sight of that towering peak since coming to Eureka from Houston five months ago? She’d come here intending to stay a week—two at the most—gathering her late father’s effects and trying to learn as much as she could about the man who’d walked out of her life when she was only a few days old. But the mountains had pulled at her, refusing to let her leave. Of all the things her father had left her, his greatest gift had been that new perspective on her life and the chance to start over with a different vision.
Was a baby part of that vision? Apparently, it was. Was it possible to be so thrilled and terrified at the same time?
“Oh, honey, I know,” Barb said soothingly. “I was scared when I found out I was pregnant with Michael, too. But you’ll get over that, I promise.”
“What if I screw this up?”
“You won’t. You and Jameso will make the most beautiful baby, and you’ll love it in a way you’ve never loved anyone in your life.”
“What if Jameso can’t handle this and he leaves?” Her husband and her father had bailed on her—why should she expect any better from Jameso?
“If he does, you’ll manage on your own. You have a lot of people to help you.”
She put her hand on her stomach, trying to imagine a life growing in there. She couldn’t do it. It was the most wonderful, impossible, surreal thing that had ever happened to her.
“Where is Jameso right now?” Barb asked.
“At work at the Dirty Sally.”
“He gets a dinner break, doesn’t he? Go tell him.”
“No, I can’t tell him at work.” The Dirty Sally Saloon was the epicenter of Eureka’s highly developed gossip chain. If Jameso really did flake out on her, she’d rather it didn’t happen in front of the whole bar crowd. “I’ll tell him tomorrow. He’s off in the morning and we’re supposed to drive up to the French Mistress to check on the new gate I had installed.” The French Mistress Mine, another inheritance from her father, had turned out to contain no gold, but it was producing respectable quantities of high-quality turquoise. Work was shutting down for the winter and Maggie had installed an iron mesh gate to keep out the curious and the careless.
“That’s kind of romantic, telling him at the place you first met.”
“That’s Jameso—Mr. Romance.”
“You don’t give him enough credit. It’s going to be all right. I promise.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. Don’t you believe me?”
“I believe you.” Maybe it was talking to Barb, or maybe it was sitting here, letting the beauty of the mountains soothe her. Such a vast landscape made her feel small, and her problems small, too, in comparison.
She said good-bye to Barb, then started the Jeep and carefully backed onto the highway. She had about eighteen hours to figure out how to tell Jameso he was going to be a father. And about that long to let the realization that the thing she’d always wanted most was finally happening—and she’d never felt more unprepared.
Fall always felt like starting over to Olivia Theriot. The first sharp morning chill in the air and the tinge of gold in the leaves made her want to buy a new sweater and sharpen a pack of number two pencils. She’d turn to a blank page in a fresh notebook and start a new chapter in her life.
One of the chief disappointments in being an adult was that fall didn’t bring new beginnings that way. No new clothes, new classes, new friends, and the chance to do things over and get it right this time. While she’d sent her thirteen-year-old son, Lucas, off to school with a new backpack and a fresh haircut, she felt more stuck than ever in a life she hadn’t planned.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”
“I feel that way so often I’ve thought of having it put on a T-shirt.” Olivia slid another beer toward the man who’d spoken, a part-time miner named Bob Prescott who was the Dirty Sally Saloon’s best customer.
“You’re too young to be so cynical.” Bob saluted her with the beer glass, then took a long sip.
Next month, she’d turn thirty. To Bob, who had to be in his seventies, that probably felt young, but most days Olivia felt she’d left youth behind long ago. Maybe it was having a kid who was already a teenager. Or having lived in at least fifteen different places since she’d left home at fifteen. Or maybe this used-up feeling was really only dismay that nothing in her life had worked out the way she’d planned. Back when she was a starry-eyed twenty-something, her dreams of happily ever after had certainly never included single motherhood, a job tending bar, and sharing a house with her mother in a town so remote it didn’t even make it onto most maps.
She pinched herself hard on the wrist. Time to snap out of it. At this rate she’d end up crying in her beer, like one of her sloppiest customers. “What do you have a bad feeling about, Bob?” she asked. In the four months she’d worked at the Dirty Sally, Bob could be counted on for at least one outrageous story or proclamation a week.
“This winter.” Bob shook his head. “It’s going to be a late one. We should have had snow by now and there’s scarcely been a flurry. Mount Winston’s practically bare and here it is into October.”
“It has been awfully dry.” The other bartender, Jameso Clark, moved down the bar to join Bob and Olivia. Tall, with dark hair and a neatly trimmed goatee, Jameso was something of a local heartthrob, though lately he seemed to have settled down with Maggie Stevens. “It’s not looking good for an early ski season.”
“You working as a ski instructor again this year?” Bob asked.
“Of course.”
“Aren’t you getting a little long in the tooth to play ski bum?” Olivia asked.
Jameso’s eyes narrowed. “I’m only two years older than you. And there are plenty of guys who are older than me, a lot older, who work as instructors or on ski patrol.”
“But it’s not like it’s a real job. Not something a man can support a family on.”
“Who said anything about a family?” Jameso’s voice rose in alarm.
She never should have brought it up. Now he was going to get all pissy on her. “Things just seem pretty serious with you and Maggie. I thought you two might get married and settle down.”
“What if we do?” Color bloomed high on his cheeks. “That doesn’t mean I can’t keep skiing. Maggie likes me fine the way I am.”
“Forget I said anything.”
“You won’t be teaching anybody to ski if we don’t get snow,” Bob said. Olivia didn’t know if he was deftly cutting off their argument or merely continuing with his current favorite topic, oblivious to what had just passed between her and Jameso. Whatever the reason, she gratefully picked up the thread.
“I can’t believe you two are moaning about the lack of snow,” she said. “Why would you even want the weather we have right now to end?” She gestured out the front window of the bar, where a cluster of aspens still held on to many of their golden leaves. The sun shone in a turquoise blue sky, the thermometer on the wall showed sixty-four degrees, and the breeze through the open window at her back was dry and crisp. Olivia, who’d lived all over before coming to this little corner of the Rockies, had never seen such glorious weather.
“The weather’s good, all right,” Bob said. “Too good. We need a good snowstorm to send all the tourists packing.”
She rolled her eyes and started emptying the contents of the bus tray into the recycling bin.
“What about you, Miss O?” Jameso asked. “Have you decided yet if you’re staying in Eureka for the winter?”
Olivia fixed him with a baleful glare.