LITMIR.BIZ

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to a lodgepole. It was a lazy thing to do, but all of a sudden she felt like being a little lazy. After the day she’d had, she deserved some laziness and a nice cup of hot chocolate on top of that! “Hello,” she said, when the woman who called herself Laura Stewart answered the phone. “I was wondering if you have a room available for one night.” She glanced across the street and discovered the little shop White Elk Confectionary, specializing in chocolate. Fate? “Maybe two nights,” she added, because she really did want that chocolate. Sure, it was almost spring—technically spring had sprung a few days ago, but there was still snow on the ground here, in patchy spots, so in Gabby’s mind she was allowed her craving for hot chocolate. “One person,” she added. Well, almost two.

      According to Laura, there were plenty of rooms available, so Gabby crawled out of her rental car, stretched her aching back, decided not to look down in the inevitable lost cause of locating her puffy ankles, which she couldn’t see now anyway, and forced herself not to waddle when she walked inside, although several friends back home had recently commented on her waddling.

      “That didn’t take long,” the friendly-looking strawberry blonde at the desk said as Gabby dropped her overnight bag on the floor and her purse on the desk.

      “I was just outside. Called from the parking lot. These days, if I can find a way to be lazy, I do it.” She smiled. “Actually, I look for ways to be lazy and the more pregnant I get, the lazier I want to be.”

      “Don’t blame you. Been in your condition three times myself, and if ever there’s a time to be pampered…”

      If there was someone there to pamper you, Gabby thought, her eyes going immediately to Laura’s ring finger. A simple gold band there said it all. She had someone to pamper her, where Gabby did not. But that was fine because, normally, she didn’t need pampering. In fact, she prided herself on her independence.

      “Is this your first?” Laura continued.

      Instinctively, Gabby laid her hand on her belly. Yes, her first. Unexpected. Very welcomed. “Yes, it is,” she said, not really sure she wanted to go any further. People reacted differently to her situation and it wasn’t a matter of feeling awkward in her very pregnant, very unmarried condition so much as it was that she didn’t want to make people feel awkward around her. She was a medical doctor, she knew how these kinds of things happened, and in a moment of weakness, well, it had happened to her. No excuses, no apologies. “And I saw a lovely little baby shop down the street. I thought I might go take a look after I’m rested. I haven’t really started baby shopping yet.”

      “You haven’t?” Laura seemed genuinely surprised. “I think I was out buying baby bootees about ten minutes after the test strip confirmed my pregnancy…with my first. With my second it took about an hour, and with my third about a day.” She glanced down at Gabby’s belly. “I’m surprised you could hold off this long.”

      It wasn’t so much that she was holding off as it was she was scared to make plans. “Oh, I’ve figured that I’d probably do a big binge shop when the time comes. You know, go crazy, buy everything in the store. But I haven’t had time.” And she’d had patients who’d put all their hopes and dreams into a miracle baby, like hers, only to be heartbroken. Even though she had only two months to go, she wasn’t ready to invest herself in so many hopes. “Who knows, maybe Handmade for Baby will be the lucky recipient of all my saved-up baby-shopping urges once I’m rested.”

      Laura laughed. “Janice Laughlin will love you forever. She’s the owner. Anyway, speaking of getting rested, I think we should get you to your room. The ski season’s over now, except for a few brave souls who hang around hoping for late snow. So, you can have your choice of rooms—one here in the lodge—something small, a large suite. Or you can have a cabin all to yourself.”

      “You have cabins?” That sounded like the coziness she wanted. “With a fireplace?”

      “With a fireplace.”

      A cabin with a fireplace in a ski-resort community, baby shopping, hot chocolate…Suddenly, Gabby was looking forward to her next couple of days. It was like this was exactly the place she was meant to be. Yes, nesting. Her patients talked about it all the time—finding the place you wanted to be, settling in, dwelling on your pregnancy. Now, for the first time, she believed she understood what that meant, and if this was, indeed, nesting, it agreed with her because she wasn’t feeling so bleak, so alone, like she had too many times these past months. “A cabin…Yes, I’d love a cabin with a fireplace.”

      “It’s a little bit of a hike to get up there,” Laura warned. “Not steep, but not so convenient to the parking lot as the lodge is.”

      “In spite of the obvious, I’m in good shape. Just a little tired right now because I’ve been on the road for a while, and I really hate traveling. Generally, though, I’m active and a nice walk back and forth will do me some good.” Especially now that she didn’t get all the exercise she had when she’d worked every day.

      “Good. But I still don’t want you lifting anything heavy, so I’ll have my daughter carry your bags up to the cabin when she gets home from school in a couple of hours…”

      Gabby shook her head. “Not necessary. All I have is an overnighter, and I can carry it myself. I didn’t expect to be staying so I didn’t bring much with me.” Actually, she wasn’t sure what she had expected when she’d set out on this trip. A quick announcement to Gavin Thierry, letting him know he was about to become a father, then a quick retreat? Certainly she hadn’t expected much from him. After all, there’d been no lasting relationship. But to find out what she had…“Thanks, anyway, for offering.”

      Laura spun around the register for Gabby to sign, then handed her the cabin key when the paperwork was completed. “We have a dining room here, but if you’d like…” she took a look at the name on the register “…Gabrielle, I can have someone bring dinner to your cabin later on.”

      “Call me Gabby.” Her father had been the only one ever to call her Gabrielle, and hearing someone else call her by that name now hurt. “And I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather come down to the dining room, if it’s all the same to you. I think getting out, keeping myself active, is a good idea.” As an obstetrician, it’s what she prescribed for her patients. Then scolded them when they didn’t take her advice.

      “Well, if you need anything, call the main switch. Oh, and so you’ll know, we do have a small hospital in the village, not that I think anything will happen. But to be on the safe side in case, well…you know…there’s the White Elk Hospital, and it’s pretty nice. Very good in general services for adults and, believe it or not, well known for its pediatric practices. And what we lack in bigtown medical services we make up for in some very nice, very competent doctors and nurses.”

      Glowing praise that intrigued her, and she caught herself wondering what it would be like working in a small town like White Elk. And raising her son here. “Well, I’m not due yet, so let’s hope I won’t be needing any medical care while I’m here.”

      Wasn’t this what she wanted? A fresh start, someplace other than a large, impersonal city like Chicago? That’s what she’d told herself when she’d sold her share of the medical practice to her partners and, just last week, had started the process of putting her condo on the market with the expectation of finding someplace else to start her new life. She was looking for something different, something she wasn’t quite able to define. That’s what she kept telling herself, anyway. What it was or where it would be were still great big questions, but she trusted that she would know it when she saw it.

      Could it be White Elk? The feel was right, it was definitely different from what she’d had, but it was also so small. Moving here from Chicago would be a huge culture shock and with all the other drastic changes going on in her life now, she wasn’t sure she should even think about one like this. White Elk had nice shops and a bed in a cozy cabin for a night but, generally, she liked a few more amenities around her, and a few more luxuries. This was a place where you spent a nice holiday, but to settle here?

      Crazy

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