Jessica Lemmon - A Snowbound Scandal

“Told you. Holiday hookup.” Her sister shrugged. “You should invite him for no other reason than we can skewer him at the dinner table about being a dirty politician while you’re the Snow White of Bigfork.”

Miriam had to laugh at her sister’s imagination.

“Plus, it’d be fun to watch Mom go from simmer to boiling over while she tries to make sense of a mayor at her table.”

“It was a dumb idea. Forget I mentioned it.” Miriam just hadn’t liked the thought of him alone on a holiday. How ridiculous was that? She wasn’t in charge of his well-being.

“Spoilsport.”

Topic dead, they went back to chatting about everything but sexy mayors and summer flings.

Two hours later, the pies had finished baking and were cooling on the stovetop. Miriam had poured herself a glass of red after Kristine left, and camped out on the sofa, laptop and charts spread on the coffee table for work. But the website she’d pulled up had nothing to do with work. It was the City of Dallas website, particularly Chase’s headshot. He looked merely handsome in that still frame. He’d been devastatingly gorgeous in person.

Chase’s business card in hand, she rubbed her thumb over his phone number.

One glass of wine was all it took to weaken her resolve. That and the smell of sweet potato pie in the air.

“Damn him.”

She swiped the screen of her phone, dialed the first eight digits of the phone number, then paused.

Why should she care if her ex-boyfriend ate alone on Thanksgiving? Shouldn’t she embrace the idea of the jerk who broke her heart spending the holiday alone in a way-too-big-for-one mansion? Except she’d always been horrible at holding grudges, and even the blurry, faded memories of her broken heart couldn’t keep her from completing the task.

She dialed the remaining digits and waited patiently while the phone rang once, twice and then a third time. When she was about to give up, a silken voice made love to her ear canal.

“Chase Ferguson.”

“Chase. Hi. Um, hi. It’s Miriam.”

“Miriam?”

“Andrix,” she said through clenched teeth. Was it that he’d had so many other women in his life over the last decade that he couldn’t keep track of them? Or was it that he’d forgotten her already even though she’d bumped into him yesterday afternoon?

“I know. I think of you as Mimi.”

That husky voice curled around her like a hug. He’d always called her Mimi, and to date had been the only person who had, save her best friend in the third grade. Her family either called her Miriam or Meems.

“Is everything all right?” If that was concern in his voice, she couldn’t place it. His tone was even. His words measured.

“Everything is fine. I, um.” She cleared her throat, took a fortifying sip of her wine and continued. “My mother lives about twenty minutes north of Bigfork. We make enough for Thanksgiving dinner to feed ten extra people. You’re welcome to join us tomorrow night.”

She pressed her lips together before she rattled off what would be served and how she’d baked two pies that were presumably his favorite. She wasn’t begging him to show up, simply extending an invitation as an old acquaintance.

Silence greeted her from the other end of the phone.

“Chase?”

“No. Thank you.”

She waited for an explanation. None came. Not even a lame excuse about having to work like she’d used tonight. Though she truly did have to work. She scowled at her laptop and his handsome mug before snapping the lid shut.

“Will there be anything else?” he asked. Tersely.

At his formal tone, ire slipped into her bloodstream as stealthily as a drug. Her back went ramrod straight; her eyebrows crashed down.

“No,” she snapped. “That concludes my business with you.”

“Very well.”

She waited for goodbye but he didn’t offer one. So she hung up on him.

“Jerk.” She tossed the phone on the coffee table and rose to refill her glass. She’d called out of the kindness of her heart and he’d made her feel foolish and desperate.

Just like ten years ago.

“This is who he is, Miriam,” she told herself as she poured more wine. “A man who owns a sixteen-million-dollar mansion he rarely visits. A man whose only interest is to increase his bank statement and buy up beautiful bits of land because he can.”

She swallowed a mouthful of wine and considered that, as much disdain as she’d had for Chase’s mother then and still, Eleanor Ferguson had been right.

Miriam and Chase were better off apart.

Four

Miriam hadn’t been in her mother’s kitchen for more than five minutes before she started airing her grievances about Chase and the phone call from last night.

Kristine was placing freshly baked rolls into a basket and her brother Ross snatched another one and dunked the end of it into the gravy.

“He’s the mayor of what?” their older brother asked around a bite.

“Dallas, dummy,” Kris replied. “And stop eating my rolls. I made three dozen and you’ve already snarfed three of them.”

“Four.” He argued. His mouth curling into a Grinchy smile.

Kristine sacrificed one more that she tossed at him, but Ross, former college football player that he was, caught it easily, struck a Heisman pose and absconded to the dining room.

“He doesn’t act thirty-nine,” Kris grumbled. “Anyway. Chase is a jerk and I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“Yeah, well. I’m sorry I didn’t say what I thought to say until after I hung up.”

“Such as.” Kristine motioned with a roll for Miriam to go on.

“I would’ve informed him that I wasn’t one of his underlings and I deserved better treatment than a haughty No . Thank you .” She dipped her voice into a dopey tone that didn’t sound like him, but made her feel better. “I’d have told him that I became a success without his billions and in a field where I wasn’t causing global warming. My line of work is admirable.”

“It is, sweetie.”

“Thank you.”

Miriam had completed her degree in agricultural sciences, going on to do compliance work behind a desk for a few years until she realized how wholly unsatisfying it was to push papers from one side of her desk to another. Five years ago, she’d found the Montana Conservation Society and stumbled into her calling. She’d started as program manager and was then promoted to director of student affairs. She mostly worked with teenagers. She taught them how to respect their environment and care for the world they all shared. She found it incredibly rewarding to watch those kids grow and change. Several of the students who came through MCS wouldn’t so much as step on an ant if they could help it by the time she was through with them.

And yet Chase had dismissed her like she was a temp on his payroll.

“I should’ve gone over to his big, audacious house and told him what I think of his wasteful habits and egomaniacal behavior.”

“Who, dear?” Her mother stepped into the kitchen and gestured to the basket of rolls. “Kristine, to the table with those, please. We’re about to start.”

“No one,” Miriam answered. “Just... No one.”

Kris shuffled into the dining room and Judy Andrix watched her go before narrowing her eyes and squaring her jaw. Since Miriam’s father, Alan, had died five years ago of complications from heart surgery, her mom had taken it on herself to play both the role of mom and dad. It wasn’t easy for any of them to lose him, but their mother had taken the brunt of that blow. Thirty-nine years of marriage was a lifetime.

“Miriam, would you grab those bottles of wine and take them to the table for me?”

“Sure thing.” Relieved the conversation was over, she did as she was asked.