foreman. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. This ski resort is getting built. Period.”
“How? We can’t tear up their ancestors.”
“I’ll figure out something.” He returned to the car and Emily while the Native Americans and construction workers dispersed to different vehicles and left the site.
Emily watched him expectantly. She would want to go inside that house.
Time to face it, and all of its issues, down.
* * *
LAURA STEPPED OUT of the Palette and stopped short, lost. She’d gone to her mother for support, but there hadn’t been any. It brought up an old sensation, a familiar one, of times when she’d gone to her in the past only to come away dissatisfied, and feeling so alone, the worst time, of course, after Amber’s death.
She needed her now, though, desperately, but something was going on with Mom these days that Laura just couldn’t sort out.
Never in her life had Laura felt so...without an anchor. Without a purpose, especially not on a Saturday night when she was usually up for a good time.
She and Vin used to go out for dinner, sometimes just with each other, sometimes with friends, and would have a blast. Then they would return to Laura’s apartment, to her sexy haven, and make love for hours.
Saturday night was usually Laura’s night.
The bakery was closed on Sundays, so she didn’t have to bake tonight for tomorrow’s customers.
She didn’t know what to do with herself when she had so much on her mind, including that asinine demand she’d made of Nick.
You owe me.
That wasn’t how she wanted a baby, but his presence had rattled her. As did her unreasonable attraction to him. What was it about Nick Jordan that brought out the worst, and the best, in her?
She started down Main, drawn by the small white chapel on a small hill past the end of Accord proper. She needed to visit Amber, as she had done so often since she’d lost her baby.
As soon as she opened the gate in the white picket fence and stepped into the cemetery on the outskirts of town, a measure of peace settled over her. Row upon row of white headstones stood out on green spring grass.
White oxeye daisies and yellow-green northern paintbrush dotted the grass. When the grass became long enough to need cutting, the flowers would be mowed down, too. She was glad she was here this early in the season to catch them in bloom.
The small white wooden chapel had been built sometime in the 1800s and was framed by the mountain in the distance on Jordan land. This early in spring, there was still snow on top of Luther.
In the children’s section, she sat on the well-manicured grass in front of Amber’s small grave and plucked weeds curled up against the headstone.
Amber Cameron. 1985–1991. Taken Too Soon. Rest In Peace, Sweet Angel.
Laura ran her hand across the grass covering the short grave.
“Mom called.” Laura turned at the sound of her brother’s voice. “Said you were probably here.”
Noah was two years older than her and a throwback to the sixties. On this unseasonably warm April day, he wore thick gray socks with Birkenstock sandals, jeans and an ivory Aran knit pullover with a hole in one sleeve. He owned the Army Surplus, he was a survivalist and an organic farmer and never, ever apologized for who he was.
“I thought I should come make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay. Just a little blue.”
“From losing the baby?”
She nodded. Noah, bless his heart, was the only one who wasn’t urging her to forget about it, to go for drinks with well-meaning friends who sympathized and said things like, Don’t worry. You’ll get pregnant again.
But with whom?
Five months had passed and Noah thought she had the right to still grieve, bless him.
“Vin broke up with me today. For good.”
“Aw, Laura, I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
Noah crouched beside her. “Why did you come here?”
“I miss the baby, but I miss Amber, too. Isn’t that strange when it’s been over twenty years?”
“Give yourself a break, sis. Mom was trying to start her gallery and you took to Amber like a mother, like you were born to nurture. Sometimes, I think Amber’s death hit you harder than it did Mom.”
“I’m not so sure. I think Mom just knew better than me how to drive her grief underground.”
“She morphed it into energy for that store.”
“I remember,” Laura murmured. She’d been only fourteen. Her little sister died and her mother became emotionally unavailable. Dad took his grief to another woman.