"These are the cabins?" Jane exclaimed. "They're nicer than my house!"
"Each one is a duplex, though you wouldn't guess it to look. Your entrance is on this side," Shelley said, pointing.
"Help me with Willard, and then you'll be finished with me for the day," Jane told Mel.
"Finished with you and starting with the boys," he groused.
"Don't worry about them," Shelley said. "They skied all afternoon and are probably sound asleep. Jane's got the tough lot. Girls can go for phenomenal lengths of time without sleeping."
It took all three of them to unload Willard and wake him up enough that he wobbled over to a tree to lift his leg. Jane had to lean against the big shambling yellow dog to keep him from falling right over while he teetered on three legs. As soon as they had him headed toward the right door, Shelley gave Mel his key. He gave Jane a perfunctory kiss and started unloading his own luggage.
"Mr. Conviviality," Shelley muttered, unlocking Jane's door while Jane fought to get Willard back on his feet. He'd decided to sleep on the step.
"He's a tad cranky from the drive. It is a terribly long way from the Denver airport, and the drive up into the mountains is horrifying at night in the snow. Besides, I think he's afraid of flying and much too macho to admit it. I thought there was something wrong with the engines until I realized it was just Mel grinding his teeth."
"Voilà!" Shelley said, flinging the door open.
Jane dragged Willard inside and let him collapse in the front hall before she took a look around.
"My God! What a place!" she exclaimed.
There was a large living room with a sunken seating area in front of a fireplace that would have been at home in a largish castle. A pile of logs glowed red and filled the room with the delicious scent of wood-smoke. The fireplace wall was of slabs of fieldstone. The far end of the room was entirely glass, with doors that opened onto a deck that wrapped around the back of the structure. The wall between was entirely shelves, with books, handsome knickknacks, and an entertainment center that included a huge television, VCR, and tape deck. The rich forest-green carpeting, dark wood, and deeply upholstered leather furniture combined to be both sumptuous and rustic. Jane was grinning until she turned around to look at Shelley and spotted what was behind them.
"Oh, no! What's that!"
"You know what it is."
"I hope I'm wrong, but it looks suspiciously like a kitchen! Curses!"
"Now, Jane. You don't ever have to go in it if you don't want to."
"Shelley, don't be an idiot. Where there's a kitchen and a mother, people will expect cooking to be done."
"Then those unnamed people will just have to live with disappointment for a few days," Shelley said.
"I know. That firewood on the deck. Maybe we could use that to board it up and nobody will ever know it's there."
"Too late. I already took the girls to the grocery store and they've filled it with soft drinks and junk food. And I've stashed a lovely bottle of white wine and some of your favorite cheese in the fridge. Want a glass?"
"If you'll fix it," Jane said. "I want to leave here without ever having set foot in that room."
She hauled her bag and Willard down the hall, observing with approval that her daughter, Katie, and Shelley's daughter, Denise, shared a big bedroom, while she had a smaller but more attractive one with its own bath all to herself. Her bedroom had two queen-sized beds with room left over. It also had a glass wall overlooking the deck. She greeted the girls, who were shrieking with laughter and trying out a dreadful mauve shade of nail polish, before taking off her travel clothes and donning a comfortable flannel granny gown and fuzzy slippers. As a child, she'd always been "representing her country" when she traveled and couldn't break the habit of dressing up to get on a plane. Someday she might be able to throw on a pair of jeans and head for the airport, but for now, she was stuck with dresses and hose. She hung up her dress and a few other items that were in her suitcase, then found an extra blanket in the closet and made a nest at the foot of the bed for Willard. By the time she returned to the living room, Shelley was stirring up the embers of the fire and had set out two glasses of wine and a little plate of Wheat Thins and a section of Brie. "You sure know the way to a girl's heart," Jane said, collapsing into the big, deep armchair closest to the fire-Shelley looked at her. "You can disintegrate faster than anyone I've ever known."
"I know," Jane said smugly. "It's a gift. So how's it going? Is Paul going to buy this place?"
"I have no idea. He and the other investors spent the day just looking around. Tomorrow they're going over all the paperwork and financial statements. The owner's niece, a really nice woman around our age named Tenny Garner, has put herself in charge of us. If there's anything you need, just call the front desk and ask for her."
"Shelley, the place looked deserted as we drove in."
"No, it's really not. For one thing, it's awfully late, and for another, the whole place is arranged in such a way that everything seems very isolated and private and disguises the fact that you're surrounded by mobs of people. That's one of the advantages."
"But, Shelley, who comes to a ski resort without ski facilities — besides you and me and other people dedicated to the sedentary life?"
"Conventions. Right now there's a gang of accountants just getting ready to leave, the regional representatives of an agricultural co-op arriving in a couple days, and some kind of historical society meeting now. They're a tad bizarre. If you run into a woman who looks like Abe Lincoln in drag, you might want to veer off before she can bend your ear."
"I think if I spotted such a person I'd hide on general principles without the warning. But thanks anyway," Jane said, yawning. "So what's the plan for tomorrow?"
Shelley got up and started hunting for her gloves, boots, and hat. "Jane, you have to readjust your thinking. There are no plans! You can do whatever you want. That's what vacations are for."
"I haven't had one for so long I'd forgotten that. Besides, the last couple of vacations I had were with Steve before he died, and he was a competitive vacationer. So many miles a day to cover, so many sights to see, meals mapped out in advance. Up at the crack of dawn to enjoy — by God! — every minute. Unscheduled potty breaks made him wild."
Shelley shuddered dramatically. "If it's not too crass, may I remind you that Steve is dead and it's a mercy for a lot of reasons, and besides, this is not that kind of vacation. Get up whenever you feel like it. You can have breakfast brought to you, or come down to the lodge. I suggest the lodge. It's beautiful. Give me a call when you're stirring. I put my number on the notepad on the kitchen counter."
"Shelley! You said that word again! Kitchen!"
"Sorry. See you tomorrow."
Jane sat for a while, staring at the dying embers of the fire. The wine, the cheese, the warmth of the fire, the comfort of the deep chair — it was all too good to be true. She finally forced herself to get up and stagger to the bedroom. The girls, to her surprise, had actually turned out their lights and seemed to be asleep, although she wondered, from the smell as she looked in on them, if maybe they'd just succumbed to nail polish fumes.
She had dumped her belongings on the bed nearest the door, so she tumbled into the one closest to the glass doors — which she decided was probably the most comfortable bed in the Western Hemisphere. She dreamed briefly about Abe Lincoln riding a moose before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 2
When Jane finally awoke, she was on her side, facing the glass doors, and for a moment she thought she was dreaming herself into a calendar picture. Blinking, she sat up and gazed in awe. Through the glass doors, beyond the deck, there was a cloudless sky of a pure, clear azure no artist could get away with, and a spectacular rugged, white-crowned mountain peak framed by nearby snow-laden pines. A fat squirrel with tufts on its ears that made it look like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit sat on the rail of the deck, unabashedly posing. Jane went to the doors and stood mesmerized for long moments. Willard woofed halfheartedly at the squirrel before laying his big head down and going back to sleep.
Jane bathed hurriedly and dressed in the warm clothes she'd brought along — thermal underwear, heavy socks, corduroy slacks, and a flannel shirt with a turtleneck underneath. "I'm a mountain woman, Willard," she said, giving him a gentle prod with her toe. "An overstuffed, but stylish, yuppie mountain woman."
Williard heaved himself to his feet and ambled along with her as she explored the rest of the house. First she actually entered the dreaded kitchen, found some gourmet coffee Shelley had left, and started the coffeemaker. Then she donned coat, gloves, and boots and took the big dog outside. While he visited a patch of ground under a trio of pines where the snow was only halfway up his legs instead of clear to his belly, she stood sucking in lungfuls of thin, cold, snow-and-woods-scented air. It smelled so good she wished she could drink it. Or warm it up and bathe in it.
She took Willard back in, fed him from the bag of his dry food she'd brought along, and gave him a big bowl of water. By that time her coffee was done and she poured a huge mug before dialing Shelley's number. Shelley's first words were, "Did the view knock your socks off when you woke up?"
"I'll say!"
"I was afraid you might close the curtains before you went to sleep and ruin the surprise. I'll be right over."
She was there in a matter of moments, dressed in an aqua ski outfit that made her eyes look the same color, even though Jane knew perfectly well it was an illusion. Shelley was great at fashion illusions.
"I've been exploring," Jane said. "And I'm amazed. This is really some place you could just move into and live in. There are jigsaw puzzles in the cabinets over there. And extra blankets and pillows and even a vacuum and cleaning supplies, besides the extra boots and mittens, in the closet by the front door." She paused warily. "This doesn't mean anybody expects me to clean, does it?"
"No. But normally there isn't any daily maid service. The units are only cleaned thoroughly between guests. Of course, we're an exception because they're trying to sell us on the place and we're getting the VIP treatment."
"I'd guess, though, that the real cream in the fridge is your doing."
Just then the girls stumbled into the living room, sleep-stupid but eager. "Mom! Isn't this place great?" Katie asked, running a set of mauve-taloned fingers through her tangled hair.
Shelley's daughter, Denise, forgot for a moment that she was a teenager and not only sat down next to her mother, but leaned into a hug.