A Father For Her Child - Laurel Greer Sutter Creek, Montana

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hit the snow like a bent, human slingshot. Fire ripped from his knee to hip and tore a scream from his throat. He flipped forward and yelled again as he began to slide down the hill. The cold burn of snow scraping against his face kept him from completely blacking out from the inferno engulfing his left side.

       Get on your back.

       Roll.

      Floundering, fighting the knives slicing into his body, he obeyed his instinct and flailed onto his back. Head pointed downhill, he squeezed his eyes shut against the bluebird sky. Holy mother. The mounds of snow jerked his body. His leg seared as if he were bouncing down a coal bed instead of a steeply pitched hill.

      “Zach! Hang on!” Andrew’s shout broke through the buzzing in his ears.

      Trying to stop himself, Zach banged his right arm on something hard and the inferno spread to his biceps. He struggled to get air into his lungs. He had to stop. Had to be okay. His parents and sisters would kill him if he was seriously injured. And Cadie... Her sweet face filled his mind and he forced his limbs to relax as he rocketed down the slope. He wouldn’t get hurt as badly if he could just stay loose. But the jolts to his body, rattling his joints and lashing fire along his leg and arm, made it damned hard not to go rigid.

      Was this what his friend felt when the avalanche swallowed him?

      With pain closing in on all sides, Zach refused to give in to the encroaching black.

       I can’t leave Cadie alone. Sam already did that.

       Chapter One

      July

      “Who stuck you with construction detail? You’ll be lucky if you’re done by opening day.”

      Kneeling next to eight zillion pieces that theoretically made up a free-weight rack, Cadence Grigg ignored her sister Lauren’s abrupt announcement. She glared at the sheet of illustrated instructions next to her on the floor. Driving rock music, chosen by the receptionist who’d arrived a little while ago and was happily setting up the front desk, pumped from the built-in speakers and muffled Cadie’s curses.

       Easy assembly. As if.

      Lauren shifted on her feet and cleared her throat. With her blonde hair plaited into two sweaty French braids and body clad in workout clothes, she must have just finished up at the membership-only gym that adjoined the physical therapy facility of Sutter Creek’s new wellness center. “Bit of a mess in here.”

      “Thanks, tips.”

      “I’m just saying...”

       You’re just saying you think I’m taking too much on.

      Nerves danced in Cadie’s chest. Irritation, too. Maybe once this place was up and running, her family would finally stop thinking of her as the grieving, pregnant woman she’d been when her husband died eighteen months ago. They would see her as the competent single mom and professional she was. But getting upset wouldn’t help her cause. She inhaled, taking a hit of latex-and-rubber construction smells. New paint, new floors, new possibilities. For her family’s venture, and for Cadie.

      “It’s progressing nicely,” she said.

      “Uh...” Lauren’s gaze flitted from the stacks of boxes of exercise and therapy equipment to the half-assembled massage table crowded against a mirrored wall. “I’m sure you have a vision.”

      “I meant the rack is progressing nicely,” Cadie ground out. She waved a hand at the chaos that she’d somehow turn into a functioning PT clinic before Evolve Wellness opened in ten days. “But I’ll deal with all this, too.”

      “You sure?”

      “Yes, I’m sure.” She jabbed a finger at the opaque glass wall that separated the exercise space from the reception area. “Treadmills are going there. Pulley systems and exercise benches adjacent. And all those boxes are going to fill the treatment rooms. You should see the stuff I’ve ordered, Laur. My old boss wouldn’t even know what it is, it’s so up-to-date.”

      “Sounds great,” Lauren said warily.

      “No, it sounds like you’re accusing me of overextending.” She took a centering breath and started screwing one of the rack’s support pieces onto what looked like part of a shelf.

      Lauren knelt on the opposite side of the pile of metal pieces. “It is a lot...”

      “And I’ve got it under control.” She’d finish setting everything up, even if she had to bring her eleven-month-old son Ben’s playpen and put him to bed here for the next ten days.

      “It’s not that you can do it, it’s when. I don’t want you to burn out before Evolve even opens.”

      “I’m not delicate, Lauren.” Her jaw tensed, making her molars creak. “Ben’s in daycare three days this week. And my staff is pitching in.”

      “But—”

      “Evolve was my idea.” She’d been working out of borrowed space since Sam’s death, and she was more than ready to be in charge. She’d proposed the facility—a place where physical therapists worked alongside practitioners of massage, reflexology, Reiki and other holistic methods—to her dad as a new branch of their family’s company. Wellness complemented AlpinePeaks’s high-end ski-resort business model, but nonetheless, her dad had put a lot of faith in her plan. “And I will make it succeed. Starting with finishing this stupid rack.”

      She lined up another shelf piece on the support bar. The holes weren’t flush. Grrr.

      “It’s backward,” Lauren murmured.

      Cadie’s neck burned. “I knew that.”

      So much for being competent. She could name the six-hundred-plus muscles in the human body, but stick her with furniture assembly and she became illiterate.

      Flipping the piece around, she jammed a screw through the now-aligned holes. “I can do this myself.”

      “Yeah, right. I’m never going to forget that IKEA shelf that you managed to turn into a wooden spider.” Lauren held out her hand. “Let me look at the instructions.”

      “Worry about your own office. And stop being a mother hen.”

      Wincing, her sister retracted her hand. “Crap. Sorry. I wasn’t going to do that anymore.”

      “I know. You’re trying. Sometimes.” Cadie sighed. “Were you sneaking in a gym visit before the grand opening?”

      “Yeah, couldn’t resist all the shiny new toys. And it was now or wait for tomorrow. There are only about two hours a day where I don’t feel like puking up my morning handful of soda crackers.”

      “Can’t say I miss that part of pregnancy.”

      “Can’t say I’ve figured out any part of pregnancy that’s worth it. Other than the endgame, I’m assuming.”

      “It is. So are the looks I keep seeing Tavish give you. It’s like it’s Christmas morning every moment of his day.” Cadie would have given a lot to see that same look on Sam’s face when she was pregnant with Ben. All she’d gotten was fear and resentment.

      She tried to keep a smile on her face but it wobbled.

       I’m happy for my sister. I’m happy for my sister.

      She’d repeat it until the envy receded. Because even if she’d wanted to risk falling in love again, she didn’t have the time. Ben kept her running for half her hours and the wellness center was turning that jog up to a sprint. Those two things would keep her perfectly fulfilled, damn it.

      Lauren plopped down on the ground. “Zach showed up just as I was

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