyone. Hadn’t said a word.
“She’ll cool off,” Dennis said, offering hope.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, though a part of him wasn’t so sure. The pain and fury he’d just witnessed wasn’t something that would go away quickly. If ever. Had he screwed things up so badly this time that it really was over?
Misery blossomed in his chest and wrung his heart until the pain of it nearly brought him to his knees. A life without Lacy?
Didn’t bear thinking about.
Ten
Sam’s instincts told him to go to Lacy right away. Follow her. Force her to listen to him so he could straighten all this out. But his instincts two years ago had been damned wrong, so he was hesitant to listen to them now—when it mattered so much.
He denied himself the urge to go to Lacy and instead went to the lodge and upstairs to the family quarters. He wasn’t even sure why, but he felt as if he needed more than being alone with the black thoughts rampaging through his mind.
The great room was empty, so he followed his nose to the kitchen. The scent of spaghetti sauce drifted to him, and in spite of everything, his stomach growled in appreciation. Another thing he’d missed while he was gone was his mother’s homemade sauce. Sam stopped in the doorway and watched her at the stove while his father sat at the round oak pedestal table, laying out a hand of solitaire.
“Sam!” His father spotted him first and his mother whirled around from the stove to smile in welcome. “Good to see you,” his father said. “How’s the work on the mountain going? Tell me all about it since your mother won’t let me go up yet.”
“Everything’s fine,” Sam said, and walked to the table to take a seat. The kitchen was bright, cheerful, with the sunlight pouring in through windows sparkling in the light.
“You don’t look too happy about it,” his mother said.
He glanced at her and forced a smile. “It’s not that. It’s...”
“Lacy,” his mother finished for him.
“Well,” Sam chuckled darkly, “good to know that your mother radar is still in good shape.”
Connie Wyatt grinned at her son. “It wasn’t that hard to guess, but I’ll take the compliment, thanks.”
“So, what’s going on?” his father asked as Sam sat down opposite him.
He hardly knew where to start. But hell, he’d come here to talk, to get this all off his chest. He just had to lay it all out for them, so he took a breath and blurted out, “Apparently someone talked to a reporter. It was in the paper today about me wanting to build a beginner run on Lacy’s property.”
“Ouch.” His father winced.
“And she found out,” Connie said.
“Yeah.” Sam drummed his fingers on the table. “She let me have it, too. I just can’t figure out how the reporter heard about it. I mean, I changed my plans when I heard the land was Lacy’s.”
“That’s probably my fault.”
“Bob,” his wife demanded, “what did you do?”
Grumbling, the older Wyatt glanced first at his son, then his wife. “A reporter called here the other day,” he said, with a rueful shake of his head. “Asking questions about all the changes happening around here. Got me talking about the different runs we have to offer, then she said something about how she was a novice skier and I told her we could teach her and that you had wanted to build a brand-new beginner run on the back of the mountain, but that the plans weren’t set in stone so not to say anything...and I guess she did anyway.”
Sam groaned. At least that explained how it had made the paper. And, it would be a lot simpler if he could just blame this latest mess on his father. But the reality was, if Sam had just been honest with Lacy from the jump, none of this would be happening.
“Don’t worry about it, Dad. She was bound to hear about it sooner or later anyway.”
“Yeah, but it would’ve been better to hear it from you,” his father pointed out.
“That ship sailed when I didn’t tell her.” Sam slumped back in the chair and reached for the cup of coffee his mother set in front of him. Taking a long sip, he let the heat slide through him in a welcome wave.
“So what’re you going to do about all of this?” his mother asked quietly.
