“They’ll have to make a concrete decision on the lodge before spring, I’d think,” Rosie said. “If everybody goes through the red tape and elbow grease of getting the four-wheelers into town, it doesn’t seem fair to cut it off again if somebody buys the lodge and doesn’t want ATVs. If they decide they’re for sure going to sell it, they should hold off and leave it to the new owners to deal with.”
“Mitch is pretty torn up about it,” Paige confided in a low voice. “He doesn’t want to sell the lodge, but he’s not willing to step in and run it day-to-day, so he doesn’t think it’s fair to make Josh do it. But it’ll break his heart.”
Rose’s too, though she didn’t say so. This was a hard enough decision for the kids, and she tried not to make herself too big a factor in it. She knew they were worried about what she’d do, but she didn’t want any of them sacrificing their own wants or needs because of her. No matter what happened, she’d have Katie.
Unless she moved away with Josh.
“When are you two going to make me a grandbaby?” she asked in a desperate attempt not to think about Katie leaving anymore.
Paige’s eyes widened at the blunt question, but then her face relaxed into a soft smile. “Soon. Mitch thinks it would be nice to have a baby close in age to Sean and Emma’s.”
“I agree. You should work on that.”
Paige blushed and picked up her tea. “We’ll probably wait until we get home.”
Chapter Seven
Dave Carmody and his son, Dan, rolled up to the lodge in the late afternoon on Friday. Josh met them in the drive and shook Dave’s hand through his open window.
“You made it,” Josh said, just as he did every year. Dave was always the first guest. He had a standing reservation for the weekend of the fifteenth and the only time he didn’t make it was the rare occasion Josh had to call him and tell him there was no snow. Then his reservation was floated to the first weekend the trails opened.
“You’ve done some work around the place,” Dave said. “Looks good.”
Josh swept a critical eye over the lodge and the outbuildings. It did look good, and he felt a small swell of pride. Whether he’d wanted to or not, he’d been the one to keep the place going for a long time. And it had taken his brothers’ help to make it look good again, but the heart and the bones of the place were all his.
“Let’s get you parked and unloaded.” He slapped Dave’s door and stepped back.
Dave owned a trucking business down in Rhode Island, so he had no problem backing his truck and trailer into the patch of lawn off the driveway they kept plowed for just that purpose.
Dan jumped down from the truck the second his dad put it in park, which released the door locks. Josh grinned at his enthusiasm. “How old are you now, Dan?”
“Almost thirteen. I’ve got a new sled. Wanna see?”
It made Josh feel a little old following the kid to the back of the trailer and watching him drop the door down so they could walk inside. If he remembered correctly, Dave had brought Dan along with him for the first time the winter before Josh’s dad passed away. He’d been little enough to ride in front of Dave on one machine. Now he was on his third snowmobile and he didn’t need any help unstrapping it and backing it down onto the snow-covered lawn.
He wanted to go for a ride, but Dave shook his head. “Grab your bag and we’ll go say hi to Mrs. Davis. Then we’ll go hunt up some supper.”
“Is there enough snow so we can ride to town?” Dan asked.
Josh shook his head. “Not yet, bud. Sorry. You’ll have to take the truck into town, but at least they were able to groom the trails and get them open.”
“I’ll wear him out tomorrow.”
That he would. It was a long ride from Rhode Island, so Dave spent every possible minute riding, not wanting to waste a moment of it. “Rose is getting over pneumonia, so her daughter’s staying with us to help out. Her name’s Katie.”
Dave nodded. “Pretty sure we’ve met her. Pretty blonde about your age, right?”
“Yeah.” A very pretty blonde.
The Carmodys headed for the door, but Josh held back for a minute. Since they had the first reservation every year, they had dibs on the room, too. Theirs was the only one with two double beds and its own bathroom, and they took it every time they came up, so they knew the way.
It twisted his gut a little, looking up at the lodge. Dave was right. It did look good. More like it did in his distant memory when the economy was strong, his father was still running things, and they had so much business they had to turn people away almost every weekend there was snow.
It was times like these, sharing memories with a longtime guest, that he felt the connection to the Northern Star. It was home—his home—and he felt the emotional and nostalgic bonds that came with that. He loved the old place. But all he’d ever wanted was the right to make a choice for himself, and the lodge stood in his way.