“I see.” Her mother was obviously absorbing it all.
Had she stopped in today to meet Dillon because Erika had gone to dinner with him?
Emilia squiggled to be let down. Erika didn’t want to let her daughter run free but there was little she could get into in the waiting area except magazines on the coffee table.
As Dillon watched the toddler, he commented to Constance, “Erika didn’t mention she had a daughter.”
“My daughter likes to keep her personal life to herself,” Constance answered.
Erika noticed Dillon’s gaze pass over her desk where no pictures or any personal effects were displayed and she could see the questions in his eyes, along with dark shadows she didn’t understand. But she couldn’t answer his questions here and now and didn’t even know if she wanted to. He’d probably run in the other direction if he knew her history. He was so polished, so confident, so sure of his place in life. In so many ways he reminded her of Scott. Yet when she was alone with him …
Her gaze collided with his. Everything seemed to go quiet except for the beating of her heart.
Suddenly Emilia tired of pushing magazines on the coffee table. She ran for Erika but at the last minute detoured and headed for Dillon instead. She ran into his leg and he caught her so she wouldn’t fall.
The toddler looked up at him and giggled as if what she’d done was great fun.
Erika stooped and caught Emilia again, lifting her high in the air. Emilia raised her arms and waved them. “Mommee, Mommee. Fwy!”
Erika explained, “She likes when I lift her up high so she can pretend she’s flying.” Instead of giving her daughter her way, Erika shook her head. “Not here. We’ll fly at home.”
The phone on Dillon’s belt chimed. “Excuse me,” he said, watching Erika with Emilia. He glanced at the caller ID. “I have to take this.” He spoke into the phone. “Just a minute, Grant.” Turning to Erika’s mother, he smiled. “It was good to meet you, Mrs. Rodriguez.”
“It was good to meet you, too, Dr. Traub.”
Then Dillon came very close to Erika and gently ran his hand over Emilia’s hair. “It was a pleasure meeting you, too, little one.” His gaze was so tender yet filled with a deep emotion Erika couldn’t read.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said to Erika. “Go ahead and leave. You were here early and put in a long day. Ruthann can handle any calls coming in now.”
With a last wave for Emilia, he disappeared down the hall and into his office.
“You like him,” her mother whispered to her. “That’s dangerous.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I learned my lesson the last time.”
“I hope so.” Her mother still looked worried.
Erika knew liking Dillon Traub was not going anywhere. She had even more to lose now than she had three years ago. She would not let a man ruin her life again.
At D.J.’s Rib Shack that evening, Stacy tilted her head and asked Dillon, “How often can you get away from the lodge?”
They’d been catching up over a dinner of ribs and corn bread. “I’m not chained here,” he joked. “But I was hired to treat the guests so I don’t like to go too far. If I do want to go out for an evening, I can give Dr. Babchek a call. He’s retired and can back me up if Ruthann needs him.”
The restaurant wasn’t far from the main lodge. The Rib Shack was nestled in among boutiques that stretched from the lodge through the resort.
Dillon glanced at the mural on the wall of the restaurant, the one D.J.’s wife, Allaire, had painted. For some reason, thinking about D.J. and Allaire and their two-year-old turned Dillon’s thoughts to Erika and Emilia. The little girl was a miniature replica of her mother, glossy wavy hair, big dark eyes. She was a beautiful child—and Erika was a beautiful woman. Dillon sensed there was a lot more to his receptionist than met the eye. She seemed mature beyond her years, unless he was just trying to fool himself.
“Dillon?” he heard Stacy say.
“Yes.”
“I asked if you’ve seen D.J. and Allaire since you’ve been back this time.”
“Not yet. But soon, I hope.”
“What were you thinking about?” the perceptive social director asked. “You seemed miles away.”
“Not so many miles.” Studying Stacy, he said, “I was thinking about my receptionist, Erika Rodriguez. Before I left the office tonight, her mother came in with her little girl. I didn’t know she had a child and I wondered why she kept her a secret.”
“Emilia’s not a secret,” Stacy muttered.
It was the way Stacy said it that made Dillon take notice. “Is there a hidden meaning there?”
Stacy hesitated and Dillon suspected why. She wasn’t the type of woman who liked to gossip, but he wanted to know more about Erika and he wasn’t sure she’d tell him herself. “I don’t want you to reveal anything you shouldn’t,” he assured her.
“Can I ask why you want to know?”
Should he say that he was interested in her, when he was trying to deny that fact himself? “We’ll be working together this month. I’d feel better knowing something about her background.”
Toying with a morsel of corn bread still on her plate, Stacy finally shrugged. “I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you. Most of Thunder Canyon knows her story.”
“Her story?”
“Oh, Dillon, you know how gossip spreads in small towns, especially here in Thunder Canyon. I’m sure tomorrow at the resort several people will ask me about my dinner with you.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “Think about the feud between Dax and D.J. and how that was all over town for years, especially after Dax and Allaire got a divorce and then D.J. started seeing her.”
“Water under the bridge,” Dillon muttered, knowing both of his cousins were extremely happy now. They’d settled their feud and actually become brothers. Not only that, but each had found the right woman to make them happy.
“Yeah, but that water has a lot of debris in it.” Stacy pushed back her plate and propped her chin on her hand. “Erika was run through the gossip mill from one end of town to the other. After high school she waitressed for a while and took a couple of business classes in Bozeman. She’d settled into a job as a receptionist for a real-estate agency in Thunder Canyon when the boom took off. I think she intended to get her real-estate license eventually and start moving up. Then a businessman named Scott Spencerman came to town. He found a condo through Erika’s agency, one here at the resort. Erika was only twenty-three. He was older, but she caught his eye. He flattered her and charmed her, gave her presents, but didn’t particularly take her out in public much, if you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean. If he cared about her—”
“She cared about him. She thought she was in love with him. He was a businessman who traveled a lot and only wanted the condo here for skiing in the winter, and maybe some hiking in the summer. He didn’t want a life here. He wanted entertainment while he was here.”
“Stacy—”
“You asked,” she drawled.
After a long pause, he asked, “So what was the gossip about?” He felt annoyed that people couldn’t keep their noses where they belonged.
“The rumor was that Erika was a gold digger