by Zoe Chant
"Rooms," Mauro said. He really was bad at this entire hotel-host thing. "Right. The beds are all made up, so I just need to turn up the heat. What kind of room did you want?"
"What did you book, dear?" Peony asked Hester.
Hester sighed. "It was the Valentine's Getaway luxury ... thing. Supposedly. If Ralph even booked it and wasn't lying about the whole thing."
Mauro's heart abruptly dropped out of the bottom of his chest as if it had turned to solid lead.
She had mentioned this Ralph person earlier, but he hadn't put it together and realized that Ralph had booked the rooms for her. For them.
It had never occurred to him that she might have a boyfriend, a fiancé, or even a spouse. He'd never even thought to ask.
"Ralph?" he managed, in a voice that didn't sound like his own.
"Ralph the cheating cad," Hester said, closing her eyes briefly. "Ralph the human fungus. The—you had a good one, Mom, didn't you?"
"Ball of writhing maggots in a human skin suit," Peony said promptly.
"Ewww, Mom."
"Ralph is the cheating bastard who broke my daughter's heart," Peony said.
Mauro was caught between limp-kneed relief that Hester didn't actually have a boyfriend, and a rush of protective fury at the idea of anyone hurting her. What kind of fool, what kind of monster would have Hester's heart in their hands and crush it?
"I can't believe anyone would do that to you," he said, honest and direct. "I wish I had five minutes alone with the guy."
"It's over now," Hester mumbled into her cocoa, not meeting his eyes. Peony, however, leaned forward and patted his arm.
"I like you," she said. "Now about that room."
"Right!" Mauro jumped up and went over to the check-in desk.
He hadn't used the system much, but occasionally when the lodge was short-staffed he'd had to check in a guest. However, in this case all he needed was the extra stuff: the room keys and the pile of lodge maps that they handed out to guests.
"If you had the luxury weekend package, then you must have booked our honeymoon suite," he said, sorting things out. "You can still have that if you want."
"Oh yes, we want," Peony said.
"An ordinary room will be fine," Hester said at the same time.
There was a brief pause.
"You can have separate rooms if you'd like," Mauro pointed out. "Since you're the only ones here, there's plenty of room."
"Separate rooms would be great," Peony said, as Hester said, "One room is fine."
There was a brief silence. Mauro looked over. Hester was scowling, and the two women appeared to be having a conversation conducted entirely in eyebrow movements and eye rolls.
"Am I wrong?" Peony asked quietly.
"Mom!" Hester whispered back, easily loud enough for Mauro's shifter hearing to pick up.
"Do you ladies need to consult about this?" Mauro asked, a bit nervously.
"No, no, we're fine," Hester said. "Separate room is fine. Honeymoon suite is fine. I don't even care."
She flopped back on the couch and pulled the end of her blanket over her face.
Mauro found the keys and brought them over. "This is the honeymoon suite and another room on the same floor. The map will show you where everything is."
"There are actual keys!" Peony exclaimed in delight. "I haven't been to a hotel with keys instead of keycards in, oh, I don't know how long."
"The owners are very old-fashioned," Mauro explained. "The honeymoon suite key is the one with the, er, heart-shaped head."
"Of course it is," Hester sighed.
She took it; her fingers brushed his, igniting ripples of pleasure up and down his spine.
He had to wrench himself away, and went to pick up their suitcases. "Can I take these upstairs for you?"
They went up the big front stairs, Mauro in front with the suitcases, the women behind, carrying their various smaller items. There were frequent stops to look around, as the higher they got on the stairs, the more of the lobby became visible. The stairs ended at a balcony with a wooden railing, looking down over the lobby and more or less on the same level as the dangling biplane.
"Is that a real plane?" Hester asked. She leaned over the balcony railing, looking down.
"It is," Mauro said. "There's a book in the gift shop about it. It used to be a cropduster and barnstormer back in the 1920s."
"You have a gift shop?" Peony inquired, looking eager.
"It's closed," he pointed out. "I'm sorry. I don't have the ability to sell you things."
"Yeah, about that," Hester said. She still had a blanket draped over her shoulders and was tugging on the fringe. "This was all supposed to be paid for by my ex. But I—I don't even know if you can get on the computer to check that, can you?"
Mauro shook his head vigorously. His animal was offended down to its core by the idea of his mate having to pay for her necessary creature comforts.
We should take care of her!
"Don't worry about it," he said. "It's just me here, and a lot of space, and a kitchen full of food that needs to be used up. When it comes down to it, you're doing me a favor."
He left them upstairs, exclaiming over the honeymoon suite, and went down to the kitchen to prepare something for them to eat. Although first he stopped by his cabin and put a shirt on. If it was just Hester, he wouldn't have minded and he didn't think she did either, but hanging around with her mom all evening would be a bit awkward.
There was absolutely no shortage of food, as he had told them. In particular, there were a lot of frozen meals, made up by the chef in large batches to be oven-thawed later. Mauro began sorting through them.
There was a throat-clearing noise, and he looked around to see Peony come in, carrying their mugs.
"Hester is taking a shower and getting cleaned up," Peony said. She set the mugs in the sink and turned on the tap.
Mauro hastily battened down the delightful mental image of Hester in the shower, under the flowing water, face tilted up to the spray ...
"I was serious about helping with dinner," Peony added, rinsing the mugs.
"You're guests," Mauro said quickly. "I can handle it."
"Still, I'd like to make myself useful." She smiled. "At least let me know if you need a sous chef or something."
"Well, there actually is something you could help with." He opened the freezer door wider. Peony stepped closer and whistled when she saw the neat stacks of foil-wrapped trays, the frozen chicken and meat and fish, the packages of frozen fruit and vegetables, the pastries ready to be defrosted and served.
"There isn't a lot that's fresh, since the lodge is closed," Mauro explained. "But there is a ton of frozen stuff. We've always kept a lot of bulk frozen food on hand since bad weather in the winter can mean the deliveries of fresh stuff has trouble getting through. And most of this is going to be too freezer-burned to serve to guests by the time the lodge opens again." He pulled out two trays, and made a little bow. "Veal parmesan or our chef's famous lasagna, ma'am?"
Peony smiled. "Lasagna sounds great. Good for warming up after a long, cold day."
"An excellent choice." He put the second tray back, and took the lasagna over to the kitchen's big ovens, trying to look like he knew what he was doing. Maybe if Peony left for a few minutes, he could run over to his cabin and stick the lasagna in the microwave ...
Instead of leaving, Peony trailed after him. "This is incredible," she said, looking around at the stove with its ranks of burners, the long counters for food preparation, the side-by-side ovens. "I worked as a waitress when Hester was small and I was working on my accounting degree, but I've never been in a kitchen like this."
Neither had Mauro, before the last few weeks, except when something in the kitchen needed fixing.
"How do you use this?" Peony asked, leaning in for a closer look at the oven.
Mauro fought a brief internal battle and decided to err on the side of not accidentally burning the place down. "Your guess is as g
ood as mine. I've never used it before."
Peony looked curious. "How do you normally cook?"
"Back at my cabin. There's a little kitchen there."
"Oh." She laughed. "Well, I used to use the kitchen at the diner sometimes. Maybe we can figure it out together."
It turned out that the controls were surprisingly simple, and soon the lasagna was defrosting.
"There are some frozen baked goods too," Mauro offered, starting to feel a little less nervous. There was just something about Peony that put him at ease, even though she was his mate's mother and he worried desperately about impressing her. "Do you want to look through it and pick something out?"
They picked out a tray of muffins and another of garlic rolls to go with the lasagna. Those went in the second oven to heat.
"You know," Peony said abruptly, "my daughter has had a rough time lately."
She paused and seemed to be waiting for a response. Inwardly, Mauro panicked all over again, and it burst out of him in unthinking honesty.
"I'd do anything to change that," he said. "She deserves the world."
Peony gave him an eyebrow-raised look of curiosity, and he looked away, flushing. That was probably too much, he thought, when he had just met her. He wished he could explain to Peony about fated mates, and the way that the moment he'd seen Hester, he had known that he was made for her, and she for him.
"I think so too," Peony said at last, her voice thoughtful. "But she's recently had her heart broken. I don't want to see it broken again."
Mauro raised his gaze to meet her eyes. There was no judgement there, only a thoughtful look that matched her tone.
"I promise you," he said quietly. "I would never, ever hurt your daughter."
Peony smiled slightly. "I never really liked Ralph from the beginning, you know. I couldn't explain it; I just had a feeling about him. I told myself that I wasn't going to be a nagging, overbearing mother, trying to control my daughter's life. And then he went and shattered her heart. So I swore that I would listen to my instincts from now on."
She paused again.
"What do your instincts tell you about me?" Mauro asked softly. He had never been sure how that worked for humans, who didn't have their animal's inner voice to guide them.
But Peony didn't seem like a woman who was unsure of herself.
"I feel like I can trust you," she said, just as softly. "Which is crazy. We just met you. But I noticed the way you've been looking at my daughter from the time that we walked through the door."
Mauro had to look away again. All he could think about was the kiss out by the car, as if his guilt was stamped on his forehead. "I wasn't trying to be inappropriate—"
"You weren't," Peony said. "At least you weren't offering anything that she wasn't receptive to. Look—I know how fast it can move when you're young and in love, all right? Just ... remember she's been through a lot recently. She deserves to be cherished and cared for."
"That's all I want to do, ma'am," Mauro said earnestly.
"You know, the really wild thing is," Peony mused, and he met her gaze again, and found it slightly amused. "I believe you."
Hester
Hester was still struggling with the feeling that this entire trip had been a mistake, no matter what her hedgehog had to say about it. However, she had to admit that the honeymoon suite was pretty incredible.
The room was huge, with big windows looking out on .... well, at the moment, darkness with an ever-changing swirl of snowflakes flashing in and out of the room lights, but there was probably an amazing view in the daylight. Hester closed the floor-to-ceiling drapes, shutting her cozily into her own little world.
Mom was downstairs in the kitchen, with Mauro showing her around. Hester tried not to think about how that was going.
Instead she bounced on the enormous bed. Was this a queen or a king? Or was there a size bigger than king? Like ... an emperor bed, or a galactic dictator bed. It was absolutely covered in pillows. Hester picked one up and wrapped her arms around it. The pillow was a fluffy white one. It was like holding a small sheep.
She couldn't help thinking that she would much rather be holding Mauro.
Dropping the pillow, she went into the bathroom to see what that was like.
Also huge. There was a giant hot tub. Hester twiddled the knobs, and water roared out, cool at first but quickly heating up to blazing hot.
Oooh yeah.
A long hot soak made her feel approximately a thousand percent better.
If only she could stop thinking about Mauro. This tub, she couldn't help noticing, was big enough for two. It was probably meant for couples.
Mauro, sinking down in the hot water, with those shoulders and that incredible bare chest and his narrow hips ...
Mauro, washing her hair.
Mauro, soaping her back.
Mauro—
Her eyes popped open. No, no, no.
What do YOU think of Mauro? she asked her hedgehog.
The answer was pure delight and a wordless sense of mineminemine. No help there.
Her resist temptation and leave in the morning plan was slipping quickly into have an amazing rebound fling.
Because why on earth not? She wanted him. He seemed incredibly sweet and caring. He was certainly hot. He would be amazing in bed, she was sure of it.
What's wrong with me? I literally JUST went down this road.
But ...
But Mauro was different.
Mauro could be "the one."
Mauro felt like "the one."
She slouched down in the water until it covered her chin, and tipped her head back, letting her hair float. This tub was huge.
There was a brisk knock on the door.
Hester's head went underwater.
She splashed to the surface, flailing and choking. "Coming!" she yelled, and scrambled out of the bath, grabbing for a towel.
"Hester?" called her mom's voice from out in the hall.
Hester sighed. "I said I'm coming!" she called back.
She gave herself a cursory toweling off and found a complimentary bathrobe behind the door. It was a red satin one. Very Valentine's, as if she had a Valentine to show herself off for.
I bet Mauro would like it, her hedgehog prompted.
No one asked you, hedgehog.
She went to open the door.
"Hi, baby," Peony said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Dinner's almost ready, but I thought you might be hungry from the drive. I brought you warm muffins."
She pushed a plate into Hester's hands. Hester's irritation crumbled under the realization that she was actually starving. After the day they'd had, that cup of cocoa had hit bottom and bounced.
"You made muffins?" she asked, tearing off a chunk and stuffing it into her mouth.
"Mauro did," Peony said. "Actually, they have a bunch of frozen goodies in the lodge freezer, so technically he defrosted them."
Her hedgehog was thrilled. Her hedgehog did not care about defrosting; all it cared about was that Mauro had provided food, like a good provider should.
"What's for dinner?" she asked, breaking off another piece of muffin.
"Lasagna and garlic bread," Peony said, and Hester's stomach informed her that it would like them now, please. Also more muffins.
Then, without warning, the lights went out. The corridor was abruptly so dark that even her sharp night vision couldn't penetrate it.
Hester froze with a muffin halfway to her mouth.
"Oh," Peony said in the sudden pitch darkness. "This must be one of those power outages."
Hester groped around until she found the edge of the door. Her mother's hand brushed her arm in the darkness.
A sudden bright white beam of light stabbed along the corridor. "Hester?" Mauro called from behind it. "Peony?"
"Power outage?" Hester called back.
"Yeah. Sorry. I just wanted to make sure you two were okay before I go fire up the generator. I brought you flashlights."
/> They each took one. "Is it going to take long?" Hester asked.
"I don't know. It's usually in good working order, but it hasn't been run at all this year."
He had put a shirt on, Hester was a little sad to see. It was a plaid workman's shirt, over tight jeans.
She deeply appreciated the jeans, even if she regretted the shirt.
"Dinner's ready anyway," Mauro added. "You two don't need to wait for me to start eating. There's a lantern in the kitchen for light. I'll just run out to the generator building."
With that, he was off, the flashlight beam bouncing down the hall to vanish down the stairs.
"He's a very nice man," Peony said.
"Mm-hmm," was Hester's response, as noncommittal as possible, while her lips tingled at the memory of the kiss. "Let me just get dressed."
She changed quickly into clean dry clothes, nothing fancy, just jeans and a sweater. She didn't have anything fancy; she had planned on spending the weekend hanging out with her mom.
Peony waited for her outside the door. They went down the stairs together, lighting their way with the flashlights.
"How long do you think it takes to start a generator?" Peony wondered.
"I'm sure he knows what he's doing, Mom."
In the beams of their lights, the great dark lobby of the lodge was eerie, the set for a Gothic mystery. Their lights glinted off the glass of the windows. The firelight was the main light source in the lobby now, rippling on the log walls like water reflections in a sea cave.
There was also a glow coming from the kitchen. Mauro, it turned out, had set up several small battery-powered LED lanterns, casting a brilliant white light. There was one of them sitting on the counter beside the sink and a couple more beside the stove. The kitchen smelled wonderful.
"I feel weird about just eating their food," Hester admitted, poking around to find tableware. "Are you sure the owners won't mind?"
"Mauro says he's been trying to use it up so it doesn't get freezer-burned." Peony found a row of oven mitts hanging on hooks and took the lasagna out. "I'm sure he'd say something if we were doing anything wrong."