Wending my way through the wide, snow-blanketed streets of Aspen Ranch, I quickly lost my way. Lots of snow-covered trees and meadows looked like lots of other snow-covered trees and meadows. Plus, for all their money, the builders had messed up pretty dramatically on the street signs. They were long, slender, wood-carved affairs now completely frosted with ice and snow. Unfortunately, the numbers for the houses were also carved in this same style, and despite their placement at the end of each driveway, were illegible. I wasn’t having fun trying to find Thirty-two Aspen Ranch Lane, even though I’d been there before.
I finally got a clue from the mailboxes, grand wood-and-metal boxes painted with birds, pine branches, stagecoaches, and—thank you, Lord—
I slowed as we climbed Aspen Ranch Lane. I knew we were only about a mile from the Preserve, but the white expanse of trees did not look familiar. I’d visited the Stockham place when the ground had been clear and the wooden street signs legible.
Finally, I drew up to a long, gently ascending driveway that looked vaguely familiar, not because of the trees and rocks or snow-covered sign, but because a familiar vehicle was blocking the driveway.
Marla had told me at the jewelry party about Pam Disharoon’s white Audi, with its license plate GOGIRL. I groaned.
I hadn’t anticipated having to ask a
Another question formed in my brain as Liz and I sat in our vans, plumes of exhaust spiraling upward through the cold, moist air. Was Pam here to attend her brother-in-law’s cash-raising lunch?
Or was she here to disrupt it?
CHAPTER 14
Are the keys in it?” Liz demanded, banging on my windshield. When I shrugged, she raked her hair with her gloved hands, traipsed through what must have been ten inches of snow—it always snowed more west of town, here by the Preserve—and peered into the Audi.
“Think you should call them on the cell phone?” she cried.
I shook my head and jumped out of my van. “By the time I reach them, and they argue and debate until somebody decides to get dressed and come down here, I could have made it up there and put pressure on Shane to drive me back down.” I arrived at her side. Despite the fact that I wore a wool jacket, I shivered in the biting cold.
“OK. While you go up, I’ll stay and guard our stuff.”
I began the long tramp up the driveway. There was only one set of footprints in the snow, undoubtedly Pam’s. The uphill walk itself was actually very pretty, like being transported into a set for
After what must have been a mile of trudging, the large log house came into view, a pretty-but-oversized two-story affair that Shane had smugly informed me was in the style of Swedish Country. By the time I arrived at the carved front door and rang the bell, I felt as if I’d traipsed across Sweden by way of the North Pole.
“Where have you been?” Shane demanded even before I began shaking off snow in his foyer. “I was expecting you twenty-two minutes ago.” His face was flushed, his tone accusing. I told myself to count to ten. While silently ticking off numbers, I took in his outfit: cream-colored silk shirt, suede Western riding jacket, leather cowboy pants and boots, Stetson hat. Shane was apparently going to make his pitch costumed as a high-flying cowboy. Well, I’d seen weirder.
“There’s an Audi blocking your driveway,” I pointed out. “We can’t get in. And I need payment before we start.”
Shane heaved a sigh of exasperation. He mumbled, “The ring’s coming, I promise.” Then he hooked his thumb in the direction of female voices bubbling from the interior of the house. I tugged off my boots and shuffled past the dining room, which was beautifully done up with a lavish floral centerpiece, gleaming crystal, Imari-pattern china, and linens in rich red, navy, beige, and gold.
“Dining room looks good,” I mumbled, and forced a smile at Shane. I really didn’t want to carry my bad mood into a confrontation with Pam Disharoon.
“Oh, I got the flowers and styling done in exchange for a Palm pilot,” Shane replied. “And the china was one of Page’s many, uh, extravagances.”
The living room offered more Swedish Country stuff. This seemed to mean lots of tall white furniture, wood sculptures of forest nymphs, chunky tables, and etched portraits of Nobel prizewinners. A fire blazed and crackled in the moss-rock hearth. Still shivering from my trek up the driveway, I longed to warm myself in front of it. But I sensed that wouldn’t go over very well.
Pam and Page, both lounging in tall, white corduroy wing-back chairs, registered my arrival. Why was I bothering
“There’s an Audi in our way,” I announced to the two women. “We can’t get the vans up the driveway.”
“Oh, it’s mine,” Pam said offhandedly, reaching into a large Louis Vuitton purse. Was that purse the uniform tote of the yuppie set? And how had she avoided having it snatched by Teddy Fury? “I just
In my business, pots can boil over. The
“I’ll drive you back down,” Shane interposed hastily. “Need me to preheat the oven or anything?”
I swallowed the words
“Done.”
A few ringless minutes later, we were bumping down Shane’s driveway in his old truck. He had put on a navy cashmere coat to cover his invest-in-me outfit, and his nervousness was increasing to the point that he almost made me jittery.
“I’m going to get you the ring,” he announced preemptively, “I just need to wait until Pam and Page have settled into one of their little squabbles. Then neither one of them will leave her seat to get wine or whatever, and we can do the deed.”
“Shane—”
“I don’t know why Pam’s here,” he interrupted me. “Page told her we were having investors over for lunch, and Pam decided to crash the party. Unless she has a wad of money somewhere that I don’t know about, she’s just another mouth to feed. At best. At worst, she and Page will have a fight.” Slowing the truck, he shot me a worried look. “Do you sometimes have to break up arguments at catered events?”
