Blue Ridge Hideaway. Cynthia Thomason

down the mountain in the dark. And it’s freezing out there. The only place she can stay is that fleabag motel by the convenience store.” He tapped the phone against his thigh. “I’ll tell her she can stay here tonight.”

      “Okay, you do that. And I’ll make sure my door’s locked.”

      * * *

      DORIE JUMPED WHEN the knob turned, and she quickly put a few feet between herself and the door. The men came out of the kitchen. Bret looked at her, but his face was unreadable. In fact, father and son could have been a pair of granite bookends for all the clues she could derive from their expressions. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to get good news. She stood straight, hooked her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans and said, “Well?”

      His gaze never wavering, Bret rubbed his hand over the nape of his neck and said, “I need to sleep on this, Dorie. There are extenuating circumstances I need to consider.”

      “What extenuating circumstances?”

      “Well, for one, you can’t possibly think I have five thousand in cash in this building.”

      That would be nice, but also unlikely.

      “But I might have a plan.”

      A plan? The only plan she was interested in was one that put five thousand dollars in the palm of her hand. She narrowed her eyes. “What are you suggesting?”

      “I’m going to try to work something out that is fair to everyone.”

      “Everyone?” She glared at Clancy. “I couldn’t care less about being fair to your father. He cheated me. He obviously doesn’t understand the meaning of the word fair.”

      “I know it seems that way,” Bret said. “But you have to admit that I’m not responsible for his mistakes.”

      Yes, she supposed she did have to admit that. But doing so wouldn’t get her the money, so she said, “What about the Donovan family honor? Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

      A grin tugged at his mouth. “I think our family honor, if we ever had any, went up in smoke at the craps table in Mountain City.”

      “So I’m supposed to go away and let you two ‘sleep on this’? I guarantee you I won’t be having such a good night’s sleep while you’re deciding my future.”

      “About that...” Bret said. “There are no places I’d recommend for you to stay in this area. So I’m suggesting you don’t have to leave here.”

      “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to stay with you two.”

      “That’s exactly what I’m hoping you decide.”

      She put her hand up to stop all discussion of bunking anywhere within a mile of Clancy Donovan. By morning, he’d have devised a plan to steal back the fifty bucks he’d given her. “Thanks, but no—”

      “You can’t attempt the drive down the mountain in the dark, Dorie,” Bret said.

      “That’s why they invented headlights.”

      “Still, one wrong turn and you could end up in a gully or wrapped around an oak tree. In these temperatures, there will be icy patches, and I’m guessing you don’t have all-weather tires. You’re used to driving near the beach. This mountain is a whole different story.”

      She pondered her options. She didn’t want to accept what these guys believed might pass for hospitality. The last thing she wanted was any reason to be grateful to them. One night under their roof didn’t compensate for the money Clancy owed her.

      Apparently assuming her silence meant she was considering his advice, Bret continued. “You can stay here or your closest choice is the Sleep Haven Motel next to the convenience store. Did you get a good look at that place?”

      She had, and she’d been glad she planned to get her money and leave for Winston Beach without a layover. The only kind of “haven” the motel appeared to offer was for roaches.

      Her attention switched from son to father. Bret seemed to be sincere. And he’d more or less promised her an answer, or a plan by the morning. Clancy hadn’t looked at her since he’d come back into the room. His eyes remained fixed on a knot in the wood plank flooring.

      She huffed in frustration. “Okay, I’ll stay. But I’m sleeping with one hand wrapped around my can of mace.”

      Bret placed his hand over his heart. “Ouch.” And then he smiled, and she felt that sense of comfort again. And she didn’t like it all that much. A girl gets to feeling too comfortable with a man, and that’s when her life starts unraveling.

      “We’re perfect gentlemen, aren’t we, Pop?” Bret said.

      Finally Clancy looked up and met her gaze. “You might be, son, but I don’t think Dorie will believe it of me.”

      “Anyway, I’m glad that’s settled,” Bret said, glancing over his shoulder at the kitchen door. “When I was talking to Pop just now, I opened a couple of cans of stew and set a pot on the stove to heat. It might be ready by now. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

      Her mouth watered just thinking about it. “I could eat, I guess.”

      “Fine. I think a meal will do us all some good. Have a seat and I’ll bring out the grub.”

      She almost laughed out loud. “Grub? What is this place, junior? A Boy Scout camp?”

      He gave her a serious stare. “Funny thing. That’s exactly what it used to be. But not anymore. Now it’s for grown-up Boy Scouts. Ones with money who are looking for a whole new level of merit badges.”

      He went into the kitchen and Dorie wondered what he meant. What kind of a place had she wandered into?

      CHAPTER FOUR

      DORIE USED A thick slice of bread to soak up the last of the gravy in the bottom of her bowl. “This came out of a can?” she said when she realized Bret was staring at her, an amused expression on his face. Let him laugh if he wanted to. It wasn’t a crime to be hungry.

      “Sure did. Got it at the big box store in Asheville the last time I went for supplies.

      “Well, it’s good.”

      The wine was good, too. Dorie had been surprised when Bret had brought out the bottle and two glasses. She’d smiled at the images of moose on the tumblers—the glasses were definitely more suited to iced tea or, as in Clancy’s case, a frothy serving of Guinness.

      Bret held the bottle over Dorie’s glass, but she covered the opening with her hand. “No more for me. I need a clear head to deal with the Donovan men.”

      He added an inch or two to his own glass. “Oh, come on. You don’t think we’re all that scary, do you?”

      “No, I guess not.” But this place is. She stared out the window to the exterior of the porch where a single exposed lightbulb attracted hardy insects not burrowed in somewhere against the cold. Beyond the porch, the woods were black. “Does it always get so dark up here?” she asked.

      “On this side of the mountain, yes. On the other side, the direction the sun sets, it stays lighter a bit longer. But this is the country. We don’t exactly have streetlights on every corner. We don’t even have corners.”

      She definitely wasn’t used to outdoor living of this magnitude. Living so close to the beach when she was growing up, Dorie had gone to the ocean nearly every day, but then her mother had run off, and at eighteen, Dorie had suddenly been in charge. Her beach visits had become less frequent. The brief note her mom had left saying she was sorry, and they’d be better off without her hadn’t excused her abandonment in Dorie’s mind.

      But the small wood-framed cottage her mother had purchased for the family worked just fine for Dorie and Jack and, amazingly, had been paid off a couple