Chapter Eight
After dinner, Josh took a break from work and met up with the guys for Robbers’ Roost at Tony’s Tavern. That night, it was only Nate, Adam, Chris and Will Sweet.
“Where are Dom and Daniel?” Josh asked, as he pulled up a chair at the table in Tony’s back room, where poker chips were piled in the center. He took a sip of beer and reached for a handful of nuts.
Adam said, “I saw Dom at the grocery store. He was heading down to Denver for a sales meeting.”
“Daniel is…” Chris began. He exchanged a look with his brother. “I’m not sure what he’s doing. He said he was busy, and I didn’t press.”
Will chewed and swallowed a mouthful of nuts. “Since he graduated college, he seems… I don’t know, different.”
“Isn’t college supposed to help you figure things out?” Chris asked doubtfully.
“Maybe he’s considering changing his mind about a career,” Adam said. “I did.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “You left the Marines feeling aimless. It was Brooke who changed your career.”
Adam shook his head even as he smiled. “I could have done something else. Happens that I like working with muddy cows.”
“Speaking of careers,” Will said, eyes narrowed as they focused on Josh, “Nate told us about the website.”
Josh gave his brother a look.
Nate’s eyes widened with innocence. “It’s out there for all the public to see. Why shouldn’t your closest friends see you flashing your abs for customers?”
Josh smiled at them all as the hooting and teasing made its way around the table. “I’m not making excuses. Sometimes you have to sacrifice for your art.”
“Sacrifice?” Chris echoed, sounding doubtful. “You looked like you were focused on someone in particular.”
“Whitney’s now his agent,” Nate said, leaning back in his chair and eyeing his brother with amusement. “I can guess who he was focused on.”
Josh started shuffling the cards. “A man needs inspiration.” He paused, then met Nate’s gaze. “Did you show Mom and Dad the website?”
“Nope. Thought you might want to do the honors.”
“I do. I told them about it already, but—”
“Seeing it might be a different thing,” Nate said with a grin.
Tony came in, wiping his hands on a towel he tossed on a nearby table. “Let’s get this game going, men. I’ve got to pick up my kid from his mom’s in a couple hours.”
On her way to dinner, Whitney decided to walk past the building she’d been hemming and hawing about. The sun was already behind the mountains, making her glad she’d worn a cardigan.
Why couldn’t she make up her mind and just set a closing date? She’d thought about Henry Birdsong’s offer, and he’d even called back and given her some lease information. It had been reasonable although still pricier than buying her own building in Valentine.
Was she putting too much emphasis on the personal, this concern about being “liked”? Or was her attachment to Valentine already more than that?
She rounded the corner from Bessie Street onto Fourth and walked past the Rose Garden, with its arched stone bridge over a pond, where lovers often had their picture taken. She reached the Victorian she was considering buying, turned up the walkway—and came to a stop.
Someone had written crudely on the sidewalk in chalk: “Go back to SF, Whitney Wild.”
She hugged herself as if a cold breeze had blown by. That hadn’t been there earlier in the day.
A person had to search through a lot of articles online to reach that old tabloid nickname. But someone had despised her enough to do it.
With the keys the real estate agent let her borrow, she went inside and found a bucket, filled it with soap and water, and using a brush, scrubbed away any evidence of disdain. A weary sadness settled over her. Whitney Wild was gone and never coming back, but apparently, her old persona had become ammunition in someone’s stupid vendetta.
She put the supplies away, locked up, and walked along Fourth until she reached Main. She headed toward town hall and the view of the mountains, no longer even certain she was hungry but not ready to return to The Adelaide.
When she passed Sugar and Spice, she couldn’t help but look in the cheery plate-glass windows, with displays that day of various cookies all tumbled against one another and down several steps like a delicious waterfall. She heard her name called, muffled, and looked up to see Emily waving as she rushed to the door.
Opening it, Emily grinned, and said, “Did you hear us talking about you and magically show up?”
Whitney stiffened. Had word of the graffiti spread around town? She didn’t even have to answer, as Emily dragged her inside, where the store was divided into glass display cases on the left, little tables and chairs in a “coffee corner” to the right, and a cooler in the back that lured cheesecake lovers. There was a small vase of fresh wildflowers at every table—probably courtesy of Monica—and the woman herself was sitting at one table beside Brooke, both grinning at Whitney. They looked too happy for it to be about the graffiti, she realized with relief.
Without another word, they pushed a newspaper across the table at her, and she slowly sank down onto a chair. On the second page of the Valentine Gazette, the photo of Josh smoldering all his sex appeal out toward the viewer was front and center, along with an article.
Emily pulled up a chair but said nothing as Whitney scanned the article. It was about Josh’s dual careers as cowboy and leather craftsman, and how his work was now being featured in an exclusive Aspen boutique. There were no actual quotes from Josh, so he probably hadn’t been interviewed. So who took the initiative and went to the paper?
At last, Whitney sat back and, feeling better about the world, said, “Damn, I’m a good agent.”
Brooke groaned. “You mean my brother takes good photos.”
“He wouldn’t even have done it if I hadn’t persuaded him.”
“And how did you persuade him?” Monica asked, leaning toward her. “Our Josh isn’t a guy who does things he doesn’t want to do.”
“I agreed to go out on a date if he’d pose.”
“Oh well, was that all?” Brooke said, shaking her head.
“I think it’s sweet.” Emily brought over a coffeepot and held it up inquiringly.
Whitney nodded for a cup. “Thanks.”
“Cookie, brownie?”
“Haven’t had dinner yet, so I’ll hold off.”
“My motto is: Life is short—eat dessert first,” Brooke said, pointing to her pastry.
Whitney smiled. “So will your brother mind being famous?”
“If you call the Valentine Gazette famous,” Brooke said, chuckling.
“Famous around here then. He’s probably going to get teased.”
“He’s pretty laid-back about that kind of stuff. Comes from being mercilessly teased by an older brother and sister.”
Whitney thought of her older brother, so remote and cool toward her, even when they were children. Not that they’d had better examples from their parents. She was an afterthought to her brother, and since they went to different boarding schools, they only saw each other on holiday. Five years’ difference in age had seemed insurmountable. She remembered one Christmas where she’d gotten a board game as a present, and hounded him the entire time to play. He never had, though at last she’d gotten a tournament going with the staff. Josh and Nate were around the same age difference, with Brooke in between, and she’d never seen siblings so close.
“Well, it’ll all be worth it,” Whitney said, “if it sells more shoulder bags.”
“And you notice, my store was mentioned, too,” Monica said happily. “I had an upsurge in purchases this afternoon, before I had any idea about the article. The big seller? Frames. People love those.”
“Your window display captures the customer and doesn’t let go,” Emily said.
Monica grinned at her.
“Whoever was behind this thought of everything.” Whitney frowned as she took another sip of coffee. Why was she mildly uneasy about this? Perhaps Josh knew all about it—or had gone along with Geneva’s new request for promotion. But even Geneva wasn’t quoted in the article. “You know, that boutique did some promotion for me, albeit accidentally.”
“What do you mean?” Brooke asked.
All three women looked at her expectantly, and Whitney found herself telling them about Henry Birdsong’s offer.
“You’re not considering it!” Brooke said with disbelief. “People really fought to bring Leather and Lace here.”
Emily put a hand on Brooke’s arm. “And others fought against it. I can understand why Whitney might not feel exactly welcome.”
Whitney smiled her thanks at Emily. “I’m only considering it to be objective, and trust me, I felt very important that a bra-tree protest could break out in support of me.”
The mood eased as they all chuckled.
“I’m going over the construction bids right now and negotiating.”
“Is Sweet Construction bidding?” Emily asked. “My uncles are great guys, very conscientious.”
“You don’t have to persuade me. They’re in the lead right now.”
Whitney had been feeling hemmed in by Valentine and some people’s narrow-mindedness, their high-school cliques, but sitting there with Emily, Brooke, and Monica was nice. They made her feel at ease in a way her party-girlfriends never had. And she hadn’t had time to make many truly close friends these last few years of hard work.
“You know, Whitney,” Brooke began contemplatively, “you could change people’s minds about your store. Consider putting up a display poster at the community center, like I’m about to do for my riding school. I want to expand beyond word of mouth. I’ve got a copy here—would you take a look at it?”
They all bent their heads over the poster, and Whitney gave some suggestions for how to make it pop in the eyes of someone browsing lots of displays.
As they talked, several customers came in, and Emily waited on them, adorable in her ASK US WHY WE’RE SUGAR AND SPICE apron. She brought out several cardboard boxes from the kitchen and one from the cheesecake cooler.
When at last she sat back down, Whitney gave her an amazed look. “How do you do all this by yourself?”
“Normally, my part-time help is here, but Mrs. Ludlow has a cold, so I sent her home.”
“I mean the baking. No luck interviewing chefs?”
Emily told them all about an arrogant pastry chef who thought himself so much better than her. “I’ll find someone,” she insisted, trying to be cheerful. And then she truly did relax as she said, “I’m learning some really neat recipes, spending time with my new grandma. After I was a toddler, I never had grandparents.”
“That’s Mrs. Sweet, the owner of Sweetheart Inn?” Whitney asked.
Emily nodded. “She has incredible recipes, and she’s so gracious about sharing them.”
Brooke winced. “I’m glad she’s sharing with you because I grew up hearing a lot of gossip otherwise.”
Emily frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing,” Monica reassured her. “You just don’t know the history. Mrs. Thalberg—frankly all the widows—never did get along with Mrs. Sweet.”
“Surely everyone’s mellowed after all these years,” Whitney said.
“Then you don’t know the widows,” Brooke answered ruefully. “Sorry, Emily, but apparently Mrs. Sweet used to come off as if she thought she was better than others, owning the hotel, her mom a silent-film star.”
“She doesn’t come across that way at all,” Emily insisted.
Whitney widened her eyes. “How did a silent-film star get to Valentine Valley?”
Emily put up her hand like an eager schoolgirl. “I know this! Grandma told me the story, and I thought it was so romantic. Her mom was staying in the beautiful old hotel in Glenwood Springs, on her way from LA to New York. My great-grandfather was in town selling cattle at auction, and since he’d just gotten paid, he was treating his ranch hands to a drink at the hotel bar. She walked past, their eyes met, and they fell instantly in love. She gave up everything for him.”
“The days of silent films were pretty much over by then,” Brooke pointed out.
Whitney and Monica frowned at her.
“But it’s a great story!” Brooke hastened to say.
“They built themselves a beautiful house in town,” Emily continued, “and that became the inn you see today.”
“The family didn’t want to stay in it themselves?” Whitney asked.
“Times got tough before ski resorts brought people here after World War II,” Monica said. “It was hard to keep both a ranch house and one in town going. Trust me, they’re doing fine now, with a beautiful new home on the ranch. You should check out our museum for more of the history.”
“Josh mentioned it to me,” Whitney said, “since I like museums. But he said it won’t be our blackmail date.”
“I should hope not,” Brooke said indignantly.
“What’s wrong with a museum?” Emily demanded.
Whitney smiled, knowing both she and Emily had grown up in San Francisco. Well, compared to Emily, Whitney hadn’t grown up there after she started boarding school, but still…
“So Mrs. Sweet and the widows just rub each other the wrong way?” Whitney asked. “Hard to believe those sweet little old ladies have a problem with anyone.”
“Oh, there’s never been open warfare,” Brooke said.
“That you know of,” Monica interjected.
Brooke shrugged. “But they never played bridge together or anything. The ladies tended to be on opposite sides of school-board issues, according to my mom. And my grandma and Mrs. Palmer aren’t exactly the garden-party types. I do hear that Mrs. Ludlow occasionally crosses to the dark side, but no one could be upset with her about anything.”
Emily folded her arms beneath her chest and frowned at Brooke. “The dark side? So you consider me part of that, too?”
Brooke put up both hands. “It was a joke!” She glanced down at the table, focusing on the newspaper as if to distract Emily. “Anyone know if Josh has seen this?”
“He didn’t call me about it,” Whitney said.
“My brother reads most of his news online. But this news he should get in person. And I happen to know just where he and the other guys are. And you can eat dinner, Whitney.”
“I’m in.”
Emily looked at her watch. “And it’s seven, perfect timing. Let me put up the CLOSED sign, and I’ll join you.”