Paige Hollander ignored the pool ladder, and she definitely ignored the pool steps. Every little bit helped, so she shoved down on the deck and heaved herself out of the water at the deep end. It wasn’t particularly graceful, but power beat grace every time in her book. Besides, she still had some aggression to work out.
She stalked over to her lounger—as well as a woman with a limp could stalk, anyway—as the Arizona sun, strong even at the beginning of May, continued its evil work on her pale skin. Why did people pay big bucks for this? The desert and sunburn? Weirdos.
Her sister Lily, looking as usual like sweat wouldn’t dare come close, her blonde hair coiled out of her way and a huge-brimmed straw hat shading her face, eyed her from over the top of her book and asked, “Good swim? Feeling all right?”
“Great.” Paige ignored the ever-present reminder from her thigh of how much trouble even a “minor” gunshot wound could cause, grabbed her towel, dried herself off with some extra vigor, then slapped on a little more sunblock. She was sure she was supposed to be opening her spirit up to the vortex that would be hiding—lurking—vortexing amongst the red rocks opposite the pool, but she didn’t feel like it. Her spirit would just have to suffer.
Her twin wriggled herself up to sitting, which no doubt caused half the luckless men dragged along on their wives’ Sedona spa vacation to leap to attention. The fortyish guy in an unfortunate black Speedo who’d been sitting on the edge of his lounger facing Lily tore his gaze from her general loveliness, took in Paige, his gaze lingering on the ugly purplish-red pit decorating her upper thigh, looked back at Lily like she was a much better resting place for his eyes, and said, “Don’t tell me. Identical twins? Aren’t you?” He shook his head and asked, “Did this weekend just get hotter or what?” like somebody had requested his commentary. Clearly, he’d decided to forgive Paige’s short, dripping brown braids and tank suit. Which was flattering, dammit. It had a crossover front and a floral print and everything. He was smiling, too, like she and Lily would be so bowled over by his attention that they’d invite him to be the meat in their Twin Sandwich. Being identical got you extra hotness points, or maybe being Lily’s identical twin got them for you. At any rate, Paige didn’t get those points on her lonesome.
Lily gave Speedo Boy her sweet smile, said, “Excuse me,” turned her back on him, propped herself on an elbow, and said, as Paige sat down on her own lounger, “The aura reading was pretty ridiculous. Don’t pay any attention. She doesn’t know you.”
“You can say that.” Paige tried to fix her chaise so she could sit up higher, gave up, and sat on the edge facing her sister. “Because you have a pink and silver aura. Loving and giving. Intuitive. Romantic. Us brick-red browns? We’re down here in the mud, being practical and…” She took on the breathy, soothing voice of the mystic, spread out her hands, palm down, and wriggled her fingers. “Identical, they call it. One soul in two bodies. But the third eye sees what the other two cannot. It sees the blockage in the heart chakra, the crown chakra. Where is your forgiveness, your compassion, your connection to the divine? It has been buried in the concerns of the material world. Your pink has turned to red, your silver to brown, and the spirit that should be light has darkened.”
Lily was laughing. “She did not say all that. She wasn’t nearly that bad. And now she thinks you’re lost for good. Good job. And get up.” When Paige did, Lily worked her mechanical magic and shoved the back of the chaise upright. It even stayed there.
“What,” Paige said, sitting down again, the right way around this time, because Lily was just that good, “because I said, ‘Guess that’s what happens when your spiritual being is busy earning money for Sedona spa vacations where you pay extra to be insulted’? Surely not.”
“Mm,” Lily said. “Maybe also that you walked out.”
“Hey. You walked out too. Of course, that was probably more of your fabulous aura. Do me a favor and tell me pink doesn’t also mean loyalty.”
Lily held up the brochure she’d been using as a bookmark. Soul Readings. “Sorry. I’m also generous. Which is a nice word for ‘sucker.’”
“Nah.” Paige took her hair out of its braids and started to rub it dry. “Probably true anyway. About me. My soul does feel pretty muddy.”
“Well,” Lily said, “maybe everything that happened was for a reason. I know you hate people saying that,” she hurried on with an absolutely correct interpretation of Paige’s expression, “that bad things happen just so somebody else can change. So all right, put it this way. Maybe it was an opportunity. Some signposts smack you in the face, right? Or the thigh. You don’t have to go back, you know. You can do whatever you want, choose a new direction. I wish you’d come stay with me for a while. More than a weekend. I miss you, and maybe… maybe it’d be good for you. I think so. I know I’d be glad to have you there.”
“I don’t need a new direction. I’m fine. But—wait. Is something wrong? I thought you loved it up there, being Heidi and everything. I’d come, but as I’m rapidly discovering, too much peace and quiet makes me crazy. But what? Is it the store? What?”
“No. The store’s fine. I really like the store. It’s just, you know.” Lily tried to laugh, but Paige wasn’t buying it. “Too much real life, I guess. I wanted to get out from under Antonio, and now I have, and it’s so much better—but still. I wish I could handle things the way you do.”
“What things?” Paige hated the way Lily skated around the truth. She was so tactful, the other person didn’t know what she was talking about half the time. “I told you. If you have to fire somebody, you just say, ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I’m going to have to let you go.’ Then you hand them the envelope with their check. Boom. Done. You don’t get any bonus points in heaven for feeling extra-bad about it. It’s business. You’re in business. You’re cutting them loose so they can find a better fit.”
“I did,” Lily said. “I know. I heard you. I did it. Never mind.”
Paige felt the familiar prick of worry. “No, come on. Tell me. Sorry. Jumping to conclusions. Judgmental. It’s my mud-brown aura.”
“Brick-brown,” Lily said, but at least she smiled. “Because you’re so competent and honest. That’s what that woman said before all the other stuff. It’s just that you only heard the other stuff. I’d say that’s from being a cop, you judging so fast, except I don’t think so. You’ve always been that way.”
Paige fixed her with her “quit-babbling-and-talk-to-me-now” stare, and Lily sighed and said, “It’s this guy.”
Paige didn’t let her own sigh out. It was always “this guy.” Lily had the world’s hardest time saying no, letting them down, whereas Paige had the world’s hardest time saying yes. It could be that she found an excuse to reject them before they could reject her. It could be. And this birthday—today, as it happened—was the twins’ thirty-first. There was that, too. “Tell me,” she said, tucking the judgment out of sight. She’d known there was something wrong with Lily. That was the real reason she’d made the supreme sacrifice and booked this trip, even though she’d also known it would drive her nuts. Here it was, Day Two of five, and—yep. She was nuts. But she’d been right about Lily.
“It’s not just him,” Lily said. “Although, yes, it’s him. He won’t take no for an answer. But it’s everybody else, too.”
Paige hauled her patience into place once more. “Who? We want names. And you have the right to your own body. I should write that on your palm, I swear.”
“Not that,” Lily said. “I don’t want a guy. I’m done. They glom onto you, and then they want all your time. They want you to pay attention. They say they’ll take it slow, and then they’re grabbing you anyway. I just want to say, get away. Do you feel that? Like they’re taking all your air?”
“Well, no,” Paige said. “Not exactly. I’m not as irresistible as you.” Huh, she thought. This was a new Lily. It had been a bad marriage and a worse divorce, but it had been final for well over a year. Lily had always rebounded like a boomerang. New guy, new hopes. Not this time, though. “Never mind. Moving on. So this isn’t a love interest. Or a loves-you interest. So who?”
Lily hesitated a moment longer, then said, “This developer. Brett Hunter. He wants to buy my land to expand the ski area. And he keeps on sending me things—offers, literature—and coming by the shop, and there’s this town meeting, and I…” She trailed off.
“So say no.” Paige pulled her T-shirt on over her suit. Sunblock or no, she could feel herself frying.
Lily said, “Oh. Good idea,” and pulled on something of her own over her yellow bikini. A white cotton cover-up that fell to mid-thigh, was trimmed with lace, and made Lily look like she should be wearing angel wings. “And I did say no. He doesn’t listen. He keeps coming at me. Like… battering, but with charm. And I don’t want to give in. I don’t.” Her hands tightened on her book, and she sounded uncharacteristically fierce. “I like my place. I like it how it is. I like it where it is. He offered me a lakefront parcel with a bigger house on it, and I said, ‘I don’t want a bigger house. I don’t want to live on the lake. I want to live in the woods. This is my dream.’ And he laughed.”
“Sounds like a jerk. You said no, right? So if he asks again, say no again. Or better yet—don’t engage. Don’t pick up the phone. Don’t answer the email. That’ll get the message across.”
“I could,” Lily said. “Honestly. I could. But it’s not him. It’s everybody else.”
“Everybody who else?”
Lily sighed. “OK. They—the development company, the ones who bought the ski area from the Albertsons, who were fine—they want to build a Nordic ski area and another lodge. A bigger one. A whole lot fancier. They want to upgrade the whole area, and this—my land—would be a big part of it. And I know I got it in the divorce, and I know that should mean I don’t want it, but I do. Antonio never liked it. I did. I do.”
“And they want it because…”
“It’s the last piece on the east side downhill from where the ski mountain starts. From where it starts getting steeper. On the west side, and on the east, past my place, it’s Forest Service land, and they can lease that. But they want varied terrain, and around the mountain, for the cross-country part. Which means me. And you know—it’d be tourism and money and jobs. There’s a town meeting coming up to discuss it before the commissioners can vote on the project, and how do I say no without even listening? How do I not go, when I know so many people still need jobs, or better jobs? But if I go, how do I stand there and refuse? How do I say I don’t care, that my happiness is more important than everybody else’s?”
Her sister looked truly troubled. Paige said, “That still doesn’t mean you have to sell. You’re not responsible for everybody else. You certainly aren’t obligated to give up the land you legally own just because somebody else wants it. That’s ridiculous.”
“You’re right. I know. Never mind. Come on.” Lily stood up and settled her angel robe around her. “Let’s go get a tea. Lavender heals your crown chakra, you know. Well, if you add rose petals and nutmeg, it does. It probably tastes terrible, but your spiritual self will be more open to enlightenment. Maybe you’ll even quit making that face during meditation time.”
Paige stared at her in astonishment. “You drank the Kool-Aid.”
“Nope.” Lily waggled her brochure in the air and smiled. “I read the flyer. Come on. Let’s go cleanse our chakras. Get our money’s worth.”