Worth The Effort (The Worth Series Book 4: A Copper Country Romance) (2 page)

That image was what Deni saw when she thought about the Brockway Mountain Hermit.

They made their way into Copper Harbor, stopping at an old-fashioned general store (more candy!) and then driving on to Fort Wilkins, which the boys loved. Caleb was almost kicked out for climbing on the cannon when their parents weren’t looking.

And it was all neat and kind of cool. But the memory Deni took away from that particular family trip—which would turn out to be their last as a complete family—was that of a little, bearded man dancing around his hidden hut.

Chapter One

Depression is the inability to construct a future.

~ Rollo May

D
eni turned on the light box and sat down at her kitchen table. Never much of a breakfast person, she now consumed a bowl of oatmeal each morning as she awaited the light therapy’s magic.

At first, she’d tried getting a jumpstart on the day’s emails with her laptop on the table, but it tended to block most of the light. Angling the light box didn’t work because while you weren’t supposed to look straight at it, you were supposed to face it.

And Deni knew if it had gotten this bad—bad enough to break down and order the light box—then she might as well go by the book with the treatment.

Treatment. God, she hated that word. Therapy was just as bad. Although she did enjoy her sessions with her therapist, Alison.

She just hated that she needed them.

But, after two weeks of the daily half-hour light therapy sessions, she was beginning to feel a change, albeit a slight one.

At least she didn’t spend half her workday wishing she were home in bed with the comforter wrapped tightly around her. Now it was only like a quarter of the day.

Progress.

She slowly ate her oatmeal while looking at—but not
at
—the special box. It kind of reminded her of the Lite-Brite she’d had as a kid, only it was completely white, and you couldn’t make cool designs on it.

After she finished the oatmeal, she still had fifteen minutes left, so she flipped through yesterday’s
Copper Ingot
—the small area’s daily newspaper—for any story she might have missed last night.

With ten minutes left, she pulled her laptop over and positioned it as best she could while still soaking in the magic rays. She pulled up her personal email account first, prepared for at least one message from her mother.

There were three.

Deni had put her foot down with her mother two weeks ago—about the same time she broke down and ordered the light box—about calling so frequently.

Her mother had seemed to take the edict well—but after a day, the emails had started. Thank God the woman didn’t know how to text.

Sighing, Deni prepared to open her mother’s emails, expecting to find links to articles about the newest wonder vitamin or online dating site. Perhaps today there would be a link to an engineering position in Detroit, closer to her hometown of Farmington Hills.

But another email caught her eye—one from her boss and owner of the firm, Andy Summers.

Odd. She didn’t think she’d ever received an email from Andy to her personal account. Deni wasn’t even sure how Andy knew this email address. Oh right, it would have been on her résumé. But that was nearly seven years ago. Really odd.

The subject line read “If you check your email before you come to work—READ THIS.” The message asked that everyone report right to the conference room at eight and if they’d planned to work at home or be on a site to come in for a short meeting instead.

Really, really odd.

Summers and Beck was a small engineering firm. Some might even call it a boutique shop, though all the men cringed at that term.

And it was all men, except for Deni and Sue Haapala, their office administrator. Sue basically had the task of corralling the minds of engineers and making the day-to-day business work.

Sue—a mother to six, grandmother to nine—ran the office well, allowing the engineers to do their thing while still keeping them focused.

It was a pretty laid-back place to work. The staff was allowed to work from home on any two days of the week if they wanted. Except Mondays, when they had their all-staff status meetings that took up most of the morning.

So why was Andy calling another meeting two days later?

Deni called up her work email and saw the same message from Andy. He’d done it as a blind CC, so Deni wasn’t sure if everyone got it in both their work and personal accounts.

Oh God, it wasn’t just to her, was it?

There was absolutely no reason for Deni to think she was getting “called into the boss’ office,” but a shiver of panic ran through her body. She started to take deep breaths as she thought it through with the analytical part of her mind that made her an asset to Summers and Beck. And that was just exactly the phrase she’d use too, if she
were
in some kind of trouble!

But no. Andy would have put a personal salutation on an email meant just for her. And there’d be no need to do a blind CC. Right? She pushed the laptop away and turned her face fully to the light box, as if the glow would ease her sudden anxiousness.

And another thing—Andy knew she never worked from home, so there would be no reason to put that in there.

Deni would have loved to work from home on these cold mornings. To stay in her warm fleece pajamas and wool socks, sipping hot chocolate all day as she sat at the computer in her home office—the unused third bedroom.

But she knew that staying home, not
leaving
home, could be dangerous to her at this point. She needed to take a shower, get dressed, drive to the office, greet Sue and her other coworkers and interact with humans face to face throughout the day.

Because if she didn’t, it would surely soon get to a point where she c
ouldn’t
.

Her mother’s emails left unopened, Deni put her laptop in her messenger bag, turned the light box out, grabbed her keys, and started off to work, curiosity and still some anxiety coursing through her.

Somewhere in the back of her brain, she acknowledged that she liked the rush of emotions.

At least it was better than the numbness she’d been feeling.

 
“I
see everybody checks their emails in the morning. That’s good to know,” Andy said to the group when they’d all assembled in the conference room at eight. The coffee was brewing, and there were packages of Danish and Finnish nissu from Pat’s IGA on the table.

No Dunkin’ Donuts or Tim Hortons in the Copper Country.

“I saw it when it came in last night,” Charlie Simpson, one of the younger engineers, said.

Charlie and Deni were the only two on staff under thirty. Andy was a young owner, probably in his late thirties or early forties. There were two older men, Jim and Bob, whom Andy had wooed away from Tech to work for him when he first started the firm. The other five men in the room were a few years younger than Andy, hired fresh out of Tech while Andy was building his company.
 

“Really? You’re up at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday night?” Andy asked, his eyes narrowing, studying Charlie.
 

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t need much sleep.”

God, that must be nice, Deni thought. She couldn’t get enough sleep these days, sometimes crawling into bed by eight. “Besides,” Charlie added, “
you
were up at 2 a.m.”

A smile came over Andy’s face, and he took his seat at the head of the long conference table. “And I’ll tell you why.” He took a sip from his coffee, in what felt to Deni like a planned dramatic pause. He then scanned both sides of the table, making eye contact with all the engineers. Sue, who had her head down ready to take notes, didn’t even notice.
 

“I was up at two because I was still putting together some preliminary research on something we’re hopefully going to take on.”

A new project? That was what the all-hands-on-deck meeting was about?

They were a small firm, but not small enough that every new project was worth an all-staff meeting.

“And it’s more than just a new project,” Andy said, reading her mind—probably reading everyone’s mind. “Hopefully, it will be the beginning of a new economic growth period for the Copper Country.”

That would be good. The three-county area in the Upper Peninsula’s northwestern tip had been hit hard by the economic downturn. Oh, not as badly as other Michigan cities, but the Copper Country was a tourist destination—for snowmobilers in the winter and families in the summer—and when times were tough and gas prices high people took fewer vacations.
 

“I ran into Petey Ryan last night,” Andy said, and again took a sip of coffee as that news sank in. Which it seemed to do with everyone in the room but her. They all leaned a little closer to Andy, as if he was about to impart a secret. Even Sue poked her head up from her tablet, interest showing on her wrinkled face.

“Who’s Petey Ryan?” Deni asked, then wished she hadn’t when everyone at the table turned to her with looks of disbelief, or scorn, on their faces.

“Petey Ryan is a local boy who plays for the Detroit Red Wings,” Andy said in a non-patronizing but understanding tone. She really did like her boss.
 

“I keep forgetting you’re not from around here,” Mac, one of her colleagues, said. She smiled at him because it was meant as a compliment, or at least she took it that way. Mac’s smile in return confirmed it.

“Or that you have zero interest in sports,” Randy, another coworker, said. There was no smile from his direction, and she didn’t give him one.

Randy had never warmed up to her, for some reason, but Deni didn’t let it bother her. Everyone else in the office had been very nice to her the seven years she’d been with Summers and Beck. She wasn’t going to worry about Randy.

“Actually,” Andy said, drawing her attention away from Randy, “I guess I should say Petey
used
to play for the Red Wings. He just retired about a month ago—knee injury.”

“And he lives here?” Deni asked. There was surprise in her voice, but she supposed there shouldn’t be. She’d fallen in love with the Copper Country and had chosen to stay here though her career would have been better served elsewhere. She probably shouldn’t be surprised that a native son would return home. He probably felt the way that she did about the place.

“Yes. He has a house here. He’s spent every summer here since he’s been in the league. And is back for good now. Or so he told me last night. He was at the Cat’s Meow having a beer with…” Another dramatic pause, another sip of coffee. Everyone leaned in. There was a reason Andy was the owner and the one who secured most of their projects—he was not only a good engineer, but he was a good people person. Not skills that typically went together. Engineers tended to the geek side, with less-than-stellar social skills.

“Darío Luna,” Andy finished. More nods from around the room. Deni kept her mouth shut this time. “He’s a professional golfer. He married a local girl last fall,” Andy said, obviously for her benefit though he addressed it to the whole group. “Apparently Ryan and Luna are in the same circle of friends. They were talking about a new business venture they want to undertake.”

Now Deni perked up. She didn’t care about hockey, or golf, or even local celebrities. But a new business in town—that had her full attention.

“They want to build an indoor driving range,” Andy said. This time he was the one who leaned forward, his arms on the table, hands clasped in front of him. He seemed to know the reaction he was going to get, but Deni didn’t.
 

All the other men, except Charlie, leaned back in their seats with looks of disappointment on their faces. Some even sighed.

“What’d I miss?” Charlie asked what she was thinking.

“It can’t be done,” Jim said. Bob reached for a Danish and added, “Not up here, with the snowfall we get.”

“What about the Superior Dome in Marquette?” Charlie said. “Same concept. And they get as much snow as we do. Some winters, more.”

“Let me put it a different way,” Jim said. “It can’t be done for the money that a driving range—charging a couple of bucks for a bucket of balls—could sustain.”

“The Superior Dome has Northern’s events and other stuff going on. They generate a hell of a lot more revenue to offset costs.”

“Nope,” Bob said. “Can’t be done.”

At that, several of the men began picking through the pastries, putting them on the little plates Sue had most likely provided, and sitting back to enjoy the free breakfast.
 

Deni and Charlie looked at each other, then at Andy. “There’s got to be a way to do this,” Charlie said.

“There is,” Andy said. “And you each have until three this afternoon to figure out how.”

That had everyone looking away from their goodies and back to Andy. “We’re meeting back here at three, and we’re going to brainstorm on how we can make this viable.”

“We wouldn’t make any real money from it, anyway,” Randy said.

“Maybe not. But if those two are teaming up, I want to make sure we’re their go-to firm for any other projects they might have.”