A Promise at Bluebell Hill (4 page)

The widows were always looking for ways to raise money for the Valentine Valley Preservation Fund, Monica knew. Last year, they'd gotten in some pretty hot—­and illegal—­water using Josh's newfound leatherworking fame. Okay, not so much because of his craftsmanship, but the sexy “cowboy artist” photo that had gone viral. Josh had at last agreed, along with his friends, to do a G-­rated calendar showing off Valentine Valley's . . . assets.

“Oh, that's a good idea, Renee!” Mrs. Thalberg said enthusiastically.

Sandy Thalberg, Whitney's mother-­in-­law, winced. “You know I've never been thrilled with the idea, Mom. The boys all might have felt . . . forced.”

“Forced to show off their muscles?” Brooke scoffed. “They were all for it. Except my Adam, of course, who's pretty humble.”

Monica rolled her eyes, and Emily gave a delicate cough.

“Chris kind of enjoyed it,” Heather admitted. “Then again, I received a grant from the preservation fund for my building renovation—­thank you again, ladies,” she said to the widows. “I hope he didn't feel he had to participate on my account.”

“Oh, please, he's Mr. January, ‘caught' reading in front of a fire,” Emily said about her brother. “How difficult is that?”

“Well, he loves to read,” Heather said, both hands raised in a shrug.

“Bare-­chested in winter?” Monica's aunt, Gloria Valik, plump and good-­natured, elbowed her sister. She was Nate's secretary at the Silver Creek Ranch.

Janet snorted. “We only have their word they're bare-­chested. Have any of you seen the photos?”

Monica looked around as the widows projected serenity, and everyone else shook their heads. “What did Dom say, Mom?”

Her brother, Dominic, a food broker who often traveled internationally for his clients, would never be shy about doing a macho calendar. But, then, she wouldn't exactly know his deep feelings—­they'd spent a lot of the last decade treating each other like friendly strangers. She sighed.

“Oh, you know Dom,” Janet said. “I'm almost embarrassed to say what his response was about the calendar.”

“Come on, tell us!” Brooke urged, grinning.

Janet sighed. “I know he enjoyed his photo shoot, because he got February, and women—­oh I can't believe I'm saying this—­women love chocolate for Valentine's Day.”

Brooke roared the loudest with laughter.

“I got it,” Emily said ruefully, but she burst out laughing, too, joined by the others.

Monica wiped her damp eyes, surprised that her mom wasn't enjoying the joke as much as the rest.

“They've already completed the photos for the fall, winter, and spring months,” Mrs. Thalberg pointed out. “We only need Will Sweet playing baseball—­”

“Without his shirt?” Steph asked innocently, then giggled.

Her grandmother, Mrs. Sweet, sniffed as if she smelled rotten eggs even though they were discussing her grandson.

“—­and Scott Huang playing pool,” Mrs. Thalberg continued as if she hadn't been interrupted.

Monica had to admit that a photo of Scott, an army veteran, using his prosthetic arm to play pool, would be pretty inspiring.

“And, of course, we want that group shot at the hot springs,” Mrs. Palmer said. “We'll take care of the calendar, don't you worry.” She looked right at Monica. “And anythin' else that needs to be prepared before the president visits.”

Monica hoped no one noticed the pointed stare. She still received the widows' monthly e-­newsletter about important Valentine Valley causes, but it had been a long time since she'd marched at their sides. With the president coming because of Mrs. Ludlow's own granddaughter, she couldn't believe they'd try anything crazy.

“Monica,” Mrs. Thalberg said, “could you give me a hand in the library?”

Oh no.
Everyone was chatting about the wedding or Whitney's baby gifts, and Monica was forced to slink away through the French doors into the library, following the widows. She kept hoping someone would notice and call her back, but she wasn't so lucky. The library had once been a man's office, but they'd added lots of bookshelves and comfortable chairs to go with the desk. A bag of knitting was propped beside one chair, and, for a moment, Monica tried to pretend they were only grandmas.

But they weren't that innocent. They now looked at her with focused determination. Before they could speak, the door opened, and Monica's mother slipped in and closed it behind her.

“Mom—­” Monica began.

“Count me in,” Janet said firmly.

“Count you in on what?” Monica asked, glancing at the widows, hoping they'd go along with her supposed confusion.

And, to a degree, they did. Mrs. Ludlow slowly bent over for her knitting, and Mrs. Thalberg sprang to help her. Mrs. Palmer went to the desk and pulled open a drawer as if looking for something.

“Don't act all innocent,” Janet said, her voice full of enthusiasm. “My daughters were often involved in your protests and your sit-­ins and did a lot of organizational computer work for you. Do you know how many letters to the editor I helped edit? It's obvious, with the president coming, that you all think this is the perfect way to spotlight your latest cause.”

“What cause?” Monica asked with exasperation. “Mom, it's been a long time since I did any actual protesting.” And she wasn't quite sure how she'd let her old concern about the environment get put on the back burner. Of course, she'd been focused on growing her business the last few years, but still . . .

“I've seen the posters you've put up around town,” Janet said to the widows, “calling on the citizens of Valentine Valley to demand the mammoth dig be allowed to finish at their own pace.”

Monica remembered the discussion with Travis. Posters had been harmless enough, but anything more . . .

“But the posters aren't working,” Janet continued. ­“People don't even notice them.”

Mrs. Ludlow sat down heavily. “You're right. We've known it for a while now. You wish to help?”

“I think we need to think bigger,” Janet urged, her smile a little . . . forced.

Monica gaped at her mom, having no clue what was going on with her lately. Janet had never been fond of her daughters' activism, worried they'd either get hurt or develop some sort of reputation, but she'd understood and never got in their way. She'd cooked hot dinners for them when they'd lived in the tree house, proofread Monica's grant proposals. When the whole country seemed to know who Monica was, Janet had stood beside her even though Monica could see the disappointment in her eyes.

“Mom, the widows do have another event planned. You know there's a Mammoth Party next week, right? They've put ads in the paper and in all the church bulletins.”

“Signs will be going up soon,” Mrs. Palmer said absently.

But the widows were all focused on Janet, each sporting a special gleam in her eye.

“Janet's right,” Mrs. Thalberg said, her voice cool and firm. “The science party isn't enough.”

“But the scientists will be displaying information about the dig,” Monica insisted. “Kids will be able to hunt for their own dinosaur bones. ­People will really have to think about the importance of science.”

No one was listening to her. She could feel the fervor of “the cause” rising in the air, a tension and excitement. Why wasn't she as excited? Probably because her own protesting had distorted her relationship with her brother. He'd meant to go into the navy until asthma had stood in his way, and maybe that fueled his patriotism. He considered Missy and Monica
un
patriotic for that last, infamous protest.

“We'll call an official meeting of the protest group,” Mrs. Ludlow was saying. “Janet, we're so glad you'd like to join us.”

“Wait, wait,” Monica said, raising both hands. “You all need to think before this goes further. Yes, the president will be here, but not in an official capacity, but for her son's wedding—­your
granddaughter's
wedding, Mrs. L. Do you want Ashley's wedding disrupted? I don't remember your son's being all that thrilled with your activism.”

“I would never do anything to embarrass Ashley,” Mrs. Ludlow insisted, undaunted. “And we will certainly not disrupt the wedding.”

“Or even hold our protest on the wedding day itself,” Mrs. Thalberg added. “Don't worry, Monica. We can call attention to an injustice without overdoing it.”

Monica blinked at them all in disbelief—­they “overdid” things all the time!

“Let's get back to the shower before ­people start to talk,” Mrs. Palmer urged, standing at the French doors and looking through the sheer curtain like a spy. “Look for our e-­mail, where we'll throw out dates for a meetin'.”

Monica sighed, eyeing her mother, who gave her a “jaunty” grin and walked back into the parlor. Monica followed, and saw Emily and Brooke eyeing her with curiosity. She gave a little shrug and returned to her half-­eaten cake, and though it was delicious, she wasn't hungry anymore.

Not hungry—­what was wrong with her? She stared out the window toward the gravel road, and beyond it Silver Creek, winding its way toward the Roaring Fork River. She'd always believed in the rightness of the widows' causes, and this mammoth dig was no different. She was already signed up to help at the Mammoth Party. But planning a protest for a wedding weekend seemed a little extreme—­not that she thought the widows would honestly risk disrupting the wedding. But mistakes happened, like when her mom told her that, in the sixties at the height of the Daniel Boone craze, the widows had worn coonskin caps during their protest over opening a hiking wilderness to hunters. They'd blended in so well, they'd been shot at, and it was lucky none of them were hurt.

Or was Monica's uneasiness about Travis Beaumont? If he was a Secret Ser­vice agent, he wouldn't be thrilled with something unexpected when the president was in town.

It wasn't until the party was over that Brooke, Emily, and Whitney were able to corral her alone in the parlor while the widows and Heather worked in the kitchen.

“Okay, what was up in the library?” Brooke demanded. “Or was my grandma showing you her knitting?”

Monica dropped a paper plate into a garbage bag. “Mrs. Ludlow said it was
her
knitting, and she was showing me—­”

“We don't keep secrets,” Emily interrupted her. “Come on, out with it.”

That was pretty forceful for Emily, Monica mused. And Emily seemed to realize it because she raised her chin even while she blushed. After a heavy sigh, Monica told them about the widows and their need to stop the archaeological dig, thinking their best chance to get noticed was while the president was in town.

Brooke blinked at her for a moment. “Well, they have a point.”

Monica groaned. “Think about what could happen. Isn't it for the best if we talk them out of this?”

“You're just touchy because of what happened to you,” Brooke said gently.

Whitney eased into the nearest chair. “You all need to sit down and explain. What happened to you, Monica?”

Monica pulled up a dining-­room chair, even as Brooke and Emily took the couch. Monica saw that Emily was just as eager as Whitney and realized that she'd never talked about this with either of them. She'd thought it was in her past, after all.

“I . . . Missy and I . . . used to participate in a lot of activist protests in college,” she began, her voice sounding tired. “I was—­am—­a firm believer in environmentalism: Keep old forests, farm organically as much as possible, don't expand natural-­gas drilling, that kind of stuff.”

Emily gasped. “But your dad's job—­”

“I know, I know, but he understood my principles and didn't interfere.”

“What about you, Brooke?” Whitney asked.

Brooke winced. “My dad needed me on the ranch.”

“You look guilty—­stop,” Monica ordered. “I made my own choices.” She glanced toward the kitchen, then lowered her voice. “The widows often joined in the protests. You know how they are when they believe in something. One time, we were in Denver protesting the government, which was making overtures to sell a huge chunk of wilderness in the Rockies for another resort. And you won't be surprised, but we timed it for the president's being in town for a campaign stop in his reelection. It got pretty heated, and somehow I was in the front, marching and yelling. What I didn't know was that someone was burning the US flag behind me. A photographer captured me all red-­faced and screaming—­”

“She looked positively
fierce,
” Brooke said proudly.

Monica felt her face heat, thinking,
If you only knew.
“Yeah, well, I wasn't promoting flag-­burning, but that's how it looked. Some environmentalists saw the photo and circulated it, as an example for their cause.”

“Imagine Josh's viral fame,” Brooke said to Whitney, “except with activists.”

“Don't forget the ­people on the other side,” Monica pointed out. “A lot of ­people were appalled by the flag-­burning, but I could hardly whine that I honestly didn't know about it. And now the widows are gearing up all over again.”

“And you're not sure you want to risk it?” Emily said gently.

Monica frowned. “It's not that. I . . . I don't know why I'm so uneasy. I should trust them to do something appropriate, but . . .” She trailed off.

They all nodded and looked thoughtful, while Monica felt a little bit panicky, as she always did when that photo came up. What would happen if everyone found out it
wasn't
her, that she'd taken the rap for her sister, who was frightened it would damage her future in journalism? Monica had never even told Brooke.

Back in college, it had been so easy to step up and insist the girl in the photo was her, not Missy. Her sister's shock and teary relief had been all the thanks Monica needed. It hadn't been a big deal to her at the time, and though they were only fraternal twins, they looked enough alike that no one had been able to tell the difference in the slightly grainy shot. When the fame of that photo spread across the country, when Dom was furious with Monica, Missy had been horrified, insisting that the truth come out. Monica had refused to back down and was still glad for the decision she'd made.