One Bride for Five Mountain Men

“—that reminds me!” she interrupts excitedly. “I just found this out. Do you know where we were?”

I bite my tongue, trying to cut off what I was saying and listen to her. “What do you mean? Do I know what?”

Suddenly she gets excited, bouncing up and down in the tiny screen. “The trail! Where we were skiing! Roger said that Tony said that the Carrutherses supposedly lived there!”

“Carrutherses? Who?” I reply, trying to see normal.

“Those guys! Those billionaires! The ones who faked their deaths like three years ago… you know… Whitney Carruthers, the widow? That Scott was supposedly dating?”

My lungs turn to concrete. I try to take a breath, but it just stalls in my mouth.

“What did you say?"

“Whitney Carruthers!” she repeats, laughing helplessly, waving her fingers in the air. “I mean, of course they only banged a couple of times or something. Good old Scott doesn’t have enough money to keep Whitney interested, but you have to remember her, right? I told you all about it!”

“No… No you didn’t tell me about that,” I choke.

I rack my brain. Of all the things that happened when Scott and I were breaking up, Whitney Carruthers was never even mentioned. I would have remembered that, I’m sure of it. But there really was so much going on. Scott did mention being in love with somebody… and Nance was constantly swooping in and distracting me with something or other. I thought she was doing me a favor, but maybe it was more than that?

“Okay, well, anyway,” she continues, apparently unaware that I am having a stroke right now, “like I said, they broke up. But we might’ve been skiing within feet of those guys. I mean, they supposedly faked their deaths, but everybody knows they are still alive. Now that’s a story! You should write about that!”

“Yeah, I will keep that in mind,” I mumble, looking away.

The connection goes silent for a second.

“Because if you did write about something like that,” she continues, more slowly, “that could be huge, Lola. That could be seriously huge. Like HuffPo or even New York Times huge.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it would.”

I can practically hear her mind churning. Nothing gets past Nance when she is determined to find something out. She is like a bloodhound.

“Lola? Do you have something else you want to tell me?”

I shake my head, forcing myself to smile at her through the app. I hope my face looks normal or at least believable. I’m very glad she is not in the room with me right now. I would crack, that’s for sure.

“No, there’s nothing else to tell you!” I exclaim brightly. “I just wanted to let you know, so you weren’t worried. You could call off the searches now, because I’m fine!”

“Seriously, Lola? Are you sure you are telling me everything?”

“I gotta go!” I continue maniacally. “Give my best to Chad!”

And I slam the laptop cover closed, my hands trembling. I’m not entirely sure what just happened there, but I don’t think that is the last thing I’m going to hear from Nance. Did I make us more or less safe, is the real question here?

Chapter 14

Jake

“Oh my God, are you walking?” I ask, stopping dead in my tracks with a breakfast tray in my hands.

Lola glances up at me, surprised and delighted with her mouth frozen half open in a wide smile.

“Well, sort of,” she grins.

“Are you sure you should be doing that?” I ask as I set the tray down on the table.

My hands go out from my sides automatically as she hobbles around, almost but not quite placing all her weight on her left foot with each step.