Bitterroot Lake

“How do you know which are which?” Peggy asked. “And doesn’t historic listing limit what you can do?”

“Experience. And yes, historic listing imposes some limitations, but it also gives you potential access to funding and tax credits for restoration,” Becca replied. “Now, the real challenge is identifying comps. There’s nothing like it on Bitterroot Lake. We’ll have to consider properties throughout the region—even down on Flathead Lake and in the Swan Valley. Adjust for the size and age of the house, the outbuildings, the acreage.”

Sarah was only half listening as Becca outlined the process of setting a list price and devising a marketing plan. She was thinking about decades of McCaskills racing down the steps, running out the doors, and tumbling down the lawn. Jumping in the cold water and screaming in delight. Sailing, canoeing, riding horses. Sledding. Hiking up the narrow trails and gazing out at the lake and the mountains, ridge after ridge and range after range, stretching farther than the eye could see. She was thinking of all the people with more money than sense, who turned classic buildings into nightmares, and those whose eyes were bigger than their budgets, who left the job half done. She was thinking about Ellen Lacey and Caro and Mary Mac. About the Ladies’ Aid Society and her own friends. Her daughter, her sister, her niece.

“It’s a fabulous place,” Becca said, “but realistically, a tough sell. It’s going to take a buyer with vision, time, and passion, not to mention the money.”

Peggy sighed. “We have some serious thinking to do.”

“Take all the time you need.” Becca glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to get going. I should stop to check on the rental next door, but—”

“Next door?” Sarah interrupted her. “George’s place?”

“He moved into his mother’s house a while back. The little one up near the highway. He put the lakefront house in our rental pool. A woman from San Diego has it for a couple of weeks—she’s very nice. I haven’t had time to hire someone to help manage the rentals, let alone the second homes. I’m meeting Misty and Dan at the law office. She’s ready to sell but I think they’re better off waiting.”

“Who would want it?” Peggy asked. “After what happened.”

“And to think I ran into his secretary right when it was happening,” Becca continued. “At the post office. She was in a gabby mood. Hard to get away, but I didn’t have time to talk.”

Since when did Becca let that stop her? Though Sarah was beginning to find her chattiness endearing. Still, it was hard to imagine Renee Harper going gabby, and her description of the encounter was just the opposite of Becca’s.

“I’ll leave you with our brochure and a sample listing agreement.” Becca slid a folder toward Peggy, who slid it over to Sarah, and they all stood. “By the way, I hear you met my son.”

Sarah tilted her head, puzzled.

“Matt,” Becca said with a smile. “Looks just like his father, doesn’t he?”

Sarah’s gaze flicked to Becca’s left hand. Sure enough, a slim gold wedding band. Not that she knew who every high school classmate had married—the reunions had never come at a good time, and she only kept up with a few girlfriends—but Becca and Matt, one of the nicest men she’d ever met? Or had she just never noticed Becca’s good side?

“Good job, Becca,” she replied. “Good job.”

“What do you think?” Peggy asked as Becca drove away.

“I think we have a lot to think about.” She held the front door for her mother. Inside, Peggy ducked into the powder room.

Everything Becca had said—and she could hardly believe this, but it was true—made perfect sense. The lodge needed serious help. Serious capital. Serious commitment.

It was crazy. Nuts. What would Jeremy think?

She glanced at the coffee table where the scrapbook and albums lay next to the box of letters. When she remembered Caro’s words, she knew Whitetail Lodge belonged in the hands of a woman. Her hands. Though the lodge had come to her mother through JP, it had been Ellen Lacey’s vision and Caro’s passion. Mary Mac’s domain. She, Sarah McCaskill Carter, could not be the one who let it go. How she was going to manage, how convince her mother, and her brother and sister, she had no idea.

She didn’t care. It was what Caro would have wanted. It was what she wanted.

An empty wine glass sat on the side table, left over from last night. She picked it up and caught a glimpse of something shiny. Caught her breath as she stared, open-mouthed, at the penny that lay on the Navaho rug.

And knew in a flash what Jeremy thought.

* * *

“Mom,” Sarah said as she, Peggy, and Janine admired the windows Janine had shined to a sparkle. “What do you know about our great-grandmother, Caroline? Caro?”

Peggy’s brows arched well above her zebra-striped glasses frames. Specks of green paint dotted the gray-blond hair at her temple. She ran a hand through her hair, remnants of more green paint in her cuticles and under her nails. Funny that she hadn’t minded Becca seeing the paint. More likely, she hadn’t noticed. She’d ridden out with the real estate agent, planning to take Sarah up on yesterday’s invitation to stay for dinner and get a ride back into town.

“Caro is the reason I married your father,” Peggy said. “I was crazy in love with him, of course. But when I met her, I knew I wanted to be part of this family. Years later, Mary Mac told me she’d had a similar feeling when she married Tom. Her mother died when she was seven and her father didn’t have a clue how to raise a girl. She always said Caro taught her what it meant to be a woman, and to tend to a family. When we told Caro your name, she cried. She died a month later.”

“I’m so sorry I never knew her.”

“Now you’ll dismiss this as woo-woo,” Peggy said. “You kids all like to be practical. But I think that once she met you, she was ready to go.”