“Point made. We wait until spring.” When Ben opened his mouth, Lana added, “Early spring. I’m getting this project done as fast as humanly possible. And Ben? When you start hiring day labor, supplement your crew with as many local hires as you can, please. It’ll save us on per diem.”
He gave her a knowing look but didn’t call Lana out on her decision. Her construction manager knew exactly why she wanted the locals to benefit from the jobs this project would provide.
She loved Moose Springs. Which only made it worse knowing they hated her.
In the distance, a heavy cloud clung to the top of the highest peak, one usually obscured by the weather on less clear days than this.
“Mount Veil is looking particularly ominous today,” she mentioned.
Ben glanced at the giant hovering in the distance. “Veil’s not Denali, but it’s one badass monster. You’ve never tried to climb it?”
“I’m more of a snowmobile girl.” Lana patted the handle of her ride.
“If you’re going to be a resident of Moose Springs, you’re going to need to use the right lingo. This is a snow machine.”
“I’m not a resident,” she informed him. “I stay in the resort.”
“You own property, don’t you?”
“The company owns property, not me.”
Chicago, London, Singapore, the Virgin Islands…the Montgomery Group had their hands everywhere. But just because it was easier to stay at her family’s holdings didn’t mean she belonged in any of them. In the first thirty some years of her life, Lana had learned a lot from the company. Negotiating a million-dollar deal over cocktails was a normal Thursday for her. She could out-maneuver veteran CEO’s while making a single martini double twist to perfection. But she’d never learned how to feel at home.
“Buying land doesn’t make you part of a town, Ben. I wish it were that easy.”
“Well, ma’am, either way, you had better get down to the town hall meeting.”
“Why is that?”
Ben grinned at her. “Because they’re still trying to figure out how to get rid of you.”
* * *
Most town hall meetings were held in, well, a town hall. But not Moose Springs.
In Moose Springs, town hall meetings were held in an abandoned barn on the far side of town, complete with snow piled up around the building to near impassability. If one wanted to get to the barn door closest to her parking spot, they better have some gumption and a sturdy pair of shoes.
Lana had the first but not so much the second. She spent too much time in boardrooms to remember that Moose Springs liked to make things as difficult as possible.
When she reached the door, it stuck, so Lana put her weight behind her pull. Apparently someone had stacked a pile of three-foot-tall plastic Christmas elves against the other side of the door, because when it finally swung open, the elves saw their chance to make their escape. She jumped back to avoid the avalanche, ending up in a snowbank halfway to her now very cold knees. The closest elf was facedown in a boot hole, looking like it had officially given up on making it through the holidays with a semblance of dignity.
As everyone in the back few rows turned in their seats to stare at her through the open doorway, Lana knew the feeling.
“There’s another entrance on the other side,” someone muttered.
Well. That certainly would have been informative.
Rescuing half a dozen cheap plastic elves from a snowy death wasn’t the worst thing Lana had ever done, although she would have appreciated a few less smirks aimed her way. Lana never had liked it when everyone looked at her when she stepped into a room. She was used to it, but she didn’t like it.
She’d learned a long time ago to compensate for that discomfort by throwing her best and brightest smile to the room. Usually it worked to take the attention away from her, but not this time. The gathered townsfolk most definitely didn’t smile back.
“Tough crowd,” she murmured to the plastic elves in her arms.
As meeting halls went, the barn worked well. A wooden stage had been built on the end furthest from where Lana had made her less than grand entrance. At least most of the people present hadn’t witnessed her faux pas. They’d scooted the chairs around to form rows facing the makeshift stage up front. If Ben hadn’t told her where they held town hall meetings, she never would have been able to find it. By the looks she received when she headed toward the front of the barn, more than a few people wouldn’t have minded her absence.
They’d tried to make the barn seasonally appropriate, filling it with a cheerful if haphazard assortment of holiday decor. Most was fairly innocuous, but liberties had been taken with Rudolph’s antlers, and something seemed to be going on between Mrs. Claus and Frosty the Snowman, if the twinkle in her eye was to be believed. The pile of elves had been hanging out near the rear escape exit, the one Lana had unwittingly entered. They’d probably had the right idea.
The combination of strings of blinking Christmas lights, red and green plastic ornaments, blue and white papier-mâché snowflakes, and gold sparkles painted on popcorn balls was somewhat jarring. Someone had mounted a star on the top of a cardboard cutout of a lamp made out of a woman’s stockinged leg, with several presents stuck underneath, although no one had informed Lana that this was the gift-giving type of meeting.
Drawing her coat close to chase away the chill, Lana scanned the room, searching for a friendly face among the familiar ones. She breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted a short, slender brunette in glasses seated off to the side, across the room from a folding table loaded with coffee urns and holiday treats. Zoey Caldwell glanced up from the book in her lap as Lana approached, brightening when Lana waved at her in greeting.
“I saved Graham a seat, but you can have his,” Zoey joked. “He’s been a brat all day.”
“Is he ever not a brat?” Lana replied, sitting down next to her best friend.
“Hmm, good point.”
The constant good mood Zoey had been in since moving to Moose Springs still hadn’t faded, and she gave Lana an enthusiastic hug. A hug Lana happily returned. It was embarrassing to admit how much Lana wanted those hugs…and needed them. They had met years ago at a truck stop diner outside of Chicago. Zoey had been Lana’s waitress, and something between them had simply clicked. If Lana had to be honest with herself—which was more of a pain than she wanted to think about at the moment—her relationship with Zoey was the healthiest human interaction she’d experienced in her entire life. And it meant more to Lana than Zoey realized that they would be spending the holidays together.
Lana glanced around. “I was hoping Jake would be here.”