Page 6 of Keeping Happily Ever After

Almost.

There was a distinct difference between being happy for someone in theory and really understanding what that meant in reality. And that’s what Bella was worried about: the reality of it all. And what it would mean to their brand-new relationship.

ChapterThree

It hadn’t even beena full year since Stephanie had discovered Glacier Falls and the family she unknowingly had there, but already every time she returned, it felt like coming home. So much had happened since the first time she’d set foot in town, she didn’t even feel like the same person.

Probably because she wasn’t.

The Stephanie Starz who’d shown up at Ever After Ranch, the gorgeous—and increasingly sought-after—wedding venue run by the Turner twins, Hope and Faith, had been a girl with her priorities in a twist. To say the least. She’d been looking for the perfect place to marry her then-fiancé, Dax Combs, when what she should have been worried about was finding the perfect fiancé. Hers, as it turned out, was far from it.

But it wasn’t a total waste of time. Calling off her wedding had opened up space for her sister Faith and her now-husband, Logan, to finally admit their true feelings for each other, get out of their own way and get married themselves. The surprising detail that Hope and Faith were actually Stephanie’s half-sisters just made everything so much sweeter. Everything happened for a reason; Stephanie firmly believed that. If it hadn’t been for her ill-fated engagement, she never would have come to town, never would have met her half-sisters, and never would have met an entire community that helped her to fill the empty space she’d carried around for most of her life.

She hadn’t been entirely truthful with Bella a moment ago when she told her she’d just decided to come home from the city early. Truthfully, she’d always planned to come back a few days early, if everything went according to the plan she’d been working on.

And it had.

Stephanie sat in her SUV, looking out over Lynx Creek, the old fishing village she’d put an offer on right before Christmas. She’d announced it to her friends on Christmas Eve, but it had taken weeks to actually close on the sale.

But now it had. The sale was official, and the little cluster of run-down log cabins and lodges tucked into the trees just on the edge of town was all hers. She wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or cry. Or both. Definitely both.

Renovating the buildings and refreshing the property to the point where it could be useable for…what? She still wasn’t totally sure. It was a huge project to take on at this point in her life. Or, really, at any point in her life. But when she’d just signed on to co-star in a major production…what had she been thinking?

Stephanie dropped her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

Had she made a mistake?

The buildings were all run-down. Some were falling apart completely. Almost all of them needed new roofs and decks. Never mind the interiors. There was one cabin that was passable but that’s only because up until recently it had been inhabited. Still. Whathadshe been thinking?

Slowly, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. She kept her breathing slow and regulated as she took in the view outside her windshield. From where she sat, she could only see the main lodge, old cook house, and two of the six sleeping cabins scattered through the tall pine forest. All of which had a thick layer of snow covering them. They looked like frosting-covered gingerbread houses. In fact, the snow helped to make the old camp look far less run-down than it actually was.

A smile crept across her face, and the familiar excitement Stephanie had felt when she’d first set eyes on the property returned with a vengeance.

It was going to be perfect.

And that’s why she’d bought it. There was so much potential in the property. All it needed was a little love. A little bit of hard work, time, and care would turn it around. It was going to be amazing.

Unable to contain herself to her vehicle any longer, Stephanie grabbed her mittens, pulled her knit cap down over her full head of red locks, and stepped out of her SUV. Into a snowbank. She laughed at herself as she sank up to her knees in snow.

“Probably should have brought snowshoes.” She pulled one leg out and took the biggest step forward she could muster—which wasn’t very far given her short legs—and sunk back into the snow.

But a little snow wasn’t going to deter her. Not now that the property was officially hers.

It took her far too long to pack down a path to the main lodge building, but once she was in the cover of the trees, there was less excessively deep snow, just the occasional big drift she could skirt around.

Stephanie stamped her feet on the wood deck and immediately regretted it as one of her booted feet broke through a rotten board. “Oh!” Carefully, she pulled her boot out and stepped tentatively over the hole she’d created. “I’ll put that on the list.”

She chuckled out loud because her list was getting longer by the second. And not for the first time she considered the sanity in her decision in renovating the existing buildings. It would probably be easier just to bulldoze the entire property and start over.

“But where is the adventure in that?” she said to herself.

Carefully this time, Stephanie walked around the building until she got to the front door, which, to her surprise, still stood fairly solidly in place. She put the old key into the lock and turned, jiggling it just a little before trying the handle. The door moved a little, but the wood had swelled, making it hard to open. She dropped her shoulder and braced herself before pushing hard against the door until it finally moved inward, creaking open.

Stephanie was prepared to find evidence of vandalism or squatters inside. Or more likely, teenagers who’d used the place to party during the summer. It seemed like something she might have done and no doubt some of her new friends would have been just those types of teens when they were younger.

To her shock, there was no evidence of any break-in or vandalism inside. In fact, the lodge building looked as it probably did on the day that the previous owners had locked up and walked away almost fifteen years ago.

There’d been a caretaker on the property up until the winter before, but from what Steph understood, he didn’t really have a lot of actual caretaking duties. The previous owner felt a sense of duty to the old man and let him stay on long after her husband died unexpectedly and she’d shuttered the fishing business. Perhaps his presence had served as enough of a deterrent to any potential squatters or partiers?

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