After one last scroll through my email, I shut down my computer, stuffing the laptop along with my phone in my tote. The two pens beside my planner—one red for employee-related tasks, one blue for guest activities—were put into their designated slot in my drawer. The paper clip that was attempting to escape a contract was straightened. The sticky note that I’d used for this morning’s checklist was crumpled and tossed in the trash. Then I ran my hand over the back of my executive chair, pushing it under the oak desk.
The clock beside my wall of bookshelves showed I had ten minutes until eight, when I was due at Gemma’s to pick up the Cadillac. I’d been working since five but this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something made me wish I’d come in at four.
I took one last glance at my tidy desk and my eyes caught on the single framed picture I kept beside the phone. It was of me standing with the Greers. As an honorary member of their family, they’d invited—ordered—me to show up on picture day seven years ago. This was the family photo currently on the resort’s website and in its brochures.
Now that Easton and Gemma were engaged and having a baby, I suspected we’d be taking a new photo soon. But this one would always be a favorite. Maybe because it was from so long ago.
Everyone looked the same, more or less. Jake and Carol, the ranch’s founders, had a few more wrinkles these days. Their son, JR, and his wife, Liddy, had both retired. Easton smiled more since he’d fallen in love with Gemma.
But Cash looked exactly the same. Handsome with his devilish grin and bright hazel eyes that reminded me of sunshine streaming through a forest’s leaves.
He had his arm around my shoulders as he smiled straight ahead at the camera. Maybe the reason I loved this picture so much was because it was easy to look at it and pretend that we were every bit the loving, happy couple we appeared to be.
Except Cash had been my friend, and only my friend, for twelve years. We’d met early on in my career at the resort, when I’d been a housekeeper and living in the staff quarters. He’d come home from college for spring break and the two of us had hit it off over our mutual love for Mountain Dew. In all those years, he’d never once flirted. He’d never once asked me out or led me on.
This ridiculous and epic crush was entirely one-sided.
I put the frame down, face-first, hiding the picture from view. We weren’t a couple. We wouldn’t be a couple. And it was time to let him go.
It was time for a new picture.
“Katherine?” Carol poked her head through my office door. “Oh, good. You’re still here.”
“Hi.” I smiled at my adopted grandmother and the woman I wanted to become. For as long as I lived, I doubted I’d meet anyone with as much fire and spirit as Carol Greer. “What’s up?”
The smile on her face was warm and gentle as she crossed the room with an envelope in her hand. Her hair was braided in a long, bright-white rope that draped over her shoulder. She was in a soft flannel shirt tucked into a pair of well-worn jeans. The woman had more money than I could even contemplate amassing in my lifetime, and her boots—the ones I’d bought her as a birthday gift five years ago—were scuffed beyond recognition.
“This is for you.” She extended the envelope across my desk.
“What is it?” I took it from her, giving it a sideways glance.
She smiled and the crinkles around her brown eyes deepened. “Open it.”
I lifted the unsealed flap and pulled out a check that she’d folded in half. A check for . . . “Oh my God. Carol.”
“It’s just a little something from me and Jake to you.”
“This is not little.” She’d written me a check for ten thousand dollars. “I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”
“Yes, you can and yes, you will. It’s a gift. I want you to enjoy this vacation. You haven’t taken one in twelve years. Have fun. Spend that money recklessly. Enjoy your time away. We’ll have everything here covered.”
My eyes stayed glued to the amount. I earned a good living as the general manager at the Greers’ multimillion-dollar resort. My truck was paid for and Cash refused to let me pay rent at the house we shared, so most of my salary went into savings. But seeing the numbers on a computer screen after my bimonthly direct deposit wasn’t quite the same. I’d never held a check, a gift, for ten. Thousand. Dollars. I forced my gaze from the paper. “Thank you. This is . . . thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She nodded and dug into her jeans pocket, pulling out a quarter. “And I have one more thing. It comes with a story.”
“Okay.” I smiled. Carol’s stories were my favorite.
She perched on the edge of my desk. “When I was a kid, my daddy took me on a road trip. It was just for a weekend. We were poor and couldn’t afford anything fancy. We loaded up a tent and some sleeping bags and a cooler full of food and set out. My mom was five months pregnant and Dad wanted to do something with just me before my sister was born.”
“That’s sweet.”
“He was a sweet man.” There was so much fondness in her voice. I was glad she’d loved her father and sad that she’d lost him. “We played a game. Heads left. Tails right. That’s how we decided where to go.”
“What a fun idea. Where’d you end up?”
“Not far. I think we spent most of one day driving in circles. But we made it almost all the way to Idaho before the time was up and we had to turn back.”
The quarter, pinched between my finger and thumb, glinted as the sun streamed through the windows at my back.
“Don’t feel like you need to rush back,” she said. “Take two weeks. Take three. Take four. Take the time you need, and if you feel like exploring, flip the coin.”
Four weeks? I swallowed a laugh. She’d be lucky if I actually made it the planned two.
I tucked the quarter into my pocket. “Thank you. For the gift. And for sharing your story.”
She rounded the desk and put her hands on my shoulders. “We love you, Kat.”
“I love you too.” I went easily into her arms, closing my eyes and taking a long breath. She smelled of wind and earth and lilac blooms, sweet, but strong and free.
“Miss you already.”
“You too.” I gave her one last long squeeze, then let her go to heft my tote over a shoulder. “Call me if you need anything. Annabeth has a list of everything that needs to be done for the guests and Easton has the excursion schedule—”
“Honey, did you forget who built this resort from the ground up?” Carol laughed, taking my elbow and steering me for the door. “We’ll manage.”
“I know.” I sighed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I just feel . . . guilty.”
“Because you work too hard. And I know you don’t mean to be disrespectful. But this is your chance to disconnect. Trust me. We’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” I leaned into her, taking one last glance over my shoulder at the windows and view beyond.
I loved this office. I loved the woman I was in this office. Confident. Commanding. Successful. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I’d grow up to be the woman in the corner office, running one of Montana’s premier, luxury ranch resorts.