“Dad’s so pleased he’s back. He’s recovering from that heart attack scare faster I think, because Sam’s over every day and the two of them are continuously going over all of the plans for Snow Vista.” She took another gulp of coffee and Lacy envied it. “Mom’s a little cooler, almost as if, like you, she’s half expecting him to disappear again, but even she’s happy about Sam being home. I can see it in her eyes and on the bathroom scale since she’s still cooking the fatted calf for her prodigal nearly every night. Maybe,” Kristi said thoughtfully, “it would be easier to forgive and be glad he was here if I knew he was staying.”
Lacy’s ears perked up. Here was something important. Had he decided to stay after all? And if he did, what would that mean for her? For them?
“He hasn’t said anything to any of you?”
“No. Just sort of does his work, visits with the parents and avoids all mention of the future—outside of the plans he’s got cooking for the resort.” Kristi tossed her now-empty cup into a trash can. “So every day I wait to hear that he’s gone. He left so fast the last time—” She broke off and winced. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Lacy said as they walked up to the entrance of the train station. “He did leave, and yeah, I’m not convinced he’s staying, either.”
And she didn’t know if that made her life easier or harder. If he was going to leave again, she had to keep her distance for her own heart’s sake. She couldn’t let herself care again. And if he was staying...what? Could she love him? Could she ever really trust him not to leave her behind again?
What if she didn’t have the flu? What if she had gotten pregnant that one night with him? What then? Did she tell him or keep it to herself?
Feeling as if her head might explode, Lacy pushed it all to one side and walked into the train station, deliberately closing her mind to thoughts of Sam for the rest of the day. Instantly, she was slapped with the noise of hundreds of people, talking, laughing, shouting. There were young moms with babies in strollers and toddlers firmly in hand. There were a few men looking as if they’d rather be anywhere else, and then there were the grandmas, traveling in packs as they wandered the crowded station.
Lacy and Kristi paid their entrance fee and joined the herd of people streaming down the narrow aisles. There were so many booths it was hard to see everything at once, which meant that she and Kristi would be making several trips around the cavernous room.
“Oh, I love this.” Kristi had already stopped to pick up a hand-worked wooden salad bowl, sanded and polished to a warm honeyed gleam. While she dickered with the artisan, Lacy wandered on. She studied dry floral wreaths, hand-painted front-door hangers shouting WELCOME SPRING and then deliberately hurried past a booth packed with baby bibs, tiny T-shirts and beautifully handmade cradles.
She wouldn’t think about it. Not until she had to. And if there was a small part of her that loved the chance that she might be pregnant, she wasn’t going to indulge that tiny, wistful voice in the back of her mind.
Lacy dawdled over the jewelry exhibit and then the hand-tooled leather journals. She stopped at the Sweet and Salty booth and looked over the bags of snacks. Her stomach was still unhappy, so she bought a small bag of plain popcorn, hoping it would help. Nibbling as she went, her gaze swept over the area. There were paintings, blown-glass vases and wineglasses, kids’ toys and outdoor furniture made by real craftsmen. But she moved through the crowd with her destination in mind. The local art gallery had a booth at the fair every year and that’s where Lacy was headed. She sold her photographs through the gallery and she liked to keep track of what kind of photos sold best.
She loved her job at the lodge, enjoyed teaching kids how to ski, but taking photographs, capturing moments, was her real love. Lacy nibbled at the popcorn as she climbed the steps to the gallery’s display. The owner was busy dealing with a customer, so Lacy busied herself, studying the shots that were displayed alongside beautiful oil paintings, watercolors and pastels.
Seeing her shots of the mountain, of sunrises and sunsets, of an iced-over lake, gave her the same thrill it always did. Here was her heart. Taking photographs, finding just the right way to tell a story in a picture—that was what fed her soul. And now, she reminded herself, Sam wanted to use her work to advertise the resort. She was flattered and touched and sliding down that slippery slope toward caring for him again.
The owner of the gallery, Heather Burke, handed Lacy’s black-and-white study of a snow-laden pine tree to a well-dressed woman carrying a gorgeous blueberry-colored leather bag.