“Maybe I shouldn’t bother them.”
Trudie waved away the objection with her chubby hand. “Tim doesn’t stand on ceremony. Besides, if Stella isn’t there, he’ll probably know where she is.”
Trudie’s instructions seemed simple enough, but Caroline soon discovered that the hall didn’t continue in a straight line but made several abrupt turns. She passed a couple of narrow stairways rising to the floor above. She hugged herself against a penetrating chill in the dank, shadowy hall. The only sound was her own steps vibrating on the planked floor.
When the silence was broken by a floating echo of Stella’s laughter, Caroline let out a breath of relief. Quickening her steps, she reached a door that opened into a low-ceilinged room with one window and an outside door. The furnishings were meager: a desk, a couple of straight-back chairs and some gray metal file cabinets.
A muscular man of about forty, with a weathered face and sandy hair was half sitting on the corner of the old desk and smiling at Stella who stood close by.
Both turned quickly in Caroline’s direction when she appeared in the doorway. From their startled expressions she couldn’t tell whether she’d interrupted something personal or they were just surprised to see her.
Stella waved her in. “Come and meet Tim Henderson. He’s the boss around here.”
“Hardly,” he objected with an easy smile.
“I told you about her, Caroline Fairchild. She’s the decorator who’s going to help me put a little class in this place. And about time, too,” Stella added as if she’d fought more than one battle on this subject.
“Welcome to Shadow Mountain,” he said, shaking her hand. From his slight Western drawl, Caroline assumed he was another Texan. “Reckon you gals are going to be pretty busy, all right.”
“You better believe it. Maybe we’ll start here.” Stella gave him a teasing smile as she glanced around the packed office.
“Not on your life, honey.”
“Oh, you men. Wes has already warned us to leave his suite and the gun room alone. You’ll be sorry when you see how beautiful the rest of the lodge turns out.” She turned to Caroline. “I’ll show you the lodge and we can decide where we’ll start first.”
Tim walked with them to the hall door. “I hope you can keep a rein on this gal. She can be a handful sometimes.”
Caroline wondered if he was speaking from experience.
As they walked down the hall, Stella explained, “We have our own generator, water supply and telephone service via Telluride. Cell phones are useless here. And no house mail delivery. We order groceries from Telluride or go after them ourselves.”
As they toured the main floor, Caroline was thoroughly frustrated with Stella’s ambivalence about making any decisions about basic changes she wanted. They could end up with a hodgepodge of fabrics, colors and furnishings that completely lacked harmony and balance.
Caroline was ready to call a halt to the unorganized approach and suggested they spend the afternoon going over some basic plans.
“Oh, I can’t,” Stella said. “You’re on your own for the rest of the day. We’ll get together again tomorrow morning and go over some ideas.”
Caroline swallowed back a protest. A myriad of initial decisions had to be made before they could proceed. Spending only half days working out the details could extend the project almost indefinitely.
Caroline would have made an issue of the matter if she hadn’t already agreed to spend the late afternoon with Wes and the children.
“I’ll show you the workroom and you can get set up there,” Stella said as if she sensed Caroline’s impatience. “I’ve made a collection of magazines, books and articles that offer some good suggestions. You could look them over and see what you think.”
“That might be a place to start,” Caroline agreed.
When Stella showed her the workroom and Caroline saw the pile of material stacked on a long work table, she silently groaned. It would take more than one day to go through that collection.
“I set up my laptop and printer.” Stella motioned to a small table. “I thought that would be an easy way for you to make some notes. Anything else?” she asked.
“No, that’s fine,” Caroline lied. The woman hadn’t given her any clues about what she had in mind nor any specific changes she wished to make in any of the rooms. Caroline was thoroughly frustrated. If Stella had already decided on some definite ideas, this would be the time to share them, but she left Caroline alone in the workroom without another word.
As Caroline sifted though a pile of books and a dozen magazines, all new, she didn’t see any signs that Stella had gone through them. Usually clients marked specific ideas that they liked or turned down pages for easy reference.
Caroline leaned back in her chair, suddenly overwhelmed by the project ahead. How could she hope to please Stella when she didn’t have a clue how to begin to shape her nebulous ideas?
When she left the workroom and returned to Felicia’s apartment, Danny and Cassie were happily playing with clay. If her son had missed her, there was no outward sign of it.
“Time to go downstairs for lunch,” she told him.
“I don’t like that stuffy old dining room,” Cassie said, wrinkling up her pert nose.
“Me, neither,” Danny echoed.
“Why don’t I fix the children something here?” Felicia offered.
“Yay,” they said, almost in unison.
Caroline laughed. “All right. I’ll be back after lunch to get you for your nap, Danny.”
When he groaned, she reminded him that they were going horseback-riding later in the afternoon.
“Oh, I forgot.”
“I don’t want you to fall asleep on Cassie’s pony.”
“Blackie will keep him awake,” Cassie promised with a grin.
On the way downstairs, Caroline realized she would much rather have stayed and had lunch with the kids. When she reached the dining room, she was even more regretful.
Dexter was the only one there. He was wearing burgundy leather pants and a plaid shirt that only emphasized his beefy build and pot belly.
“Hi there, pretty lady,” he greeted her as she came in, immediately rising to his feet. He stayed at her elbow while she selected soup and salad from the buffet and then ushered her over to the table where he was sitting.
“Where’s Wes?” she asked pointedly as he guided her chair to the table.
“Oh, he’s holed up in his suite, working. The price of being rich, I guess. He has to keep on top of things no matter where he goes. No rest for the weary—or the rich,” he added, grinning. “Wes has probably talked to a dozen big shots this morning, keeping the wheels of commerce moving, you know.” His tone was tinged with something that might have been jealousy.
“It’s too bad he can’t relax when he’s here,” Caroline said, already impatient with the man’s boorish manner.
“Oh, I think he does. This lodge has really been a godsend. It’s one of the blessings his grandfather left the family. I doubt that Wes or his father would have built it. When his parents died Wes inherited all the family property and fortune held in escrow for the oldest living male Wainwright.” Dexter gave Caroline a knowing wink. “Wes is quite a catch for any gal who plays her cards right.”
Caroline forced