“Maybe she would have changed her mind. If she'd lived. If she'd seen how hard it would be.”
The words hung between them like icicles, sharp and ready to fall. Before Kate could respond, her phone rang. Brian from the bank.
“Kate, I need those projections we discussed. The board meets Friday.”
“I'll have them to you by Thursday.”
“Good. And Kate? I heard Lillian Whitfield is in town.”
Small towns. Nothing stayed secret long.
“She is.”
“That could be good for you. For the inn, I mean.”
Frustrated that everyone in town seemed to know more about her family history than she did. “I'll send the projections Thursday, Brian,” Kate repeated and hung up.
Dani looked at Kate. “The bank?”
“They want a business plan. Proof the inn can survive.”
“Can it? Without help?”
Kate didn't answer because they both knew the truth. The inn was dying, slowly but surely, like Pop, like Lillian, like everything she loved.
“You’re impossibly stubborn, do you know that?” Angry, Dani got in her car and drove away.
“You have no idea,” Kate whispered to no one.
Later that night, after Dani had returned to her hotel and Pop was safely in bed, Kate sat in the office with Lillian's folder. She didn't open it, just held it, feeling the weight of possibility. Outside, the moon rose in the sky, turning the snow-covered world silver.
She thought about her mother, young and in love, choosing this life over that one. Had Elizabeth ever regretted it? In those last days, when the cancer was winning, had she wished for reconciliation?
Kate set the folder aside, still unopened, and pulled out her laptop. She had a business plan to write, numbers to make work somehow. She would save the inn her way, without Lillian's money, without strings or conditions or the weight of forgiveness she wasn't ready to give.
But as she worked, she could hear Pop's voice from this morning, confused and lost: “Where's Elizabeth?” And wondered how much longer she could hold everything together on her own.
CHAPTER 5
The morning arrived gray and bitter, with the kind of cold that settled into bones and stayed there. Kate had been up since four, reconciling bank statements in the office while the inn slept around her. The numbers hadn't improved with repetition; she was still short for the mortgage payment, still behind on utilities, still pretending that somehow March would be better than February.
Pop was having a good morning. She found him in the kitchen at six, fully dressed and making scrambled eggs, humming an old tune she recognized from her childhood. These moments of clarity were precious now, rare enough that she held her breath, afraid to disturb them.
“Morning, Katie-girl,” he said without turning around. “Want some eggs?”
“Sure, Pop.”
She sat at the kitchen table, the same one they'd eaten at her whole life, and watched him move through the familiar motions. His hands were steady today, his movements sure. This was the father she remembered, competent, caring, present.
“That Ben fellow stopped by yesterday,” Pop said, sliding eggs onto two plates. “Good man. Knows his way around a hammer.”
“He's fixing the roof.”
“I know what he's fixing.” Pop gave her a look she hadn't seen in months, knowing, slightly amused. “Also knows his way around my daughter.”
“Pop…”
“I'm old, Katie, not blind. Man doesn't show up at dawn to plow snow just for the business. Didn’t you go to school with him? I think I remember his family.”
