Page 3 of Breaking the Ice

How many times had Birdie cooked her a hot dinner? Dished up the most divine food along with her bumper-sticker advice? Birdie had dispensed her homespun wisdom as easily as the mints she had kept near the cash register, and Samantha had loved her for it.

Sure, Bec was good at it too, but she was a busy mum with four kids who lived a thousand miles away inDenver. Birdie had been just downstairs and had always made time.

But not anymore.

It didn’t seem right the next morning to come out of the sliding doors and see Birdie’s shop all shut up. Samantha stopped in front of the pristine, highly polished glass, still feeling the loss. Birdie had been up with the sparrows every day of her life and it didn’t seem to matter how early Samantha left for work, the shop was always open.

But there were no lights, no movement, no little wave to start her day on the right foot, just her somber reflection. She eyed herself critically as she always did because decades of diet culture and internalized fat shaming were damn hard to shake.

Some days she was better at it – today was not one of those days.

A Chanel-business-suit-clad plain Jane stared back at her. Plain brown hair which she twisted back every morning into a knot at her nape. Average height. Way too hippy with some chunk in those thighs.Zerogap.

Samantha had battled her body image since her junior high gym teacher had questioned whether she wanted to eat a second piece of funnel cake and not even her four-inch, patent jade sling-back Choos were enough to beat it this morning.

Or maybe that was just her eggs talking. Murmuring their disapproval at the very image of an independent,careerfocused woman.

For once the majestic, heritage oak trees she passed on her way to the bus stop didn’t register. Even the sight of the PE Finance building coming into view fifteen minutes later, its reflective glass panels dazzling like a mirror ball in the sunshine, failed to rouse her flagging spirits. In fact, the buzz she normally felt at justbeingin the city, didn’t materialize at all.

Stepping off the bus, Samantha rounded the corner, the gentle river breeze lacking its usual ability to give her a lift. The building’s exclusive river plaza address had been a badge of honor only a week ago. But today, as she entered the ornate foyer, it felt as empty and as cold as the slabs of Italian marble clicking beneath her designer heels.

She spent the morning in meetings with two of the firm’s most high-powered clients. As the youngest senior accounts executive on staff, she had done well for herself, something she tried to reflect on as she stood at the window of her eleventh-floor office, taking in the other buildings nearby.

It was unusual for a city the size of Tetworth – population 80,000 – to have a half dozen high rises dotting the CBD landscape. But its proximity to both LA and San Francisco,made it popular with corporations looking for a happy medium between commuting distances and skyrocketing building rental.

Not that PE Finance need worry about that given it was one of the planet’s most prestigious investment agencies. Despite having offices in multiple countries, its global HQ was in Tetworth becausethat’swhere Percival Ettinghauser originally founded the company 120 years ago and tradition meant something to the still family run firm.

A twinkle of sunshine on the river caught Samantha’s eye and her gray gaze tracked a river ferry speeding its ant-like passengers to the other side.

Thiswas what she’d wanted.Thiswas what she’d worked so hard to achieve.

Yes, the incident with Gary had thrown her and Birdie’s death had whammied her but there was no need to let them knock her off track. She had arrived, damn it! More than arrived. She was one step away from a coveted corner office on the twelfth floor and there was no way she was going to let recalcitrant eggs derail her – there was only one thing that could do that.

“Sam, can I talk to you about something?”

And his name was Ray.

Reluctantly, she dragged her gaze away from the view, turning to see the bane of her life, the boss’s moronic nephew – of distant Ettinghauser stock – standing in her doorway looking as clueless as ever. Today of all days she wanted to say,Ray, you are a fuckwit. Go away.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she sighed and nodded at the man who had been nothing but a complete pain in the ass since he’d wheedled his way into his uncle’s favor a year ago. He’d been incompetent from the get-go. She’d been picking up his slack and fixing hisstuff-ups for long enough now to know that nepotism was the only way he was ever going to be employable.

And he had made no secret of the fact that he wanted her job. It was almost laughable to think Ray could even covet a job that was as complex and responsible as hers but the old mandidhave a blind spot where he was concerned.

He wandered in, his gaze glued – as always – to her breasts, and Sam turned back to the window to see tiny passengers disembarking from the ferry and for the first time since she’d come to work here almost a decade ago, she wished she was down there, with the little people.

Instead of in her office, with the stupid people.

2

Samantha hung back under the shade of a massive maple tree and waited for Birdie’s clan to leave the graveside. The bright summer foliage provided welcome shelter from the warmth of the sun and its gnarled, aged branches pointed knotted fingers over the undulating terrain. The scent of freshly turned earth infused her senses as Samantha admired the grandeur of the Victorian headstones standing in stark contrast to the simplicity of more modern sites.

Tetworth cemetery, a stone’s throw from the CBD, was hemmed in by three major thoroughfares. Despite the everyday mortal rush and hurry beyond the ornamental stone gates, it somehow managed to remain tranquil. Presiding over the city like a grand old dame, its imposing elevated position and spires of crosses and other holy iconography rising from atop moss-covered gravestones, projected an other-worldly serenity.

It was entirely fitting that Eddie Hawke, herself a true lady, was laid to rest here.

Samantha patiently eyed the large family-only gathering. She guessed it was inevitable, given the size of the Hawke clan and how many had stayed in Tetworth, that there would be a cast ofthousands. Birdie did, after all, raise seven sons and all her boys had gone forth and multiplied. Her youngest son had even had seven sons of his own.

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