Randy pressed the key in his hand, but Samson wouldn’t close his fingers, so the key fell on Samson’s Ikea rug with a bounce. Randy bent down to pick it up. “You don’t have to ever step foot in the house. I just want you to have a key that you can give to someone ELSE to go in the house.” Samson put his hands on his hips. “WHO else?”

Randy couldn’t believe how difficult Samson was being. He hadn’t wanted to argue like this. He had enough to deal with. “June.” Samson’s face fell and he took the key out of Randy’s hand. “You’re selling the house?” Randy shook his head. “No, but if I do, you’ll need to give the key to June.” He watched his friend turn the key over in his hand. “I thought this was only temporary until Sierra gets out of treatment…”

Randy felt full to the brim with suffering. “I don’t KNOW, Samson. That’s the problem.” He felt the release of his hand going over his face. “All I know is that I’m not putting Sierra back in that house. When she gets out of Woodleaf, we’ll come visit.” Samson’s house still smelled like the scent of new furniture. The hand chair sat in the corner with two ranger coats hanging off it: one on the forefinger and one on the pinkie. “We’ll stay in your guest room, how’s that?”

His friend’s hair was hanging in a straight bob around his ears. It had an indent all around it from being held in a rubber band at the nape of his neck. “And the Onion Festival. You have to come back for that.” Randy smiled and assured him, “We’ll eat a whole onion pie: just the three of us.”

While Random argued with the doctor, Samson tried to piece together what happened. “So, she came barging into your house screaming that you had cursed the Bowen House?” Elvis and Vesta nodded. The old cowboy was so shaken that his wife spoke for him. “She said she had tracked down every previous owner and interviewed them.”

Samson sighed. He had tried to follow Sierra a few of the times he had caught her leaving Merriton, but she had just met people for lunch, just like she told Random. The two of them had been relieved, thinking that she was finally getting over this running thing.

Elvis finally spoke, “When I bought that defibrillator, I thought it was gonna be used on me.” He patted his wife on the knee. “Ya did good, Vesta. You did good.” Random walked over to them and plopped into the empty waiting room chair between Elvis and Samson. “They won’t let me see her.” Samson replied, “She just got out of heart surgery.” Random glared at him and Samson changed his reply, “Oh, sorry. Um… Those bastards?!” Random laughed a little at his joke and then immediately broke down into tears. Samson awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.

Random sobbed, “I thought she was over this. When I took her to Woodleaf ten YEARS ago, she was supposed to be cured.” Samson shook his head. “Sorry dude, she’s never going to be cured. She had trouble in high school when we were friends. She had trouble when you two were first married. She has trouble now. She’s never going to get over this and she’ll always have to fight it.” Elvis’ hand rubbed the red welt above his right eye. “And son, you can’t fight it for her. The more you try, the worse she’ll get.”

The waiting room was quiet. Samson could smell the strange antiseptic scent of the hospital cleaning products. “I knew she had this problem when I introduced you two. Sorry I didn’t warn you.” Random rubbed his face from his forehead down to his chine in one long movement, collecting the tears on his palm. “You know, you said that last time.” Samson was surprised. “I did?” Random nodded. “Yeah.” Samson shrugged. “I guess I still feel guilty.” Random shook his head. “Don’t. I wouldn’t change a thing.” He sighed. “It’s all worth it.”

The PA system called a doctor to a department and the echo of it stung Samson’s ears. After the announcement, the room felt even more quiet than it did before. A silent TV flashed closed captions over a sitcom living room. Samson stood up and turned the TV off.

“You know, our oldest boy has a drinking problem.” Vesta’s calm voice bounced off the room’s walls. Samson walked back to his hard, plastic seat next to Random and sat down. Vesta continued, un-urged, “We tried everything to help him.” Elvis nodded and answered her, in a big, long list, “Bailin’ ‘im out, hidin’ the liquor, watchin’ ‘im all the time…” His voice trailed off, but Samson continued, “Random tried taking away her Nike+, he tried giving her one to encourage her to run reasonably, he tried watchng her every second.” Random broke in, “I even tried to get the gym to take away her membership.”

Samson was surprised. “You did? You didn’t tell me that?” Random smiled wryly. “You’ve been avoiding me.” Samson shook his head. “Not you. Avoiding your house.” The words hung over them like an angry accusation. Samson scanned the room. The outdated tabloids announced that John Mayer was dating Jessica Simpson once again. Samson wasn’t quite sure who either of them were, but the gossip magazine was sure that this time it would work out. It didn’t.

Random finally broke the silence. “What DID you and Artimus DO to that house?!” Samson held his breath. It was the first time Random had admitted that there was something strange going on in the Bowen House.

Elvis looked genuinely perplexed. “I ain’t a witch doctor, boy. I just bought his goats and his extra land. I didn’t need an extra house.” Random raised his hand to his forehead and wiped in one long movement down to his chin. A happy family pushed a young woman in a wheelchair. She held her new baby in her arms while her husband carried a bag and a baby carrier. Their noisy joy echoed down the hall until they disappeared with a swish of automatic doors.

“Seems to me,” Vesta said, “that we shouldn’t have landlocked the house. It might have protected the property from getting bought by developers, but it…” She stopped. Samson saw her struggle for the right words that finally came. “Maybe a house is like a body of water. If it gets stagnate, it goes sour.” Random shook his head. “No that’s not it. It never felt sour to me. Living in that house made me realize who I truly am. I’m not a programmer.” Samson didn’t bother arguing, so Random continued, “I’m a conduit. I bring people together who do great things. It took two years there to realize that.”

“That house ain’t cursed.” Elvis broke in, “The people who buy it are messed up. If we left it how it was, we’d have thirty crappy houses right next door, and no one would notice if they was fallin’ apart or being sold every two years. It’s a farmhouse without a farm. Real farmers don’t want it…” He broke off, and placed a hand on Random’s arm. “No offense to your little lady. Her goats are thrivin’ and healthy. She got a talent there. Can’t deny it.”

Random nodded. “Yeah, she’s great with the goats, but they remind her of growing up as a hippie…” Samson agreed, “Yeah, she HATES hippies…” Samson thought about Sierra with her chest cracked open in the recovery room. Vesta mentioned quietly, “Funny…” Samson and Random turned to face her with questions on their faces and Vesta flustered.

“I was just thinkin’ how funny it was that she was drawn to the life that she hated.” Samson shook his head, but Random answered her, “Drawn? More like dragged. She didn’t want to move here. She didn’t want a goat. She DEFINITELY didn’t want to leave San Francisco. She did it to make me happy.” Samson could see the guilt on his friend’s face.

“Bullshit!” Elvis broke in. “That’s a load of bullshit and don’t you say otherwise. You didn’t force ‘er to move here. Ain’t a wife alive who can’t make her man choose wisely. One temper tantrum from that little girl and you woulda ducked and dodged. Merriton wouldnta been an option if she had pitched a fit like I saw in my kitchen!”

The old cowboy stood up and pointed. “And another thing, most folks woulda just laughed in my face if I tried to pay ‘em with a sickly goat.” He faced Vesta. “‘Member what I said ‘fore I went over there? I said they’d probably just laugh at me. But no!” He faced Random again. “No! What’d she do? She took Mary right outta my hand and started makin’ sure there wasn’t anything poisonous for ‘er to git into. No, she wasn’t drawn to it. She grabbed this life right outta my hand.”

Vesta placed her hand on Elvis’ and he sat down again, instantly calmed. She continued, “It’s like the house makes you more of who you are. Whether you like that person or not is up to you.” Samson shivered at the thought that he would never be good enough. He would always focus on his failures and the only thing he could do about it was to abandon it all.

Random ran his hand over his face. “So, the house IS cursed.” He pulled out his phone, but the doctor was walking toward them down the long hall. Elvis poked him in the side. “Don’t call ‘im a moron. Doctors don’t like it when you call ‘em morons.” There was no time for Random to respond. The doctor pointed at him and said, “You can see her now.”

Elvis stood at the doorway of the kitchen unsure what to do. “Vesta, darlin’. Why dontcha go over to the Bowen House and tell Randy his wife is ragin’ up a storm in our kitchen?” He sighed with relief when she hurried off. Forty-three years with that woman and she could still bring a wave of love to him that would nearly knock him down. With her safe, he could focus on the raging stick figure in his kitchen.

“Don’t quite know whatcher talkin’ ’bout, but you got my attention.” He carefully sat down at the table. The manila folder was thick with photocopies and yellow pads. Sierra screeched at him, “NOTHING! I found NOTHING!” She flung open the folder and two papers flew out onto the floor. “Absolutely nothing!” She scrambled after the stray sheets, holding them out to him.

“You and Artimus sign the deed, landlocking the house and TWO WEEKS later, Artimus dies!” Elvis was going to answer that Artimus had been so sick that it was a wonder he lasted as long as he did, but Sierra continued without even a breath taken between. “Then the property was sold to a Judith Lightfeather. Before that, she had bought TWENTY homes, rennovated them and flipped them for a profit. She lived in the homes so she wouldn’t have to pay state investment taxes.”

Sierra took a breath, leaned over the table and hissed, “Want to know what happened to her?” Elvis didn’t have time to tell Sierra what he knew because she continued the screaming rant, “It took me a while to find her. She decided to sell the house and move to the Blackfoot Reservation.” She slammed her hand on the table. “She sells beaded souvenirs in Fort Hall!”

Elvis remembered seeing Judy last time he took Vesta to the Fort Hall Casino. “She was pretty damn happy when I saw ‘er there.” Sierra stomped her foot and swung around, facing the sink. She threw her hands up and yelled, “I KNOW! I interviewed her!” She turned again, facing Elvis. “But she said that she was so glad she sold the house.” She scrambled for one of the yellow pads, flipping the papers until she found her place. “She said, ‘Living in the Bowen House felt like wading in a pond covered with algae.’” Sierra smacked the table with the pad. “ALGAE!”

At that moment, Elvis saw Randy peek around the kitchen doorway. “What’s going on?” Elvis watched the man unconsciously flinch when Sierra picked up her folder. “I have been spending the last two weeks tracking down every person who has owned this house since Artimus died! And it all started with HIM!” Elvis felt grateful that Vesta was shying away from Sierra’s angry movements.

Randy tried his best to calm his wife, but Elvis could tell that his gentle words would only make her angrier, so he took matters in his own hand. He stood up and pointed at his chair. “Sit down right this minute, missy!” He mustered up his “Angry Dad” voice and directed it at her. “You sit down!”

Instead of meekly sitting in silence like his children would have, she threw the folder of papers at his head and screeched, “I will NOT sit down! You are going to tell me what you did to that house to make it so fucked up!!” The corner of the folder hit right above Elvis’ right eye and the papers floated around his head like a snowstorm in January. He could smell the ink and the glue in the pad bindings in a flash of insight.

“What did you DO?!” Her screaming froze in mid-throat. Elvis held his hand up to his right eye in reaction to the blow. It was Randy who first noticed there was something wrong with her and he caught her before she dropped to the floor like the sickly bag of bones that she was.

The hostess seated the two of them. The woman was quiet and Bill awkwardly tried to start the conversation. “Can’t help but think I must be in some kinda trouble Miss McCain.” The woman’s unhappy face sighed. “Please call me Sierra. I assure you that you are not in trouble. I am merely investigating the work practices of your former employer.”

The waitress interrupted them and they ordered their respective entrees. This woman was paying for the meal, so Bill felt conflicted. It had been so long since he had been to a nice restaurant like Chili’s, so he wanted to order the biggest slab of ribs on the menu, but at the same time, he worried about her paying for his meal. He didn’t want to feel beholden to her. She ordered a petite salad, so he ordered only the half slab of ribs. Just looking at her was like looking at the walking dead. It made him want to eat like a pig and take his soft wife to bed.

After the waitress left, the woman resumed, “You worked for Raymond Chandler in the early Nineties, is that correct?” Bill nodded. “Yeah. Ray was doin’ a lot of construction back then. Things were hoppin’.” He felt uncomfortable, but he tried to hide it. The waitress brought his soda and her water. He concentrated on the wrapper on the straw, carefully tearing it off with his large hands.

She continued with her questioning. “Do you remember working on a master bedroom addition to a home down south in Merriton?” Bill DID rememer the job and scanned his memory. Did he do anything wrong? Did the foundation collapse or something? All he did was dig a hole and not a very deep one at that. All he answered, however, was, “Yep. Resorts hire their own, so I don’t do much work in Merriton. Makes it easy to remember.” The woman took a long sip of water through her straw and then replied, “Tell me about it.”

Bill could smell the barbecue sauce from the kitchen. “All I did was dig a hole.” The woman looked at him patiently and said, “No one is accusing you of any wrong doing. I just want to know about the addition.” She opened up her folder and continued, “It seems Mr. Chandler laid you off after you had worked with him for six years.” Bill defended himself. “Construction kinda comes and goes. When it’s good, they wanna work my backhoe 24 hours a day. When it’s bad…”

Lately, it had been bad. His old machine was rusting in the back yard. It had been so long since he had been able to get work. Lucky thing his wife had been able to keep her job through this whole time.

The waitress brought the food. The woman picked up her fork and started moving the lettuce around her plate. Bill ate with gusto, not noticing that she didn’t actually bring the fork to her lips. “Mr. Chandler stated that he follows all the laws in the state, in particular, the Archaeological Preservation Act. Have you ever seen him continue with construction, even if you come across something that might be considered archaeological?”

Bill sighed with relief. “Oh Ray’s a stickler for that kinda thing. Once we dug up some bones over in Emigration. Took those guys two months to figure out they was just cow bones. Didn’t bother me none back then. I had so much work that I just moved on to the next job until those state boys figured things out.” He enjoyed the garlic mashed potatoes in between bites of rib, fingers gooey with sauce. “Owners were mighty angry, though.”

The woman took another drink of water. “On the master bedroom addition in Merriton, did you run into any bones? Any pottery shards? Anything that could be considered archaeological?” Bill smiled. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong on that house. “No ma’am. The oldest thing I saw over at that house was the old coot cowboy who lived next door. He watched the whole time we worked, askin’ questions and just buggin’ all ‘o us.” Bill enjoyed the memory. “That old guy had an opinion about everything we did and how we should do it better.”

Bill laughed to himself. “Ya know, to this day, little Manuel, ” Bill paused to explain himself, “He helps pour the foundations. Well, he scrapes the concrete just like that cowboy told him. He says it works better that way.”

The woman took a bite of her salad and chewed it for a long time. After a sip of water, she asked, “This cowboy… did he seem overly interested in what you were digging?” Bill tried to remember. “No ma’am. He just thought I shoulda dug a little deeper so there could be a root cellar. He said most people appreciate a big root cellar, but the owner wanted a slab foundation to match the rest of the house. So, all’s I had to dig was to level the land.” He held up a rib in his hand. “No bones. Ray woulda stopped everything if there was.”

The woman sighed and asked the waitress for a box for her uneaten salad.

Why did it feel so much better when her legs were pumping away beneath her? On the treadmill and trails, Sierra felt like her old self again. Before the Dot Bomb. Before the Zerbitz fiasco. She felt in control and everything was a little better.

The LEDs on the treadmill illuminated 4.5 miles. “Half mile, ” she thought to herself. “That’s all I’ll do. Then I’ll stop.” The thought of going back to the Bowen house filled her with a sinking dread. “Samson’s right. That house IS haunted,” she ruminated.

Was it haunted by the guy who sprayed his brains all over the wall in the master bedroom? As far as she had heard from June, their realtor, the house had changed hands a half a dozen times before that sorry man took possession of it. When did it start?

Maybe when the renovations were made, something was disturbed. That master bedroom was added by a previous owner. So was that weird water heater that never runs out of hot water and the Internet access. Maybe that owner dug up an old grave to add that master bedroom.

The silliness of her thoughts overtook her and Sierra laughed out loud in a strange pant. Two years ago, she was a lawyer in San Francisco. That woman she had been would have never even considered the possibility of a haunted house. Yet here she was today, wondering if there was a way to research the provenance of a house she owned in some back water town twelve hours away from home.

She smacked the bright red button on the treadmill with a force that surprised her and the aged gentleman toddling on the treadmill next to her. There WAS a way to research the history of the Bowen House. It was just the kind of thing that Sierra was really good at. She wiped the stinging sweat away from her eyes. Her next stop would be the County Records Building. She needed to shower first, though. The stench of her own sweat made her feel a little nauseated.

The treadmill readout said 7.2 miles.

Samson hesitated at the threshold, unwilling to come in. “I don’t want to come in. Why don’t we sit on the porch?” He motioned toward the long stairs with room for all three of them. Sierra sighed with relief. This had nothing to do with her running. She answered, “After that long winter, I’ll sit in the sun for a while.” She plopped onto the first step, grateful that the conversation wasn’t focused on her. Randy, however, refused. “No. All the stuff is on the kitchen table. Just come in for a minute.”

Sierra had looked over all the new contracts with the ISPs that Randy had added. Samson’s Tso Speed Tech was being installed in almost every Internet provider in the country and even a few in Europe. The new company was doing very well, despite the crash in the economy.

“I’d rather not. Let’s just take the paperwork over to Mount Zen Cafe to sign.” Samson’s strangeness finally burst through the fog in Sierra’s mind, but Randy spoke first, “The papers are RIGHT THERE.” He pointed into the house. “Just come in and sign them. We can go eat afterward.” She watched the two of them as if they were strangers when it finally dawned on her. “Samson doesn’t want to go in the house, Randy.”

Her eyes were drawn to the gravel road leading to the main road. It called to her. All she had to do was stand up and start running. She would be past the gravel and could head to Mount Zen Cafe. If she kept running, she’d pass Merriton altogether. If she ran long enough, she would glide by Samson’s house in Emigration. Keep running and she’d be Up North. It was more than a marathon to get Up North. People did Ultra Marathons all the time. She contemplated what it would feel like to run from Merriton and just keep on running until she got to the airport.

“What’s the matter with the house?” Sierra couldn’t take her eyes off the gravel road long enough to see the confusion on Randy’s face. She could hear Samon try to bumble his way through the conversation. “It’s just… I don’t know…” She turned and looked at her old friend from high school. His hair was long enough now to be pulled into a tight and thick lump at the nape of his neck. The winter glare had made his face dark, but the goggles left large yellow rings around his eyes. In the ranger uniform, he looked so different. No longer Asian, he appeared to be an American Indian to her. He looked like a stranger and she watched him struggle with his words.

“Every time I go in your house, I get all weird. All I can think about is getting fired from Zerbitz and every class that I ever got less than an A…” He backed away from the open door, gripping the porch railing. “Every project that never got finished…” Randy nodded, but Sierra could tell he didn’t understand. “I know what you’re talking about. You stayed here right after they sacked you. This place reminds you of it. I understand, Kevin.”

Samson smacked the porch railing and Sierra felt the vibration of it in her butt cheeks on the stairs. “Dammit, Random! You need to call me Samson!” Through the bushes and the shrubbery, Sierra could see Elvis and Vesta sitting on their own porch. Could they hear Samson’s outburst? Were they watching? She didn’t care, despite his loud voice. “I’m NOT going in that house! It’s HAUNTED, Random! Don’t you remember that FIRST night when we got here?! You said that there was more to this house than the suicide room and the light bulb EXPLODED! The house made it pretty damn clear that there is NOT more to it than that room!”

She watched Samson and Randy face off. Without a word, she stood up and walked over the threshold. As she passed Randy, she brushed her shoulder against his ever so gently, like a cat rubbing on the corner of a wall. She slid past the parlor and gathered the paperwork on the kitchen table. Her walk stayed silent as she left the house and walked on that gravel path toward Mount Zen Cafe. She knew that the two of them would follow her eventually.

Samson spoke first, “Definitely.” The tiny park ranger took a long sip of lemonade and closed his eyes against the sun, allowing the yellow skin that had hid under his ski goggles all winter to absorb the light.

John was less enthusiastic. “Don’t know why you bothered at all. None ‘o those big wigs were even interested at all.” The three men sat on the porch at the Thunder Brothers Ranch. The crops were planted. The water had been moved less than thirty minutes ago. The sun had finally come to Mount Zen to stay for a holiday.

After a couple of quiet, sun-drenched minutes, Samson argued, “In this economy, VCs are skittish. Plus, they’re all computer guys. I’m surprised they didn’t invest in Dora’s computer recycling thing, though.” He took another gulp of lemonade. James could see the undissolved crystals floating in the glass. Samson continued, “Her project seemed like it was right up their alley.”

James looked out across the field and smelled the wet earth waft across the porch. He wondered what Bree was doing in her room. “So it WASN’T a success?” John answered immediately, “That’s what I’m sayin’. It was a big pain in the butt for nothin’.” Samson disagreed, “No, John. You’re wrong. It wasn’t for nothing. First off, Curly and Tank got Randy to kick start their projects. Second, Dora got lotsa advertising for her thing. I heard she got five computers on her doorstep the very next day.” The truth of the matter was that only two of them could be reformatted, the other three would have to be salvaged for parts, but Samson wasn’t going to mention that.

“Last off, everybody got to brag a little bit. I thought it was really cool to see what everyone was working on. I feel like I know everyone in the town just a little better now.”

James looked at his own glass of lemonade. The ice made only a sparse condensation at the top of the glass. The humidity was too low. They should give the crops extra water today. “So it WAS a success?” Samson nodded, looking across the porch. John took a long drink of his lemonade before finally answering, “Yep.”

Angie sighed at the sudden emptiness of it all. The first two days of sunshine melted the remaining snow on the mountain. The cafe was filled with disappointed skiers who had hoped to squeeze one more weekend out of the resorts. The second three days of sunshine, Angie cleaned everything that had been neglected during the busy season. After a full week of sun, however, the cafe was spotless and abandoned.

“We should go on a vacation, Curly. We haven’t had a vacation…” Angie tried to think of the last time the two of them left the mountain, but came up blank. “…ever.” Curly peeked out of the kitchen, looking for customers, but there were none to hear him talk, so he replied, “This year’s kinda bad for it since I’m startin’ the gym in Emigration.”

Angie nodded and wiped her dry hands on her apron. “I know. I know…” She tried to let the idea go with the words, but it clung to her. “It’s just this is the first time we ever had somebody to who could watch the cafe while we were gone.” Curly shook his head. “Bree’s busy with the Thunder Brothers now.” Angie shrugged. “She could watch the place for a week.” She smiled to herself at the idea of a week without waiting tables. “Or we could close up for a week.”

Curly shook his head. “A restaurant is ’bout momentum. People git into the habit of comin’ here every week or every morning for their coffee. If we shut down, even for a week, we’ll break their habit.” He folded his big arms across his chest. “Plus, Bree can’t make an Egg Thing.” Angie knew that arguing on this subject would cause a fight, but the idea of seven whole days of not coming into the cafe and escaping to another world was too appealing to her. “You could teach ‘er to make one.”

Curly walked into the kitchen with one phrase on his lips that ended the conversation. “If they knew what was in it, they wouldn’t eat it.”

Guy was a hard guy to read. He was always smiling and always the jokester, despite his serious nature. Like The Green Man personified, it was difficult to see past the smile to find the hard businessman underneath. When he finally answered, Guy was still smiling, “You were right. This wasn’t Ignite. This was speed dating for venture capitalists.” Randy felt himself smiling back, but knew that he needed to get past The Green Man facade to the hardcore businessman inside.

“Well, I’m going to take Tank’s Missionary Missives and Curly’s gym. Tank doesn’t need the funding, but he’s only seventeen years old, so I want to teach him how to set up advertising properly and…” Randy couldn’t articulate what he wanted. He felt a sort of fatherly protectiveness toward Tank, but mostly he didn’t want the kid to join the military. Anything he could do to keep Tank from following his brother’s path was a win in Randy’s eyes.

Guy’s laughing voice responded, “So you’re going to fund the two worst ideas in the group? Last thing the Internet needs is another blog network and this tiny town couldn’t support a gym. Why don’t you buy the sheep farm while you’re at it?” The two of them laughed as Randy replied, “Actually, I had no idea that most wool comes from Austrailia. Did you?”

The two of them drew from their respective drinks and observed the tired ski bunnies and snow bums. There was only a month of skiing left on the mountain and the resort had an air of desperation and last minute struggle to squeeze as much fun out of the time they had left. Guy’s wicked sense of humor attacked. “Jason seemed to be disappointed.” Randy refused to take the bait. “Jason is looking for something different than I am. He’s all about the quick sale. If we were in real estate, he’d be flipping houses.” Guy swirled the remains of his drink in the ice. “What would you be doing? Listing houses for sale?”

Randy looked at Guy and finally realized the difference between himself and his old business partner. Guy wasn’t going to bite on any of the opportunities that were out here. “No, Guy. I’d be building towns.”

All she could think about was running. It was as bad as it had been in high school. She tried all the old mental exercises that Woodleaf had taught her last time she fought this, but they didn’t seem to have the power that they had before. Her hand gripped around the TiVo remote a little too tightly as she thought about it. When could she go again? This damn snow was still burying her in the house. Sometimes it was difficult to get all the way Up North and back before Randy woke up.

Randy ended his call and sat back on the couch with her. “You’d think that Jason had never signed an NDA in his life before.” Sierra tried her best to focus on the conversation and put the idea of treadmills out of her mind. “Is he coming?” Randy shook his head. “I told him that he couldn’t come unless he signed the agreement, so he said that he wasn’t coming. I don’t care either way.” Sierra smiled to herself. “He’s coming. There’s no way he’d let Guy have all the fun. Want to bet when I’ll have the NDA?”

Randy took the remote from her hand and pressed play. “I bet you’ll have it in your email tomorrow morning.”