“Why what?”
“You are so annoying.” Another wood chip bounced off his shoulder blade. “Why do you want to know?”
Graham didn’t have a great answer for that. Instead, he hummed. “I think it should be a fish.”
“Keep practicing, kid.” Ash rose to her feet and met him. Just under six feet tall, she had no trouble patting Graham on the head. “I’ll see you later. Some of us actually have to get to work on time. I’m taking Jake with me. I want some company today.”
If Jake tolerated a life of hanging out behind a grill, he’d made it clear he preferred a life spent flying around with Ash. Graham had long since accepted that sharing custody of his puppy with the Lockett twins was for the best, even though he’d have preferred to keep Jake with him at all times. Sometimes—rarely but sometimes—life wasn’t just about him.
“Remember Jake’s headset. The rotors are too loud. They give him headaches. And I’m not replacing any more of your things if he buries them. You know that’s his stress relief, and I refuse to embarrass him for his needs.”
Snorting, Ash waved a hand in acknowledgment before stealing his dog, putting Jake and his knit cap in the back of her shiny black Jeep. At least he was riding in style. Gravel crunched as they disappeared up the drive. Left alone in the silence of his manly domain of awesomeness, Graham considered his mighty log.
A snake. It should definitely be a snake.
* * *
A shower helped Zoey shed the worst of her muddled thoughts, as did a second cup of coffee. Stuffing her feet into her tennis shoes, she powered through the desire to crawl back onto the couch and sleep off the rest of her hangover. Texting Lana her plans to go hiking, Zoey grabbed her brand-new, airport-acquired Alaska messenger bag and tucked her glittery frog coin purse inside.
There was absolutely no way Zoey was spending her first full day in Alaska inside a hotel room.
When Zoey first realized she had saved enough to make this trip a reality, she hadn’t intended to spend her housing money on a couch in the swankiest resort in the state. An off-season visit had been far more in Zoey’s budget, but Lana kept pushing for her to come these two weeks, when Lana had already planned on being in Alaska. The Fourth of July was the height of the summer tourism season, and any alternate options within comfortable driving distance to Moose Springs had been booked months prior.
Since Moose Springs was the hub of all amazing adventure excursions a person could hope for when visiting Alaska, Zoey had been unable to resist her friend’s offer.
Staying in Anchorage was cheaper, but the lengthy drive and subsequent cost to travel to Moose Springs didn’t make the cheaper rooms worth it. Here in Moose Springs, Zoey wasn’t near the mountains. She was standing on one. Zoey wasn’t going to see the wildlife. Wildlife crisscrossed this town like an opening credit for the Discovery Channel, moose wandering across the roads, along the streets, poking their noses out from the tree lines everywhere.
A couch in a luxury suite might be where Zoey was staying, but she would have slept in a bear-proof dumpster to be here.
Zoey already knew her carefully planned budget would only go so far, but as she stepped out of the elevator and saw the closed entrance to one of the resort’s internationally touted five-diamond restaurants, curiosity got the best of her. A glass case built into the river rock wall displayed the menu. Pushing her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose, she stared at a piece of paper containing only a handful of dishes she even knew.
“Looks like I could afford the side salad.” Shaking her head in bemusement, she glanced lower down the page to the chef’s choice seven-course meal. The price listed pulled a loud and unplanned choking noise from her throat.
“Ma’am? May I help you find something?”
A maid with the wildest mass of curly honey-blond hair beamed at her from behind an enormous stack of towels in her arms, both woman and towels dangerously close to tumbling over.
The badge on her chest read “Hi, I’m Quinn, your Hospitality Specialist.”
“Oh…umm. I’m just…”
“If you’re hungry, there’s a great breakfast served in the—ooooh!” With a squeal, Quinn ducked and swerved, rebalancing the towels as they leaned even farther.
“Do you need help with those? I can carry some if you want.”
Quinn stared at her, eyes widening. Zoey found herself staring back, unaccustomed to seeing so much of another human being’s eyeballs.
“You?” She squeaked. “Help me?”
“Maybe?”
The leaning tower of towels was about to topple, so Zoey grabbed the ones at the top of the stack while Quinn the hospitality specialist still considered her options.
“Thank you.” Decision made, Quinn breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re dangerously close to being out of towels. I would have gotten in so much trouble for dropping these. They’re the special towels.”
“You have special towels?”
“Special guests require special towels. Erm, not that all our guests aren’t special. But you know…”
“What’s a hospitality specialist?” Zoey asked curiously.
“It’s their fancy way of saying I’m the maid for the high-profile guests.” Quinn made a playful face. “It’s still cleaning up people’s crap no matter how you spell it.” Already widened eyes widened even further, a deer in the headlights look if Zoey had ever seen one. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, hahahaha.”
Some laughs made everyone else want to join in too. This was not one of those laughs. This was a glance around the immediate vicinity, just a little too loud, awkward kind of laugh. Zoey was tempted to save Quinn from herself by clamping a hand over her mouth.
“I heard nothing,” Zoey promised, mimicking zipping her lip. “Where are we taking these?”
“Up to the top. Here, this way.”
Following Quinn down a series of hallways to a staff elevator, Zoey balanced her own towels as Quinn used a staff keycard for access. She hit the button for the penthouse suite.
“I didn’t bring you up here,” Quinn said, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “Hannah would kill me.”
“Hannah?”
“The hotel night manager. Technically, Mrs. Harris is the general manager, but everyone knows Hannah’s actually in charge. We’re all just waiting for Mrs. Harris to croak.” A naughty snicker escaped around the pillar of towels. “She might have already. Mrs. Harris spends all her time napping in her office with the door closed.”
Zoey opened her mouth to say something, but Quinn soldiered on cheerfully.
“The guest list is crazy. We’re usually full up during peak season, but there’s never been so many high-profile guests in the resort at the same time. And they all need something special.” Quinn glanced at her from behind cotton. “Not that we mind. Our jobs are to keep everyone happy.”
“There’s a silent ‘but’ in there,” Zoey said, squishing her towels to see what made them so special.
“But it’s nice when there’s only a handful of you know what’s in the hotel at once. They’re running me ragged.” Quinn made another face, her eyes crinkling in mischief. “At least the tips are good.”
Considering Zoey’s profession as a career waitress, she could appreciate a strong tipper. A few more of them and she might have made it here a couple of years sooner.
The elevator door opened to a private hallway entrance, the staff elevator doors hidden from view at the end of the hall, blending into the décor so no one would notice the elevator—or the people working there. When they stepped into the penthouse suite, Zoey’s jaw dropped. Between the massive stone fireplace and a kitchen bigger than her place back home, the suite was the perfect combination of cozy, rustic opulence and space, with window after window revealing an utterly spectacular view of the Chugach Mountains.
“Oh
wow.”
“Yeah, it never gets old. If you have to clean toilets, there are worse places.”
Prying into a stranger’s private room was wrong, but as Zoey stood in her spot, towels balanced in her arms with Quinn bustling around her, she couldn’t help but stare. The expensive purses just draped over the backs of chairs, bottles of champagne in buckets of ice already chilling despite the early morning hour. Gucci luggage stacked everywhere. She was astonished at the luxury around her.
“What do people pay for rooms like these?”
“More for one night than I make in a month.” Taking the towels from her, Quinn offered Zoey a grateful look. “And trust me, it’s not worth it. There’s nothing in here that we don’t have better down in town.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that either.”
Zoey had the feeling Quinn’s secrets were secret to very few, if the last few minutes had proven anything. Still, she nodded in reassurance. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“I’ll have to unpack their things in a moment. They just arrived and went down for breakfast.”
“This isn’t Killian’s room, is it?” Trying not to touch anything, Zoey edged out of the room and into the open doorway, a backward kind of shuffle with her hands firmly in her pockets.
“Mr. Montgomery? Do you know him?”
“We didn’t meet in Greece last year.”
Quinn blinked, then powered through her confusion with vibrant optimism. “I’ll tell him you’re here, then. Have you been to the Tourist Trap yet? Everyone has to go there when they first get into town. It’s tradition.”
“Oh, I did. And I will never go back. I made an idiot of myself. The owner had to bring me home.”
Quinn’s jaw dropped.
“You? You’re her?” Her. As if Zoey was Moby Dick, an elusive whale of a tourist. “Did Graham Barnett really carry you? Oh, that is so romantic.”
Cringing, Zoey edged half an inch into the hallway. “I don’t really remember.”
“The whole hotel has been talking about it. Poor Grass thought he was going to have to fight Graham.”
“What?”
“Then Hannah got control of the situation. She’s so good at that.”
“Wait, what situation?”
“And all for a burrito. I know Graham is crazy, and not just crazy hot, but seriously. Grass has skills. He trained in jujitsu in Anchorage for a long time. I bet he would have won.”
“Won the…burrito?”
Confusion didn’t begin to cover this.
“Okay, we’re all set! I’ll tell Mr. Montgomery you’re looking for him. Thanks again! Goodbye!”
With a bright smile, Quinn shut the penthouse door on Zoey’s face.
“He doesn’t actually know me—” Zoey started to say through the door, then she sighed. “Okeydokey.”
It took a while to find her way back to the lobby without a hospitality specialist to follow, but eventually, Zoey managed it. The hotel had several stations posted about the lobby with employees just itching to be helpful. Zoey knew where she was going, and she managed to avoid most of them. As she passed a souvenir shop dripping with handcrafted Alaskan-themed jewelry on display, she spied Lana seated at a table by the window with three other people, one of whom Zoey assumed was the secondary Killian whose suite she’d been in without permission.
Everyone at the table was enjoying themselves and their smoked trout, so Zoey scurried past before Lana could notice her. Zoey turned a corner and ran nose-to-name tag into another body, a tall, rawboned young man in his early twenties.
“Hi, my name is Diego” was trying to beam. This one was definitely trying and failing to beam.
“Did you need any help today, ma’am?”
Diego the bellhop might have sounded friendlier if he hadn’t spoken in a monotone, his eyes and voice flat. So close. Freedom and sunshine were within Zoey’s reach, but Diego the bellhop was right in her way.
“Oh, I was just wandering around. There’s supposed to be some hiking trails connected to the resort.”
“Yes.” He stared at her. Zoey stared back. Neither blinked.
Maybe it was the starch. His uniform had an awful lot of starch.
When she sidestepped, Diego the bellhop followed suit, determined to do his job. “On the far side of the grounds, take a left past the miniature golf course. Would you like a complimentary bottle of water and locally sourced organic granola bar to take with you today?”
Why yes. Yes, she would.
Shoving the granola bar at her, Diego continued in his dispassionate voice, “As valued guests of Moose Springs Resort, we encourage our patrons to dispose of all food wrappers in one of our provided bear-proof waste bins. Please refrain from carrying food items on the walking trails.”
He forced his lips to lift away from gritted teeth. “A hungry bear is a grumpy bear.”
“Umm, yes. I’ll eat it on the grounds.”
“Also, if you’d like breakfast before you leave, our head chef is world renowned for her fine dining cuisine. Her specialty is a lightly smoked trout on toast, served with house-made wild berry jam.”
Zoey shuddered and made her escape.
The instant she stepped through the doors of the hotel, the fresh, crisp mountain air filled her lungs, and the sweet, earthy scent of evergreens washed away the lingering scent of breakfast fish.
The resort was everything rustic lodge glamour, fitting in perfectly with their surroundings. Even in July, the weather was much cooler here than it would be back home in Chicago. Within the grounds alone, there were so many activities, Zoey could have spent the whole summer there and not done them all. As she wandered, smiling shyly at the far more robust guests taking advantage of the on-site amenities, Zoey munched on her granola bar.
Taking pictures on her phone from every angle imaginable, Zoey sighed in pleasure. Perfect. This was absolutely perfect.
Despite Diego’s lack of personality, his directions were excellent. The resort had paid special attention to providing signs for the trails spider-webbing away from the main grounds. The head of this jogging trail was marked with an information station, complete with a map of the trails and a list of local wildlife that could be found. Even the large government-produced sign was nicer than she’d ever seen, tucked beneath the shade of a log structure and protected from the elements by a thick casing of clear plexiglass.
“Warning. Numerous wildlife encounters have been known to occur on this trail,” Zoey read aloud. “Know your bears.”
A thrill of excitement flushed through her system.
“Never fear, I have come prepared. Bear bells, check. Bear spray, check. No small children wandering from the trail, check. Make sure to hike with a friend.”
Hmmm. If the sign had ever seen Lana in a wilderness type situation, it would have known better than to suggest that.
“Well, I’ll just have to be extra person-y.”
Ready for her first adventure but just hungover enough to not want to climb a mountain, Zoey picked a wide, sweeping trail with minimal elevation changes. The hike would take her at least an hour, staying within the resort’s property. Later, when she was feeling better, Zoey had every intention of exploring every inch of these mountains she could. Taking a picture of the map with her phone, Zoey and her water took off.
The trail couldn’t have been tidier unless someone had personally vacuumed the pine needles off the ground. The mountains rose high above the surrounding trees. With every step, her heart swelled wider, her soul flying free. Never had she been happier.
At the unmarked junction, Zoey had the choice to go right or left. On a whim, she went right, when thus far, all her turns had been left.
Zoey knew where she was going. She did. Even when the trail twisted and turned more than the map said it should. Even when
it stopped being so well maintained and narrowed on both sides. Even when it became clear that she’d made a wrong turn somewhere and needed to reevaluate her location.
She was a strong, independent woman perfectly capable of taking care of herself in the Alaskan wilderness.
Which was why, when she turned the corner and ended up next to a massive steel shipping container, face-to-welding mask with a man brandishing a chainsaw above them, Zoey knew exactly what to do. She ran away. And when he yelled something, grabbing her arm and pulling her around, Zoey was more than prepared for the situation.
Screaming bloody murder, Zoey kicked him straight between the legs.
Chapter 4
Now, for the record, Graham completely agreed with Zoey’s reaction. If he’d walked out of a forest and into a chainsaw, he’d be upset too.
The problem was, when she turned to run away, she’d been running toward the north side of his property, making a beeline for a thirty-foot ravine. The chivalrous part of Graham’s nature would never willingly let someone fling themselves to their death on his property, especially when it was all based on a simple misunderstanding.
Unfortunately, it was hard to express agreement while dry retching into a welding mask, injured beyond all hope of recovery. As a person with hopes and dreams and the desire to someday father children, Graham knew better than to remain keeled over with a chainsaw beneath him, even one not running.
All in all, it was a dangerous time to be a man.
He shoved the mask off his face, tossing it aside in an attempt for her to realize he was actually a normal, nonmurderous human being. If the situation had been different, Graham might have tried to console her or at least convince her she didn’t need to keep screaming. But alas, curling up in the fetal position was the best he could do.
She screamed all the way to his four-wheeler. She screamed the entire time she tried to start the four-wheeler and failed. She took a breather for a moment as she kicked it a few times and then continued to scream as she ran to the house to—he assumed—barricade herself in and call the police. Let the police come. It was possible Graham needed immediate medical attention.
The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska) Page 6