so much for finding out if she had a shot with Jake. With Amelia around, Casey didn’t stand a chance. For as long as Casey could remember, people gravitated to Amelia, leaving Casey to follow in her shadow. Why would Jake be any different?
It was just as well, Casey reasoned. She had experienced too much loss to ever want to risk her heart to love again.
Not even for the handsome, charming Jake Rodgers.
“No way. That sounds horrible.”
Jake stared at his daughter slouched on the navy leather couch of his parents’ home. She hadn’t even looked up from the fashion magazine in her lap when he’d told her of the plans. She just kept cutting away with the scissors. Strewn all over the couch were cutouts from the various magazines stacked on the floor. Veronica dreamed of being a fashion model or designer or some such. She pasted the cutouts onto a big piece of poster board in her room.
His jaw tightened and he tried to keep impatience from edging his tone. “This isn’t up for debate, Veronica. We are going on this backpacking trip next week.”
She snapped the magazine closed and rose to her feet. Tall for her age, she was willowy, with porcelain features like her mother. Her straight, strawberry-blond hair fell past her shoulders. “Fine. Whatever. Like I have any choice.”
“You have a choice—to enjoy this trip. Or you can choose to be miserable. You are in control of your attitude.”
The tight-leg designer jeans and frilly blouse she wore had been purchased back in Chicago, where they were the norm. Here in Treasure Creek, she looked out of place. The other kids Jake had seen around town wore more rugged clothing, better suited to life in Alaska. “Why don’t we go shopping for more appropriate attire for the trip? You’ll need some sweatshirts, T-shirts and jeans you can actually move in.”
“Dad!” She rolled her hazel eyes, gathered her clippings, and stomped out of the living room and down the hall to her bedroom, which used to be Jake’s when he was a teen. He now slept in the guest room. He cringed when Veronica slammed the door shut. Should he discipline her for the rude behavior?
He wished kids came with a manual. Being a single parent wasn’t exactly how he’d planned his life. But Natalie was gone, so he was doing the best he could.
Was he making a mistake to insist on the trip? It had seemed like such a good idea when Reed suggested it. After talking with Casey, whose friendly demeanor and down-to-earth attitude had been a refreshing change from the city women he’d become accustomed to, he’d been convinced he was making the right decision. Especially after Casey’s sister had shown up wanting to be a part of the tour.
Here were two very different women, yet each seemed so confident and successful. Surely the influence of these two contrasting females would be a good thing for Veronica.
And Jake had to admit, from the moment he’d seen Casey Donner in the reflection of the window in the reception room, looking so adorable in cargo pants, a form-fitting zip-up jacket and with her dark hair pulled back from her unadorned face, he’d been intrigued.
Most females looked at him with dollar signs in their eyes, just as Amelia Donner had the second she’d walked into the tour company office. But not Casey.
There had been such lively intelligence in Casey’s dark eyes. And when she’d looked him up and down, assessing his stamina for the backpacking trip and finding him wanting, he’d been swamped with the need to prove her wrong. A sensation he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
“Did you put Reed up to suggesting me to Jake for this tour?” Casey asked, watching her friend, Amy, closely over the expanse of the oak desk in her boss’s office. This was the first opportunity Casey had had to talk alone with Amy since yesterday.
Amy blinked, her blues eyes guileless. “No. Why would you think I had?”
Feeling guilty for suspecting her friend of pitying her, Casey said, “It just was so out of the blue.”
Mouth quirking, Amy said, “Like your sister’s return was out of the blue?”
“Yeah. What’s up with that? She said she’s here for the reunion. But three weeks early? Something’s up.”
“Have you asked her about it?”
“Not really,” Casey said, a bit sheepishly. “We don’t have the kind of relationship that most twins do. Or at least, we haven’t since we moved to Alaska. Everything changed. She shut me out.”
“That must have hurt,” Amy said, in a gentle tone. It had.
“I got over it.”
Amy steepled her fingers on the desk. “Her joining the Rodgers tour might be a really good thing, then. You two might grow closer.”
Of course Amy would think of the situation as an opportunity for the sisters to bond. Amy was an idealist in many ways. Casey, not so much.
“It’s just so infuriating that my sister would weasel her way in like this,” Casey said, sure that Amelia’s motivation had nothing to do with a desire to be out in nature and everything to do with Jake. Not that that was any of Casey’s concern. “Who is Amelia kidding? She’ll hate it and make everyone miserable.”
Amy slipped off her serviceable clogs and propped her sock-clad feet on the arm of her chair. Little penguins, dressed in frilly outfits, marched up the sides of her long, white socks and disappeared beneath the legs of Amy’s khaki pants. “Give her a chance. She may have changed.”
Casey scoffed. “If the way Amelia’s taken over the house is any indication, no, she hasn’t. Her stuff is everywhere.” Jamming her hands into the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt, Casey slunk further in her chair. “My bathroom now reeks of some flowery perfume that makes me sneeze every time I go in.”
“She does kind of apply a lot,” Amy said, with a grin. “But a stinky sister isn’t what’s really bothering you, is it?”
It was so like Amy to see to the heart of a matter. Casey groaned. “No, it isn’t.”
“Come on, tell me,” Amy cajoled.
“It’s just that article and…oh, I don’t know.” She hated to come across as whiney and ungrateful. How did she explain this growing discontentment gnawing away at her nicely ordered life?
It wasn’t even the fact that she was the brunt of so many jokes since that article came out—though the snickering was getting old. What bothered her most was that, deep inside she felt hollow, empty. Like something was missing.
Her gaze snagged on a framed photo of Amy and her late husband, Ben, and their two boys. What a beautiful family. They looked so happy.
That’s what Casey wanted. A family of her own. A love like Amy and Ben had shared. She held tight to the knowledge that their love proved love existed.
An uninvited memory escaped from the recesses of her mind and tore across her brain, reminding her that love came with a price. A price she’d paid once. A price that left her wounded and discouraged.
She slapped the memory down and stuffed it back into its box inside her head, and refocused on the grief of her friend’s
