Christmas In Snowflake Canyon. RaeAnne Thayne
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out the door, fighting down a whirl of butterflies in her stomach.
For two days, she had been having second—and third and fourth and sixtieth—thoughts about this community-service assignment with A Warrior’s Hope. She couldn’t think of a job less suited to her limited skill set than helping wounded veterans. What did she know about their world? Next to nothing. Most likely, she would end up saying something stupid and offensive and none of them would want anything to do with her.
A hundred hours could turn into a lifetime if she screwed this up.
By the time she drove into the parking lot of the Hope’s Crossing Recreation Center in Silver Strike Canyon, the butterflies were in full-fledged stampede mode.
She was five minutes early, she saw with relief as she climbed out of her SUV and walked into the building.
Construction on the recreation center had been under way during her last visit home for Pearl’s funeral. The building was really quite lovely, designed by world-renowned architect Jackson Lange. Created of stone, cedar planks and plenty of glass, the sprawling structure complemented the mountainous setting well for being so large.
It also appeared to be busy. The parking lot was filled with several dozen cars, which she considered quite impressive for a weekday morning in December.
She wasn’t exactly sure how A Warrior’s Hope fit into the picture, but she supposed she had a hundred hours to figure that out.
The butterflies went into swarm-mode as she walked through the front doors into a lobby that wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of the hotels at the ski resort.
She stood for a moment just inside the sliding glass doors, hating these nerves zinging through her. Spying a sign that read A Warrior’s Hope at one desk, she drew in a steady breath in an effort to conceal her anxiety and approached.
The woman seated behind the computer was younger than Genevieve and busy on a phone call that seemed to revolve around airline arrangements. She held up a finger in a universal bid for patience and finished her call.
“Sorry,” she said when she replaced the phone receiver on the cradle. “I’ve been trying to reach the airline for days to make sure they know we need special arrangements to transport some medical equipment when our new guys arrive next week.”
“Ah.” Gen wasn’t quite sure what else to say. “I’m Genevieve Beaumont. I believe you were expecting me.”
The woman looked blank for a moment then her face lit up. “Oh! You’re one of the community-service people. Spence said you were coming today. Our computers have been down. No internet, no email, and wouldn’t you know, our IT guy is on vacation. I’ve been so crazy trying to track down somebody else to help I forgot you were coming. I’m Chelsea Palmer. I’m the administrative assistant to Eden Davis, the director of A Warrior’s Hope.”
“Hi, Chelsea.”
She didn’t recognize the young woman and couldn’t see any evidence Chelsea knew her—or of her—either.
“I don’t suppose you know anything about computers, do you?” the woman asked hopefully.
Gen gave a short laugh. “On a good day, I can usually figure out how to turn them on but that’s the extent of my technical abilities. And sometimes I can’t even do that.”
Chelsea gave her a friendly smile. She was quite pretty, though she wore a particularly unattractive shade of yellow. She could also use a little more subtlety in her makeup.
Gen certainly wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, she would relish the promise of that friendly smile. Around Hope’s Crossing, she found it refreshing when people didn’t know who she was. Here, many saw her as snobbish and cold. She had no idea how to thaw those perceptions.
She had loved that about living in Paris, where her friends didn’t care about her family, her connections, her past.
“Thanks anyway,” Chelsea said. “I’ll figure something out. My ex-boyfriend works in IT up at the resort. He agreed to come take a look at things.”
“Even though he’s an ex?” She hadn’t spoken with Sawyer since the day she threw his ring back at him.
“I know, right? But we left things on pretty good terms. He’s not a bad guy.... He was only a little more interested in his video games than me, you know? I decided that wasn’t for me.”
“Understandable.”
Chelsea’s gaze shifted over Gen’s shoulder and her face lit up. “Hey, Dylan! Eden said you would be stopping in this morning.”
“And here I am. Hi. Chelsea, right?”
“One two-second conversation in line at the grocery store and you remembered my name.”
Gen didn’t like the way all her warm feelings toward the other woman trickled away. Friends weren’t that easy to come by here in Hope’s Crossing. She certainly couldn’t throw one away because she was feeling unreasonably territorial toward Dylan, even if she had been the one shackled to the man.
She didn’t blame Chelsea for that little moment of flirtatiousness. Dylan still needed a haircut. Regardless, he looked quite delicious. Even the black eye patch only made him more attractive somehow, probably because the eye not concealed behind it looked strikingly blue in contrast.
She thought of that moment when she had nearly fallen on the ice a few days earlier, when he had caught her and held her against his chest for a heartbeat.
And then the humiliation of his words, basically accusing her of being so shallow she recoiled in disgust when he touched her, which was so not true.
“Genevieve.” He again said her name as her Parisian friends did and for some strange reason she found the musical syllables incredibly sexy spoken in that gruff voice.
“Is that how you say your name?” Chelsea asked in surprise. “I though it was Gen-e-vieve.”
She managed to tamp down the inappropriate reaction to the man. “Either way works,” she said to Chelsea. “Or you could simply call me Gen.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
The young woman turned her attention back to Dylan. She tucked her hair behind her ear—her pointy ear, Gen thought, before she chided herself for her childishness in noticing. She was a horrid person, as superficial as everyone thought.
“We’re all so excited you’re finally coming to help us,” Chelsea said. “Eden has been over the moon since she heard about your, er, little brush with the law.”
“Good to know I could make everybody’s day,” he said dryly, but Chelsea didn’t appear to notice.
“It’s going to be perfect,” she exclaimed. “You’re going to be great! Exactly what we need.”
She had said nothing of the sort to Genevieve, yet another piece of evidence in what she was beginning to suspect—that her presence was superfluous here, an unnecessary addendum. The organizers of the program wanted Dylan to help out at A Warrior’s Hope because of his own perspective and experience. She, on the other hand, was little more than collateral damage.
“Where is Eden?” she finally interjected.
“She’s at the pool with Spence and our new program coordinator, Mac Scanlan.”
“I thought Eden was in charge,” Genevieve said.
“Technically, she is. She’s the executive director, in charge of fundraising, planning, coordinating events etc. We just hired a new person to actually run the activities. He’s spending the day familiarizing himself with the facilities. She told me to send you to the pool the minute you both arrive.”
Which had been several minutes earlier, but who was counting?
“Thanks,” Genevieve said.
“I’m