Howl at the Loon (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 6)

by Susan C. Daffron

  Robin wasn’t sure what to say. After a day of stress and cleaning, she had to look pretty rumpled by now. Was he coming on to her? If so, she wasn’t in the mood. It was probably best to assume he was just being friendly and respond in kind. “It has been a long day and I’m afraid I’m not feeling terribly pretty at the moment, so that’s kind of you to say.”

  “I’m simply expressing what I see. It doesn’t hurt that I’m a sucker for blue-eyed blondes.”

  “Thank you. Is your cabin okay?”

  “There seems to be an issue with the water pressure.”

  “What do you mean the water pressure?”

  “There isn’t any. I took a quick shower, but it was more like a misting, I’m afraid.”

  “Holy schnitzel, that doesn’t sound good.” Robin sighed and looked up at him. He was so tall, it was like holding hands with her father when she was twelve years old. “I’m sorry. If the owner ever shows up again, I’ll be sure to tell him. Alec took a shower and didn’t say anything was wrong. Maybe the plumbing in the Pine Cone cabin works better and you could try that one tomorrow.”

  He swung her hand cheerfully between them as they walked. “That’s a great idea. You are always looking for solutions. I like that about you.”

  They walked into the kitchen, where Alec was sitting at one of the metal tables with a pizza box in front of him. The aroma of Italian spices and tomato sauce wafted through the space. Officially ravenous now, Robin eagerly settled onto one of the metal stools.

  Even though the rest of the lodge might be seriously unclean, Chuck had obviously spent some time in the kitchen scrubbing down the shiny metal tables and commercial appliances when he brought over the food.

  The trio sat around the table silently chewing pizza. It was delicious and Robin was finally starting to feel human again. She raised her slice toward Alec, “Thank you so much for going to town and getting this for us. Pizza has never tasted so good.”

  Brett said, “I appreciate your willingness to go forth and gather sustenance for us as well. I think we’ve all had a long day of travel and activities. This is exactly the type of team-oriented cooperation that I’ll be focusing on this week.”

  Alec paused in his enthusiastic chewing and Robin was afraid he might say something sarcastic or snotty, but he just nodded. Robin said to Brett, “I’ve been somewhat curious about your program, actually. I hope the weather holds. Doing a scavenger hunt in the rain could be unpleasant for the attendees.”

  Brett set down his slice of pizza and leaned toward her. “Shared adversity such as bad weather can enhance the level of cooperation among team members. But I’m starting with simple ice-breaker exercises, which we’ll do inside. That way people will feel more comfortable with one another before we send them out into the forest.”

  A crashing noise came from outside the kitchen and the door opened. Ernie walked in and nodded at the group. Robin hurriedly swallowed what she was chewing and said, “Ernie! Where have you been?”

  “I was out. Had to do some stuff.”

  She stood up and placed her palms on the table. Maybe stuff was his term for fishing. “While you were gone, I washed all the sheets and gave Brett and Alec their keys. Also, we’re having some women come in to clean tomorrow. I hope that’s okay. And the nineteen people attending the retreat are arriving tomorrow evening. You remember that, right?”

  Ernie waved dismissively, walked to the table, and took a slice of pizza. “Yeah. I’ll tell Myrtle.” He turned and left the kitchen.

  Alec raised his eyebrows at Robin. “He’s certainly a man of few words, isn’t he?”

  Robin sat down in her chair again. “To be honest, I’m not sure he’s quite all there. Myrtle is his wife. Or was his wife. According to Darrell, she’s been dead for years.”

  Brett said, “Sometimes people talk to their spouses, even after they are gone. It makes them feel closer to the person they’ve lost.”

  Robin sighed. “I suppose that’s sweet in a way. Very sad, but sweet. Darrell said it was fine, unless Ernie thinks Myrtle is participating in the conversation. Maybe he does. I can’t tell.”

  Brett put his hand over hers. “You’ve done a tremendous job of handling everything, Robin. I’m sure it will be fine.”

  She looked up into Brett’s eyes. They were an unusual dark-brown, almost black color that was compelling. It was easy to understand why he was such a successful trainer. “Thank you. You’ve been very understanding about all the problems here.”

  Alec cleared his throat. “So. About tomorrow? I guess we set up in that other building across the way?”

  Robin turned to him and said, “Yes. It used to be a dinner theater years ago, as I understand it. There are supposed to be folding tables and chairs in a closet, but I didn’t have time to check it out. I was dealing with sheets. There were a lot of them. But I’ll make sure the church ladies clean up that area too. I hope the roof is okay.”

  “Guess we’ll find out.” Alec stood up. “I think I’ll head off to my cabin now. I’ve got a ton of material to go over before Monday.”

  They both thanked him again for the pizza and he left. Robin grabbed another piece of pizza and smiled at Brett. “There’s only one more piece. Go for it.”

  He returned her smile and took the slice from the box. “I believe I will.”

  They ate companionably in silence and Robin stole a few glances at him. Brett was absurdly handsome, confident, and charming. Although he’d come on a little strong at first, it was difficult not to like him after he’d been so friendly and encouraging. Maybe it was just the fatigue talking, but she couldn’t help thinking about him. What would those lips feel like? How would he respond? Moving and starting over in a new city had been complicated and she’d been lacking in any type of male companionship for a long time. All of her friends were still in Spokane, and her pathetic lack of social life was starting to feel hopeless.

  A loud clattering racket from outside startled Robin from her reverie. “Flaming heck! What now?”

  Brett stood up. “I don’t know. Considering the remote location, it certainly is noisy here.”

  “Maybe it’s the ghost.”

  He looked down at her. “Are you saying Ernie’s wife is a ghost?”

  “I don’t know about her. But according to Chuck, the cook, there’s supposedly a ghost from a long time ago. A woman who died in a fire here in the twenties, I think. Alpine Grove legend has it that she never left the North Fork.”

  Brett held out his hand to her. “It looks like you’re done with dinner. Let me escort you back to your cabin. Just in case.”

  She took his hand and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Okay. Just in case.”

  The next morning Robin opened her eyes and squinted at the sunlight streaming through the window. The predicted bad weather obviously hadn’t arrived yet, which was good news for the North Fork cleaning program. She sat up in bed, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  Even though the little brown Pine Cone cabin would hardly be considered opulent by anyone’s estimation, it was still cute in a beat-up yet well-loved dollhouse kind of way. It had a tiny living area with an old sofa and wooden chest in front of it that acted as a coffee table. At the moment, the chest was covered with Robin’s printouts of checklists and timelines, proving its ability to do double-duty as a micro-workspace.

  The mattress on the old four-poster bed was a little broken-down in the middle, but Robin hadn’t noticed when she crawled under the covers the night before. After the driving, laundry, and stress, she’d been exhausted and would have fallen asleep almost immediately were it not for the ghost—or oversized rodent—that had made a few more crashing noises before finally settling in for the evening.

  Aside from the possible haunting issues, it was incredibly peaceful out here on the lake, which was quite a change from her apartment in downtown Portland. With a little TLC, the cabin could even be downright adorable. The tongue-and-groove paneling on t
he walls could stand to be refinished and the furniture desperately needed to be reupholstered and restored, but with those repairs, new bedding, and a few cute decorations, the little space would make an idyllic romantic getaway. Well, that and fixing the door. Getting in and out of Pine Cone 1 was a bit of a struggle. Shoving on the door wasn’t sexy at all. It would completely ruin the whole traditional carrying-the-bride-over-the-threshold experience.

  Robin looked over toward the bathroom with more than a little trepidation. It was time to brave the shower. There hadn’t been any sounds of water running next door. Maybe she could get to the hot water before Alec did, since presumably the duplex shared plumbing. After yesterday’s festival of dust, it would be fantastic to be clean again.

  She turned on the water and held her hand under the spray while the water warmed up. After a prolonged wait, it became clear that the water was not going to warm up. Ever. She braced herself and finally leaped under the frigid stream with a shriek. Fudge berries, kitty whiskers, and horse feathers—it was cold!

  Quickly leaping back out of the stream, she hurriedly shampooed her hair. This was going to be the fastest shower on record. So much for the relaxing morning. She was really, really awake now. Most of her nerve endings probably had icicles hanging from them.

  As she shivered and toweled herself off, Robin made a mental note to ask Alec about hot water. Was he the only person in this place enjoying warm, revitalizing showers? Or was he just incredibly stoic? A crashing noise came from the other side of the wall, along with some shouting of expletives. Alec obviously had a preference for the type of four-letter words Robin’s mother had forbidden her to utter. Maybe he wasn’t so stoic, after all. After the initial outburst, Robin couldn’t hear exactly what he said, but it seemed Alec had quite a range of lewd ways to express his displeasure over there in Pine Cone 2.

  Robin hurriedly got dressed and tried not to think about the chill that had seeped deep down into her bones. Maybe in mid-summer a cold shower would be refreshing. In early spring, it just froze her entire body right down to her toenails. She grabbed a cardigan and went to the door. Grabbing the doorknob, she tugged and it came off in her hand. Shostakovich! Looking at the knob for a moment, she dropped it on the floor, peered into the hole in the door, and reached in with her fingertips. The door didn’t want to move. How could she be trapped when half of the door lock was on the floor? And, more important, how was she supposed to get out? What was going on over there on the other side? Given all the stomping around, Alec was definitely alive. Even the thump of his feet didn’t sound happy.

  She pounded on the wall and yelled, “Are you okay?”

  He thumped in response and said, “I’m fine. Good morning to you too.”

  “Could you help me? I’m stuck.”

  After an extended moment of silence, Alec finally shouted, “What do you mean stuck?”

  “I can’t get out of the cabin. The knob fell off the door.”

  After some more thumping noises and mumbling, the door on the other side of the cabin slammed. Robin’s door wiggled a few times and Alec pounded on the wood. “Put the knob back on.”

  Robin bent down, picked up the doorknob, and held it up to the hole. “There’s nothing to attach it to. It’s gone.”

  “I know that. I’ve got it over here. Hold your side up.”

  Robin did as instructed. After some jiggling and rearranging, they worked together to reattach the knobs. With a bang, the door swung open and Alec practically fell on top of her. Having someone you didn’t know land on you certainly was awkward. She mumbled a small “Thank you,” as she stepped away from him.

  Clutching a screwdriver in his hand, he backed onto the small porch landing. “Sure. No problem.” Looking over his shoulder toward his side of the cabin, he said. “I’ve gotta go.”

  Robin peered out the door. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. See you later.” He ran around the building and the door to his cabin slammed again.

  Robin shook her head. Alec was really kind of a strange guy. Maybe he drank too much coffee or something. He certainly was jumpy. She picked up her watch from the nightstand. The ladies would probably be getting out of church soon. Time to go dredge up some breakfast before they arrived at the lodge.

  After a restorative bowl of cereal, Robin was sitting at the desk in the lobby looking over her lists when a short older woman wearing a colorful scarf on her head walked in the door. She marched up to the desk and put both hands on the counter with a slap. “You must be Robin.”

  Robin smiled politely. “Yes I am. You must be Eleanor.”

  “You can call me Ellie. Everybody does. Except my mother, but she’s been dead for twenty years, so she doesn’t get a vote anymore.”

  Robin stood up and walked around the desk. “I really appreciate you coming out here to help us on such short notice.”

  Ellie took off her silk scarf, revealing a mass of short tight gray curls that encircled her head like a badly crocheted hat. “All the rain we’ve had this spring sure hasn’t been helping the roof at the church. Your call couldn’t have come at a better time. I’ve already got that money spent. The boys are coming out tomorrow to get started before the whole thing caves in. The congregation will be a lot smaller if we all get squished during Bible study.”

  Robin pushed her hair behind her ear. Was Ellie kidding? It was hard to tell. She was a forceful little person and Robin decided she didn’t want to get on her bad side. Opting for discretion, she said, “Let me show you around.”

  “Oh honey, I’ve been here a million times. My kids all went to the haunted house. Every single fall I had to bring them out here. Have you seen Julia yet?”

  Robin shook her head. Apparently Chuck’s ghost story was well known among the locals. “No, I haven’t.”

  “But you’ve heard weird noises, right?”

  “No. Or, yes, I suppose I did hear something. There was a squirrel or other animal outside yesterday that knocked something over. And one of the cabins seems to have a bit of, well, rodent damage.”

  “That wasn’t rodents.” Ellie waved her hand dismissively and walked over to the fireplace. Her flesh was so wrinkled with minute creases that it looked like crumpled waxed paper. Robin made a mental note to put on some sunscreen later.

  Ellie reached up and ran her fingertip along the mantle. “That’s some thick dust.” She looked down. “The floors are nasty too. Okay. I can see what we need to do here. The girls are outside. Let’s go round them up and plan our attack.”

  “I’m glad you’re not too upset by the scope of work. I don’t think this place has been cleaned in a while.”

  “Honey, a little dust doesn’t scare me. I raised five children, three of them boys. When it comes to dirt, there’s nothing I haven’t seen.”

  Robin laughed and followed Ellie out the door. It seemed that things were well in hand. A Marine drill sergeant had nothing on this woman.

  Even though the average age of the “girls” in the congregation had to be about seventy-five, they were a hard-working bunch and Robin had difficulty keeping up with them. She ran up and down the lodge stairs and throughout the North Fork property, making sure the women remained stocked with cleaning supplies. True to her word, Ellie was a cleaning machine, taking on some of the most unpleasant tasks, including the remaining rodent debris in the North Star cabin. Brett had wisely opted to get out of her way and had joined Alec in the former dinner theater to work on his program.

  By late afternoon, the North Fork was as clean as it was going to get. Robin happily handed off the cash to Ellie, who reported that she was going back to the church to give the money to the pastor for safekeeping.

  Satisfied with the day’s major accomplishments, Robin slowly walked across the lawn toward the theater building. Like the lodge, the roof had a somewhat peculiar slant to it. Alpine Grove weather seemed to be hard on structures. She looked up at the eaves and the darkening clouds beyond. The rain was going to be arriving soo
n. All the roof had to do was last for one more week. After that, the entire North Fork facility could return to its leisurely process of decomposition, for all she cared.

  She opened the door to the building and walked inside. The ladies had worked their cleaning magic here too. The tables had been set up in a large square with chairs surrounding the perimeter. The space was starting to look like an actual training facility, stage and piano notwithstanding. If things got tough, maybe they could do a sing-a-long.

  Alec and Brett sat at opposite ends of the square of tables. Alec was surrounded by a disorganized mass of papers and Eagle River catalogs and Brett had a pile of notebooks neatly stacked next to him. They both looked up at her. Brett smiled and said, “Greetings, Robin. You have been one busy lady. Like a green dragonfly gracefully flitting from place to place.”

  Robin sat down in a chair on the side of the square closest to the door. “I’m exhausted. Tomorrow, I’m planning to take a nice, long, relaxing walk with my dog while everyone is doing their training and team-building stuff.”

  Alec said, “I think Darrell wants you to attend the training.”

  Robin glared at him. “Why do I have to do that? I don’t work in the call center.”

  “Everybody answers the phones during the holidays.” Alec twirled his pencil in his hand and pointed it at her. “They must have told you that when you were hired, right? The overflow calls get routed from the call center to the rest of the company. Everyone, from the lowliest clerk in the mail room to Darrell, has to take orders.”

  “I guess they did say that. But it sounded like it doesn’t happen very often.”

  Alec put down the pencil and rested his elbows on the table, tapping his fingers sequentially as if he were doing scales on a piano. “It does if we’re making sales. Believe me, you want those overflow calls happening a lot if you expect to ever get a bonus.”

  Robin crossed her arms in front of her. “I miss my dog and I told the lady at the kennel I’d take her out, but I haven’t been able to so far.”

  Brett said, “Why don’t you bring her here?”