“Rachelle!” Carlie gasped, then sent Heather a friendly glare. “You knew she’d be in town.”
“I wasn’t sure—” Heather hedged.
“Liar.” Rachelle slid onto a stool next to Carlie. “I called her yesterday.” She slid her packages under the counter and eyed the fluorescent menu displayed over the back mirror.
Adam scrambled onto a stool next to his aunt and began ordering a banana split, but Heather spied Nadine. “Just the woman I was looking for,” she said as Rachelle and Carlie caught up on old times. “I need your help.”
“Mine?”
“The studio. It needs all sorts of work and the doctor told me that I had to slow down.” She patted her rounding belly. “So, after Christmas sometime I was hoping that you’d help me clean it up, maybe give it a fresh coat of paint—that sort of thing. If you have the time, of course.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Good. And I have a list of people for you—oh, where is it?” Heather dug through a voluminous purse, yanked out her wallet and dug through a compartment. “Here you go. All of these people showed an interest in some of your jewelry. That woman there—” she pointed a fingernail at the third name on the list “—owns a chain of boutiques around the bay area. She has a store near Fisherman’s Wharf, one in Sausalito and a few sprinkled around Santa Rosa and Sonoma, I think. She displays some of my paintings and was very interested in your work. Give her...for that matter, give them all a call.”
Nadine could hardly believe her good luck. She folded the scrap of paper into her purse and said, “Thanks.”
“No trouble,” Heather replied with a smile.
“Let me buy you a cup of coffee, at least.”
“You don’t have to—” Heather glanced along the length of the counter where Rachelle, Carlie and Adam were discussing the merits of marshmallow sauce versus pineapple on a sundae.
“I want to.”
“All right.” Heather eased onto one of the stools, and Nadine wondered how she’d ever been jealous of this woman who seemed to glow in her pregnancy. Her blond hair shimmered in the lights and her eyes sparkled with good humor. Obviously marriage was good for her and Turner Brooks was a good man, a strong man, a passionate man. A man Nadine had come to realize that she’d never really loved.
And what about Hayden? Do you love him?
The thought struck her cold, and she nearly dropped her cup of cocoa, sloshing some of the chocolate onto the counter. Love? Why, the notion was ridiculous! She couldn’t, wouldn’t fall for Hayden.
“Your father says there’s talk at the logging company of trouble with the mill. Rumor has it that Garreth’s son might sell it or scrap it out,” Thelma said to Carlie as she slid a glass boat filled with bananas, ice cream and syrup toward Adam. With glee, he plucked the cherry from a bed of whipped cream and plopped it into his mouth.
“I thought you were going to share,” his aunt Rachelle chided him, and Adam, a smile stretched long on his freckled face, shook his head.
“The mill’s closing?” Carlie asked.
“It’s not for certain yet.”
“But this town will roll up and die,” Heather observed.
Nadine looked at Carlie’s mother. “Maybe it won’t be shut down.”
Thelma regarded Nadine with frosty eyes. “You just watch. Hayden Monroe’s always been a pampered rich boy. Never done anyone any good, including that girl he was gonna marry. First he nearly killed her in a boat wreck, then he broke off the engagement.” She clucked her tongue. “A real charmer, that one.” She plucked a pad from the pocket of her apron and tallied the bill for a couple of men who were sitting at the far end of the counter.
Nadine said goodbye to everyone and thanked Heather again for the list of potential clients. She barely heard the strains of “Silver Bells” as she shoved open the door and walked outside. The cocoa in her stomach seemed to curdle when she thought of Hayden and the power he now had over this town. She’d grown up with the people who worked for him; their children were her own boys’ friends. If Hayden did close down the mill, they might as well close down the town. Even Fitzpatrick Logging would be affected.
If Hayden sold the sawmill to a rival firm, there would be changes and the people of Gold Creek, God bless them, weren’t all that interested in change. A new owner might bring in his own foremen, his own workers, his own office people and computer system. Jobs could be lost to other men and machinery.
It wasn’t hard to see why the citizens of Gold Creek liked things to stay the same. They’d been raised in a timber town as their folks had been. Throughout the generations, logging in northern California had dwindled, but in Gold Creek it was a way of life.
And Hayden Monroe had the power to change it.
* * *
“JUST TAKE YOUR father’s viewpoint into perspective,” Thomas Fitzpatrick said, glancing through the window of Hayden’s house to the lake. He’d spent the afternoon with his wayward nephew, trying to convince the boy to maintain a status quo. Hayden didn’t seem to care what his father wanted nor did he seem all that interested in the fate of Fitzpatrick Logging. In fact, there seemed to be a new bitterness to him, a hardening of his features that Thomas hadn’t seen in his previous meeting. As if Hayden knew something he shouldn’t.
Thomas was sweating. He and Garreth had worked so well together. They’d built a monopoly here in Gold Creek and enjoyed ruling the town’s economy, being Gold Creek’s premier citizens. Well, at least Thomas had. Garreth had been more of a legend—what with living in the city and showing up only a few times a week at best.