Later that morning, Paris plowed through a throng of reporters to get into her office. Her whole team was excited, watching the reporters from the office window, smiling at them, pretending to look busy when she got inside. “Work,” she grunted at them, in no mood for it all.

She had already seen the reports this morning: “Ford Events puts on the All-Stars gathering every year for the high rollers in Jackson. Paris Ford, former girlfriend of Logan Slade, refuses to comment about their relationship. The facts show they were high school sweethearts and were engaged until Logan’s sophomore year in college. No one really knows what broke them up, but Logan left LA last night and Kim Turner has been vlogging her concerns.”

The newscasters would flip to a clip of Kim railing frantically. “Please help find the love of my life.”

The memory was blessedly interrupted when Michelle held out a cup of coffee for her, giving her a half smile. “It’s that bad?”

Paris grunted and took the mug, grateful for her assistant even though no amount of coffee could help her today. “Yes.”

Michelle followed her into the office and shut the door behind them. “Yeah, this is crazy. I mean, do you think Logan is going to show up here?”

Paris stiffened, although she couldn’t blame her for the excitement in her eyes. They’d planned this event for Logan’s philanthropic organization every year, but Michelle had never met him. In fact, he would usually show up for one night, prance around the main party, shake hands with all the bigwigs, then beg off the rest of the time, saying he had other commitments. This had been the pattern. It’d perplexed Paris, but she knew it was better he avoided her.

Shane always said she pouted every year during the event, but she didn’t. Shane just … ahh. She massaged her temple, trying to abate the ache that had permanently taken up residence behind her left eye since yesterday and all the shenanigans with Logan had started. “I’m glad he’s okay,” she said softly. “But I don’t need this in my life right now.”

Michelle eased forward, mischief sparkling in her pale green eyes. “C’mon. Logan Slade wants to talk to you, people think he’s coming right now, and you’re not the least bit curious?”

“Curious?” She let out a light chuckle, unwilling to admit her unease. Glancing down and picking up the file on her desk, she said, “Logan Slade and I were over a long time ago.” The old feelings of betrayal and anger hadn’t been dusted off in a while, but they still had power to take her breath away. “Can we please focus on the task at hand? We need to get things ready for the event—which, may I remind you, we have less then a week to do. Please report,” she said in a hard, matter-of-fact way.

Michelle cleared her throat and began running down all the vendors lined up, then all the ones still in the works. “Jackson Resort staff are meeting with our people today to go over particulars on handling concert parking the night Montana Crew will be in town. We need ushers, car parkers, valets. We’re coordinating all of that. Did you know Texas Waters is going to open for him again?”

“Yes.” She kept her eyes fixed on a list, ignoring Michelle’s digging.

“Texas Waters.” Michelle said the words like she was about to eat her favorite chocolate dipped strawberry.

“What?” Paris said, feeling distracted and a bit jittery. She’d only had a little coffee this morning and should have eaten something to dilute the caffeine.

“You said he told you he wanted a date when he came to town this year.”

In the midst of Logan, she hadn’t even thought about that. She and Texas had met on the heels of her divorce, while she was trying to work Montana’s event the previous year. He’d opened for Montana then. She and Texas had ended up enjoying Montana’s concert together and possibly a kiss before she told him she had just gotten divorced and she couldn’t get involved. “I’m not even thinking about that today,” she told Michelle.

Michelle sighed, looking bored, and sat on the edge of her desk. “Listen, don’t worry about all of this.” She flashed a smile as she gestured to the reporters. “This is good for business. What’s that saying, ‘all PR is good PR’? Plus, we got this, boss. We’re getting things into place with the resort, Montana, Cooper Harrison’s place, all the venues and all the major players. Cooper’s hosting most of the bigwigs coming to town, which takes a huge amount of pressure off of us. So we just have to make sure the events and the food are lined up. We can do this. We got it.” She flicked her hand, imitating a whipcrack. “I got it under control.”

Letting out a troubled sigh, Paris felt doubtful. Actually, she didn’t feel doubtful; she felt like something was coming for her, like a tsunami or a hurricane, and she should run for higher ground like the animals. An idea took hold of her. “If you can handle things, I’m going to get away for a bit.” Yes. Yes! That was what she would do. Shane would be picking up Ty today, so that was good. There may be some press, but Shane could handle it. She could go somewhere they wouldn’t find her, where no one would think to look for her.

She began cleaning up her laptop. “I’ll still be available, but I’m turning off my location finder,” she said quickly, disabling that part of her iPhone. “Shane is picking Ty up after school and they are leaving in the morning for their ‘family’ cruise.” She looked up at Michelle, who was loyally cocking an eyebrow in displeasure for her.

“Oh, right, the family moon cruise,” Michelle said sarcastically.

Even though Paris hadn’t meant to be snide about the “new wife,” sometimes it was easier to accept than other times. Right now, on the precipice of having her child taken away for ten days, it was harder to accept.

Paris gathered key files that she would need to work while she was away from the office. She put her laptop in a case, and then turned to Michelle. “I’m going out the back door, but please give me twenty minutes. And tell them I am gone for the day, you don’t know when I’ll be back, and to please leave the premises.”

“No problem,” Michelle said, smiling. “You have a relaxing weekend, and when we come back on Monday, we’ll be ready for the week.”

Paris let out a breath and hugged her. “Thank you.”

Minutes later, she snuck out in a grey hoodie, happy she’d parked down the street in the public parking after deciding not to take up a space in front of her little office on Main Street. The office was an old home converted to an office, as many were on the older part of Jackson Main Street. She sprinted to her car, not taking any chances by revealing her red hair or giving any cause for someone to notice her.

Since Shane was picking up Ty, there was really no reason she had to go home. She’d given Shane the bag already packed this morning, and she’d skip out on the press she knew would be stalking her house. Taking a sharp turn, she went to a grocery store to stock up on some food, and then she would head to her grandpa’s cabin. She had clothes up there that would allow her to stay for a couple of days.

Her father had inherited the cabin, but rarely used it because he lived a couple of hours away in Twin Falls, Idaho. Yes, she felt more certain going to the cabin for a couple of days would be good. She could hide from everything.

Logan. As she thought of him, a sharp stab of pain hit the center of her chest, and she wondered again at how easily it had all fallen apart between them that year. Like a tightly knit sweater that has just the right string pulled to make unraveling a seamless process.

After spending a half hour buying essentials, she put it all in her trunk and took off for the cabin. It was about a forty-minute drive away, close to Star Valley, Wyoming.

As she drove it, she was amazed how much difference the forty minutes meant between the expanding and touristy Jackson to the ranch town of Star Valley. Growing up, she’d loved coming to visit her grandfather and spend weeks at a time at his cabin.

When she pulled up and turned off her car, what surprised her most was not how many memories she had of being here with Logan, but rather the peace that they brought. Because of his family circumstances, he’d spent a lot of time out here with her grandpa, too. Her grandpa had always liked Logan.

Getting out, she breathed in the smell of pine trees and could see the dock on the water from where she stood. All the stress unwound from her. Yes, it had been a good decision to come here to get away. So what if Logan Slade showed up in Jackson and wanted to have a press show. She wouldn’t be there. So ha!

Truthfully, her staff was very capable, so she really could work on a few things and pass off the rest to Michelle to disseminate. Plus, before she knew it, there’d be another vlog post from Kim, where Logan and her would be making out, as usual, and showing off all their ritzy possessions. She wouldn’t be looking at news here. This cabin didn’t even have Wi-Fi. If she wanted to send things, she would have to tap into her personal hot spot on her phone. She wasn’t a fan of personal cell phone hot spots, which would help to cure the desire to check the Internet for anything that wasn’t essential.

What a relief! Being disconnected was a huge weight off her shoulders.

Taking the key from under the planter box, she opened up the cabin. The first thing she noticed was the dust and that musky smell. Putting down her bag, she opened windows, pulled out the handy feather duster, and took the next hour to dust everything, then pulled the sheets off of the furniture and took them outside to shake out. She realized she hadn’t even been here last summer. The summer had flown by between the divorce starting and figuring out custody.

Sadness settled in her gut as she stared at the dock. Leaving the sheets stacked on the porch bench, she went to the old boathouse. When she opened it, the boat was covered. Grandpa had always taken immaculate care of it, but the whole place was dusty too. She should have someone come out and service it, leave it out for the summer and bring Ty up for boating. Maybe even bring some of his friends. She’d failed at giving Ty the same memories she’d cherished so much.

She sighed and thought of her cute son. Her heart had melted as she’d said goodbye to him today. That was the thing about divorce: kids only got one parent at a time. Shane had agreed to let Ty live with her during the year, but he got half the summer, so even if Ty wasn’t on a cruise, he would have been at his dad’s.

She thought of Shari Bolton and how she would always greet Ty with a cheesy, happy smile. Well, at least the stepmom was nice to her kid. Pulling out her phone, she texted Shane. At Grandpa’s cabin, please don’t tell the press.

Instantly he texted back. Avoiding Logan, are we? Even though it was a text, she could sense the snarky attitude. She ignored it and slipped her phone back into her pocket.

Just because the reports said he left LA didn’t mean he was coming to Jackson. How would they even know he was coming to Jackson? Plus, he would be a paparazzi magnet. There would be no way he would be able to get very far in Jackson without getting stormed by media.

Exhaling, she left the boathouse and pulled the door tightly closed behind her. As she walked out onto the dock, she noted that the early summer was heating up nicely. She couldn’t see any other boats out today. Usually, June would be when people—traditional families, mostly—would swarm over to rent the cabins and start boating.

She’d thought when she married Shane they would be one of those traditional families that would come every summer. Shane wasn’t really into the boat. It had been Logan who loved it. Staring across the water, all she knew was that old memories of Logan had resurfaced, and the only thing she could do was hide from the man and from the memories.