Part 8 (2/2)
”But I sell wine,” Ed reminded him, ”and it goes pretty d.a.m.n good with chocolate. We should put our heads together and see what we can come up with,” he said to Samantha.
”I think it's a smart idea,” Heinrich put in. ”And if it brings people here, it's good for all of us. Why not capitalize on the fact that our town has a chocolate factory?”
”I like the idea, too,” Annemarie said.
”G.o.d knows we need to do something after the dead winter we've had,” Olivia added. ”And I'd rather offer some special packages and have my place full than sit around and do nothing until the bank takes it.” Her cheeks turned red and she cast an apologetic glance at Blake. ”No offense.”
”None taken,” he a.s.sured her. ”Cascade Mutual wants to be part of this community, and working together is in all our best interests.”
What a hypocrite, thought Samantha.
Discussion continued for another ten minutes, with Hildy raising every kind of imaginable objection. Finally Todd shrugged and said, ”Do what you want. It won't affect my business either way.”
”That's for sure,” Charley muttered in disgust. ”As long as there are losers and beer in the world, he'll be fine.”
”We'll take a vote,” Ed announced. ”Do I have a motion?”
The vote was almost unanimous, with Todd abstaining and Hildy casting a resounding no.
”This is a waste of money,” she informed Ed as she left, but several people lingered to congratulate Samantha on her great idea.
”I'll be happy to help with the planning,” Olivia volunteered.
”Me, too,” Ca.s.s said.
”I'm already thinking about the menu for your chocolate dinner,” said Charley. ”How does chocolate pasta with French cheese and artichokes sound for one of the courses?”
”Heavenly,” Samantha murmured. And expensive. ”Remember, we need to turn a profit.”
”Trust me, we will.”
”I think this will be wonderful,” Heinrich gushed. ”We could become the perfect Northwest destination for lovers. Annemarie,” he called, hurrying after her. ”We should work together on a romantic package.”
”Don't forget to include chocolates in it,” Samantha called after him, and he grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.
They were on their way. She beamed as people walked past, promising to help.
”I think you'd better set up an email loop,” Jonathan Templar suggested. He was her computer tech expert and owner of Geek G.o.ds Computer Services. ”So you can all keep one another up-to-date.”
”Gee, I wonder who we can get to do that,” she teased. ”Hopefully, someone who works cheap.”
”Since it's for the town, I'll offer my services for free,” he said, pus.h.i.+ng his gla.s.ses up his nose. ”And I'll build you a special website. I can have it up and running in a couple of days.”
”You're my hero,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek, making his whole face turn russet.
From the corner of her eye she caught sight of Blake, old Mr. Community Spirit, talking with Ed while watching her. He gave her what he must have considered an encouraging smile, which made her seethe. Oh, yeah, the bank wanted to do what it could to help the community, all right. Unless a business was really in trouble. Then they could forget it.
She turned her back on him and said to Charley, ”Let's go. I've got a lot of work to do.” Like saving a company.
Chapter Eight.
If you can't manage your family, what hope do you have of managing a business?
-Muriel Sterling, When Family Matters It was going on two in the afternoon and Muriel had done about all she wanted to for one day. She'd gotten dressed. Now she was on the couch, looking through one of her photo alb.u.ms.
The cordless phone rang and she picked it up from the coffee table where it was slowly losing juice. Caller ID told her that her eldest was on the other end of the line.
Not now, she decided, and set the phone back down. She loved her daughter, but sometimes Samantha simply exhausted her.
This was nothing new. She'd begun by keeping her pregnant mother awake half the night with her in-the-womb acrobatics, and she hadn't been any easier to corral once she'd left for the big wide world. Samantha had never been fond of the word no, which had made her a top seller in school fundraisers. It also made her a challenge to raise. She'd always pushed the boundaries on everything from allowances to clothing styles to curfews. By the time the other two girls came along, Muriel had given up on her idea of holding the reins of parenthood tightly and had gone lenient.
”I never got to stay out that late,” Samantha would complain when Bailey came dragging home at midnight. ”And you're going to let her stay out all night for prom?”
Frustration with her mother's choices hadn't stopped with such minor issues. ”Mom, you can't put Waldo in charge of this company. He's a sweet man and I know he wants to be involved, but he doesn't understand how we do things.”
”He's a businessman,” Muriel had insisted. ”And he'll bring new ideas to the table.”
The fallout from that decision had taken her relations.h.i.+p with her firstborn to new lows, and so far she hadn't been able to atone for her bad judgment. So she'd vowed that whatever her daughter needed to do, she'd be supportive. But putting on this festival just seemed so impossible. Merely thinking about it exhausted her. The last thing she wanted to do today was talk about it.
With a frown, Muriel refocused her attention on the pictures from her honeymoon cruise with Waldo. There they stood at the s.h.i.+p's railing, the turquoise waters of the Caribbean serving as a backdrop, smiling like a couple who had many good years ahead of them. She sighed and turned the page and fingered the picture of them seated at the captain's table, her in her evening gown and Waldo in his tux. They should've just kept cruising and left Samantha to run the business.
She flipped through the pages, blinking back tears at the snapshots of their short life together: picnicking at Lost Bride Falls, enjoying dinner at the s.p.a.ce Needle in Seattle, posing in front of the tree last Christmas. She looked at the brave face he was putting on and felt tears forming. They'd known about his condition for a month by then but hadn't told the girls. The holidays hadn't seemed like the right time. Now there was no point in saying anything, especially to Samantha. She'd only feel bad about how angry she'd been with him.
Samantha. With a sigh, Muriel picked up the phone to check the message.
Her daughter's voice was filled with energy. ”Good news, Mom. The Chamber is behind us. Our chocolate festival is a go. Looks like you're going to be busy for the next several weeks.”
Busy for the next several weeks, and all with a daughter living at home again.
Not that she didn't want Cecily back-she would be a comfort. But she would also be...here. And even though Muriel loved her daughter, she'd rather not expend valuable energy pretending she was doing well. She just wanted to sleep or sit in the office and stare into s.p.a.ce or look at pictures. She'd been down this road before and it didn't get any easier the second time around. In fact, she was sure it was harder.
And how to explain that to her daughters, to anyone? How could you explain the ache of loss, the deep well of sorrow, to people who hadn't experienced it yet?
The moment that thought emerged, she knew she wasn't being fair. Her daughters had experienced the loss of a father they adored.
Still, they were young. They had their whole lives before them. They'd find men who loved them and build lives with those men. Muriel wouldn't. She'd been blessed to find two wonderful men in one lifetime. There would be no third time for her. And, that being the case, what would she do with the rest of her life? She'd spent so many years as a wife and companion. What was she now?
Still a mother, she reminded herself, and that was a role a woman never stepped out of. Life goes on.
What a depressing saying! On days like this it seemed wrong that life kept going when someone you loved died. Now hers wasn't going to simply keep going it was about to turn into a whirlwind, and she wasn't ready. But she would be. For everyone's sake she had to be. She'd call Samantha...tomorrow.
”That's great,” Cecily said after Samantha told her the news.
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