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She took hold of his hand and squeezed it. “That’s Emma. She’s Suzy Sunshine.”
It’s all of you.
“Which reminds me. Have you started that dollhouse for your niece yet?”
“Willow…” She’d been pressing him about this for a couple of weeks now. Willow thought he needed to pay a visit to Daniel’s family. Noah stepped away from her and gave her a gentle, playful swat on the rear. “Don’t push.”
“Not pushing. Just asking.” She returned his swat while giving a cheeky grin.
“I haven’t really had time. Gage has me working as if I have a real job, and your aunt talked me up to the volunteer fire department chief here. They asked me to do a fire flow demonstration this weekend.”
“You spend your time on the porch swing with me.”
“Not complaining about it,” he declared. “At all.”
“Speaking of Aunt Helen, has she pestered you yet to sign up for a Christmas-in-July vendor booth?”
“No. Why would I need a vendor booth at the Lake in the Clouds Christmas market?”
“To take orders for your Victorian dollhouses.”
“What?”
“Beware. Since Auntie is the chairwoman of this year’s event, she wants it to be the best ever. She’s looking at it as a campaign event.”
Noah laughed. “She’s relentless, isn’t she?”
Willow shrugged. “You could make a house for your niece and use it as a sample at the market to take orders. It might be a nice little business for you. You could sell them on eBay, too.”
Helen isn’t the only relentless woman in that family, Noah thought. “Just what I need—another job. It’s not enough that I’m whatever I am for Throckmorton Enterprises. Now I’ll be an eBay entrepreneur and a fire—” He broke off abruptly.
“And a firefighter. Are you going back to work, Noah?” Then, after a pause, she added, “Back to Denver?”
“I can’t fight a fire,” he stated flatly.
“You wouldn’t pass the physical?”
Mentally, he wasn’t fit. He could no sooner go into a burning building than he could fly. He polished off his whiskey, then held his empty glass out to her. “Are you going to share those martinis or what?”
Willow arched a brow in surprise. She knew from past conversations that he ordinarily didn’t drink gin. “Of course.”
Determined to keep the conversation pointed in a new direction, he asked, “So, are you all ready for the theateropening gala?”
“I think so. Mom is so excited. Nervous but excited.” Concern dimmed her glow a bit as she asked, “How about Gage? Is he feeling all right? Is he going to be okay to come to the party?”
“Yes. He’s doing fine. This was a wake-up call for him. He may gripe and grouch, but he’s taking his doctor’s orders seriously. He’s working to unload stress from his life. Apparently, that’s been a real issue with him—he’s still running all the family businesses himself.”
“Yes. Zach told me that’s the main reason why he wanted to start his own business. He wanted to make his own decisions. His father wouldn’t turn loose of anything.”
“Well, he’s turning loose now. Though I don’t know why he’s doing so with me. I’m not family, but he’s asking me to help him make decisions that will affect his family. It’s damned hard. I’m not a lawyer.”
“But you’re honest, and he trusts you. He has lawyers on retainer who can do the legal work. Let me share a little insight there. As someone who watched a family businesstear a family apart, I think Gage is being pretty smart. If my grandfather had turned over management of his business concerns to his heirs instead of trying to control them from the grave, my family would have avoided a lot of grief.”
“I hope you’re right.”
They sat without speaking for a few minutes, and Noah thought Willow might have relaxed a bit. Her next words proved him wrong. “I have something I need to talk to you about. I’ve been putting it off.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
