I said no. Thank you, but nope.
“But we want you there,” said Royce, in his wide-eyed, sweet way. He’d stopped me in the hall after dinner, just the week before Thanksgiving, when all the planning was getting underway. You have to book a cruise in advance, I found out. “Don’t think for a moment that we don’t.”
I looked at Royce with my hardest glare, the kind that would make any thug back down, and said, “I won’t tell Jonah, but I see the ring in your jacket pocket. When you hung it up on the hook just now. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“I never imagined for a minute that you were,” said Royce. He didn’t back down, but his voice wobbled. He also looked troubled, because if there was anything Royce hated more than anything else, it was to have his plans be, as he would say,disturbed. “You won’t tell him, will you?”
“Course not,” I said, pushing my hair off my forehead, because in that moment, my heart was beating hard and I washot all over and I wanted to hide it. Jonah get married? Then I’d really be a third wheel. That life was not for me, and it was wild that it took me until that time to realize it. “Spoil it? Not me, man.”
“And you won’t come on the cruise?” His sweet face was tight with worry.
“No, man,” I said. “You two go. I’ll be fine with Grandad.”
He contemplated this as he looked down the hallway to the dining room, the casual one. (There was a fancy one and a breakfast one and a casual one. For fuck’s sake. Who needed three dining rooms?)
“Grandad’s going to Florida to go golfing,” he said. “I’d hate to leave you all alone here.”
“House full of servants,” I said stoutly, though I shuddered to think of those folks with nothing to do but wait on me all night and all day.
“What about this?” asked Royce. And then he paused. I waited because, as I’ve learned, Royce’s ideas are usually good ones. “I give you the credit card and you book yourself any vacation that you’d like.”
I laughed because there was more than one credit card floating around. I’d only ever asked for it once, when the compressor in the garage busted. Grandad said to order a new one and put it on account. He wanted me to call up the local grange and order that compressor and just say,Put it on the Thackery account. Holy crap. Having access to that much money must be fun.
“Anywhere?” I asked.
“You could go anywhere,” said Royce. “Fly, drive, take the train. Anywhere, stay a week. That way, I won’t feel bad about leaving you on your own. You have carte blanche.”
The writing was on the wall. When people get married, as far as I could tell, they wanted to be alone. Alone together. They certainly don’t want to have a garage mechanic with a couple oftattoos and not enough good breeding to not wipe his hands on his jeans all the time. It was time I got used to thinking about making a life of my own.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll book something.”
Royce handed over the credit card then and there, though, to be honest, I know he really had wanted me to come with him and Jonah on that cruise. He just had a credit card on him at all times, and I was kind of flattered that he’d trust me with it. I’ll admit I had to look up whatcarte blanchemeant.
We got through Thanksgiving without any fights, but then, the Thackery were not only rich, they were polite and not prone to throwing mashed potatoes at each other. Also, I waited too long—never having booked a fancy vacation like that, you see—because by the time I sat down at the computer in the den (there was only one of those), it seemed every trip, every package, was booked for Christmas.
I scrolled for hours. Hours till I got a cramp in my hand, and Royce was starting to talk about booking the adjoining cabin on that cruise, against my protests.
All the cruises, the tours through some swampland down in South Carolina, the gala Christmas market somewhere in Germany, even a crappy, low budget Chicago City Tour and Show Package—all booked.
So I figured I’d put together something of my own and booked five nights at some fancy hotel at some ski resort in the Colorado mountains, in a town called Steamboat Springs. Far enough away to make a nice drive, close enough that I could drive there in a day.
I got rooms at a hotel called The Anchorage at Steamboat Springs. One night cost four hundred dollars, and that was just a single queen room, so the hotel bill alone was two thousand.
Add to that a thousand bucks on a mountain-worthy car rental, a Volvo V90 Cross Country in a deep green color. It hadgood ground clearance, all wheel drive, and heated wipers, seats, steering wheels, climate control, and remote start.
It wouldn’t be as grumbly and sexy as Olive, my green 1968 Pontiac GTO, but it’d be a nice luxury ride, something I seldom got. A good long drive with only my handpicked playlist on Spotify and my own thoughts to keep me company.
I also booked a huge spa package, that was another thousand, though I figured I might get more use out of the hotel’s secluded hot tub, soaking with a G &T while I looked up at the stars.
As for skiing, fuck that shit. I might go for a walk in the woods, but there was no way I was strapping skis to my feet just so I could barrel down an ice-covered hill at a billion miles an hour. Count me the fuck out. Hot tub and me, yes. Ski, no.
CHAPTER 2
There were two routes from Montana to Steamboat Springs open to me. The first one took me through Billings, and down I-90 East, and on down through back country mountain terrain along the 120 to Craig, Colorado. From there, it’d be an easy hop to Steamboat Springs and the hotel.
Then I saw I’d save an hour heading down along the I-25, and then cutting over the 30 and then the 40 and through the mountains to Steamboat. Plus, when I checked the weather, it looked like it might snow, so it’d be smart to save as much time as possible.
I was a good driver on snow, and the Volvo would make me the safest thing around. All I had to do on the drive was to avoid any idiots, and I was very good at that. I packed the front seat with beef jerky and string cheese. Plus a few bags of Bugles, and a large four-pack of giant Reece’s peanut butter cups. I didn’t bring along any soda because Royce had told me over and over again that soda was bad for me and frankly, I was not up to hearing it again. So I packed a cooler with bottles of water and iced tea.
