Page 3 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door (Love in Maple Falls #5)

MARCY

I t’s just past lunchtime, and I’m already elbow-deep in cupcakes. Alas, not the cupcakes themselves. Specifically, I’m reviewing a spreadsheet for Neesha Gilmore’s new cupcake venture. There’s a tab titled “Dream Flavors,” which includes Midnight Maple Fudge. I might be salivating.

My calculator ticks away like a metronome, which is exactly what I need after yesterday’s little fireworks display with the Frenchman. He’s the last man allowed to occupy my mind when there are cupcakes on the line.

But some people call me an ice queen? That was news. And I’m not sure how I feel about it. My blood pressure still spikes when I think about Phillip Bane questioning my spreadsheets. The nerve.

When my phone rings, shrill and unexpected, my heart jumps. I stare at the caller ID: Unknown Number.

Great. Either a telemarketer or doom.

I swipe to answer. “Marcy Fontaine Accounting, this is Marcy. How may I help you? ”

There’s a pause. Just long enough to activate every fight-or-flight response I’ve got.

“Marcy,” a woman begins, voice cautious. “This is Ashlyn Thompkins. Mayor Thompkins’s daughter?”

I sit up straighter. “Hi, Ms. Thompkins. What can I do for you?”

“I’m helping my dad out this week,” she says, “and I’ve come across a confidential situation that I need some help understanding.”

My stomach tightens. Here we go.

“An accounting situation?” I ask, trying not to sound defensive, but already gearing up to pull receipts, backup receipts, and triple-checking my Q2 summaries. “I assure you, I keep meticulous records. Anything you need, I can provide multiple pieces of evidentiary documentation?—”

“This isn’t something you did,” she cuts in quickly. “But before I explain further, I need your word that you won’t share any details of what I’m about to tell you.”

“Oh.” I change my tack. “Of course. I’ll sign a confidentiality agreement if you want.”

“No need to sign anything.”

That’s when I realize I’m not dealing with a town official. This is someone who grew up in Maple Falls. In this town, promises are handshake deals and secrets travel faster than Wi-Fi. Which is why I’ve made it a policy to never give anyone anything juicy to talk about.

“But,” Ashlyn adds, “is it possible to meet for coffee somewhere outside Town Hall?”

Ah. Now it makes sense. Phillip Bane has a way of hovering around conversations that aren’t his. I wouldn’t want to talk around him either.

“I don’t even work at Town Hall. I’m independent,” I say, probably too firmly. “I could meet you at Maple Grounds in twenty minutes.”

“See you there,” she says, and we hang up.

I set down the cupcake spreadsheet. Midnight Maple Fudge dreams will have to wait.

I arrive at the bakery with exactly two minutes to spare. I hate being late, even for a mystery meeting requested by the mayor’s daughter with absolutely no explanation beyond “confidential accounting matter.”

The bell over the door jingles. Inside, it smells like cinnamon and poor impulse control. I scan the room and spot her immediately.

“Marcy. Over here,” Ashlyn Thompkins calls, smiling in a way that tries to be casual but doesn’t quite stick.

I cross the room, heels clicking on the way. When I reach the table, there’s a cider already waiting in front of the empty seat. Warm steam curls from the top, the perfect golden color, and I have the sense things are about to go terribly wrong.

“How did you know it was me?” I ask.

“Lucky guess.” She gestures for me to sit down. “I hope you like cider.”

I sit, albeit carefully. Blazer adjusted. Ankles crossed. “I love it.” I take a sip and offer a smile. I’m getting myself all in a knot, but I don’t yet know why. “Now, what can I do for you, Ms. Thompkins?”

“Call me Ashlyn,” she says. “And you might not be able to do anything. But you might know who can.”

Every mental gear in my brain starts turning. I brace for the worst: fraud, misappropriation, municipal funds mysteriously rerouted into someone’s hot tub renovation. I’ve seen it before. Well, read about it. And filed three color-coded contingency binders just in case.

“Do you know anything about the history of Maple Falls?” she asks.

My response is automatic. “I work with your father.”

After releasing a loud laugh, she says, “So, you know everything there is to know.”

“Pretty much.”

In fact, I probably know more than I should. I’ve read decades of dusty tax ordinances and scanned so many handwritten council meeting notes that I dream in cursive.

She leans in and lowers her voice. “Victor MacDonald’s supposed heir has been found, and he wants to claim his inheritance.”

I nearly choke on my cider.

The words sit there in the space between us, casual as can be, like she just told me she’d adopted a goldfish or switched to oat milk. My pulse spikes.

Victor MacDonald. The name is practically folklore.

He’s the founder, the benefactor, the legend people like to drop in fundraising speeches and old-timey tour brochures.

The man owned half of this town. And now someone claiming to be his heir has crawled out of the woodwork?

I try to do the math. The man died ages ago. There’s no way?—

“How can his heir do that?” I ask. “Isn’t there a statute of limitations or something?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. All I know is that we need some legal advice—fast.”

“What does your father say?”

“My dad is… um… well.” She closes her eyes, her lips moving like she’s debating whether or not to keep talking. She opens them and says quietly, “My dad is out of town with my mom. I told him I’d cover for him. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s gone.”

Are you kidding me? “Why?”

“He claims he doesn’t want anyone to feel abandoned by him, but it’s my guess he doesn’t want to face questions regarding why he’s gone away. He’s been ignoring my mom since he became mayor and he’s trying to convince her not to leave him.”

My mind goes full tilt. This is my nightmare: a town operating on verbal agreements and good vibes, with enough procedural gaps to drive a logging truck through.

Land rights, property inheritance, zoning laws—my head fills with the thousand ways this could go sideways.

And then it lands on the biggest, ugliest possibility of all:

This heir could own the entire downtown and more.

The café. The rink. The mayor’s office.

Happy Horizons.

The cider loses its sweetness all of a sudden.

“This is why I like numbers so much,” I mutter. “People are complicated. Numbers aren’t. Take your parents’ relationship. Your father thinks he’s doing the right thing for the town, but he’s not there for your mother. Numbers aren’t so nuanced. They just are what they are.”

Ashlyn excuses herself to say hello to someone, and I’m left alone with cold cider and my thoughts.

Think. Analyze. Don’t spiral. I sit back, trying to will my pulse to be reasonable.

Except this isn’t just a property issue or another town disaster I can spreadsheet into submission.

This is personal.

Maple Falls might be small and quirky and more than a little obsessed with ice sports, but it’s also the first place I felt like I could breathe after everything fell apart. After he left me behind.

Paul. I haven’t said his name out loud in over a year.

He played pro hockey. He probably still does, but I long ago forbade myself from looking him up online. My high school sweetheart, we were inseparable back then. But college came along and we went to different schools. We still spent most weekends and holidays together with family and friends.

We never even went on a real “date” since we’d always just been together.

I thought I felt him changing, but I’d chalked it up to us getting closer to the age where we either get married or go our separate ways. You know, at twenty-one.

I was so silly.

He played his hockey games all over the country, told me I shouldn’t be bothered coming to them. He knew I didn’t care for the sport and that I was petrified of flying.

Frankly, if we were meant to fly, we would have been born with wings.

But after a weekend together when he was particularly distant, I knew I needed to do something big, something meaningful, so that he knew I supported him.

I practically hyperventilated all the way from Poughkeepsie to Seattle. Four buses, many hours of white-knuckled grip on the armrest, and one unfortunate incident involving a pothole-induced ginger ale bath.

By the time we arrived, I nearly kissed the ground.

His team was playing the Ice Breakers in a charity game. I told myself it was fate—that this was my moment. My dramatic gesture. The kind at the end of movies where the audience claps.

I bought a foam finger at the merch table and a caramel swirl latte from the nearest concession stand with my stomach already flipping like a gymnast. I found my seat in the nosebleeds and screamed like a lunatic every time he touched the puck, even though I had no idea what was going on and kept accidentally cheering for penalties.

The game ended and the crowd thinned. And that’s when I realized I had no idea how to find him.

After wandering around aimlessly and getting directions from a teenage volunteer wearing a headset three sizes too big, I was led to a security door.

“I’m Paul’s girlfriend,” I said to the massive man, clutching my latte like a lifeline.

The guy went inside to check. He came back out with a different expression than he’d left with.

“Paul says…” He hesitated. “He says he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

My brain stopped working for a full three seconds.

“No, but I’m his actual girlfriend. I’m not a fan or a groupie. Do you see my pencil skirt? This is my first time at a game. You know, to surprise him.”

He pursed his lips and even looked a bit embarrassed. “Sorry, ma’am.”

I went around the back and found his team as they were loading onto the bus, all duffel bags and backwards baseball caps and tired swagger.

“Paul!” I called out, desperate and still hopeful, like this could all be some massive misunderstanding.

He turned, saw me, and sighed.

He walked over with a look I’ll never forget. Pity and annoyance, like I was a tax form he didn’t want to deal with.

“What are you doing here, Marcy?”

I thought it was obvious and didn’t answer.

“We’ve grown apart,” he said. Just like that.

As if I hadn’t just crossed the country for him.

I was instantly ashamed to think I’d spent the last two years dreaming of a past version of us.

“We’re too different. I go with the flow.

You construct everything around you. It’s too much. You’re too intense.”

Too intense. Like having standards was a crime.

But it was when he said, “You shouldn’t have come,” that I started melting down on the inside.

I stood there blinking at him, holding my half-empty caramel swirl latte and the foam finger that said, “Number #1,” wondering if I’d misheard.

Turns out I hadn’t. He left with his team.

I stayed.

I didn’t know what I was doing, but Maple Falls seemed like the right kind of place to figure it out. Creating a safe space for myself in a small town with all its charm was the perfect way to mend the many parts of me that hurt.

Angel needed help with the books at Happy Horizons.

Word got around that there was at last a new accountant in town and I picked up individual clients.

Then the Town Hall offered part-time gigs, Maple Fest became my favorite time of year, and Maple Grounds started holding my favorite scone until 9:05.

Somewhere along the way, this became home.

And now some billionaire I’ve never met wants to erase it. Turn it into luxury condos or an elevated retail village, or who-knows-whatever-else.

No.

Time to dig into the online world. By the time Ashlyn comes back, I have the start of some answers.

“I did a little search,” I jump in before she’s even sitting down. “It turns out that in the state of Washington there’s no statute of limitations for claiming an inheritance. If Victor MacDonald’s heir is for real, he rightly owns the land that belonged to his ancestor.”

Her jaw drops. “Marcy, that’s half the town.”

I nod my head slowly. “I know it. But I’m going to look into whether there might not be laws governing the preservation of the town from a fiscal angle. Barring that, the only thing I can think of is trying to come up with a large enough sum of money so the town can offer to buy the land from him.”

“How much do you think an acre of land costs around here?”

I’m afraid to tell her. “It would depend where the land is located. If it’s in town, it’ll be worth more because it can be used for businesses. If it’s remote, then less.” I do the calculations in my head. “I’d guess on average it’s around five thousand dollars an acre.”

Her shoulders sag slightly, like I’ve just confirmed what she dreaded. “Alexander MacDonald left five hundred acres. That would be two point five million dollars! How in the world would we ever be able to raise that much?”

“Even if we could raise it,” I say, “he’d have no obligation to take it.”

“But if we make a big enough offer, then he could invest in a town where he could make more money than he could ever make in Maple Falls.”

“How much time do you think we have before this guy shows up in Maple Falls?” I ask, a plan starting to take shape.

“I have no idea. But the lawyer made it sound like he wants to move fast.”

“Let me see what I can find out from the fiscal side, because otherwise, you might need to make the offer before we have the actual money. Either way though, you’re going to have to tell the town about this soon. ”

“You’re right,” she nods. “If you can’t find a solution, then I can’t solve this on my own. We’d need the support of everyone.”

If MacDonald’s claim holds, the town is sitting on a legal powder keg, and the only way to defuse it is buried somewhere in decades of misfiled land records.

“I’m on it, Ms. Thompkins. You can count on me. I’ll stop by City Hall later to collect the necessary documents.”

When I set my mind to it, whether it be saving my dignity or my new hometown, I don’t give up. A dog with a bone, and I’m not the least ashamed of it.

Once Marcy Fontaine is in, she’s all in.

I rise from the chair, straightening my blazer like armor. This is what I do. I fix things. I find the loose threads no one else sees and I pull until the whole thing unravels.

For once, I’m not fixing someone else’s mess. Maple Falls may not have been part of my plan, but it’s mine now, and no billionaire is going to take it from me.

I just have to focus. No distractions. And that includes a disastrously handsome, impossibly obnoxious Frenchman who has suddenly taken up space rent-free in my head.