Then I stood with a dozen other moms who were lined up outside the cafeteria, all waiting for their kids. Most were the normal PTA moms, the ones who had impeccable minivans, color-coded day planners, and stylish but sensible fashion. Some I knew, some I didn’t.
I looked down at my Vans, worn jeans, and long-sleeved tee, and felt…unkempt. I’d never really understood the phrase “let yourself go,” but this moment? Yeah, I got it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cut my hair, or taken the time to actually put on more makeup than concealer for under my eyes and mascara. None of it mattered in the scheme of things—of saving Maisie—but right now, I felt the separation between me and these women as certainly as if they were in ball gowns.
“Oh, Ella! It’s so nice to see you!” Maggie Cooper said with a hand over her heart, flashing a diamond bigger than her knuckle. She was a year older than Ryan and had married one of the corporate guys from up in the ski village. I’d half expected their engagement announcement to read “local girl makes good.”
“You, too, Maggie. How is…” Crap. What was her kid’s name? The obnoxious one who’d colored on Maisie’s backpack with permanent marker and thought it was cute to force kisses on her? Doug? Deacon? “Drake?” Phew.
“He’s great! Really soaring at piano right now and looking forward to soccer. It starts next week in case Colt wants to play. Look, I meant to ask, have you thought about treating Maisie holistically? I mean, those medicines are really poisonous. I was reading this blog that talked about eating just cassava root or something? It was really intriguing. I can absolutely send it to you.”
Yeeeeeah. Thank God I’d gotten good at plastering a smile on my face and nodding. “Sure, Maggie. That would be great.” I’d learned over the last six months that the easiest way to deal with the well-meaning advice-givers was just to say thank you and noncommittally agree to read whatever research they’d found about snake venom or whatever.
Lucky for me, the class rounded the corner, carrying lunch boxes or lunch cards.
“Great! And I found a bunch on organics! They’re supposed to be great for kids with leukemia and everything.”
“Neuroblastoma,” I said over the kids’ heads as they came between us in the hall. “She has neuroblastoma.”
“Oh, right. I get confused with all those cancers.” She waved it off like there was no difference.
“Oh my God. Who is that?” the mom next to her asked, looking pointedly down the hall.
I turned to see Colt walking just behind the class with a million-watt grin and Havoc in between him and Beckett.
Beckett, who was sporting cargo pants like he wore to work, and a navy-blue Telluride Mountain Rescue T-shirt that stretched perfectly across his chest and around the swells of his biceps.
“I have no clue, but sign me up,” Maggie said, her eyes locked on Beckett as her son found her.
Beckett nodded at something Colt said and took off his baseball hat, placing it backward on Colt’s head. Ugh, my stupid freaking heart flipped right over and got that teenage, glowy feeling that I most definitely didn’t have time for.
“Seriously.” The other mom sighed. “Fresh blood?”
“Seasonal. Has to be,” Maggie answered.
Beckett looked up and immediately saw me, a smile transforming him from gorgeous and broody to just flat sexy. When was the last time I’d even thought about a guy in that way? Jeff? As if acknowledging it gave it life, I felt a low hum in my belly, like my sex drive had just kicked on after almost seven years of lying dormant.
“Mom!” Colt saw me and ran, bypassing the line to jump at me.
I caught him easily, lifting him against my chest. For a split second, I worried that I’d just crossed the big-boy line, but as intuitive as he was, he put his head down and squeezed me tight.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said, and I let him down, having gotten my Colt fix.
“I am, too.” Beckett’s voice slid over me like raw sugar, gravelly and sweet at the same time.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Maggie’s jaw drop, and then she disappeared, hopefully to the lunchroom, even though I knew those few words would set the gossip tongues wagging.
“What are you three doing?” I leaned down and rubbed Havoc behind her soft ears. “Hiya, girl.”
“Beckett was here for show-and-tell!” Colt exclaimed.
Oh God, I’d forgotten.
“Oh, buddy. I totally spaced that you needed something to share today. I’m so sorry.” At what point was I going to stop screwing up and get my shit together?
“No, Mom, it’s okay! Beckett told me last week he’d bring Havoc in, so I took it off your kitchen calendar. It was so cool! She chased her toy, and then Beckett hid me in a tree and told her to find me, and she did! Definitely the coolest show-and-tell of the year.”
“I’m so glad!” And I actually was. My guilt slid away for a precious second, and I looked up at Beckett in gratitude. “Thank you,” I said softly.
The slight tilt to his lips wasn’t quite a smile. It was something softer, more intimate, and infinitely more dangerous. “I was happy to do it.”
“I was here for a Maisie meeting and just needed a little Colt fix,” I told him.
His brows lowered. “Everything okay?”
Before I could answer, Maggie was there with freshly applied lip gloss and a flyer, standing so close she was almost between us.
Beckett’s posture stiffened.
“Ooh, Ella,” she said, “before I forget, here’s the information for the soccer team. I know Colt had wanted to play in the spring league, but we all understood with what Maisie’s going through, well, you have a lot on your plate. But just in case you can fit in the time, we’d love to have him.”
“Soccer? Really?” Colt lit up like a Christmas tree, and I wanted to smack Maggie and every other mom on the planet who had the ability to say yes without checking schedules for doctors’ appointments and chemo sessions.
“Colt, we’re really busy—”
Beckett gently cupped my elbow, turning away from Maggie. “Let me help.”
“Beckett…” Letting him help meant depending on him, and letting Colt depend on him, too. And while I knew he had the best of intentions, I was also aware that his soul had the same restless demons Ryan’s had.
“Please.”
I was certainly glad he wasn’t asking me to strip out of my clothes, because between that voice and the plea in his eyes, I was helpless. My head nodded before my brain got the better of it—and me.
“You want to play soccer, Colt?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, we’ll make it happen.”
Amid Colt’s celebration, Maggie thrust the flyer in my face and turned her smile on Beckett. “And who might you be? One of Telluride’s finest?”
His eyes lost their warmth, his expression turning distant, almost cold, and unlike any expression I’d seen from him. Was Maggie the exception, or was I?
“No, that’s the sheriff’s department.”
His tone was curt, almost unrecognizable from the way he spoke to me and the kids.
“Private sector, huh?”
“Yes.”
One-word answer. Maybe Hailey was right—she’d simply seen something I hadn’t, because he hadn’t shown it around me.
“Ooh, the special kind of search and rescue,” she said, taking the step that did put her between us. “The ones who get contracted out for the dangerous calls.” Her voice lowered, and I stepped back to avoid asphyxiating on her perfume.
“I guess,” Beckett answered.
“You know that company is actually funded by a conglomerate of the owners of the ski resort and the hotels in the village, right? They wanted something immediately available, knowing how busy the sheriff’s office gets.”
“Is that so?” Beckett stepped back, but Maggie followed. His jaw flexed and the save-me look he shot my way was anything but funny. He really was that uncomfortable.
It was definitely time to intervene.
“She’s right,” I said as Colt took my hand. “Her husband owns one of the hotels, right, Maggie?”
She openly glared at me, but her face turned sweet when she looked back at Beckett, well, appraised was a better word. Openly ogled was another way to say it. “He does, which I guess means, in a way, you work for me.”