The girl beamed. Daniel taught her how to check the fuel mixture and adjust the idle. He was a different kind of teacher than anyone she'd hired, patient. Not because patience was his strategy, but because he genuinely moved at the pace the problem required. He didn't explain things from a place of wanting to be appreciated for knowing them.
He just explained them. She helped Sophie build a snow fort in the lot while Daniel worked on a client's truck. Sophie had very specific architectural opinions about snow forts. The walls needed to be at least two feet high. There needed to be a window on the south side, and the entrance had to be small enough to keep out invaders.
A category that, upon investigation, included mainly the wind. You're good at this, Sophie said, packing snow with her mittened hands. I haven't built a snow fort in about 20 years, Riley said. Sophie found this incomprehensible. Why not?
I got busy. With what? Riley looked at the mountain ridge above the town, sharp against the blue sky. Work, mostly. Dad works a lot, too, Sophie said, but he still builds snow forts.
She paused. He built me this one last year. The walls weren't as good as yours. Don't tell him I said that. Your secret is safe.
Sophie nodded, satisfied, and went back to packing the south wall. Over the next two weeks, Riley Hargrove built a snow fort, learned to adjust a carburetor, burned a batch of pancakes, and then successfully made a second batch, watched three episodes of a nature documentary about Arctic foxes with Sophie, lost four games of Go Fish in a row, and helped Daniel hang new shelving in the garage on a Saturday afternoon that somehow extended into dinner, and then into the two of them sitting on the porch steps in the cold watching the stars come out over the mountains. She was not fixing anything. She was not optimizing anything. She was not producing any result that could be measured or reported.
She was, without fully realizing it, becoming happy. She hadn't told him who she was. Not exactly. He knew her name. He knew she had a company in Denver.
He hadn't asked for more, and she hadn't offered it. And in the space of his not asking, she had found something she hadn't known she needed. The experience of being known as a person rather than a net worth. She called Marcus once, kept it short. The company was fine.
There were decisions that needed her attention, but nothing that couldn't wait. She stayed. It was a Tuesday evening in the third week when Daniel told her about Lauren. Sophie was asleep. They were at the kitchen table, which was covered in the evidence of the evening, Sophie's homework.
Two empty mugs, a deck of cards from the Go Fish game. Riley was looking at a photograph on the refrigerator that she hadn't asked about. A woman with dark hair and Daniel's same direct eyes, laughing, standing in snow. That's Lauren, Daniel said. Not a question.
She looks happy, Riley said. She usually was. He was quiet for a moment. She was sick for about 18 months before she died. Cancer.
She handled it better than I did. Riley turned from the photograph. How old was Sophie? Four. He wrapped both hands around his mug.
Sophie remembers her, but not the way I wish she did. She remembers the good things, the songs Lauren sang, the way she smelled, but she doesn't remember having a mom the way other kids have moms. She doesn't know what she's missing, exactly. She just knows something's different. She seems okay, Riley said carefully.
She's more than okay. She's remarkable. The word came out simple and complete, the way he said most things. But she's also seven, and she's never had a woman in her life who knows her. He stopped, started again differently.
She talks about you after you leave. Riley looked at her hands. She told me Gerald has approved of you, she said. I understand that's significant. Daniel almost smiled.
Gerald's approval is not easily given. I gathered. A silence. The log in the wood stove popped and settled. I don't know what's happening here, Daniel said.
Not accusatory, just honest, in the way he was always honest. I'm not looking for anything. I told myself I wasn't. Sophie needs stability, and I need to be the person who gives her that. And so I stopped.
I stopped. He made a gesture with one hand that seemed to mean all of it. But then you came, and she made you hot chocolate, and now I'm finding myself watching the road to see if your bike is coming. The words fell into the room. Riley's throat was tight.
Daniel, you don't have to say anything, he said quickly. I'm not I'm not asking you for anything. I know you live in Denver. I know you have a life there. I just wanted to be honest because I'm not good at at pretending I feel differently than I do.
She looked at him across the kitchen table, this quiet, careful man who fixed thing two things with his hands and made sure his daughter knew how to notice when people were cold, and she understood that she was in serious trouble. I'm watching the road, too, she said. He was still for a moment. Then he nodded once, slowly, the way he nodded when a piece of information had been filed correctly. Okay, he said.
Okay, she agreed. They sat with the leftover evidence of the evening between them, and neither of them needed to say anything else. Her phone rang on a Thursday morning while she was in the garage handing Daniel a torque wrench. She looked at the screen. Her CFO, Noah Brenner.
She'd been dodging Noah's calls for four days. I have to take this, she said. She stepped outside into the cold. She could hear Noah's voice before she even raised the phone to her ear, clipped, precise, the voice of a man who had spent the last 72 hours managing something that had gotten significantly out of hand. Riley.
The Caldwell Group wants a response by end of day tomorrow. They're reevaluating our Series D terms, and if we don't get in front of this I know, Noah. Do you? Because your assistant told me you've been in Aspen for three weeks, and no one seems to know. I know the situation.
I'll get on a call at 4. They want you in person. Chicago. The board is I'll fly tomorrow. She closed her eyes briefly.
Set it up. She stayed on the phone for 12 minutes. When she hung up, she stood in the snow outside the garage for a moment, her breath clouding in the cold air. The mountains were very still. She went back inside.