Chapter 22
INDYA
Age Twenty-Three
“Why are you nervous?” Dad asked.
“I’m not nervous.”
“Indya.” He frowned whenever I lied.
“What’s going on?” Mom asked from the back seat.
“Nothing,” I said, then tucked my hands under my thighs to keep from fidgeting as we pulled into the resort.
It looked the same as it had two years ago. Well, not exactly the same. The barn looked weathered, the wood siding grayer than the brown I remembered from past visits. There used to be two whiskey- barrel planters beside the lodge’s stairs, but they were gone, and instead, four baskets of flowers hung from the porch posts. But otherwise, the lodge and cabins appeared largely unchanged.
It looked the same.
But it felt different.
This trip felt different.
And I was freaking nervous.
I searched the grounds for a dark-haired cowboy. West was nowhere in sight. And as we parked, no one came out of the lodge to welcome us to Montana. Not that we needed to be greeted. We knew our way around.
Except I couldn’t remember a trip when Curtis or a desk clerk hadn’t met us in the parking lot and helped carry our bags to the Beartooth Chalet.
Dad must have noticed the absence, too, because his forehead furrowed as he climbed out. “I’ll go check us in.”
Mom and I joined him on the gravel. She waited until he was inside before she dropped her smile. “He’s not feeling well. Maybe we should
have skipped this trip.”
“But he loves it here.”
She swallowed hard and blinked a few too many times, vanishing tears. If Mom wasn’t smiling too brightly around Dad, she was hiding tears around me.
We wore faces for my father. She hid the sadness, and I hid the
worry.
At least she could be real around me.
I kept the facade in place for them both.
“This will be good for him,” I said. “We’ll have a nice, relaxing week. No camping this time.”
“Absolutely not.” Mom laughed, following me to the back to open the hatch of the Escalade we’d rented at the airport in Bozeman. In the past, we’d had our pilot bring us to the Big Timber airport, but they’d been doing maintenance on the runway, so we’d had to drive over from Bozeman.
Was that why Curtis wasn’t here? Maybe in the past, he’d get a call from the airfield’s shuttle service when we arrived.
Dad emerged from the lodge just as I pulled our last suitcase out of
the car.
Still no Curtis.
Or West.
I tried not to let the disappointment show. It wasn’t like West could come running over and sweep me into his arms anyway. No one, especially my parents, knew about our relationship. But I’d been waiting two long years to see his face.
God, I’d missed him. More than was rational.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t dated in the past two years. There had been a few boyfriends, but no one had made me want . . . more.
None of those men had tempted me to upend my life. But for West, maybe it was time to try. To make a few big changes.
What if I moved to Montana? What if West and I had more time than a week?
Just the thought of asking, of putting myself out there, made my insides twist. But no matter how nervous I was, no matter how hard it
would be to put myself out there, this was the trip when I’d finally ask.
What if I stayed?
“I’ll handle the luggage,” I told my parents. “You guys go in and relax. I took a nap on the plane. Neither of you slept.”
“We can help,” Dad said.
“Shoo.” I waved him away.
It was only because of Mom that he actually left. She looped her arm with his, letting out an exaggerated yawn, and all but dragged him inside.
I took one last look around the resort, paying special attention to the barn and corrals. There was no shiny gray truck. No rusty old green one either. No West.
After slinging my Chanel over a shoulder, I picked up both of Mom’s suitcases and hauled them inside. Then I came back and retrieved Dad’s and my own so we could unpack.
When my clothes were folded and stowed in the same dresser of the guest bedroom I’d been using for ages, I found Dad in the living room.
He stood at the window that overlooked the field beyond the cabin.
I took the spot beside him. “You okay?”
“Are you?”
“It’s just been a long day.” A long year.
The week after I’d graduated from Baylor, I’d started working for Dad’s company. To say the past twelve months had been a crash course in large-scale real estate was an understatement.
It was like Dad was attempting to purge the knowledge from his brain and drill it into mine.
I was running out of room in my head. My skull ached constantly.
So did my heart.
Did I want to work in real estate?
No. Not even a little bit. But I would for Dad.
“Is this about Harry Mitchell?” he asked. “I heard you talking to
him.”
“Trying to talk to him,” I muttered.
Dad sighed. “I know he’s been hard on you. But if you can survive having him as a client, you can survive anyone.”
“I’ll be okay.” It wasn’t a matter of surviving Harry Mitchell. It was a matter of not slapping the pig in the face.
Just because he was a billionaire oil tycoon did not give him the right to treat me like I was incompetent. It also didn’t give him the right to stare at my chest or pinch my ass.
Dad didn’t know that Harry had crossed the line on more than one occasion. I’d kept that to myself. But I had complained that Harry treated me like a child with his condescending tone. He also referred to
me as little girl.
I fucking hated Harry Mitchell.
But soon, he wouldn’t be my problem. The commercial development we were brokering for him was nearly complete. Then he’d
be a distant, unpleasant memory.
“I’m glad we took this trip,” Dad said.
“Me too.” I leaned my head on his shoulder. A shoulder that seemed harder, bonier, than normal.
He’d lost too much weight this winter. If there was a cold or flu virus in Texas, he’d caught it. Illness after illness had kept him out of the office. His immune system just wasn’t strong enough. So I’d stepped up to do anything in my power to help.
I was living at home again, and even though it felt pathetic to be back in my childhood bedroom at twenty-three, it was easier on Dad. I went to the office and met with his clients. We leveraged as much technology as possible, but some days, he wasn’t up for videoconferencing. So I’d bring the work home, running everything past him in the evenings while he reclined in his chair. Then hit the ground running with his instructions each morning.
Tired didn’t even begin to cover it. I was mentally and emotionally strung out. And all I wanted to do was quit.
Could I quit? A year ago, it wouldn’t have even crossed my mind as
an option. But now? Maybe.
Maybe we all needed to quit.
It was on the tip of my tongue to mention it to Dad. To ask him if
we could just . . . stop.
If he could stop.
But I held it back. Before I mentioned a word to my father, I needed to see West.
If he still wanted me, maybe this wouldn’t be my only trip to Montana this year. Maybe it would be easier to convince Dad to retire.
If West didn’t want to give a relationship with me a try, well . . . I’d be devastated. But I’d still talk to Dad—only it would be a different conversation.
“We needed this trip.” Dad shifted, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his side. “We’ve been working too hard.”
“Agreed. Especially you.”
“Nah. I’m good. Still alive.”
Still alive.
It never stopped being strange that we talked about his death so often.
“Grant?” Mom called from their bedroom, where she was probably unpacking his clothes. “Did you take your pills?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Just checking.”
I giggled. “How many times is that so far today?”
“Twelve,” he whispered. “Bet she makes it to twenty.”
“Totally.”
He’d started counting how often she asked about his pills. Thirty- one was the record.
We’d joke about it together, but he never gave Mom a hard time. He just said “Yes, dear” ten or twenty or thirty-one times a day.
Still alive. The medication was hard on his body, but he was still alive. And cancer was the fourth member of our family.
Mom and Dad seemed to have found peace with it, but as far as I was concerned, cancer could fuck right off.
“What’s next?” Dad dropped a kiss to my hair, then let me go, clapping his hands. “Should we go for a walk before dinner? Explore?”
“Explore a place we’ve been countless times?” Mom asked as she came out of the bedroom carrying her Kindle. “Can’t we just relax and read until dinner?”
“I did want to start that mystery you bought me.” Dad joined her on the sofa, letting her snuggle into his side. “Where did you put it?”
“In your backpack.”
“Where’s my backpack?”
“Oh, shoot.” I gave him an exaggerated frown. “I didn’t grab it from the back seat.”
“I’ll get it.” Dad made a move to stand, but I waved him off.
“No, I’ll go.” It would give me another chance to search for West.
I snagged the keys from the table, about to head outside, when a
knock came at the door.
My heart skipped. West?
It was an effort to walk to answer it instead of run. When I turned the knob, I saw it wasn’t West on our porch.
It was a woman with black hair that fell in sleek panels over her shoulders. She looked to be about my age. Her smile was as bright as the light twinkling in her wide brown eyes.
“Hi. Welcome.” She lifted the gift basket looped over her forearm.
“I meant to have this waiting for you when you arrived, but I’m a bit behind schedule today.”
“Thank you.” I took the basket, glanced at its contents. Dried fruit.
Huckleberry jam. A bottle of red wine.
“Everything is made in Montana.”
“This is lovely.”
“Is this your first time staying with us?”
“Um, no. My parents and I have been here before.” Quite a few times.
“Oh, goodness.” Her eyes widened as she pressed a hand to her forehead. “Have we met before, and I’ve forgotten?”
“No.”
Hers was a face I wouldn’t have forgotten. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. A feeling that had been there all day.
This trip was different than any of the others, wasn’t it? Not a good different.
“Phew.” She let her hand fall. “Too many names and faces lately.
Where are you from?”
“Texas.”
“Ah. When was the last time you visited?”
“Two years ago.” My head began spinning as my stomach fell farther and farther and farther down. “We’ve been coming here since I was a kid.”
“Oh, that’s cool. I grew up in Big Timber and always knew about the resort but didn’t really start hanging out here until West and I got
together.” She lifted her left hand and flashed her solitaire diamond ring.
“I took over as manager about the same time we got engaged.”
The floor disappeared beneath my feet.
Down. Down. Down.
“I’m Courtney.” She extended her hand.
It was an effort to keep my smile in place. To keep my chin up. But I managed.
I had Harry Mitchell to thank for that. Having suffered through his presence for months, I’d learned to school my features. To fake it. If not for Harry, having to shake Courtney’s hand might have sent me to my knees.
“It’s nice to meet you, Courtney.” I slipped my hand into hers. “I’m Indya Keller.”
