“Only if the wind picks up and blows drifts across the pass.” He winked at her. “Worst case, we ration cocoa and play board games until a plow finds us.”
“You’retoocalm about the possibility of getting snowed in.”
“I was an Army Ranger. I know how to handle myself in winter climates.”
“Show off,” she said, taking another sip of cocoa.
He reached over to give her knee a gentle squeeze. “I grew up in these mountains. Snowed in meant no school and Jacob—because was the eldest brother—cooking chili over the wood stove.”
She noticed the sudden shift in Abe’s posture. Tension in his shoulders. He’d been like this lately every time he spoke of his family, especially his past.
She let the quiet stretch between them and listened to the music.
Finally, she asked, “Do you think Isaiah will win his lawsuit contesting Caleb’s will?”
“Dad will drag it out as long as he can. That’s what Isaiah does. He wants the fairgrounds and has unleashed a new round of lawsuits.”
She studied Abe’s profile darkened by his five o’clock shadow. “Doesn’t Isaiah know that you and Luke are building your new outfitter business there?”
“He knows. I haven’t mentioned my conspiracy thoughts to anyone else yet, but I think Dad is doing this because the fairgrounds are where we last saw our mom.”
She reached over and rubbed Abe’s neck. She’d heard this story a few times in the past six months, ever since she’d met him on the way to a wedding in Kingsmill—the wedding where her best friend Izzy married Abe’s first cousin Hawk. That weekend, before Izzy and Hawk said their “I do’s”, Daphne and Abe had found each other in Sleepy Hollow, New York. She’d been visiting a friend, and Abe had been searching for clues about his mother’s disappearance.
It'd been a hot-and-heavy attraction at first sight, and for the last six months they’d had no interest in letting go.
“It was a carnival night,” Abe said. “My mother walked away from the tilt-a-whirl and never came back. The entire town searched. No one found a trace.”
“Luke told me the police believed she ran off, like Caleb’s wife sixteen years earlier.”
“That has always been the town’s theory. But my grandmother was very clear about why she left Caleb, and it was no surprise when she drove away.”
“Yet your mother didn’t take anything with her? Not a wallet? Not a coat? Not even her purse?”
He shook his head. “She just disappeared.”
“What are you going to do about this new lawsuit?”
“Luke and I have to pay another lawyer to handle this for us.”
She released a long breath. Maybe this was why he’d been so distant lately. “Will that be a lot of money?”
“Probably.”
“I thought Luke was a lawyer?”
“Corporate hedge fund stuff. Not estate.” Abe slowed the truck as they drove around a tight switchback. “I’m not sure Luke is licensed in Virginia. He hated being a lawyer.”
“I’m sorry, Abe.”
He swallowed. “Caleb left that land to me and Luke because he knew we wouldn’t sell it off or turn it into a parking lot.”
“Then why is Isaiah contesting it?”
“My dad thinks that, as the eldest of Caleb’s six sons, he should’ve gotten first pick of all of Caleb’s properties. When my dad didn’t get first pick, he took that as a personal affront. He’s been dragging us through court ever since. Now Luke and I need to prove that while Caleb was ruthless, he wasn’t careless with his estate. He knew about our plans. His leaving us that land was no mistake.”
She watched the trees blur into each other, hating this setback pressing on him. He and Luke weren’t just building a business. They were trying to reclaim something that had been lost a long time ago.
Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.
