Taming His Montana Heart(10)
Some of those in the restaurant were probably looking at him, a solitary figure surrounded by winter. There was no way they could know what had brought him to Lake Serene. Maybe that was why he felt at peace tonight.
No. The guarantee of anonymity had nothing to do with the moment. What Haley Walters had said about the area was responsible. If he continued to mentally replay her words, hopefully bloody memories wouldn’t invade his sleep.
Haley who didn’t need to know how messed up he was.
*
Haley turned up the heat in her trailer as soon as she went inside. While she waited for the uncluttered space to warm and the oven to heat up, she made two trips to her SUV for the supplies she’d picked up in Kalispell. After putting the chicken in the oven, she restocked her refrigerator and put the few cans in the cupboard. Then she opened the package of prepared salad and dumped it in a bowl.
Her mouth watered at the thought of eating something she hadn’t cooked, but it would be a few minutes before she could. Instead of turning on the TV, she walked over to her living room window.
When she’d thanked Kolina for positioning her trailer so the window faced the woods, Kolina had explained that jockeying trailers was no big deal for her because she’d once been a long distance trucker so she could work with the man she’d been in love with. Then Brian had been killed on the job. For a long time Kolina hadn’t cared how she supported herself, but fate or something close to it had brought her here where Terron was already working. They’d found each other.
Been healed by each other.
And by Lake Serene. Kolina and Echo had told her she’d fall in love with Lake Serene like they had. Even Alisha Hearne who owned one of the private cabins across the lake and had recently gotten engaged to Nate Quaid who used to be the resort’s plumber had told Haley to prepare for the area to take hold of her heart and not let go.
So far it hadn’t happened.
Oh, she enjoyed being in the wilderness. Loved it in fact. But tempered with enjoyment was the pressure to prove herself so, if she wanted, she could return to this job every winter. Hopefully once she had the snowmobile operation running smoothly she’d be able to relax. In the meantime…
Frowning, she tried to remember what she’d been thinking about but maybe it didn’t matter. Instead of returning to the kitchen and dinner, she turned on the outside light. The trees grew so thick around her trailer that not all of the flakes made it to the ground. Branches drooped under the snow’s weight and she hadn’t seen the ground for several weeks.
There wasn’t a world beyond this small lighted space. Where she’d come from didn’t matter. She had no emotional baggage, no memories that sometimes turned into red-washed nightmares. It was quiet out there, the silence so deep she vowed to do everything she could to protect it.
She just wished there was someone she could share her thoughts with tonight. Not her family because her mother was dead and her older brother Mick had a wife and two teenage daughters.
Shaw maybe.
Not questioning the thought, she stroked her hand where his fingers had briefly rested.
*
It had stopped snowing during the night but the forecast was for more later today. Shaw had taken the stairs down from his apartment where he’d spent his usual restless night and had entered his office, which was adjacent to the restaurant, before daylight. Despite his vow to get some fresh air—his office had only one small window—it was midafternoon before he found an opportunity to make good on his promise.
He’d just stepped out back where he’d briefly stood last night when his cell phone rang. He was surprised and pleased to see that the call was from Haley.
“I’m not going to add to your to-do list,” she said as soon as he said hello. “I can handle this. Just thought you should know. Rey’s on his way. If you want, I’ll send you a picture.”
“A picture of snow grooming equipment?” He couldn’t reconcile what he thought she was talking about with her decision to involve his building contractor.
“No. Sorry. I didn’t explain, did I? I’m concerned about the amount of snow that’s on the snowmobile shed’s roof. I heard some groaning.”
His belly tightened. “Get out of there. If it collapses—”
“Don’t worry. I’m out. Rey is hopeful we can avoid disaster by scraping off some of the snow load.”
He trusted his foreman to assess the situation and do what needed to be done but that didn’t completely ease his mind. Haley’s safety was important to him, more so than it had been a few days ago.
“Don’t bother with a picture. I’ll be right over.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’ll have to dig out my rig first but it shouldn’t take long.”
He’d gone upstairs for his keys and was heading toward the parking slot he’d assigned to himself before it dawned on him that he’d practically hung up on her. Maybe he was in that much of a hurry to see her.
He had to yank on the truck’s door to get it to open. As the interior warmed and the defroster attacked the condensation, he scraped off snow with the long-handled scraper a long-time resort employee had given him not long after he’d come to work. At first he’d wondered if the scraper was a joke. He now accepted the gift as proof that he was welcome here. Knowing he had the support of at least some of the employees he’d inherited had helped ease his transition into a position he hadn’t wanted.