WHEN KENDALL TURNED OFF the highway at the sign marked Jasper Lake, she was disappointed to feel absolutely no spark of recognition. Which was silly. She hadn’t been born here, as far as she knew, and even if she had been, she wouldn’t remember it, so there was no reason she should feel any connection to this place, roots or otherwise.
No, the only thing she felt right now was lingering nausea from the bumpy descent into Denver International Airport, followed by the twisty ascent into Colorado’s high country in her rented Ford Explorer.
Or more likely, the nausea came from the knowledge that, in five minutes, she would find herself face-to-face with a piece of her past she’d never known existed.
The asphalt transitioned to hard-packed dirt, or maybe it was actually asphalt that had so much mud deposited on top, you could no longer see the black. Dirty snowdrifts, their surface pitted and gnarled by the sun’s rays, piled up on either side from where the plow had left them, the occasional pocket of fresh white standing out in a crevice. She slowed her speed when the road jostled her to her teeth, noting the log cabin–style buildings on either side of her. One advertised snowmobile rentals and white-water rafting boats; another, tackle and ice-fishing gear. A quick look at the car’s thermometer put the outside temperature at a balmy forty-two degrees at two o’clock in the afternoon.
There could be no doubt she wasn’t in Southern California anymore.
She glanced up at the navigation screen on her cell phone and made a turn onto the town’s main street, then caught her breath. Wood and brick buildings clustered together along a wooden boardwalk, their cheerily painted signs identifying them as cafés, ice cream shops, fudge factories. Every block or so, a break at the intersecting street gave a glimpse of blinding blue beyond—the eponymous Jasper Lake, its rippled surface reflecting the sun like diamonds. Even knowing that it was probably only a month away from freezing, the water lover in her yearned to dip her toes in.
But she wasn’t here on vacation. She was here to settle the matter of an unknown grandmother’s estate, and none too soon . . . It had taken her nearly a week to get things in order enough to fly to Colorado—and to find an affordable flight—leaving less than a week for her to file her claim before it reverted to the county. For reasons she still didn’t understand, it sounded like Jasper Lake had a vested interest in not letting that happen.
The dot on the navigation screen told her that Matthew Avery’s office should be coming up on her left, and she swung quickly into one of the angled parking spaces that lined Main Street, right in front of a blue-painted, clapboard-sided building marked with Matthew Avery, Attorney-at-Law. She grabbed her purse off the passenger seat, her down jacket from the back, and jumped out of the car.
And instantly regretted it. The second the cold air hit her bare skin, it sent her into a full-body shiver. Kendall fumbled her arms into the parka and zipped it up as quickly as possible, shocked by the frigid bite of the wind. How could it possibly be so cold when the sun was shining down so brightly?
“You just have to deal with it for a few days,” she muttered to herself as she stepped onto the wooden boardwalk and made her way toward the attorney’s office, her boots making dull thuds with every step. Then she froze—figuratively, this time. A hand-lettered sign taped to the inside of the window stated, Gone elk hunting.
“What?” she burst out. She twisted around, hoping to see someone—even Avery himself—to tell her this was a joke, but the boardwalk was pretty much empty.
That was just great. She had flown all this way—had let him know when she was arriving even!—and he was out hunting? Oh, excuse her, elk hunting. Because that made all the difference in explaining why he was not in his office working like a normal attorney. She pulled out her cell phone, punching numbers with angry determination, and waited as it rang.
Inside the building, an old-fashioned office phone jangled.
Seriously? He hadn’t even forwarded his office phone to his cell? She’d thought she was in the Colorado mountains, not the year 1972.
Well, in a town this small, surely everyone knew everyone. There had to be someone who had his cell phone number. She did another spin to orient herself,