by Ember Leigh
Wes sighed and pulled the parking brake. “Time for a stakeout, then.”
Chapter Two
Once a few moments of silence had passed, Garrett’s brain began functioning outside of terror mode. The still-angry expression contorted her face, and from this angle he saw how her nose turned up slightly at the end. Her chest rose and fell softly—a good sign she’d survive. He didn’t know whether to pester her with more questions or leave her to rest.
“Will we have enough?”
Wesley referred to their rations at the hotel. The brothers had decided to turn around before even making it to the supermarket, the weather had gotten so poor. “Probably.”
“Maybe if the weather clears up even marginally, we can try to make it to the store in a few days.” Wesley sighed, shaking his head. “Never again are we coming to Pennsylvania. Never. Again.”
“Listen, as soon as we wrap this gig up, we’re going to an exotic location. Someplace in the south.”
Wes looked miserable as he stared out the windshield into the whiteness beyond. “Somewhere with sand so hot it makes your feet burn off.”
“You pick it. Wherever you want. We’ll go.” The Pennsylvania gig had been Garrett’s idea, and Wes barely let him forget about it. After years of profitable real estate renovation gigs, they’d taken a stab at some big jobs on the east coast. Unfortunately, what he’d rationalized as “only a little winter” from the sun-drenched patios of the west coast had turned out to be nearly half a year of cold. And snow. And sometimes even snow hail, which Garrett had fully believed a myth until he saw it with his own eyes.
In exchange for bringing the brothers into the brutal cold, Garrett had to cede some of his executive decision-making powers. Like allowing Wesley full control of where they worked for the next three years.
Beside him, Rose stirred. She attempted to lift her head.
“Hey, there. You awake?”
One eye opened, then the other. She blinked a few times. Blue eyes zapped him to attention.
“Where am I?” Her voice sounded scratchy; no doubt her vocal chords had frozen in the fray.
“You’re safe.” Garrett placed a hand on her shoulder and then retracted it. Would she be comfortable with a blatant stranger touching her moments after awaking in a foreign place? He didn’t know how this shit worked. God, they’d be lucky to make it out of here alive. He still hadn’t discounted the possibility a semi-truck would hit them like they’d hit Rose. “We’re taking you to our hotel. You got in a car crash.”
Panic washed over her face, and she scrambled upright. Once her eyes landed on the baby beside her, she let a huge sigh of relief.
“The baby. Oh, the baby.” Rose leaned over the seat to unbuckle the baby and lifted her out of the car seat.
“Um…is she okay?”
Rose’s eyes drifted shut as she hugged the girl to her chest. “Yes. She’s fine. Oh, thank God.” She rocked small girl back and forth in her arms, murmuring softly.
Garrett watched them, a wave of relief coursing through him. With all the ways the situation could have ended, a sluggish baby and a banged-up mother could be considered a success.
“My name is Garrett, by the way. And this is my brother, Wesley.”
Rose’s eyes snapped open, and she watched him for a moment before responding. “Thank you so much, Garrett. Thanks to both of you, for pulling us out of the car. I cannot express my gratitude.”
Garrett cast a nervous glance toward his brother. “No problem. I mean…this is pretty terrible weather. You wouldn’t have had a chance.”
Rose placed the child in the cat seat. She watched the baby for a moment, lips moving but not saying anything as her fingertips grazed the child’s forehead.
“Where are we going?” She sounded a million miles away.
“We own a hotel. It’s undergoing some renovations right now, but we can put you up there until the storm clears, and we can find you a rental or something.”
Realization spread across her face. “My car. Oh, God…my car. Fuck.”
He glanced uneasily at his brother. “I’m sure we can call your husband or…boyfriend…or whoever you need to reach out to.”
The words had scarcely left his mouth before she replied, “No. There’s no one.” Her words were a sucker punch to the gut, and he couldn’t figure out why.
“Well…whoever is closest to you…”
“No need,” she said. “It’s not too much to take care of.” In the tight breathing space of the truck cabin, her air of nonchalance almost suffocated him. Less than thirty minutes after the crash and she played the tough girl part?
“We have full accommodations.” Wesley looked as eager to change the subject as Garrett. “There’s a crew of workers helping to renovate the hotel. It’s a little rustic right now, but it’ll shape up. Probably.”
“How far away is it?” she asked.
“A couple miles up the mountain. In this weather, it’ll probably take a half hour.” Wesley paused, eyeing the unchanging whiteness beyond. “Provided we can get moving, that is.”
The girl made a noise, sighed, and then settled.
“Is it—uh, she, all right?” Garrett asked.
“Yeah, she’s fine.” Rose leaned to look into the car seat and adjusted something.
“Does she…need anything?” Garrett wanted to offer something for the kid, though he didn’t have the faintest idea about what kids needed, other than diaper changes and the occasional bottle. He looked down at the child; he had no idea if this age still required breastfeeding or not. Could she use a toilet by herself? What about counting?
“I grabbed a bag I saw in the back seat, “Wes added. “I thought you might want it.”
Rose nodded, appraising the black bag sitting by their feet. “Thank you. That’s helpful.” She sighed, moving some curls out of the girl’s face. “She’s fine now. Just a little sleepy. I think the warmth of the truck is helping put her to sleep.”
Emmy let out something similar to a shriek and then added, “Yep!”
Wes smiled, and Garrett watched the baby, confused. Had it said something? He decided to steer the conversation back to more comfortable grounds. “When we get back to the hotel, I’ll show you where you can stay. We only have about twenty or so livable rooms right now, and most are taken up by the workers. We’re trying to get the renovation done quickly, so we can get out of this place. Wes and I each have the last two rooms, but we can bunk up so you and your kid can have one.”
Wesley shot him a look he didn’t understand, followed by Rose. What had he said so wrong that both his brother and a perfect stranger were shooting him weird looks? He offered a small smile to Rose.
“That sounds great. I can’t imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t found me…”
“Well, since we hit you, it seemed proper etiquette.”
Rose cracked a smile. Garrett’s gaze lingered on her pretty face, distracted by the curves and shapes that appeared divinely sculpted. The brief excursion in the cold had left a pleasant rosiness in her cheeks and the tip of her nose.
“I shouldn’t have been out driving.” She pushed her bangs off her forehead. “I hadn’t checked the weather at all…I was in such a hurry.”
“We’re safe in this monster.” Wes squeezed his hands on the huge steering wheel. “The only thing capable of taking this thing down is…well, God, probably. Or a semi.”
“Don’t you feel safe now?” Garrett smiled over at Rose.
Her lips twitched into something resembling a smile, but she said nothing.
Silence settled in the truck. Garrett turned to the window and stared at the oppressive whiteness. As long as they made it back to the hotel in one piece, things could carry on as normal, plus one mother and her baby. It might liven things up at the hotel, which they were in desperate need of. Always in desperate need of, really. He might learn a thing or two about babies as well, not that he’d ever been particularly interested. Though maybe he could a
dd it to his resume—Drywall skills. Renovation prowess. Can hold a baby for thirty minutes without a catastrophe.
“You guys wouldn’t happen to have any…uh…diapers, at your hotel, would you?”
Garrett creased a brow. “Um…I can check…but…I don’t think so. Did you have a diaper bag in the car? Maybe we can try to get it out…”
Rose opened her mouth to speak and then clamped it shut. “I used the last diaper before we wrecked.”
Garrett shifted, determined to find a reasonable solution that did not involve him buying diapers. Besides, did the general store even carry those? He’d never seen them. “We have paper towels and stuff…”
“Probably won’t cut it, Garrett,” Wes interjected. Garrett glared at him, partly for utilizing his older-brother act, and partly because he acted like he knew something about kids, when Wes was as inept as he.
“I’m sure we’ll get by.” Rose sounded like she meant to calm the brothers more than herself.
“Diapers or not, Hotel MonteBlanco will take care of you.” Garrett placed his arm on the seat above her shoulders and then pulled it back to his side. God, did it seem like he tried to be smooth? He certainly wasn’t. Okay, maybe a little. As smooth as one could be post-car wreck stuffed into a work truck around an incomprehensible gurgling baby and her incredibly cute mother.
He offered a small smile. “You’ll be living in the lap of luxury within no time.”
****
Rose had been promised the lap of luxury, but what they’d finally arrived at, after a painstakingly slow and terrifying ride up the mountain, looked more like the lap of chaotic lumberyard.
“Do you like it?” Garrett watched her for a reaction as they pulled into the cul-de-sac of the formerly grand hotel. The whiteout had receded into a mere blizzard while they’d sat alone in alternating silence and painful conversation in the truck. Though it had offered her the chance to sneak secret glances at the brothers and size them up. From what she had gleaned so far, the brothers were close in age and still had plenty of the big-brother-little-brother warring going on between them. Maybe the isolation of their business brought it on; or maybe old habits died hard on the mountain.
Garrett was the smoking hot brother of the two. And he had a smartass mouth that reminded her of her own. He’d caught her looking at him a handful of times, and each time she’d slid her gaze away like she’d been looking at the most normal thing in the world, though on the inside reeling from the scorch of his deep green eyes. Maybe he’d blame any social awkwardness on the car crash. Perhaps a concussion could be feigned.
One thing was clear: she needed a gin and tonic. She reassessed the hotel as Garrett’s inquisitive face demanded a response. Lap of luxury? Did that mean a nanny to watch the baby while “Momma” went for a massage? A white-washed and peeling façade stared back at her. A broken bench lay pitifully next to the double doors of the entranceway. She bit her lip.
“Yeah, it’s…wonderful. Very large.”
Though on second look, she noticed something actually quite beautiful about it—everything besides the hotel. Beyond the crumbling building, untamed mountainscape sprawled for probably forever. Pine trees and firs towered around them, hugging the sides of the building and beyond. Picturesque, she supposed, if one managed to overlook the dump in front.
“All right, let’s go.” Wes pulled on his face mask. “I can take the baby if you want.”
“No, I’ll get her,” Garrett interjected, reaching for the car seat. “I’ll run inside, and you follow, okay?” He turned to Rose. “I don’t want you to have to carry this.”
Rose didn’t know which stern face on either side of her to concede to. “Just be careful, please.”
“Of course.”
The doors opened and a gust of wind whooshed through, cementing her to the seat. The winter-ready parka she’d picked up especially for this gig had nothing on this Pennsylvanian wind. She grabbed her bag and slid out of the truck, struggling to follow Garrett as closely as she could. The cold air pierced her, threatening to freeze her to her spot if she didn’t keep moving.
Wes shoved his whole body into the door, a gesture Rose thought absurd until she realized his body weight barely budged the entryway door. It opened begrudgingly, and finally yielded enough for a human body to slip through. Once they’d entered the foyer and nothing had crumbled or collapsed, Wesley gestured around them. “Welcome to MonteBlanco.”
She gulped, looking around. Chandeliers dangled from the ceiling by sewing thread. Cracked floor tiles betrayed a long history of neglect; actual chunks were missing from the walls. A curvaceous front desk sat empty and forlorn in front of them, straight from the seventies, yet the rest of the place suggested the hotel had been around for much longer than that. The very air inside the hotel seemed to be a prolonged sigh.
“What happened to the wall?” She pointed behind the front desk where a gaping hole saw through to the other side.
“The waterfall is going there.” Wes moved toward a hallway to their left. “We’re going to allow the customer to choose what color of water will cascade down, depending on their theme. Let’s go to our rooms.”
Rose allowed Garrett to carry the car seat once more and followed them, a small degree of wonder creeping in. Maybe these guys were onto something. If they had the money to throw at a place like this, to have actual options for waterfall colors, then they could probably turn it around.
Or maybe they were rich nut jobs.
On their way toward the rooms, exposed wires and unidentified cables littered the hall. She made notes of this as she concocted her mental escape route, should the need arise. “Is this place…safe?” The deeper they went, the more convinced she became that it could be used as an extremely complicated obstacle course, or at least the set of a horror B-movie.
“Of course.” Garrett glanced back at her. “You should have seen this when we bought it.”
She couldn’t picture a more decrepit building. “So…this is what you guys do for a living?”
Wes and Garrett shared a knowing look. “We buy old places—buildings you see sitting unoccupied for years and years—and we renovate them. We make them new again, add on a couple extras here and there, and then resell it for probably three times its worth.” Garrett smiled smugly. “In less than six months, this will be the place to come. This place is going to be the hottest off-the-grid spot in the country.”
“Off the grid?”
“Yeah, you know, like completely disconnected.”
Rose lifted a brow. “And people will pay for that?”
“Oh, please. In this day and age, people are dying to get away from their cell phones. This place is the most disconnected you could get. And what’s more, people will pay top dollar to do it.”
“And you’re sure of this?”
“Damn sure,” Garrett said.
“Well, not so sure, to be exact,” Wes interjected. “But sometimes Garrett’s ideas get a little… grandiose.”
“That and I can smell a foreclosure from two hundred miles away.” Garrett grinned at Wes and slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, I’m a genius, and you know it.”
Wes rolled his eyes as they arrived at a series of doors she assumed were meant for safe habitation. She only wanted to sit down. The wreck had jarred her—unexplained aches would surely arrive once the adrenaline of today wore off. Plus, she needed some time to figure out her next step—at least how to let Emmy’s mother know the rescuer she’d paid thousands of dollars for hadn’t turned into a very well-paid kidnapper.
“Is there anything you need right now?” Wes pushed open the door. A strange green and purple psychedelic carpet greeted them. “Milk, water…a bottle of wine?”
“I’ll take you up on the wine,” she said.
“We might be in the middle of nowhere, but we keep this place stocked.” Garrett set the car seat down next to Rose and went into the room. “If it weren’t for that, we might go crazy out here in the Appala
chians.”
Rose sighed, digging her phone out of her pocket for to check for a signal again. She’d noticed the boys didn’t have the curious tic of checking their phones every five minutes like most people in the real world. The words “NO SIGNAL” blinked dully at her; this place really was disconnected, despite how difficult it was to believe in this day and age anybody could escape the penetrating sweep of a cell phone tower.
She watched as Garrett gathered the clothes scattered on the floor and between the two double beds. “Wesley, why don’t you bring her that drink?”
“Right. Did you want the wine now? Anything else?”
“Gin and tonic.”
Wesley looked confused for a moment, then seemed to decide it was a joke. “I’ll bring a water.” He disappeared down the hallway.
“Aren’t moms supposed to avoid hard liquor?”
Garrett didn’t look at her as he formed a small heap of clothing in his arms. She leaned against the doorframe, unsure how many more times she could be referred to as Emmy’s mom before something she said gave herself away. She was an expert at stealth, and even better at rescuing children—but lying presented a challenge. She liked to walk on the right side of the line, and this marked the first time she’d ever had to pose as a gig’s actual mother.
“Only during the breastfeeding years,” she said, pretty sure that made scientific sense. Whatever moms put in their bodies, the babies drank by definition, right? “I’m all clear though.”
“You were serious about the gin and tonic, weren’t you?”
“Hell, yes, I was.” She assessed her nails. Mysterious dirt had caked beneath the long, colorless nails. A shower seemed like a great idea, too. “But that’s okay, I’ll take wine. And a lot of it.”
Garrett laughed and left the room, arms piled high with sundry T-shirts and dirty blue jeans. “You get my room. Lucky you. Let me go put this in Wes’s room, and then we’ll see about getting the gin.”
He walked to the room across the hall and kicked it open with his foot. While he was inside the room, Rose thought to check on the baby. She slept peacefully enough. It had been awhile since she’d been around kids—really been around them longer than the requisite catch-and-release required by her job. She had a few nieces and nephews, but they weren’t babies anymore, and mostly stared at their telephones while she attempted to show them interesting things in the real world. Besides, her job kept her busy and perpetually on the move. She was lucky if she saw family twice a year and usually within the stuffy confines of Christmas dinners and Easter gatherings. Long enough to eat the seasonally appropriate feast, pose for a picture, and hop onto a plane back to wherever-the-hell.