AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In it Ellie and JJ stood on a stage with two men, obviously father and son. The two older men held up a small trophy with a gold-plated golf ball on top, and Ellie and the younger man leaned into each other, their bodies pressed close, smiling happily at the camera. I scrutinized the guy; he was tall, good-looking, and held Ellie possessively against his side. The caption read,“Isabelle and James Tremont, Jr., owners of Aspen Ridge Resort, and Zachary and Brian Grafton, owners of Snowshoe Ridge Resort, celebrate their ‘Biggest Loser’ win at this year’s Snowshoe Charity Golf Tournament. The prize is awarded to the team with the worst score of the game.”
These were clearly people Ellie and JJ knew very well. Probably worked with on more than one occasion, given that they were in the same business. Their clear familiarity in the picture made it easy for my brain to jump to all sorts of conclusions. In fact, now that I thought about it, I’d heard JJ mention the Graftons once or twice. I was pretty sure he’d talked about golfing with Brian, mentioned his son. I just hadn’t picked up on any sort of relationship between the son and Ellie. Was there something there?
I scrolled through the rest of the photos, but aside from one showing them all at the same hole together, there was nothing else of Ellie. I clicked through the rest of the articles, but found nothing from this year.
Heart pounding, I started digging through older articles. It looked like they both played at last year’s tournament, but they hadn’t been on the same team, so there were no photos of them together.
I knew what I was about to do would only hurt myself, but I had to know.
Tapping on the search bar, I entered ‘Isabelle Tremont Zachary Grafton’ and hit search.
A host of entries popped up, including some dating from Ellie’s time in high school. A photo of a young Ellie in a puffy dress with a tiara on her head, her arm linked through the arm of a young Zach, who sported a tuxedo.“Aspen Ridge’s Prom Queen, Isabelle Trenton, with her date, Zachary Grafton.”
Clearly, small towns had nothing better to report on than local high school news. There were tons of articles about Ellie like she was local royalty, and I finally landed on one that cleared up any doubts. It was a photo of Ellie in a cheerleading uniform, ‘AR’ on her chest and ribbons in her hair. She stood next to the tall, imposing figure of young Zach in a football uniform with the letters ‘SR’ on the front.“Despite supporting the opposing team, Isabelle Tremont said she’s rooting for boyfriend, quarterback Zachary Grafton, to lead his team, the Snowshoe Ridge Grizzlies, to victory.”Ellie stood tucked into Zach’s side in nearly the same position as the photo from earlier today.
With a hint of worry swirling in my stomach, I closed the window and set my phone down. Surely she wouldn’t be seeing me if there was something going on with that guy.
I needed to give Ellie the chance to tell me for herself before I jumped to conclusions. There could be a lot of reasons she hadn’t told me yet.
* * *
We arrivedat the stables with plenty of time before our ride was due to begin, and the kids were practically bouncing out of the windows with excitement. As soon as I parked, they flew out of their seats, not even closing the doors before they rushed up to Ellie, who stood outside, smiling.
“Oof, hey guys! I missed you too.” She laughed, ruffling their hair affectionately. “Ethan, are you going to be my big helper again today?”
“Yup,” he replied, puffing his chest. “I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”
“Well, that is a relief, thank you. Olivia, I have Rosy all saddled up for you. I bet she’s excited to see you again.”
Olivia stared at her dubiously. “Are you sure? Can horses really get excited?”
Ellie crouched down, so she was closer to their height. “Oh, you bet. Want to know a sure-fire way to make a horse excited to see you?”
“Yeah!” they said in unison.
Ellie pulled two small apples out of the bag at her feet. “Here, you each take one and give it to the horses. Hold it like this, on a flat hand,” she demonstrated, “or they might accidentally mistake your fingers for food. Rachel is inside. She’ll help you.”
The kids took the apples and turned to me for permission with twin expressions of excitement. “Go on, but remember what she said about how to hold them!” I shouted as they ran off down the trail to the barn.
Ellie stood, dusting off her jeans. She wore a flannel shirt and had her hair in a braid today, looking every bit the low-key, casual woods woman. “Hey, I’m sorry about yesterday. I totally forgot I’d signed up for that tournament with my dad. I hope they still had fun.”
“They did, but they missed you. We all did.”
Ellie’s gaze dropped, a sweet smile crossing her face. Instead of responding, she turned and started down the path. I matched pace at her side.
“How was the tournament? Did you win?”
She barked a laugh. “Me? No way. I’m the worst golfer, so bad even my team couldn’t make up for me. I sent you those photos of them looking for my lost ball. That wasn’t proof enough?”
“For all I know, you hit just that one off course for the photo op. Maybe you did it because you didn’t want me to feel bad. I have no idea.”
“Well, suffice it to say, I amgenuinelythat bad. Golf is not my sport at all.”
“Who was on your team? Were they upset that you lost?”
“It was my dad and some family friends, the Graftons. They own Snowshoe Ridge, the resort one town over. We’ve been friends since I was a kid.”
“Just friends?” Even though I kept my tone light, I knew Ellie could tell what I was up to.
