“Jessie’s not in yet.”
“That’s all right, I’m early for the meeting.”
“You always are,” Sal called out as Bodine veered off, taking the turn that led back to the resort manager’s office. Her office.
She liked the size of it. Big enough to hold meetings with staff or managers, small enough to keep those meetings intimate and personal.
She had a double window looking out on stone paths, a portion of the building that held the Feed Bag and the more exclusive Dining Hall, and fields rolling toward the mountains.
She had deliberately arranged her grandmother’s old desk with her back to that window, avoiding distractions. She had two high-backed leather chairs that had once graced the office in the ranch house, and a small sofa—once her mother’s and now reupholstered with a sturdy weave in a strong summer blue.
She hung her coat, hat, and scarf on the coatrack in the corner, smoothed a hand over her hair—black as her father’s, worn in a long, straight tail down her back.
She had the look of her grandfather—so his widow always said. Bodine had seen photographs, and acknowledged her resemblance to the young, doomed Rory Bodine, who’d died in Vietnam before his twenty-third birthday.
He’d had bold green eyes and a wide, top-heavy mouth. His black hair had had a wave to it while hers ran ruler straight, but she had his high cheekbones, his small, pugnacious nose, and the white Irish skin that required oceans of sunscreen.
But she liked to think she’d inherited her grandmother’s canny business sense.
She went to the counter that held the pod machine that made tolerable coffee, took a mug to her desk to go over her notes for her first two meetings of the day.
As she finished up a phone call and an e-mail simultaneously, Jessica came in.
Like Maureen, Jessie wore a dress—a sharp red in this case, paired with a short leather jacket the color of top cream. The short, high-heeled boots wouldn’t last five minutes in the snow, but they matched the red dress as if they’d been dyed in the same batch.
Bodine had to admire the slick, unassailable style.
Jessica wore her streaked blond hair pulled back in a sleek coil as she often did on workdays. Like the boots, her lips matched the dress perfectly and suited her slashing cheekbones, her slim, straight nose, and her eyes of clear, glacier blue.
She sat as Bodine finished the call, taking her own phone out of her jacket pocket and scrolling through something.
Bodine hung up, sat back. “The coordinator for the Western Writers Association’s going to contact you about a three-day retreat and farewell banquet.”
“Do they have dates? Numbers?”
“Projected number ninety-eight. Dates are January nine arrival, departure on January twelve.”
“This January?”
Bodine smiled. “Their other venue fell through, so they’re scrambling. I checked and we can work this. We slow down right after the holidays. We’ll hold the Mill for them, for the meeting rooms and banquet, and the number of cabins she requested for forty-eight hours. The coordinator—Mandy—seemed organized, if a little desperate. I’ve just now sent you, my mother, and Rory an e-mail on the particulars. Their budget should work.”
“All right. I’ll talk to her, get a meal plan, transportation, activities, and so on. Writers?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll alert the Saloon.” Jessica made another note on her phone. “I’ve never organized an event for writers that doesn’t run a big bar tab.”
“Good for us.” Bodine wagged a thumb at the little coffeemaker. “Help yourself.”
Jessica simply lifted the Irish-green Bodine Resort insulated cup of water she carried habitually.
“How do you live without coffee?” Bodine wondered, sincerely. “Or Coke. How do you live on water?”
“Because there’s also wine. And there’s yoga, meditation.”
“All of those things put you to sleep.”
“Not if they’re done right. You really should do more yoga. And meditation would probably help you cut back on the caffeine.”
“Meditation just makes me think about all the other things I’d rather be doing.” Leaning back, Bodine swiveled her chair side to side. “I really like that jacket.”
“Thanks. I went into Missoula on my day off, splurged. Which is nearly as good as yoga for the mind and spirit. Sal tells me Linda-Sue’s going to be a little late—news flash—and her mother’s coming with her.”
“That’s the latest. We’ll deal. They’re booking fifty-four cabins for three days. Rehearsal dinner, wedding, wedding reception, basically taking over Zen Town the day before the wedding in addition to the other activities.”
“The wedding’s only four weeks away, so that’s not much time to change their minds, add more fluff.”
Bodine’s wide mouth tipped into a smirk. “You’ve met Dolly Jackson, right?”
“I can handle Dolly.”
“Better you than … anybody,” Bodine decided. “Let’s go over what we’ve got.”
They went over the list top to bottom, and had moved on to a smaller holiday party event the week before Christmas when Sal stuck her head in the door.
“Linda-Sue and her mom.”
“Be right there. Wait, Sal? Order up some mimosas.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Smart,” Jessica said after Sal popped out again. “Fuss over them and soften them up.”
“Linda-Sue’s not so bad. Chase dated her for about five minutes in high school.” Bodine rose, tugged her dark brown vest into place. “But mimosas never hurt. Let’s soldier up.”
Pretty, curvy, easily flustered Linda-Sue paced the lobby with her hands clasped between her breasts.
“Can’t you just see it, Mom? Everything decorated for Christmas, the trees, the lights, a fire going like now. And Jessica said the Mill’s just going to sparkle.”
“It better. I’m telling you we need those big candle stands, Linda-Sue, at least a dozen. Gold ones, like I saw in that magazine. Not the shiny gold, the classy gold.”
As she talked, Dolly scribbled on a page in the brick-thick, bride-white wedding binder she carried.
Her eyes looked slightly mad.
“And red velvet—dark red, not bright red—laid out on the path from where the sleigh stops instead of white. It’ll show off your dress better. And I’m telling you we need a harpist—wearing red velvet with that classy gold trim—to play while people are coming in to get seated.”
Jessica drew in a breath. “We’re going to need more mimosas.”
“I hear you.” Bodine pasted on a smile, stepped into the breach.
*
Bodine gave the classy gold wedding forty minutes, then escaped. In the three months since Jessica had filled the slot as events manager, she’d proved herself more than capable of handling a fussy mother and a dithering bride-to-be.
In any case, Bodine had a meeting set with the food and beverage manager, needed to answer a couple of questions from one of their drivers, and wanted to cross a discussion with their horse manager off her list.
The winding, hilly gravel road from her office to the Bodine Activity Center （the BAC） ran nearly a half mile, but the minute she stepped outside into that apple-crisp air, she decided she wanted the hike rather than the drive.