Mary’s relief was evident in her wide smile. “Thank God. I was worried that you were going to be a bit of a pill with the new boss. I should have known you’d be mature about it. I’m sorry for not giving you the credit you deserve. Honestly, I don’t know what I was worried about now that I think about it. You’re not the hotheaded kid you used to be. You’re a mother, for crying out loud. Sheesh. Sometimes I embarrass myself. Jim is always telling me to stop being so dramatic.”
Miranda laughed, the sound hollow to her ears, yet Mary remained oblivious to her distress, thank heaven. “You worry too much, Mary. Now, don’t you have work to do?” she teased. “Go on, get out of here.”
Mary left the office and Miranda expelled an audible sigh. “Of all the rotten luck...”
Was karma kicking her in the ass for everything she’d been doing over the past years? It hardly seemed fair when karma had already kicked the shit out of their family.
Laughter rang in her memory, pulling her away from her present pickle and into a time before her sister had died.
“Your snowboarding skills are about as good as your cooking skills,” Wade had teased Simone as he slowed to a stop beside her with a laugh. She’d landed on her rear for the third time as she’d tried unsuccessfully to slow down properly and instead simply tumbled to her behind in a spray of snow.
“Stop laughing and help me up,” Simone grumbled, then wobbled and lost her balance, falling again. She slapped the snow and pouted. “I hate snowboarding. I want to go back to skis.”
Miranda pulled up alongside her baby sister as Wade and Trace followed on their boards. They’d all switched from skis to boards except Simone, and she was having a difficult time making the transition. “Don’t give up, Simone. We all fall when we’re learning. Are you going to be a quitter just because it’s hard?” she asked. “Give it a chance. Besides, if you don’t want to be left behind, you need to learn.”
“Come on, klutz,” Trace said as he and Wade helped Simone to her feet. “You got this. Try again. It’ll get easier.”
“It won’t. I suck at it.”
“It’s true. You kinda do,” Miranda agreed, earning a black look from her twelve-year-old sister as Simone wiped the snow from her snowsuit. “But,” Miranda added with a wink, “at least you look good doing it.”
At the small compliment, Simone broke out into a reluctant smile, which seemed to bolster her courage and firm her determination. “Okay. I’ll try one more time but that’s it.” She sighed and looked to Trace and Wade. “Show me again how to stop....”
But Simone wasn’t a quitter in spite of her complaints, and after plenty of ribbing, lots of laughter and more than a few tumbles, Simone finally caught on. After that the Sinclair family had been unstoppable on the slopes. In fact, in time, snowboarding had become Simone and Miranda’s favorite pastime together.
Miranda smiled as she remembered their times at Olson Mountain as teens. Miranda had been eighteen and getting ready to leave for college while Simone had been a know-it-all fifteen-year-old who’d been prettier than any young teen ought to be.
“If you did something more with your hair than just throwing it up in a ponytail, you’d probably get more dates,” Simone had advised as they rode the tow rope up the mountain. Miranda cast her young sister a derisive look and Simone laughed. “No, I’m serious. You’re so pretty but no one would ever know because you’re always acting like a boy. Try a little mascara once in a while, you know?”
“I don’t have any problem getting dates.”
“Okay, well, how about a boyfriend?”
“I don’t need a boyfriend right before I leave for college.”
“Good point,” she said as if she hadn’t thought of it from that angle. “Don’t want to be tied down. College is filled with yummy college boys.”
“Ugh, kid. You’re too boy crazy. Focus on school. Have you thought of what you want to do with the rest of your life?”
“Miranda, live a little, please. Right now I’m focused on my next dance recital and my cheer competition in Anchorage. Anything above and beyond that is way past my interest level.”
“You mean that and your unusual interest in my love life,” Miranda quipped.
“Well, what are big sisters for if not for introducing their hot college friends to their cute little sisters?”
Miranda laughed. “Glad to know I’m good for something.”
Simone smiled brightly and it was hard not to love the kid to distraction. She just had a way about her that was plainly adorable. Simone had been born with magic in her veins.
Miranda closed her eyes, waiting out the echo of grief that followed the memories, until she could safely open her eyes without tears.
How would their lives have been different if Simone had lived?
She supposed it was human nature to wonder, to travel down a road that she knew was a dead end, but when she found herself walking that path most times she became irritated. Simone had died. End of story.
The minute she’d successfully shut down thoughts of her sister, a different sort of unwelcome thought crashed into her mind that was equally irritating but hard to ignore.
If the situation were different, and Miranda had met Jeremiah under completely different circumstances, maybe... No, don’t go there. That’s not how we met. That’s not our story. Stop trying to rewrite the ending.
But even as she stamped down any flicker of wistfulness, there was a part of her that refused to let it go. There was a moment last night when wrapped in his arms she’d felt at home, relaxed. Of course, this was completely at odds with how she usually felt after spending an evening with a man. What a fantasy.
She’d come to the realization that whatever essential component was required for a long-lasting monogamous relationship was utterly broken inside of her. If she were being petty, she would blame that on Talen’s father, but that was being weak. Fact of the matter was, even though Johnny hadn’t known the meaning of the word monogamous, she hadn’t been blind to that from the beginning. Hadn’t expected it, either. So when word came back to her that he’d been messing around, she hadn’t been surprised when she felt nothing for the betrayal. Inside Miranda’s chest where her heart should have been was a lump of ice that, apart from her love for her son, was deeper and colder than the oldest glacier. And every man who’d had the misfortune of mistakenly trusting her with his heart and feelings had left the relationship soured and disillusioned. Miranda just wasn’t the type to settle down and play house.
And a part of her hated that about herself. But if there was one thing she knew, it was that you couldn’t run from whom you truly were and so she didn’t even try.
One hidden blessing in all this mess was that she wouldn’t have to worry about Jeremiah mooning over her, hoping for a relationship out of their torrid encounter. He looked just as ready as she to completely forget last night.
And Miranda was more than willing to play along. As far as she was concerned, they never happened.
CHAPTER FOUR
JEREMIAH SURVEYED HIS new office, taking time to note small details. He didn’t much care that it wasn’t fancy or the epitome of a corner office—he’d never been one to put