Taking a Chance Read online

  “Hey, Archie?” She finally spoke.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s your favorite dessert?”

  “Apple pie.”

  “Okay. Good to know.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Oh, no reason.” She shrugged nonchalantly as she turned. “Thought I saw it on the menu later this week. So I sure hope your dentures don’t go missing like my manual did. Might be hard to watch everybody else eat your pie.”

  —

  “Hey, sis. How’s the great white north treating you?”

  Emma smiled as she put her phone to her ear Friday evening. “Not white yet, thank God. How’s my favorite sister?”

  Lauren laughed. “I’m only your favorite because I haven’t shown you up with a Nobel Prize yet like Annabelle.”

  “True, but you’re still my favorite. How are the kidlets?”

  “Well, we’re two weeks into school, so we’ve got one ear infection, one case of strep, and one cold. Par for the course.”

  “Ugh. Sorry.”

  “It’s not so bad. I get to keep them home instead of sending them to school, so it’s sort of a win. Except that they feel horrible, and we haven’t slept in days. But still. All good.”

  Emma smiled. “Your definition of good is a tad warped, sweetie.”

  “Quite possibly.” Lauren covered the phone to say something to one of her kiddos, then came back. “I’ve got three baskets of clean laundry, and I told Mike I was going to disappear to fold clothes and talk to you. He promised me a half-hour of peace. Guess how much I’m getting?”

  “Um, none?”

  “All four kids are on my bed right now, in the clean laundry.”

  Emma laughed, picturing the scene. “Well, at least not the dog.”

  “Oh, the dog’s here, too.” Lauren laughed. “He’s in the towels.”

  “And you envy Annabelle with her clean apartment and dry-cleaned clothes. Pshaw.”

  Lauren was silent for a long moment. “No. I pretty much don’t envy her anything, actually.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  It was true…sort of. Emma definitely didn’t envy Annabelle’s mess-free apartment and humor-free attorney of a husband. She didn’t even envy her bank account or guaranteed retirement plan. And if she worked hard at it, she didn’t envy the twice-yearly tropical vacations Annabelle took with her college roommate.

  She didn’t even envy her the body-by-Jacques that Annabelle rocked in her bikini-clad pics from those vacations.

  Much.

  But only if she was lying to herself would she say she didn’t envy the way Dad’s eyes lit up when he talked about Annabelle. His eyes had done that for her long ago, before…everything.

  “Have you talked to her at all lately?” Lauren asked.

  “Nope. I’ve left a few messages, but I guess she’s buried in her lab, curing cancer or something.”

  “Selfish bitch.”

  Emma laughed. “Lauren! The kids!”

  “They just left. Mike banged on the mac-and-cheese pot, and the little Pavlovs went running.”

  “Lock the door while you still can.”

  “Tempting, believe me.” Lauren sighed. “So tell me everything. How is it, actually running the place?”

  “Terrifying.”

  The word was out before Emma even knew it was true, and she pulled back into her chair at the little outdoor café downtown, hoping nobody could hear her.

  “Aw. First days are hard.”

  “First weeks are, too.”

  “How’s the staff?”

  “They’re…fine. Wary of me, of course, because I’m from the big, bad home office, but they’ve been…polite.”

  “So they’re not talking to you?”

  “Not unless they can’t avoid it.”

  And they weren’t. Not really. Save for Brandy and Katrina, most of them would answer direct questions if she asked them. And they would ask her questions if they needed something from her, but other than that, it had pretty much been radio silence.

  When she was in the office, it was deserted except for a part-time receptionist who kept her earbuds in whether there was anyone on the phone or not. And when she went out onto the floors, everyone suddenly seemed to find ways to be very, very busy. She should have expected it, maybe, but it was still awkward.

  “Oh, Em. I’m sorry. It’ll improve. Once they get used to you, and realize you’re not there with a hatchet or something, it’ll be better, right?”

  “I have no idea. It occurred to me this afternoon that the last time they had a visit from the central office, it was part of the great staff-trimming exercise of 2014.”

  “Oh. Well, that completely sucks, then. You’ll win them over, I’m sure. How are the patients?”

  “The ones I’ve met are pretty great, for the most part.”

  “Well, that’s good, then. You can focus on them instead, right? I mean, if you have time. I don’t know what you do all day.”

  “You and me both, hon.” Emma sighed. She’d brought the ten-pound manual home with her tonight, determined to wade through it this weekend. It was currently open on the table beside her water glass.

  “I honestly can’t believe they can just send in a substitute to run an entire nursing home.”

  “I appreciate your vote of confidence, Annabelle.”

  Lauren laughed. “Don’t call me that. I’m serious, though. It feels like it would take you three months to even figure out that job, but they’ve basically dumped you on your head there.”

  “I know. But in their defense, they’re doing a lot of the legwork from Florida so I don’t have to worry about the financials or anything like that. I’m basically just a figurehead at this point.”

  “Less pressure, right? Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “I suppose, yes.”

  “You worried that someone else is going to swoop in and steal your promotion while you’re gone?”

  Emma sighed. “It’s hard not to. Galway’s a huge conglomerate. They’ve got a lot of people to choose from. I’ve always felt like I have an in because I sit right downstairs from the decision-makers, but then they sent me to Timbuktu here, so there goes my geographical advantage.”

  “Just for three months. Not forever.” Lauren coughed. “Oh, no. The plague. She shared it with me.”

  “How you’re ever healthy in a house full of children boggles my mind. You and Ari are a perfect pair.”

  “I’m never healthy. So distract me with single-girl observations. How are the men out there in Big Sky?”

  “Old and wrinkly, with a side of liver spots.”

  Lauren laughed. “The men who are not residents of your facility.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’ve met more than a couple.”

  “And?”

  Emma was silent, picturing Jasper the way she’d seen him this morning when he hadn’t known anyone was looking. She’d walked by his father’s room, then backed up guiltily when she’d spotted him. His dad had fallen asleep in his wheelchair, but instead of leaving him for the nurses to manage, Jasper had bent over and lifted him ever so carefully out of the chair, then laid him in his bed. Then he’d pulled a folded blanket from the bottom of the bed and tucked it around his dad’s shoulders and feet, pulling his glasses carefully off his face and setting them on the bedside table.

  “Em?”

  “Hm?”

  “The men?”

  “Oh. Right.” Emma shook her head. “They’re—fine. You know. Just—men.”

  Lauren snorted. “And yet you’re rendered speechless?”

  “Wasn’t speechless. The waitress came.” Emma rolled her eyes at her own lame lie.

  “Uh-huh. So hey. Guess what I found?”

  “Your left shoe?”

  “No. But don’t think I’m not still mad that one of these urchins probably fed it to the dog. I was checking out Carefree earlier, just to see what’s out there, and you’ll never believe what I found.”


  “Do tell.”

  “Have you seen a ranch? Whisper Creek Ranch?”

  “All I’ve seen is the nursing home and my hotel room, though tonight I finally discovered downtown Carefree, which is actually really, really pretty.”

  It was. It reminded her of the time they’d gone up to Vermont for a ski vacation, but Mom had played sick till Dad and Annabelle were on the slopes. Then she’d dragged Emma and Lauren to the little downtown area and forced them to endure shop after shop after shop, with the promise of hot cocoa and whipped cream if they were really, really good.

  They hadn’t quite lived up to her mother’s expectations, but then, they never really did. After Emma had knocked over a mannequin—because she’d been so tired she’d leaned on it, not because she’d been goofing around—and Lauren had fallen asleep under a clothing rack, Mom had finally dragged them out of the store and back to the car, fuming the entire way about behavior and embarrassing and Annabelle would never.

  Story of their lives, really.

  She shook her head. That was then, this was now, and all that garbage.

  “Ooh! What’s downtown like? And then I’ll tell you about the ranch you have to go find.”

  Emma laughed. “It kind of looks like a 1950s movie set that got left here, and the locals just decided to go with it.”

  “My kind of place!”

  “It is. The shops all have big windows and pretty signs, and there are whiskey barrels full of flowers, and benches every ten feet. There’s even a park right in the middle of downtown, and it’s got a bandstand in the center.”

  “Wow. You’ve entered a time warp.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the good kind. The pace is just—I don’t know—slower. And people just look…happy.”

  Emma paused, realizing it was true. Sure, she lived in the land of sunshine, and people from all over the US and Canada came to soak up the Florida rays when it got too frigid to stand being up North. They were happy, too, but it was different. Temporary. A vacation-ish kind of happy.

  But as she’d sat here at her little table people-watching for the past hour, she’d been greeted by no fewer than ten people, and they’d seemed genuine, like they didn’t recognize her but wanted her to feel welcome.

  It was odd.

  Good odd, but odd, nonetheless.

  “Well, happy’s great, right? You could use a good dose of happy.”

  Emma sighed. “I’m perfectly happy, thank you.”

  “Of course you are. Smiles for miles, and all that.”

  “Shut up, Lauren. I am.”

  “But could you be happier?”

  “Everybody could be happier. Even you, oh blissed-out, sleepless mommy-chick.”

  “I am living the dream.” Lauren laughed. “Which currently includes—let me see—twenty-six individual socks with no matches. How is that even possible?”

  “You’re raising octopi?”

  “They eat enough. Maybe.” Emma pulled the phone away as it clattered loudly to the floor. A colorful stream of expletives followed it down. “Sorry. Roo tried to eat you.”

  “Nice.” Emma pushed her plate away, trying to picture Lauren as she’d been eight years ago, a starry-eyed grad student with four job offers and the world at her feet.

  Then, kids.

  Now she spent her days chasing and driving and wiping and sneezing while her law degree grew mold in the basement.

  “So, because I’m living vicariously, you need to head out to Whisper Creek and sign yourself up for a horseback-riding lesson one of these weekends. Go check out the website when you get back to the hotel.”

  “Pretty sure me getting on a horse will have the opposite effect you’re after here.”

  “You used to ride all the time.”

  “Emphasis on ‘used to.’ It wouldn’t be pretty.”

  “Well, the cowboys there are definitely pretty. They would give you all the impetus you need to become a real cowgirl. Think of it as part of the adventure, okay? I hereby forbid you to camp out in a dismal hotel room for the next twelve weeks.”

  “I’m down to eleven. And in my defense, I’m here for a job, not an adventure.”

  Lauren cleared her throat. “Yes, and if it were up to you, you’d spend every waking hour at that nursing home, hoping someone would notice your immense dedication to Galway Health and promote you to the vice president of something-or-other as compensation.”

  “And that’s a bad thing? I am dedicated. I’ve been dedicated for ten years now.”

  “Exactly. And as a result, you’ve had no life outside of that company. And no men.”

  “Met one this week, thank you very much.”

  “Under eighty?”

  “I love you, Lauren. And oh gosh, the waitress is here again. I should go.”

  “Busy little thing, isn’t she?”

  “Ooh, signal breaking up. So sorry!”

  Lauren laughed. “Fine. You don’t want to talk about men.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes. Just promise me you’ll at least check out the website.”

  “Okay, I’ll check out the website.”

  “And Em? If you see that site and aren’t intrigued enough to call or go out there, promise me you’ll have someone check your pulse.”

  Chapter 9

  Jasper pulled the last cup of coffee from the carafe on the counter Friday evening, waved it slowly under his nose, then smiled. Best blend yet. He took a sip, savoring it before he swallowed, closing his eyes as he pictured the old days, when he would toss a cup of Starbucks down his throat in preparation for a big meeting or court appearance, barely tasting it as he prayed for the caffeine to jet straight to his veins.

  He leaned against the counter, watching the sunlight slant through the plate-glass windows, warming the scarred oak tables he’d refinished one by painful one. Everything in here had his hands on it, and that’s exactly the way he’d wanted it.

  Ten years ago, his only skill had been professional arguing. He’d done it loudly at boardroom tables, quietly-but-urgently at back tables in restaurants, and solidly in courtrooms. He’d been the firm’s go-to guy when things got hot, and he’d been happy to pull on his suit, rope his neck into just the right tie, and march into battle with his polished shoes and suit that cost more than a mortgage payment.

  More times than not, he’d won. Many more times than not. He’d enjoyed the chilled champagne or the cold draft afterward, depending on the client. He’d loved the rush of success when the gavel came down on his side. He’d basked the adoration of clients big and small.

  It had been heady. It had been good. It had earned him a hell of a salary, a house and three cars, and a wife who’d adored him, too.

  He’d thought so, anyway.

  Yeah, he’d been living the dream.

  He sighed, shaking his head as he stretched his neck. Funny how one’s definition of dream could change in an instant…in a clanging cacophony of metal and glass and tears.

  So many tears.

  The bell on the door mooed, startling him, and he shook his head to clear it.

  “You extending your Friday-night hours?” Liam strode toward the counter. “Or did you forget to lock up?”

  “The latter.” Jasper headed for the door to flip the sign and slide the dead bolt into place. “What’s up?”

  “Not a damn thing, and I like it that way.”

  “Another Friday night at Salty’s for you?”

  “Nope.” Liam shook his head. “Not till more of the tourists are gone. Then Salty can put away those damn girlie drinks and get back to having ten taps ready to roll. I swear, this town’s overrun with women looking for cowboys this summer.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Jasper laughed. “Get a Stetson. They’ll never know you’re a frustrated musician.”

  “It’s all Whisper Creek’s fault. They’ve got that website teeming with testosterone, and women arrive here thinking every guy out here looks
like that.”

  “You could always take a couple of lessons. Maybe we could talk to Decker and Cole about starting a Wanna-Be-a-Cowboy program.”

  Jasper ducked out of the way before Liam’s slug hit his arm. “Nobody likes a comedian.”

  “Eh, don’t take out your bitter Friday-night datelessness on me.”

  “Not dateless or bitter, but thanks for your concern.” Liam hooked a thumb toward the front window. “I was thinking about heading over to Gina’s for a bite. You hungry?”

  “Might be. You buying?”

  “Hell, no. You’re the attorney. You can buy your own.”

  “Not an attorney anymore.”

  “Fine. You’re the coffee magnate. Either way, you can afford your own damn burger.”

  Jasper rolled his eyes as he shut off the lights and opened the front door, trying to ignore the sting of Liam’s completely unintentional jab.

  Magnate, his ass.

  Yeah, he had money. He had a shitload of it, actually. But he’d earned every penny of it, and he’d donate every penny of it to have back what he’d lost. He’d been trying to give it away since he’d arrived here in Carefree, and he’d found some good people to help him figure out the best ways to do it, but it was never enough.

  It would never be enough.

  “Hold up.” A minute later, Liam raised a hand to stop Jasper when they were three buildings shy of Gina’s Café. “Do you see what I see?”

  Jasper followed the direction of Liam’s chin as he jabbed it toward the café. At first he saw just the usual collection of black wrought-iron tables under green umbrellas, scattered with locals and tourists who appreciated Gina’s farm-to-table menu.

  Then he saw the profile of a lone woman who looked all too familiar…and a giant binder on her table that told him exactly who she was.

  Jasper smiled. “Fine. I see her.”

  Liam yawned. “You know what? On second thought, I’ve actually had a long day. I think I’m gonna go get a pizza at Ramunto’s and call it a night.”

  “Really.” Yeah, the sarcasm dripped heavily. He couldn’t help it.

  “Exhausted.” Liam winked. “But it looks like she hasn’t ordered yet. Just saying. I’m sure she could use some company.”

  “You’re an ass.”