“I’ve never met anyone named Baxter before, except a dog,” she said.

  Baxter laughed. He was always amazed at the honesty of children. “Well, if you must know, Baxter is my middle name, my first name is Brock.”

  Charlotte raised her eyebrow while she was driving. “Brock Baxter?” she said.

  “The second,” he laughed.

  “How come you go by your middle name?” Tabitha’s squeaky voice rang out from the back seat.

  “I was tired of everyone mixing me up with my dad,” he replied honestly.

  The tires of Charlotte’s car hummed on the wooden planks and the world went dark as they entered the covered bridge.

  “Will your son be number three?” Tabitha inquired.

  As the SUV emerged from the bridge back into the muted gray of the snowstorm, Baxter could feel the dampness seeping through his coat as the layer of snow started to melt. A drip from his hat landed on his cheek and startled him, but not as much as the young girl’s question.

  My son.

  There are guys who have always pictured throwing a ball for their son, teaching them how to ski or skate, passing on the family name, but that guy wasn’t Baxter.

  “I guess if I have a son, I might…” He hesitated. “You know what? I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

  He caught Charlotte’s smirk as he shifted in his seat with the interrogation.

  “Where are you headed?” she asked.

  “I have a meeting at the Sugar Peaks Café,” he replied. He checked his watch. He would be a little early but could get situated with a coffee and catch up with the news while he waited.

  “Is it alright with you if I drop Tabitha off at school first?” she asked.

  “That’s fine with me,” Baxter replied.

  When Tabitha hopped out of the car in front of her busy school, she yelled, “Bye, Charlotte. Bye, Brock Baxter the Second.” Then she giggled and headed towards the school, her pink backpack bouncing as she ran.

  “Charlotte?”

  “I’m progressive,” Charlotte laughed. “She’s wise beyond her years, that one.” As she pulled the car onto the main street, the snow eased up and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. “How are your meetings going? Or is that confidential?”

  “They’re going great,” Baxter lied before he could stop himself.

  “Really?” Charlotte raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Well, there might be a few hiccups, but nothing we can’t handle.”

  “Hiccups, right.” Her smile was wry, and she looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Well, remember what I said. Get the Conservation Authority on your side, and then I can help you out.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  Charlotte pulled up in front of the Sugar Peaks Café.

  “As a matter of fact, that’s what I’m doing right now.” He brushed the melted snow off of his briefcase and paused with his hand on the door handle, “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Are you going to need a lift home, or were you planning to snowshoe?”

  He chuckled in spite of himself. “My team will be in town. If not, I’ll call the Chance Rapids Limo Company.”

  “At your service,” Charlotte laughed and pretended to salute. “Good luck with your meeting.”

  “Thanks,” Baxter replied. “I’m going to need it.”

  “Yeah,” Charlotte said. She put the car into gear. “I hear their lawyer is a real ball-buster.”

  Baxter puffed out an exhale, the cloud of steam hanging heavily in the air. “No kidding. Thanks again,” he said and closed the door.

  Charlotte waved as she drove away. Well, at least one person in this town doesn’t hate us, he thought to himself. He wondered how someone as business-oriented as Charlotte O’Hare could be so averse to bringing development into the town.

  As he made his way up the freshly shoveled walkway to the Sugar Peaks Café, he wondered how well she knew Lauren Bunkman.

  Ten

  The hair on her arms rose as she saw his icy blue eyes through the crowd in the coffee lineup. She took a breath and then waved as casually as she could. He smiled and nodded. Lauren stood as he approached the table, hoping that her palms weren’t as sweaty as she knew they were.

  “Miss Bunkman,” he greeted her as he extended his hand.

  “Lauren is fine,” she said, shaking his hand, noticing that her palms weren’t the only sweaty ones. She glanced around the coffee shop. The fire was blazing in the river rock hearth and the windows were steamy from all the people inside. They were warm, that’s all. Stop reading too much into the handshake, she told herself.

  “I ordered you a cappuccino,” she said. “It should be here momentarily.” She tapped the number for their order which was carved into a round piece of wood.

  “Thank you.” He held onto the back of the chair.

  They stood across the table from each other. “You’re welcome,” Lauren replied. “I took a guess about your coffee. For some reason, you don’t seem like the soymilk kind of guy.”

  He tilted his head at her and smiled quizzically. “How so?”

  Shit. What was she doing?

  “I mean, you, well…” she stammered. Come on Lauren, pull yourself together.

  “You put cream in your coffee yesterday,” she blurted out. Thankful that her brain had started chugging along again, allowing her to access her memory. What she really wanted to say was that he seemed far too masculine to be into alternative milk.

  “So, I did,” he smiled.

  They stood there, each resting their hands on the back of the wooden chairs. The pause in the conversation was growing more and more awkward with every second.

  “Shall we have a seat?” He stepped around the table and pulled out Lauren’s chair for her.

  “Thank you,” she replied, surprised by the gentlemanlike gesture. As they settled into their places at the table, the barista appeared with two cappuccinos in large mugs, their foamy tops adorned with cinnamon sprinkles shaped like hearts.

  “Thank you,” she smiled.

  “You’re welcome, Lauren,” the young girl replied. As soon as she left Lauren picked up the tiny spoon and stirred away the heart.

  “Do you know everyone in this town?” Baxter asked.

  “I’m still new,” she laughed. “There’s still a good ten people I haven’t talked to yet.”

  Baxter chuckled. “It must be nice knowing everyone.”

  “Nice?” Lauren scoffed. “If you want everyone knowing your business.”

  He raised his eyebrows, and Lauren continued but softened her tone. “I mean, most people here are good and try to help each other out. This is a solid community.”

  “How long have you lived here?” Baxter asked.

  “I grew up here,” Lauren replied.

  “Oh, really?”

  Lauren took a sip of her coffee. “I left to go to university, and then law school. I just moved back last year.”

  “What brought you back?”

  For a businessman on the opposing side, he seemed genuinely interested in Lauren’s life. A little too interested. She shifted; the wooden seat had suddenly become a hot seat. “A few things,” she replied. “I would ask what brought you here, but I already know the answer to that,” she laughed, trying to steer the conversation away from herself and toward the actual reason for their meeting. “Where did you grow up?” she asked.

  “I went to a few different boarding schools, in Switzerland mostly.”

  Lauren nodded. They had come from two totally separate worlds. He grew up eating croissants and expensive cheese, she had lived on bologna on white bread; with a slice of processed cheese if she was lucky. “That sounds nice.” She couldn’t even think of a good question to ask him about his fancy boarding schools.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Really?” All of sudden, Baxter seemed a lot more interesting. “Why?”

  “I didn’t fit in,” he chuckled.

  “You. You didn’t fit in.” Lauren saw the quintessential Nautica model in the man sitting in front of her and didn’t believe a word he was saying.

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t know it, but I was a bit of a…” he rubbed his chin. “I guess you could call me a hippie.”

  “A hippie,” Lauren grinned. “I thought I smelled patchouli,” she joked.

  He looked at her sideways and she saw the glint in his eye that came with a surprised smile.

  “I had long hair, I loved going on solo canoe trips. The stuff that the guys in my class were into: girls, cocaine, partying, it didn’t really interest me.”

  Lauren squinted her eyes at Baxter. “I’m trying to picture you with long hair, I can’t quite see it.”

  Baxter sat up and puffed his chest out. “That’s because I also had a beard.”

  “A beard?” Lauren was shocked.

  “Yeah. Long before hipsters made them cool.”

  “I know the type. The guys whose plaid jackets had never seen sawdust, the kind that didn’t know how to change a tire, let alone operate a chainsaw.” She laughed. “When did you…” she held her hand out and raised it up and down in front of his face and expensive wool jacket.

  “Sell out?” he quipped.

  “I wasn’t going to say that.” Lauren pressed her lips together in an attempt to suppress her smile. “I was going to go with ‘go to the dark side’.”

  “That works too.” There it was. That glint in his eye again.

  “Tell me more about your camping.” Her lawyer's brain rationalized that this was a legitimate business question or even a strategy. If Baxter Caldwell had an affinity for the outdoors, she might be able to appeal to his granola roots and get him to modify the plans. Yes, that was the reason she was hooked on every word that came out of his mouth. Not because she wanted to hear his deep voice talk about the beauty of high-altitude lakes, or to picture this gorgeous man chopping wood and lighting a campfire. She was good at lying to herself.

  She hadn’t noticed the time slipping away, the background disappearing behind Baxter, the bustling coffee shop noise fading into white noise behind them until they were the only two people in the world, but as soon as someone dropped a plate in the background, she snapped out of it. He was talking about some three-week canoe trip somewhere in Maine.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she said. She took the last sip of her coffee that had gone cold. “As much as I love hearing about your hand-built lean-to shelters, we need to talk about your development.”

  Baxter thinned his lips and looked down into his cup of coffee. “I wish you wouldn’t see me as the enemy.” He looked up and folded his hands on the table.

  “Enemy?” Lauren laughed. “I’m not the only one who feels that way. You’re the biggest, baddest guy to roll into this town in years.”

  Baxter sighed. “I wish I had known that before I showed up.”

  “How could you not?” Lauren asked. “This project is going to destroy the town and the natural wildlife around it.”

  “But it’s not.” Baxter leaned onto his elbows. “It’s going to bring so much more tourism here. This will put Chance Rapids on the global scene. This place is going to be dripping with celebrities.”

  Lauren crossed her arms, “And what makes you think that the people who live here want to be bumping elbows with Britney Spears.”

  Baxter’s eyes shot open wide and he laughed. “Britney Spears?”

  “That’s the only celebrity I could think of off the top of my head.” Lauren hadn’t listened to pop music or kept up with trends since, well, since Britney was on the charts. She felt the redness surging to her cheeks.

  Baxter smiled and shrugged. “Maybe she’ll film her next video here.”

  Lauren studied Baxter’s face. She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

  “I’m friends with a few big producers in the industry and they’ve already expressed interest in shooting here.”

  He wasn’t joking.

  “What about your camping, or your love of the outdoors?” she asked. “That doesn’t seem to fit in with your master plan of jet setting celebrities and penis towers.”

  His eyebrows looked like they were going to disappear up into his thick hairline. “Penis towers?”

  “Yeah.” She folded her arms. “Someone on your design team is making up for some shortcomings in the pants department.”

  “Ha,” Baxter laughed and touched his fingertips to his eyebrows as he shook his head. “You’re probably right.” His shoulders shook as he laughed. He looked to her with tears in his eyes. “You mean the underpants department, right?”

  She knew that he was playing with her but couldn’t help but find his naïve wide-eyed act endearing, and discovered that he was one of those guys who could raise just one eyebrow, something she’d never been able to do.

  “That’s the one.”

  Baxter drained the last of his cold coffee. “Look, Lauren. There are things I’d like to change about the project. That tower is one of them. But I represent a company, one that employs thousands of people that have to feed their families. This plan isn’t perfect, but it’s going to help a lot of people.”

  “Just not these people here.” Lauren looked around the room.

  “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Lauren could feel ice seeping into her veins.

  “This town needs this. It will help people. Everyone here is just too narrow-minded or short-sighted to see that.”

  “Everyone?”

  Baxter blinked quickly. “Not the literal everyone.”

  “Baxter, against my better judgment, I’m going to offer you one piece of advice.”

  “And what’s that?” He was leaning against the back of his chair. His lips stretched tight.

  “Spend some time here. Get to know the town, the people.” She softened her voice. “You can’t just fly in on your helicopter and tell everyone here that dropping a development triple the size of the existing town is going to be good for them.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Lauren.”

  She could feel her face burning red, but not with a sexual desire for the man. That had been replaced with contempt. He was lighting a fire in her, and not the between the legs kind.

  “Go on.” She pushed back in her chair, its legs scratching on the pine floorboards.

  “I’ve spent plenty of time here.”

  “You have?” He had to be lying. None of the locals that she had spoken to had ever met anyone from Caldwell International. “When?”

  “It’s been a few years…” His voice trailed off, “so get off your high horse.”

  “High horse?”

  “Shit. I didn’t—” Baxter sighed.

  Lauren interrupted. “I think it’s time for me to go.” She gathered up her coat in her arms and pulled her messenger bag over her shoulder.

  “Either you come back with an updated plan or get ready for the fight of your life against one of the delusional, small-minded, not forward-thinking Rapidians.”

  “Wait, Lauren.”

  But she’d had enough. “Good day, Mr. Caldwell.” The crowd parted as she made her way to the door, but she stopped as she reached the door. “Shit,” she muttered to herself.

  She stomped back to the table and slammed down an envelope in front of him.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “It’s for the sweater.”

  “That was a gift,” he replied.

  “More like a bribe, coming from the likes of you,” she lobbed his own non-pc phrase back at him.

  His phone was next to the envelope and as it lit up with an incoming call, the song, Eddie Vedder’s big hit from Into the Wild rang out.

  Lauren’s eyes snapped to the phone.

  “Is that Into the Wild?”

  “It is,” Baxter replied. “Pearl Jam is my favorite. I see them in concert every time I can.”

  The room started to spin around Lauren. Suddenly, that song transported her back in time. Back to a time when her hands were always pruney from the rubber gloves that her mom made her wear to protect her hands from the cleaning chemicals, to a time when her hair didn’t have strands of gray.

  It couldn’t be.

  She looked at Baxter, he had taken off his thick black-rimmed glasses, and all of a sudden Lauren saw him with the long wavy hair, with the beard. How could she not have seen it before now?

  She held her hands out to steady herself. The floor felt like it was laid over rolling ocean waves. It had to be a coincidence. That man from her history’s name was Brock, not Baxter.

  “Are you okay?” Baxter stood up and reached out for Lauren.

  She leaned down and placed both of her palms down on the table, but her breath was starting to get away from her. Baxter touched her on the shoulder and a shiver ran through her body in response. He leaned in asking, “Lauren, are you alright?” His smell, the feel of his breath on her earlobe transported her back in time.

  It didn’t make sense. The name didn’t match. It couldn’t be him, but every fiber in her being told her that she was wrong – that it was him. He rested his hand on her shoulder and that touch broke her. Her knees gave out and Baxter, the father of her daughter, saved her from smashing her head on the wooden table just before she blacked out.

  Eleven

  The chopper blades spun loudly above her head. Her first time in a helicopter had been exciting but now, when it functioned as her mode of transportation to her second job, the novelty had definitely worn off.

  Frank, the owner of FKT Heli-ski was a good man, and when Lauren’s mom’s cancer had started to spread, he offered to pay for her treatment. Sharon Bunkman was a proud woman and had refused to take any money from her boss. Lauren was furious and so was Frank. He offered Lauren Sharon’s position at the lodge when she got too sick to work, and Lauren took it. They needed all the extra money they could get.

  But that Frank was a tricky bastard and Lauren almost fell over when she got her first paycheck – there were too many zeros - she was the highest-paid cleaning lady in the history of the lodge. She knew exactly what Frank was doing and was thankful. She wasn’t one for charity, but if it was going to save her mom’s life, she would take whatever she could get.