Chapter Six
Caroline ran after Daphne, but she had disappeared. A light snow was falling on the sidewalk. She slipped her hands into her pockets and started walking. She should have told Daphne about Max. But there was nothing to tell. The reason she had gone to dinner was to try to find out something about Anne’s lover.
These days, most of Caroline’s friends’ social media posts were filled with photos of weddings and baby showers. Caroline wanted a husband and children. But it had always been part of a distant future. Like buying a house or investing in serious furniture. Until now, she’d preferred to focus on her career.
She stopped in front of the skating rink. She noticed a little girl with long braids. Her father was skating beside her. They both had dark hair, and wore matching red scarves and gloves.
Caroline recalled the first Christmas that she worried about not having a father. It was in third grade. The teacher asked them to write down everyone on their Christmas list. Caroline made a column with her mother and Walter, and her little sister, Daphne.
“Who’s Walter?” the girl sitting next to her, Jenny, had asked.
“Walter is my stepfather,” Caroline replied. “He and my mom got married a couple of years ago.”
“You should put down your own father too,” Jenny said knowledgeably. “I know, my parents are divorced.”
“I don’t have a father.”
“Everyone has a father,” Jenny persisted. “Even if your parents aren’t married anymore.”
Caroline explained that she never knew her father. Her parents never married, and her mother didn’t talk about him. Jenny gasped in astonishment.
“It doesn’t matter,” Caroline said uncomfortably. She consulted her list. “I have plenty of people to give presents to.”
“That’s too bad.” Jenny went back to her own list. “Extra fathers come in handy at Christmas. I get double the number of presents, my parents are always trying to outdo each other.”
Caroline remembered the stuck feeling in her throat. As if she were eating a peanut butter sandwich and the peanut butter on it was too thick and she couldn’t swallow.
Walter had been kind and generous, and Anne was the best mother she could have asked for. She introduced Caroline and Daphne to fashion and cooking and books. But Caroline wondered whether if she’d had a father she would be more like Daphne. Secure and trusting when it came to love.
She stopped to buy a warm pretzel and then went back to the inn and pulled out her iPad. After a while she gave up trying to find a manuscript that hooked her. But she couldn’t shake the burned-out feeling. If she didn’t come up with something soon, she’d have to evaluate whether she could continue her career as an editor.
The first time in the past months that she’d felt like herself was when she had been with Max. Maybe a romance with an attractive man was just what she needed to lighten her mood.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she picked up her phone. Max answered on the first ring.
“Caroline, hello,” he greeted her. He paused and then his voice came over the line. “You saved me from buying a life-size stuffed giraffe.”
“How did I do that?”
The salesgirl had convinced him that eight-year-old girls loved stuffed zoo animals.
“I told her I had to take this phone call.”
“I’m glad I could help.” Caroline smiled at the image of Max holding a stuffed giraffe. “I have some free time and I haven’t explored Aspen.”
“We’ll start this afternoon with a snowcat tour,” Max suggested. “There’s no better way to see the backwoods than from the cabin of a snowcat.”
Caroline needed to have some fun.
“That sounds perfect,” she agreed.
“I’ll pick you up at three, and dress warmly. The snowcats aren’t enclosed.”
Two hours later, Max was waiting by the fireplace in the lobby. He wore a fleece jacket and wool slacks.
“I told my mother what we were doing and she lent you this.” He handed her a hooded jacket.
“But I have a coat.” Caroline was holding the knee-length coat that she wore in New York.
“This is a thermal parka,” Max said with a smile. “She’ll be furious with me if you catch cold on your holiday.”
Caroline slipped on the jacket over her coat. It was deliciously warm, like stepping into a heated bath. She pulled on her gloves and followed Max onto Main Street.
The clouds had cleared and the sky was blue. The snowcat picked them up at the foot of the mountain. It was painted yellow and had huge rubber tracks.
“The snowcat goes further up the mountain than snowplows, it has to handle all kinds of terrain,” Max said when he had helped her into the cabin.
Caroline had ridden the gondolas at ski resorts in New York and Vermont. But the gondolas had been warm and insulated. The cabin of the snowcat was open; even in the jacket and with a blanket on her lap, it was cold.
“It will feel warmer once we start moving.” Max noticed her expression. “I promise it will be worth it.”
Max gave her a quick history of snowcats. They were invented eighty years earlier to explore mountain terrain. They were always painted bright colors, usually orange or yellow or red, so they could be seen from far away.
For a while, they rode through a forest. Then the snowcat veered vertically and climbed up the mountain. When the gears creaked to a stop, Caroline turned and gazed at the view. She had never seen anything so spectacular. All around them were craggy mountain peaks, thick with snow. Skiers were toy figures, and Aspen resembled a Monopoly board with tiny houses and matchbox-size cars.
“We’re at the top of Elk Mountain, the pride of the Rockies,” Max said.
They climbed out of the snowcat. Caroline imagined what it must be like during the summer. Velvety grass, fields full of wildflowers, lakes that were a brilliant aquamarine. She wished again that she had joined her mother at the Aspen writers’ conference.
“What are you thinking?” Max wondered.
Caroline pulled her mind back to the present.
“My mother loved Aspen, she came in June for the last time.”
Suddenly Caroline wanted to tell Max about the letter from Santa, and the man who would be waiting at the Little Red Mailbox.
“So that’s why you’re in Aspen,” Max said when she finished.
“It’s silly. My mom is gone, it doesn’t matter anymore.” Caroline gulped. “I couldn’t let him show up and wonder why she wasn’t there.”
“It doesn’t sound silly,” Max said seriously. “For someone with so many dating rules, it’s incredibly romantic.”
“I believe in love.” Caroline frowned. “Sometimes it’s not worth the effort.”
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“Never mind,” she replied.
She wanted to say that the only way to not get one’s heart broken was not to open it for love. But she and Max had just met. It wasn’t any of his business.
They got back in the snowcat and the driver plowed through a cluster of aspen trees. At the end was a timber hut.
“I couldn’t drag you up the mountain and not feed you.” Max grinned. “The restaurant is owned by the Little Nell hotel. It serves Swiss-style fondue, but that’s not the best thing about it.”
“What’s the best thing?”
“You can only reach it by snowcat.” He hopped down and helped her out. “We’re almost guaranteed not to have too much company.”
Inside, there were benches and long wooden tables. The windows had views of the entire valley, and there was a potbellied stove.
Everything on the menu was Swiss. Fondues and raclette, which was a variety of cheeses melted over ham and potatoes. For dessert there was apple strudel, and to drink, coffee mixed with schnapps, and a wine called glühwein that the Swiss drank at Christmas.
“You really know Aspen,” Caroline said. “I thought we’d just browse in the shops on Main Street, or ride a gondola.”
“I’ve been coming to Aspen at Christmas for years. My father is often traveling, but my mother never misses it.”
The waiter set down their plates. Max speared a piece of bread to dip in the pot of hot cheese and looked at Caroline.
“I don’t get it. You’ve got everything, looks and intelligence and a great career. Why don’t you want a boyfriend? I thought most women your age wanted to settle down.”
Caroline sipped her coffee. She’d been asked the same thing before.
“Men aren’t asked that question. Women who reach thirty without having an engagement ring are considered a failure.”
“My mother is always bugging me to join a dating site,” Max sighed. “Not ones like Tinder, but the type that guarantees to find your forever soulmate.”
“What if we don’t have soulmates?” Caroline demanded. “That’s why I invented my dating rules. I never have to rely on anyone but myself.”
“So, you never have a guy over to your place?”
Caroline recalled Jack stalking her apartment. “Definitely not. It’s too easy for someone to slip into an apartment building. Then I’d have to change the locks.”
“But you’re allowed to spend the night at his place?”
“I always leave before I’ve had my morning coffee,” Caroline clarified. “There’s nothing more awkward than standing around a coffeepot with nothing to say.”
Max took out his phone. He clicked on the notes.
“What are you doing?” she asked, puzzled.
“Taking notes.” His eyes danced and he was smiling. “I don’t want to get anything wrong.”
They finished their fondue and talked about Daphne and Luke’s decision to elope in Aspen.
“I take it you don’t approve,” Max said.
“Luke is a great guy, but they hardly know each other,” Caroline ventured. “It’s my job to watch out for Daphne. What if she’s making a mistake?”
Max grew thoughtful. His brow furrowed, and he played with his fork.
“We all make mistakes. Life is about figuring them out, and then moving on.”
Caroline was intrigued, and she wanted to ask more questions. But that would be breaking her rules. The whole point was not to get involved with someone.
Instead, she said playfully, “Somehow, I don’t see Max Carpenter making mistakes. You grew up on the beach in California, now you’re running your distillery in Aspen.”
Max leaned back in his chair.
“You’re right, but I might be making my first mistake now.”
“What kind of mistake?”
His gaze held hers. His eyes were the color of honey.
“It would be a mistake to tell you.” He touched her hand. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
After they finished their desserts, they rode the snowcat back to Aspen. Max suggested they stop at a bookstore.
The shop was called Explore Booksellers, and it was housed in a Victorian mansion. Inside, there were velvet easy chairs and walls of bookshelves lined with books. It reminded Caroline of her mother’s apartment on the Upper East Side.
The apartment had always been filled with books. There was a bookshelf in the entry. Sometimes Anne brought home so many books, she couldn’t carry them into the living room. There was even a bookshelf in the kitchen. Anne loved to sit at the kitchen table with a book while a meat loaf warmed in the oven or spaghetti boiled on the stove.
Caroline sipped the free hot chocolate and browsed through the fiction table. Her phone buzzed as she was waiting to pay for a book.
The text was from Daphne. “We’re at the inn. Luke fell ice-skating. He might have a concussion.”
All thoughts of spending the rest of the evening with Max disappeared. She showed him the text. “I have to go, Daphne needs me.”
Max put his books back on the counter. “I’ll come with you.”