Finding Reese (Tremont Lodge Series Book 1) by Marcy Blesy Page A

shorts and a yellow polo shirt. Tinley would just die if she saw me wearing this. I put my hair up in a high bun on top of my head and add a pair of fake designer reading glasses to complete the scholarly look.
    Today the lodge is extra busy with guests checking in for a weekend stay, and weeklong guests checking out. There are a lot of garment bags hanging on the luggage racks that seem to be holding suits or dresses. I wonder if there are guests checking in early for the wedding. There are already at least a hundred white folding chairs set up on the far side of the lawn, equal amounts on either side of a grass aisle that may later be covered with a runner and rose petals that lead to the white gazebo. The gazebo has nearly been turned into a greenhouse there are so many flowers lining its outer and inner walls. I wonder what it would be like to get married. I wonder what my parents thought the day they were married. Did they have doubts? Did they believe in happily ever after—once?
    Looking over my shoulder like I’m doing something illegal, I turn the handle that opens the double French doors that lead into the library. Seeing the elegant room again is almost as breathtaking as my first visit. I was teased in school for being a bookworm. It wasn’t like bullying because I had friends, too, but wherever I went there was likely to be a book in my hands. Grandpa once told me that with a book I am never alone. I need all the friends I can get.
    The library is empty this morning. I suppose it gets the most use in the winter when there’s a roaring fire in the fireplace. I can imagine children sprawled out on the floor playing games, adults sitting at the tables scattered around the room putting together a puzzle, and a young couple getting cozy in an oversized chair in front of the large windows watching the snow falling. Not so much today, though. The sparse warm months in Michigan are not to be spent inside.
    The first thing I do is scan the books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. My plan is to start at the bottom and work my way up, using the attached ladder to view the books on the shelves closest to the ceiling. There are lots of the classics: The Count of Monte Cristo, Pride and Prejudice, Grapes of Wrath. Non-fiction books on topics like Michigan history, hunting in the Midwest, and the Great Lakes also dominate the shelves. I pull out a book on Michigan history and check the index for Tremont Lodge but find nothing. There is a section of Harlequin romances and spy thrillers which are reached from the first step of the ladder. I’m growing frustrated. When you don’t even know what you are looking for, how can you possibly find it? I slide the ladder to the side of the room farthest from the windows and start my search again from the bottom. Then I see it—a little placard with the words Tremont Lodge above the first shelf. The writing is so small it would be easy to miss. I’m thinking the entire organization of this library is in need of a makeover. There are five or six books on this particular shelf. I pull them all out and sit on the nearest couch, a large claw-footed piece of furniture with large buttons sewn into the cushions that might not prove to be the most comfortable choice. I kick off my shoes and open the first book. There are lots of pictures of Tremont Lodge in black and white. Seeing women and men skiing in the 1920s is fascinating. To imagine that women actually wore skirts over their knickers at one time smarts of the worst possible kind of fashion disaster with painful consequences for those poor women. Tremont Lodge was built in 1920 by Leonard Oakley, an oil baron from New York who was looking for a retreat for his family. Tremont City was about the only sign of life at the base of the mountain at the time with local hunters and fishermen populating the town. I can only imagine how harsh the winters must have been for those early people. The book says Mr. Oakley brought in all sorts of