Rocky Mountain Holiday (To Love Again Book 4) by Kate Fargo Read Free Book Online Page A

her.
    “Fancy meeting you here,” he said.
    “Oh, good morning.” Isabel stared up into Tray’s blue eyes. “Sorry I had to rush away last night.”
    “Mom?” Isabel looked over and both girls were staring at her, eyes wide.
    “Tray, these are my daughters - Karin and Shelly.” He nodded and reached across to shake their hands. “This restaurant is their haunt, not mine.”
    He laughed. “Pity, best food in town.” He shifted his balance and cleared his throat. “Can we arrange a rain-check for that drink? Maybe coffee this afternoon?”
    “Can you leave me your number?” asked Isabel, anxious to get him away from the girls’ curious stares.
    Tray played along, pulling a card out of his wallet which he passed to Isabel. “I’ll look forward to seeing you later,” he smiled at Isabel and nodded to the girls. “Nice to meet you, ladies.”
    “I’ll text you,” she said, casually placing the card on the bench beside her, away from her daughters’ prying eyes. She watched him stride away across the room and fit himself into a booth at the back.
    “Mom? Mom?” the girls chorused like baby birds. “You know him?”
    “He’s a friend of Jenny’s,” she lied, keenly aware of the irony, but she felt like a bug caught on a pin. Since the divorce, she hadn’t dated anyone and she wasn’t ready to have them know what she was up to. At least, not until she knew herself what she was up to. That made sense, right? Yes, she decided, it made sense. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. Besides, even though they’d already opened the topic of her dating again, she was too tired right now to have that kind of conversation.
    Shelly exchanged another look with Karin. “What did he mean about last night? Did you have a date with him?”
    “No, I just … we were all at the bar after dinner and he was the live entertainment. He’s studying psychology and wanted to talk to me about course choices, so I agreed to have a drink with him after his set.”
    “And then we called you?”
    “Yes, but you don’t need to apologize for that.”
    Karin shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Mom, you always say that you’d rather know the truth of something than not know. Right?”
    Isabel nodded.
    “Even if the truth is not what you’re hoping to hear, right?”
    Isabel nodded again and glanced over to Tray. He was intent on the menu and well out of earshot.
    The girls shifted closer together, a subtle unconscious movement, and leaned toward her over the table.
    “We saw him the other night, Mom,” Shelly blurted out. “At an open house on Boxing Day. He was with a girl about my age, who was very, very drunk. A tall - and I know you don’t like this word Mom, but - well, she looked like a bimbo. She could barely stand up she was so drunk.”
    “The open house you went to after the hot tub the other night?” asked Isabel.
    “Yes, one of our friends from school has a chalet here.”
    “His parents had an open house, you mean?”
    “No, they were out, it was mostly just kids from school. That’s why it was weird, Mom. We didn’t know either of them … and he’s a lot older than his date.”
    “How old do you think he is?” she asked.
    “Probably thirty, Mom. I mean, she was maybe my age. Probably younger, even. None of us knew her, but I heard someone say she’s a local.”
    “What else happened?”
    “That was it, really,” said Karin. “We were playing pool in the garage and when we came inside, we saw him trying to get her to leave. But she was sooooo drunk, Mom, hanging all over him, calling him “babe”. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so disgusting.”
    Isabel got the attention of their waitress and made a writing motion in the air. “Let’s head over to Barbie’s and talk to Jean, girls,” she said, pulling her coat on.
    “But Mom, are you still going to go out with him?”
    “One crisis at a time please girls,” she said, shaking her head. “Let’s