He said nothing but he moved to take a step in so I had no choice but to take a step back. I did this heading toward the key cabinet.
He headed to the registration book.
He also moved not speaking.
I didn’t return the favor.
“The password to get in is ‘snookums321.’ But seeing as your badass fingers might implode if you tried to type out the word ‘snookums,’ you can give it a miss tonight because tomorrow is my normal change day. I’m thinking ‘Iloverocknroll999.’ That would be ‘and’ as an ‘n’ with no hyphens or apostrophes,” I shared, nabbing the key and turning to see him bent over the book.
He said nothing. Just kept scribbling.
I moved to stand at his side. “I should also tell you that we had a little incident.”
He stayed bent over the book but his long fingers that were wrapped around my pen—fingers that were on a huge hand I hadn’t noticed until that moment was that large—went still and his eyes slid to me.
Normally, his eyes focused on me in that intense way would make me a babbling idiot in fear for the safety of my…something.
Instead, all I could think about was what he could do with hands that big. That strong. That obviously powerful.
It was doubtful his touch could be gentle.
And that was not a bad thing.
My dry spell had lasted since Grant with no hope on the horizon it would be ending.
It was becoming clear I needed to get laid.
I also needed to stop gawking at Priest, thinking about his hands, and instead keep talking.
So I did that.
“We, uh…well, I had an, um…patron who was staying. Apparently, she was in a spot of trouble and her trouble followed her here. He assaulted her in her cabin. It was kind of…well, unpleasant considering that’s unpleasant in and of itself but he then was shot dead a few days later. Not by her and not here,” I hastened to add when his scary look turned downright terrifying even if he didn’t move a single muscle, just kept staring at me. “By some other guy who had nothing to do with that guy, but apparently this woman was a magnet for trouble so once the first guy who assaulted her later kidnapped her, the second guy killed the first guy and re-kidnapped her, uh…as it were.”
As I was finishing up (lamely), Priest straightened and he did this not taking his eyes from me.
It was then I noted something I already knew but noted it in an entirely different way.
He was really tall.
And really big.
As in really.
For both.
I swallowed.
Then I kept giving him the information he needed.
“Unfortunately, she was ripe to be attacked because she didn’t turn on the outside light of her cabin. Also, the parking area was unlit. I found that upsetting so I’ve had lights installed in the lot. They’re not overly bright or anything,” I assured him quickly. “But they cut the dark. And all the units have new motion sensor lights outside. This can get a bit annoying, seeing as there are critters out there that set them off,” I admitted. “But if it gets too annoying, you can turn them off. I just thought you’d wanna know, uh…that I’ve lit the parking area. You know, just in case you need to close your curtains or something to keep out the light.”
“A woman was assaulted,” he said slowly when I finally stopped speaking.
“Uh…yeah.”
“In one of your cabins,” he continued.
“Uh…yeah,” I confirmed.
“Were you here?”
“Um…yeah.”
“How badly was she hurt?” he asked.
“Norm and Gladys told me she was beaten up but okay. They saw her the next day. She reported it to the police but Norm and Gladys were the ones who reported it to me. That was, until the police came and asked if I’d seen anything.”
“Norm and Gladys?”
I grinned at him. “You and them are in a club. My only returning customers.”
John Priest clearly did not find his membership in that particular club as exciting as I did. I knew this when his intense look turned into a scowl.
He was scary all the time.
Scowling, he was downright chilling.
Then he added his voice, which was still rumbling, but it was no longer icy. It was vibrating with something I couldn’t read, but what I could read was terrifying.
“A woman was assaulted in one of your cabins while you were here, alone, in this house.”
I decided not to repeat my confirmation and be quiet for once, mostly because it was taking a lot of effort not to pee my pants.
He looked over my head and into my house. Two seconds later, in utter fascination, I watched the scowl fade from his face as the mask of indifference slid over his features and his gaze came back to me.
“I’ll be here three days. Still one hundred?” he asked as if our very recent word exchange had not transpired.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He went for his wallet, gave me four one-hundred-dollar bills, and I gave him his key.
“Have a nice stay,” I said softly as he turned to leave.
He aimed a wintry look at me over his shoulder.
My entire body did a quiver.
He closed the door behind him.
I sucked in a calming breath and didn’t move in order to give the calming part of that breath opportunity to work.
When I was no longer in danger of screaming in terror and fleeing my own property, it hit me that something just happened.
That something was that John Priest let down his guard with me.
And when he did it, if I wasn’t losing my mind, he did it because he was upset at the idea that I might have been in danger.
Nearly two years, half a dozen visits, practically zero conversation, a lot of money exchanging hands, John Priest finally showed a reaction.
And it bore repeating, if I was not mistaken, that reaction was that he was supremely ticked that I had been near danger.
“Whoa,” I whispered to the door and heard Priest’s big Suburban move down the lane.
* * * * *
That evening I sat on my side porch with my feet up on the top railing, staring at the lights from cabin eleven eking through the trees.
Since he’d shown that afternoon, I’d been thinking about it and there was no way around it.
The dude liked me.
First, he kept coming back, and in the beginning the cabins weren’t all that much to write home about.
Now, they needed better insulation and there were ten dozen other things that I wanted to do to improve them. They weren’t luxury. They were definitely nice but they weren’t terribly exciting.
But he kept coming back.
There were lots of places to stay. It wasn’t like the Colorado Mountains were something people avoided.
John Priest stayed at Glacier Lily.
Second, there was no denying the iron control he kept over his emotions slipped that day in my foyer. And he wasn’t upset generally about the state of a world where random women were assaulted in mountain cabins.
He was upset that I was there, alone, unprotected, and violence had been perpetrated on my property.
“Yep,” I whispered into the waning light. “The dude likes me.”
I didn’t know what to do with this.
Suddenly, my thoughts turned to Priest’s hands.
After that, I thought about the fact my vibrator was constantly on charge, that was how much I used it.
What could I say? I was a twenty-six year old woman without a boyfriend but with a good imagination and a healthy sex drive. That kind of thing happened.
I took my feet from the railing, put them to the deck, and heaved myself out of my Adirondack chair (that seriously needed sanding and paint, not to mention a pad, my butt was aching).
I entered the house and went to the powder room on the first floor.
It needed updating. The wallpaper gave me a headache, it was so
flowery. The oval mirror over the sink had once been gilded. Now it looked tawdry. And there were rust stains in the sink from a drip that my dad fixed for me when they visited last Christmas. A drip, from those stains, that had to have been ongoing for perhaps centuries.
I didn’t take any of this in.
I looked at myself in the mirror.
I could see my hair. It was down, waving and curling wild and way longer than I used to wear it, since I never had time for haircuts.
I didn’t have on even a swipe of makeup and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used cosmetics. It had to be months. It could be over a year.
And I was wearing another babydoll tee, this one light pink and in hot pink on the front it said, “Carnal Is for Bikers.” Over that was what could only be described as a stick skeleton man riding a stick motorcycle with a huge, weird, wild grin on his skeleton face. It was from a biker town that was about an hour away. I’d bought it on one of my rare jaunts around the area, one that did double duty of me putting out Glacier Lily brochures and stapling leaflets to bulletin boards.
I loved that tee.
I was also wearing a pair of cutoff jeans shorts. These were faded and I fancied they hung pretty good on me, what with me putting on a bit of the weight I lost after Dick Grant hastened his retreat due to me kicking him out.
When I looked down to my feet, I saw I wasn’t wearing any shoes.
I was sporting a rather nice pedicure, though, bright purple that was almost neon.
I’d done it myself. And the results pleased me.
They pleased me enough—it all pleased me enough—I walked out and went to the kitchen, heading straight to the fridge. I slid out the homemade chocolate cream pie I’d put in there that morning. I grabbed a knife. When I was about to slice in, I moved it three centimeters wider and sliced a huge-ass piece. I slid it on a plate, covered it in cling wrap, and went to the back door. I slid on my pink metallic, slim strap havaianas with their sole covered in gray, white, and turquoise flowers then I headed to the front door.
Before I could think better of it, I grabbed my key, walked out, locked up, and moved to the lane.
Then I moved straight to cabin eleven.
The lights were on, the sheers pulled.
I walked up the steps, across the porch, and to the front door.
I sucked in a breath.
Then I lifted my hand and knocked.
A nanosecond later, the door swung open so swiftly, I gasped and took a step back.
“You okay?” John Priest asked.
Oh man.
The dude so…totally…liked me!
“Uh…yeah,” I answered.
I saw his eyes through the screen door drop to the pie.
Quickly, I started, “I made this today. I thought you might—”
His gaze sliced to mine and he cut me off. “Go home.”
“I—”
“Go. Home.”
I felt my heart start beating hard in my chest as I said softly, “It’s really good.”
“Go home.”
“John…”
I said no more because at the mere utterance of his name, something sinister beat from him through the screen right into me, pummeling me to such an extreme, it was a wonder I didn’t drop to a knee.
“Woman,” he growled, impatience threaded liberally through the word. “Go…the fuck…home.”
And it was then he closed the door on me.
I stood at his door for long moments.
Then I went home.
When I got there, I ate the pie.
I did this even though every bite made me feel sick.
Like any good woman who’d just humiliated herself would, I ignored that feeling and kept eating.
And later, when I climbed into bed, I didn’t sleep.
Chapter Three
Waging War
“We’re worried.”
“Don’t be worried.”
“No one should be alone on Christmas.”
It was Christmas Eve. I was talking to my mother. I was also in my house in Colorado while everyone, including my sister, her husband, her newborn baby boy, my brother and his new fiancé, and my beloved favorite uncle and his entire family, were at the ranch in Oklahoma.
But every cabin was filled and all of them with more than one person. Hell, one family was taking up four cabins on their own for a huge family Colorado holiday getaway.
And Colorado holiday getaway I was giving them. Each cabin had a festive Christmas tree decorated in full-on Western. There was lots of twine with painted wooden things on it, cowboy boots, snowmen wearing bandanas and cowboy hats, saddles, horseshoes, and tin stars ornaments (and the like).
Not to mention, all the cabins were strewn outside with Christmas lights. It took me two full days just to put up those twinkling lights, but in the end, the effort was worth it. It looked phenomenal. Further, the big pots I had everywhere that were filled with flowers in the spring, summer and fall were planted with baby fir trees also lit with cheerful, blinking lights.
And each cabin had a big tin of homemade Christmas cookies sitting on the counter next to a real poinsettia to welcome my customers after they checked in and entered their cabins to experience Christmas joy Glacier Lily style.
Mom and Dad and my brother, Titus, had come last Christmas. This Christmas, everyone went home, but I couldn’t afford to leave. Not even for two days. I needed the money.
And that sucked.
“I have friends in town who are having me over for dinner tomorrow,” I lied to my mom, because I had friends in town but I was too busy to put the time in for them to be true friends who would invite me over for Christmas dinner.
So I was making myself duck breast, potatoes dauphenois, and asparagus, with homemade rolls, ending in devil’s food cake with homemade frozen custard. I also had a shed load of munchies. And I’d bought myself (and the cabins’ DVD menu) six new DVDs.
I was going to eat through Christmas. Eat and watch romantic movies, lament my lonely life, my distance from my family, the fact that I hadn’t snowboarded once since I came to Colorado, and therefore I was living no dream.
I was stuck in reality.
And that sucked too.
“Your dad and I’ll make plans, come visit you next month. Take you boarding,” Mom said to me.
“That’d be awesome, Mom,” I replied quietly, and it would, the boarding definitely but mostly Mom and Dad being with me.
“We’re about to go to church,” she told me. “But we’ll call tomorrow after the mayhem. You can get a good gab in with everybody.”
“Okay.”
“And you have plans tonight?” she asked.
I had plans.
They included eating myself into a pre-Christmas stupor, while drinking myself into an alcoholic one, and watching Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock miss each other repeatedly and heartbreakingly until the universe guided them together. After that, I was going to continue on my Bullock-a-thon watching Hope Floats and reminding myself it’s never too late to find happiness while hoping the likes of Harry Connick, Jr. showed up at my cabins sometime in the near future. It could be the likes of the real him who was cool and handsome and could croon and play piano or it could be the likes of his character in that movie who could be hot and honest and take on me and all my crap. If either opportunity was afforded to me, I wasn’t going to quibble.
Tomorrow, I’d break out the new DVDs for more romantic torture.
“I have plans tonight,” I confirmed with my mom, forcing a chipper tone into my voice and not doing half bad.
“Okay, honey. We’ll call tomorrow.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Have a good night.”
“Don’t let Dad heckle the choir this year.”
She burst out laughing and shared, “I haven’t allowed him into the eggnog yet.”
“Good call,” I muttered.
There was still humor in her voice when she s
aid softly, “Love you, angelface.”
“Love you too, Momma.”
She rang off and I stared at my phone.
Then I jumped when it rang.
The screen said Blocked but since it was not only my cell but also the cabins’ business number, I took the call.
“Merry Christmas!” I greeted, force-cheerfully.
“Woman.”
At that word and who I knew was saying it, I blinked at my lap.
“You there?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“You open?”
“Yes.”
“See you in thirty.”
Then I heard the disconnect.
It was a whole minute later when I finally pulled the phone from my ear that I realized I’d just had my first phone conversation with John Priest, he was coming to Glacier Lily, and for the first time since he started coming, cabin eleven was not open.
No cabin was open.
“Oh man,” I whispered to my phone.
And it was then I realized I was already in my pajamas.
So I flew off the couch and dashed to my room to put some clothes on.
* * * * *
An hour later, I opened the door, looked at John Priest standing there, noted the flakes of snow on his broad shoulders and in his dark hair, then I caught sight of what was happening behind him.
It was snowing.
Hugely.
“Holy cow!” I cried. “It’s snowing!”
“Bad. Roads are shit,” Priest replied, moving in, and I moved back.
“How shit?” I asked as I closed the door behind him.
“Barely got here and I got a snow kinda truck shit.”
Oh man.
“I, uh…well, Jo…I mean, Mr. Priest, eleven isn’t open,” I told him.
“Take what you got,” he told me, already at the registration book.
“I don’t have anything,” I said quietly. “I’m full up.”
He straightened and turned to me. “No shit?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I would have told you before but you disconnected the call before I could share that information.”
He looked beyond me, his expression vague, his thoughts elsewhere, likely where he could find a place to crash on Christmas Eve in the middle of a blinding snowstorm, but still he managed to mutter, “Fuck.”
At the look on his face, the lights twinkling on the tree in my living room that could be seen from the foyer, the snow falling heavy and soft outside the window, and having the knowledge that Priest, just like me, was alone on an important holiday, I blurted, “You can stay here. I have a guestroom. Actually, I have two.”