Timber Creek (Sierra Falls 2)

“How hard, really?”

Sorrow laughed. “Enough already. Stop fretting over Eddie. He’s a good guy. He wouldn’t intentionally do something that was bad—for us or for the town. ”

Laura sulked at that, knowing it was the absolute truth. He’d been so much safer when he wasn’t a good guy. She turned her attention to her own magazine, blindly flipping through.

Good guy. That was the trouble. He was a good guy.

“Why do you have such a bee in your bonnet about him, anyway?” Sorrow’s hands grew still. Not looking up from her Vanity Fair, she said, “Unless you secretly like him. ”

She groaned. That was the problem.

“I know,” Sorrow said, misunderstanding. “You’re holding out for your zillionaire. ”

Would she really want a zillionaire? She certainly wouldn’t find one in Sierra Falls.

For half a second, she considered telling her sister about the job offer from her old CEO. She considered the offer itself. If she took her old job back, it’d solve all kinds of financial problems for the family. It’d mean better health insurance. A bigger cushion for all of them. Not to mention the fact that she’d meet all kinds of single executive types.

And she was sure very few of them spent their free weekends taking kids camping.

“This one’s kind of boring. ” Sorrow traded Vanity Fair for Vogue and became engrossed in several pages of ads.

“Did you know he takes poor kids camping?” she blurted.

“Who, Eddie?” It took Sorrow a second to get what she was talking about. “Yeah,” she said warily. “Billy helped him a couple months ago with one of the kids. ”

She waited a moment, letting the silence hang, then demanded, “Well?” She stared at Sorrow, who was aggravatingly engrossed in her reading. “What happened?”

Her sister shrugged. “One of the older boys got into a scrape, but Eddie vouched for him, and Billy intervened. Convinced Reno PD the kid just needed a talking-to, rather than sending him to juvie. ”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sorrow looked at her like she was nuts. “I didn’t think you’d care. ”

“Hmph. ” She went back to her magazine, more flustered than ever, and flipped angrily through the pages.

So, he was a good guy. A nice guy. A good egg.

She looked up with a huff. “Well, he could be a saint for all I care, but he needs to get his business in order. ”

Sorrow finally spun her salon chair, facing Laura completely. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I can’t finalize our fourth-quarter budget until I have a full picture of what our expenses will be. ” She turned her attention back to a spread on fall dresses. “If he’s such a good guy, you can tell him he needs to bill us. ”

“Bill us for what?” Sorrow asked, sounding perplexed.

“For all the stuff he’s done around the lodge. Who knows what that’s all going to come to. ”

“I do,” Sorrow said. “Nothing. ”

“What do you mean, nothing? It’ll add up to something, believe me. These contractors charge a fortune. ”

“Eddie never charges Dad. They’ve got something worked out. I mean, we pay for materials, but his labor is always free. ”

“What?”

“You’ll note he never has a bar tab,” Sorrow said with a smirk.

“This is serious. Our expenses are out of control. Somebody needs to keep track of everything, and that somebody is me. ”