Chapter 7
Seven
Logan
The next morning, Sierra sits in the living room, the black trash bags holding her stuff at her feet. A sick jolt shoots through me at the evidence of her leaving again.
“I wish you had better news for me too, Sam.” Her phone is clutched to her ear, her hand against her forehead in a universal pose of defeat.
A tinny voice crackles from the phone in response. Sierra’s lips curl, and she tilts her head back and forth indecisively. “I appreciate the offer, it’s more than fair. But it’s my home too. Do you have any payment plans? Oh, I see.” Sierra sighs. “Let me get back to you. Thanks.”
“Bad news?” I feel a little guilty that I hope that it is.
“Oh, Logan, hi. You off to work?”
“I don’t have a tour today, so I’m working from home.” I tap my fingertips together nervously. “You got an update on Clunker?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“How much?”
She hesitates, and I beg silently for her to trust me. Her shoulders slump. “He has to replace the whole engine. Four grand.”
“Ah, man. Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah,” she says sadly. “But I appreciate all that you’ve done for me. It was really cool letting me stay with you.” She stands up.
“Hold up a minute,” I say, pushing down the panic at seeing her already trying to leave. “I think there’s a way we can help each other.”
Sierra eyes me warily. “What do you mean?”
Before I can stop myself, I launch into my whole pitch about Compass Mountain Events.
The longer I talk, the deeper her frown gets, so I rush to the point.
“It could transform Sagebrush,” I say. “Not that it hasn’t already, but it could bring some lasting tourism power once the excitement around the Billy Blackstone treasure fades.
My first event is in two weeks, and I got the green light for another event in seven.
It’s a lot. I’m essentially doing two jobs at once, with the cave tours. ”
Sierra’s mouth opens and shuts, her eyes clouded with wariness and confusion. “Logan, you still talk in circles. You need what, precisely?”
Ah, yes. “An assistant. I need boots on the ground, someone to drive around and pick stuff up, pass out flyers, call and coordinate with vendors, all the things that need to be done to get this whole thing worked out smoothly, so I don’t have to cancel my cave tours and lose out on money during our busy season. ”
I spent all night figuring out how to have her spend time with me. Because I need time. I need to ask her why.
“Oh,” Sierra says, her face clearing. “Shouldn’t you hire someone who will stay long-term? I’m leaving as soon as my van is fixed.”
“My family keeps saying I need help. A temp is fine. You’re a temp who can start right away, right?”
“But my qualifications?”
I wave this concern away. “You said you were working two jobs before, as a receptionist and waitress. That should be enough work experience to cover everything I need. You can pick up things, drive, and use a phone. You’re qualified.”
Still Sierra hesitates.
“I’ll pay you five thousand for the next seven weeks. Whatever that comes out to post-tax.”
Sierra holds up a hand. “Give me a second, Logan.”
“This is really important to me,” I say. “Getting this event off the ground. And you can stay with Seth and me. Included in your salary.”
She stands up and walks away. I may have gone too far with that. I shove down my gut reaction to take it back, and I wait.
She studies my face. “It sounds like you want me to act on your behalf at times. You’re asking me to represent you and your company.”
“Yes, at times.”
“Are all these vendors local? Would they know who I am?”
“Most of them are out of Sedona or Prescott Valley. A few local,” I explain. She frowns, and for a moment, I worry she’ll reject my offer. “I’ll handle the local ones,” I add softly.
Instead of looking relieved, Sierra stiffens. “What about your family?”
“What about them?”
“Would you want me to be seen by your family?” she asks. “Apart from Seth.”
That makes me pause. I hadn’t thought about how my mom would react.
Before Sierra disappeared, she and my mom had been really close.
My mom was her guidance counselor at school and provided a lot of maternal support that Sierra wasn’t getting from her mom.
Sierra hung out with my mom almost as much as she did with me.
When Sierra disappeared, my mom was devastated and blamed herself for what had happened.
It feels disloyal. But if Sierra doesn’t want to meet with my mom, then she doesn’t have to. My mom will be hurt, but she will understand. She was the reason we didn’t contact Sierra after we found out she was alive from the private investigator.
“She took great pains not to be found,” my mom said. “She made her choice not to contact us. We need to respect that. She’ll come back to us if she wants to.”
Sierra did come back, but not because she wants to be here. It is a heavy reminder that I need to focus on the goal here. Not rekindling, not reconnection. Closure and moving on. Seven years have passed. It’s time.
I clear my throat. “We can avoid seeing my family.”
Sierra’s eyes grow shiny at that. “All right. When do I start?”
Yes. Internally, I’m fist-pumping the air to the “Eye of the Tiger,” but externally, I smile serenely and say, “No time like the present.”
I show her my business proposal for the Candlelight Tour, including sample photos of what I have in mind.
“This looks like a vision board!” she exclaims, delighted. “Oh, man, this brings me back. Remember doing this in Mrs. Grove’s class? She’d be so proud to see you applying what you learned. Though it’s missing a few ATV pictures and girls in bikinis.”
“There was one girl in a bikini on my vision board, and if you remember, she looked just like you.”
“Oh, please. That’s not what I remember. She was a model!”
“A model who looked like you!”
“If you wanted me on your vision board, you should have added a real picture of me.”
“I didn’t have a picture of you in a bikini!” I lower my voice. “You used to only send me nudes.”
Sierra blushes. “Ah, I forgot I used to… You could have photoshopped a bikini onto one of those!”
I laugh. “No teenage boy is going to Photoshop a bikini onto his girlfriend’s nude photo. His hand would be too occupied to do anything other than zooming in on his computer screen.”
Sierra whacks me with the proposal. “Regardless, Mrs. Grove knew her vision boards. Has it been helpful?”
“Very. How else would my bone-headed siblings see my vision and understand it?”
“Oh, it’s adorable. We should add some quotes to it.”
“Don’t you dare. This is a professional business proposal.”
Sierra grabs my pen and writes All our dreams can come true if— She stops and puts down the pen. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
“Add the quote.” I like her teasing me. It feels nostalgic in the best way, like sweet, gooey s’mores around a campfire. I pick the pen up and press it against her palm.
Her fingers reflexively circle mine. Her breath catches—she must feel the spark too. Then she snatches her hand away.
She quickly scrawls the rest of the quote across one image of a lit-up cave in her feminine, loopy handwriting.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them,” I read, smiling. “Cute, I like it. Maybe my dream of ATVs and you in a bikini can still come to pass.”
“Ha.” Her face turns a charming shade of pink. “I think that ship has sailed, but the ATVs, why not?”
“What about your dreams? I can’t remember what you had on your vision board.”
“Dreams change,” she says, her smile a little sad. “The old ones don’t matter. What else do I need to know for this job?”
By the time Seth gets home, she’s up and running, making confirmation calls to the vendors on her list while I shop for bulk candles and lighters.
“Oh, hey, Sierra,” says Seth. “You’re still here?”
“Looks like it! We’ll have to work out our bathroom schedule if we’re going to be roomies though. One bathroom among three adults can be tricky. When do you shower? I’m usually more of a shower-at-night kind of girl.”
Seth’s eyes swing to me. “Roomies?”
I wince. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Uh, oh. You didn’t ask yet?” Sierra looks crestfallen. “I thought it was a done deal.”
“This is just a formality,” I assure her.
“A formality?” Seth repeats.
“Seth, please? Come on.” I gesture to my room. “Make yourself at home,” I say to Sierra, ignoring Seth’s outraged snort.
Seth closes the door behind us and crosses his arms. “She’s moving in with us?”
I rub the back of my neck. “She’s staying in the spare room. It’s as she said. We’ll be short-term roommates.”
Seth groans. “You implied we would find another place for her to stay, not here. You weren’t even going to ask me? This is my house too!”
“It’s not like we have another option lined up for her anyway. It was all hypothetical last night. She needs somewhere to stay today.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “And what did you say about the job?”
“Uh…”
“Because you haven’t talked to the others yet, either.”
“Yeah.” I grimace. “I already offered her a job. Working directly for me on the two events we have coming up.”
“Logan! Come on, man. The fam is not going to be happy. First the poetry reading event, then this?”
Okay, I do feel bad about that. We all own the company, but my siblings had other jobs that they quit when I asked them to return to help me expand the business at Compass Mountain Tours.
“I’ll keep it off the books then,” I say. “Pay her directly, out of my own pocket. I don’t need to get permission to hire a personal assistant, do I?”
Seth groans. “Again, that’s not the point.”
“What?” I say, deciding to go for obtuse so I can change the subject. “It’s the perfect solution! How is she supposed to open up unless we spend a lot of time together?”
“How is she supposed to open up with her boss and landlord?”
“Oh.” I grimace. “You may have a point there.”
Seth rolls his eyes. “Logan, what are you doing? I thought we discussed offering her something else. You know, a real job at Compass Mountain Tours, like working at the front desk and taking care of the gear.”
“She doesn’t want to see any of the family except for us two. So if she works for me directly, then she won’t have to.”
A knock at the door interrupts us. “Hi, Logan? Sorry to interrupt, but you said we needed to pick up the flyers before the print shop closes.”
“Come on, Seth,” I mutter. “You agreed yesterday that I need closure.”
“Not really.” He sighs. “All right, all right. We’ll try it your way. But you have to take out the trash for the rest of the year. And clean the bathroom. Like, a real, deep clean this time. I want it to be nuclear-level bleached, because the way you clean it is terrible.”
“I’ll clean until I’m high off the fumes, I promise.”
Sierra looks nervous when Seth opens the door. “Hey, roomie,” he says. “I’m a shower-in-the-morning kind of guy. Logan has to work around us.”
I can’t help the big grin on my face that matches hers.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s go to that print shop. Come on.”