“I have to say, though,” Dana said, “that when the Pritchett boys and then this Traub fellow proposed at Miss Frontier Days, I did feel for you. I actually regretted entering you into the pageant…for about two minutes.”
“No major harm done.”
“So if he does take you out, where do you think it’ll be?” Dana asked, not even remotely off the subject of Jackson. “Bowling? Cow-tipping in the fields?”
“Hilarious.”
“You’ve totally been thinking about your choices.”
Lying was futile, and Dana was smirking now.
“What?” Laila asked.
“You’re fidgety about this. Laila Cates, I’ve never seen you so nervous, not even back in our junior year, when you had your very first date, with Gary Scott.”
Nervous? Her?
Couldn’t be.
Laila opened the door, smiling caustically at her friend. “Isn’t it time for you to get back to the loan desk?”
Dana smoothed down her red skirt and headed for the exit. “You’re affected, Laila. A-F-F-E-C-T-E-D.”
And she left, still smirking.
Laila tried to get back to the paperwork on her desk, plus the million-and-one to-do items on her list, but she just couldn’t focus on work. So it was almost a relief when she saw the bank’s elderly owner, Mike Trudeau, walking by the windows of her office.
She’d been waiting for her boss to come in for hours and, even before she went to him, she marked him off her to-do list, then rose from her seat. With a smooth gait, she went outside, following him to his own office, which was decorated with a huntsman’s touch, featuring kitschy, homey things like a mallard clock and a painting of buffalo roaming a prairie.
He was standing behind his desk, accessing his computer when she walked in.
“Morning, Laila.”
Casual, friendly, with the silver hair of a grandpa…He shouldn’t have intimidated Laila in the least, especially since he’d shown up to check in on his business dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater, just as laid-back as usual.
And, as usual, Laila put on the same façade that made everyone think that nothing ever got to her.
“Morning, Mike. Do you have a moment?”
“For our reigning Miss Frontier Days? Always.”
He motioned toward the chair in front of his large oak desk, and she sat, crossing her legs, slipping a folder toward him.
“Ah,” he said. “Do we have another idea today?”
She was used to this bit of harmless condescension in his tone, and she kept smiling, even if every idea she brought to him seemed to end up in the garbage heap. Or, more likely, she suspected that there was a vortex that could only be accessed through a drawer in his desk, and that was where her ideas went.
But that didn’t stop her from trying again, especially since this particular idea was closer to her heart than usual.
“Yes, sir, I’ve got another one,” she said, folding her hands in her lap.
He didn’t make a move to open the folder, so she started her pitch, determined that he would at least hear it.
“It’s no secret that most people in Thunder Canyon have been hit hard by the economy,” she said, leaving out the fact that Mike Trudeau himself was flush right now, along with his bank.
“True enough.” He was still fussing with his computer.
“And I know you’ve expressed an interest in getting this town back on its feet. You’ve been meeting with the mayor, along with other leading members of the community. I don’t know how many ideas you’ve come up with, but if you’ll take a look at some figures I’ve put together to support what I have in mind…”
Mr. Trudeau finally opened the folder, but his expression didn’t change.
Laila cleared her throat. “I think the bank is in a position to make more loans to struggling local homeowners and small businesses in Thunder Canyon and, as you’ll see, I’ve proposed some avenues to do that, while benefiting our business in the long run.”
“Interesting,” he said, paging through the folder.
Laila couldn’t stop looking at the top of his silver head, and when she realized that her fingers were clutching her skirt, she loosened her hold.
Mr. Trudeau closed the folder. “Looks like that college business degree did you some good, Laila.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Beats getting an MRS degree, like the girls in my day used to do.”
Laila kept her mouth shut. Even though she’d decided to major in business because she thought she should, rather than out of a love for the subject, she was proud of her accomplishments. So were her parents, who’d always emphasized a firm work ethic in their household.
Her boss sat in his chair with a sense of finality. “I’ll go over it, Laila. Thanks for your work.”
She almost said, “But…”
Yet she didn’t, even if, so many times before, she’d heard Mike Trudeau use the same brush-off.
Sometimes, when she talked to him, she felt as if there was no substance in her at all. But maybe this time he would believe that there was more to her than what he saw—something she’d tried, and failed, to prove all too recently at Miss Frontier Days.
Holding back that frustration, she got up, thanking her boss again, then headed for the door.
She shut it behind her, adapting a pleasant expression for the customers who greeted her on their way to the tellers’ windows.
In spite of what had just happened, as long as Laila could use her brain, she was going to keep putting proposals on her boss’s desk. She would keep on fighting the good fight… .
On her way across the tiled lobby, a woman’s voice stopped her.
“Laila!”
She turned to find Jacey Weidemeyer, one of her friends from high school who patronized the bank. She was dressed in jeans and a thick sweater that almost hid the reminder of a recently pregnant belly.
And she was holding a baby.
For some reason, Laila’s heart twisted at the sight of the newborn in Jacey’s arms, an infant swaddled in a pink blanket with a tiny knit hat covering her head, her eyes closed in sleep, her skin smooth and rosy.
“Oh,” Laila whispered. “She’s beautiful.”
Jacey stroked her daughter’s cheek. “Meet Hannah. This is the first time we’ve gotten out of the house since I gave birth.”
Laila touched the baby’s little hand. Tiny nails. Tiny fingers.
Her heart seemed to sink inside her for some reason.
Jacey said, “We’re going to have a reception in a few weeks. I’ll email you an invitation.”
“I’d…” What, love to go? It was the last thing Laila thought she would ever have said. She amended herself appropriately. “I’ll be there.”
After they finished chatting and Jacey left for the teller’s window, Laila looked after her and Hannah, pangs invading her deep and low.
Was it because of what Cade had said last night about how he could give her children before it was too late?