Chapter 9 Maddie #2
The lawn in front of the house is just brown winter grass—not much to see there. But when we hike around back, past the bit of lawn there, we see birds hunting for worms, and we look for signs of foxes and deer.
“Oh, you guys have a fire pit,” I notice on the way back toward the house. “That’s awesome.”
It’s a nice one too, made of stone blocks with hand-hewn wooden benches all around it.
“What’s that for?” Dylan asks, wandering over.
“You can put wood in there and have a nice fire at night,” I tell him. “Then you can sit around it and tell stories.”
I don’t say ghost stories because he’s just a little kid and it might freak him out.
“That’s nice,” he says.
After our nature walk, we go back inside and warm up. Then we play UNO and hide-and-seek again before jumping back into our book.
By the time the sun is setting, Dylan is hungry again, and Jake is still working—I haven’t seen him all day.
“That’s okay,” I tell Dylan. “Should we make some more grilled cheese? You can help me this time, if you want.”
“Okay,” Dylan says, looking pleased.
He’s such a genuinely nice little boy. It makes me sad thinking about what he would be doing with his day if his dad hadn’t thought to ask me to help out.
His mom mostly took care of him, I hear Jake saying in my head.
I can’t help but wonder what happened with his mom. I guess Jake is right, I probably should have looked him up online. But that would only tell me about his business dealings. I probably wouldn’t learn much about his wife.
Why doesn’t Dylan talk about her?
But there’s no point trying to guess. I figure that I’ve got about fifteen minutes to get food into him before he starts melting down.
“Race you to the kitchen,” I tell him. “No cheating this time.”
His eyes light up.
I cheated in an earlier race, and it tickled him so much he didn’t even care that I took off ahead of him. Now it’s his turn.
“Okay, Maddie,” he says, giggling. “But look, an elephant.”
He points behind me and I turn, pretending to fall for it.
When I turn back, he’s so busy laughing at me that he’s forgotten to actually use his advantage and run off. I make like I’m going to take off at top speed and he remembers and darts off.
Obviously I let him win the race, but I make sure to keep it close so I can enjoy his delight when he crosses the finish line and touches the kitchen island.
“Well, you won this time,” I tell him, scowling, but also winking at him so he’ll know I’m not really mad.
He giggles at me some more.
“Ready to make grilled cheese?” I ask him.
He nods up and down.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I’ll get the cheese and butter. You get the spatula.”
“What’s a splat-lu-la?” he asks.
“Oh, it’s the thing we flip the sandwiches with,” I tell him, pointing to the correct drawer. “It’s in there.”
I head to the fridge for the cheese and butter. When I’m grabbing the bread, I notice that he’s getting something out of the drawer, but it’s not the spatula.
“What’s this?” he asks, holding out a metal rectangle on a stick.
“Oh, that’s a pie iron,” I tell him. “You use it to make mountain pies.”
I haven’t thought about mountain pies in forever, and just the idea of them makes me smile.
“What are mountain pies?”
“Well,” I explain. “You make a sandwich with whatever you want inside, then you butter the outside of the bread, and then you open up the rectangle and put it inside and cook it over the fire. I used to make them with my dad when we stayed up here. They were so good.”
His eyes get enormous, and he’s doing that thing where he’s standing stock still but it looks like he’s going to start vibrating with excitement.
“I want to do that,” he whispers. “Let’s do that.”
“One of these days maybe we can,” I tell him carefully. “But I can’t light a fire in the fire pit without your dad’s permission.”
Dylan is gone so fast it’s like I’m looking at a smoke outline.
I take off after him, but he’s bursting into the office before I can stop him.
Thankfully, for once, Jake isn’t pacing around on the phone and frowning. Instead, he’s frowning at his laptop.
“I’m sorry,” I pant as I trail in after Dylan. “I didn’t want him to disturb you. Come on, Dylan, let’s head back to the kitchen. We can make something awesome.”
“But, Dad,” Dylan wails. “Aren’t you the type of person who wants to eat a mountain pie?”
Jake’s eyebrows go up at that, and it’s all I can do not to giggle.
“You know what, buddy?” Jake says, standing and running a hand through his dark hair. “I don’t know what that is, but I’m hungry enough to eat a mountain horse.”
Dylan laughs and starts galloping around the room in celebration.
“We have to make a fire in the fire pit for them,” I tell Jake quietly. “Is that okay?”
“Sounds great,” he says, one corner of his mouth teasing upward just slightly.
This is a side of him I haven’t seen before. It’s nice to see him want to do something fun for a change.
He must have had a good day bossing people around.
Dylan and I gather up the bread and as many ingredients as I can find in the house for mountain pies. I’m thinking Jake will want Dylan to have something sensible, but I’m bringing the raspberry jam out too for dessert.
There are three pie irons in the drawer, which is perfect, and we grab them before bundling up and heading outside.
It’s super cold, but there’s no wind, and the sky is cloudless, so you can really see the stars.
I forgot how many of them there are up there.
This far from the city, it’s like a whole different sky, with twinkling lights splashed across every inch.
On the lawn below, Jake is arranging small sticks around two big pieces of wood in the fire pit.
“What are you doing?” Dylan demands, running up to him.
I stay back a bit, letting the Stone men talk about fire safety and how to get a log burning.
I was probably about Dylan’s age when my own dad gave me the talk about forest fires and how important it was not to ever play with matches or lighters, or try to start my own fire.
I remember the conversation scaring me, but my dad giving me a big hug afterward and telling me he knew I was a smart, careful kid and that I loved the mountains too much to let anything bad happen to them.
Of course, I’m about to let the lodge get torn down. So maybe I’m not as smart and careful as he hoped I’d be.
I know it’s madness to think that Margo’s harebrained scheme might actually work.
But I honestly can’t think of a better one.
After witnessing Jake seething on the phone with the energy of an enraged tiger all day, I don’t exactly get the impression that he’s the type of guy who would respond to an impassioned plea.
If we ask him not to tear down the lodge, he’s going to need to know why it’s an excellent business decision.
And the obvious answer to that is that it’s not. There’s no way he could make more money from keeping Angel Mountain Lodge running than he could by knocking it down and building more of these monstrous chalets. If anything, with the improvements it needs, the lodge would probably cost him money.
But worrying isn’t going to help.
“Want to help me start our pies?” I ask brightly as I head down to join them, figuring I might as well enjoy my moments here while I have them.
Dylan nods to his father and then scampers over to join me at one of the benches. He starts pawing through the ingredients immediately, and grabs the peanut butter.
“Can I have mine with this?” he asks me.
“Sure,” I tell him. “I brought out a banana, so you can make yours peanut butter and banana, if you want.”
“Peanut butter and banana?” he echoes, looking at me like I’m bananas.
“Have you never had a peanut butter and banana sandwich before?” I ask him.
He shakes his head.
“You like bananas, right?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, nodding.
“Oh wow,” I say, excited to be the first to introduce him to the most delicious sandwich in the world. “You’re going to love this. Get two slices of bread out, okay?”
As Dylan picks up the bread, I get this funny feeling and turn to catch Jake gazing at me.
The firelight makes him look more handsome than ever, and his eyes are so blue that I feel almost hypnotized.
Something about all of this is… nice.
But I am absolutely not falling for the man who is about to tear down all my best childhood memories. No way.