by Tabatha Kiss
His eyes squint with confusion. “Yeah, plumbing.”
“I know you’re probably done helping me and the last thing I should expect right now is a favor but... do you think I could borrow your shower for five minutes?”
He raises a hand and points his thumb at the hallway behind him. “First door on the left.”
“Thank you,” I breathe, pushing off the floor.
“There are extra towels in the closet and a clean robe on the back of the door.”
“Thank you. Thank you.”
I rush through the room, feeling his eyes on me the whole time until I disappear into the hall. The first door sits ajar and I bolt through it to get out of his eye-line.
I close it and flick on the light. “Oh, wow...”
When he says he gutted the place, he really gutted it. For a second, I think I’ve been transported to some swanky hotel. There’s a walk-in shower in one corner and a porcelain tub in the other. Even the toilet looks downright majestic and — Oh, wow. Is that a bidet?
I ignore the lavish amenities and look at myself in the mirror for the first time since yesterday morning. Oh, god. Definitely hideous. I run my fingers through my hair to comb out the tangles, feeling the dirt and grease nestled between the strands and I cringe. All of this will be worth it if I can make him have just one serious conversation about Lover’s Trail.
I pull open the small closet by the sink to find several clean, stacked towels inside, just like he said there would be. My fingers sink into them; thick and soft. Even the robe is amazing. For a guy that lives out in the middle of nowhere, he certainly enjoys his luxury. I wonder what else he has in this place.
I pop open the medicine cabinet above the sink and my jaw drops.
It’s mostly just aspirin, caffeine pills, daily vitamins, and — oh, yeah — a box of magnum-sized condoms. An open box.
Curiosity takes over. I listen with both ears for movement outside as I reach for the box, eager to see just how big a “magnum” is.
I roll a finger around the ring within the golden foil. Wow. Either he’s a gifted man or he’s completely full of himself. Probably the latter.
I move to set them back on the shelf but I pause to count them first. It’s a twelve-pack and only one has been used. He must not get a lot of company around here, meaning he might have one thing on his mind right now and I was stupid enough to just walk in here all by myself in the middle of a storm with no phone and no way off this freakin’ mountain.
Real smart, Hazel.
But he wouldn’t try anything, right? He hates me, right? I’m safe here... right?
Ah, crap.
I really didn’t think this one through.
I eye the doorknob to search for a lock but it doesn’t have one.
Double crap.
I stare at the condoms in my hand as my interest piques. On second thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad…
Ugh. Get real, Hazel.
He’d never go for a girl like me.
I shove the condoms back in and close the cabinet tight.
Eight
Leo
The shower bursts on behind the bathroom door and I exhale the breath I’ve been holding since the moment Hazel walked in here. Suddenly, I can’t recall the last time I had a woman in here. Last summer, maybe? When you go so long without guests, general tidiness goes out the window. Dishes stack up, magazines don’t get thrown out nearly as often as they should, and—
I pause. Why the hell do I care?
Hazel Smith isn’t a woman. She’s a bug. An insect. An annoying pest that doesn’t deserve another moment of my time. It doesn’t matter how green her eyes are or how nice she smells — before the whole sleeping outside my house happened, of course — or how my body heat spikes when I catch her staring back at me.
Pearl lies on the floor in front of me, all snuggled up by the fireplace. “And you…” I scold her with a pointed finger from my chair. “Stop making her feel welcome here.”
She raises her head and pants happily.
“I mean it… You lick her hand one more time and you’re outside tonight.”
Pearl rises and walks over. She lays her head on my knee and peers up at me.
My heart melts. “Damn dog,” I say, scratching behind her ear.
I look across the room, my nose drawn to the familiar scent of my soap as it seeps beneath the bathroom door. Blood pumps through my veins, awakening every nerve. What the hell is it about a woman who smells like my own soap that turns me on so much? I should have just let her sit out in the mud.
I focus on the fireplace but my eyes quickly fall to her bag lying beneath it.
My gaze flicks to the bathroom door and back again. I could probably take a peek inside to see what Hazel has before she gets out of the shower.
I lean back. No, that’s wrong. Whatever she has isn’t really my business.
Although, if she has a weapon, I should know about it. I don’t want to fall asleep later only to have her stab me while I’m unconscious, right?
I slide off my chair and kneel by the bag, instantly drawing a deep growl from Pearl beside me.
“Um… excuse me?”
She backs down but her head tilts slightly out of judgment.
I ignore her and yank the bag open to take a good look inside.
No obvious weapons in sight, so that’s good. A few rolled-up shirts and skirts and pants. Nothing designed for prolonged exposure to the elements, so I was definitely right about her being unprepared. A dead cell phone. An empty water bottle. That leather-bound book she’s always carrying around.
I pick up the book and flip it open. Each page is full from cover-to-cover with handwritten words and sketches.
A diary?
I stand up with it and pace around. The penmanship is obviously female; lots of swoops and loops. Not too sloppy but still hard to read at first. My eyes adjust to it quickly and I read the first few lines I can make out.
I’ve never met a man like him before. It’s been two days and I can already see the next twenty years of my life with him. Am I crazy? This feels insane. I’ve never believed in fate — or love, to tell you the truth — but there’s something about him that makes me question my entire life until this point. Every step I’ve taken has led me into his arms. Carter Smith.
Maybe I am crazy. My heart is broken and full at the same—
I skip ahead with rolling eyes, flipping through the pages to get the general gist. So, she meets a guy, falls in love with him, and they get hitched within days? This is either complete fiction or this girl is about to find some hilarious skeletons in this dude’s closet.
He made love to me then, the way a husband should. His lips caressed every piece of me. My only regret is that I didn’t do more for him but I honestly couldn’t stop shaking. He said he didn’t mind—
I bet he did.
—and that we’d have the rest of our lives to love each other. This was just one night amongst thousands.
They honeymooned here in Whitefish. On Lover’s Trail itself.
This girl suddenly makes a whole lot more sense.
“What are you doing?”
I look up and there she is, standing in the doorway wearing nothing but my bathrobe. Wet, blonde hair tumbles over her shoulders, clinging to her chin and neck and I catch another whiff of my soap that makes my mouth water.
Her shaking eyes fall to the diary in my hands, flashing red with anger and I throw on a smirk.
“Carter is so gentle and kind to me, I often wonder if he was sent down from Heaven just for me,” I read aloud from the book. “Jesus Christ, do women actually think like this?”
She beelines for me. “Give that back!”
I hold the book over her tiny stature. “I’ve never loved before and I’ll never love again for as long as I live—”
“Stop it!” she cries, reaching up to take it but I easily slap her hands away.
“Where is this guy anyway?” I ask. “If he’s so charming and perfect
, why are you wasting your time here with me?”
She snatches the book from my grasp. “It’s not mine. This was my mother’s. The man she’s talking about is my father. Didn’t you read the dates?”
I shrug. “I skimmed them.”
She takes a step back and bends over to shove the diary back into her bag. When she rises, she does so with fury on her little face. “Why are you going through my stuff?”
“Just making sure you don’t have a machete or a firearm of some kind.”
“Do I look like the kind of girl who carries around a machete?”
“No, but I’ve been wrong before.”
She frowns. “How much did you read?”
I cross my arms. “Enough.”
“Enough to think twice about the project?”
“It’s awfully cold and wet outside for you to be mentioning that,” I say.
She stands a little taller. “My parents fell in love with this place. My mother said she felt she had no purpose in this life until she set foot here and I truly believe that Lover’s Trail can do that for me. For everybody.”
“Wow… that’s…” I place my hands over my heart and feign a sigh, “so lame.”
“My father carved their names into a tree and—”
“Yeah, I read that part. Carter plus Olivia,” I mock.
“It’s a beautiful story,” she argues. “Everyone thinks so, including your front desk guy.”
“It’s sentimental bullshit and you know it, Helen.”
“Hazel!”
“This isn’t personal. It’s business.”
“I refuse to see it that way,” she says. “That’s just what people like you say to make yourselves feel better about doing shitty things.”
“Okay…” I hold my hands together in front of me. Logic and rational thinking, just like Bobby said. “There are people — just like you — here in Whitefish who told me the same thing. What about the park’s history? What about all the tourists that come here every year to hike and canoe and all that stuff? But I listened and I did my research. Do you know how much tourism has fallen on Lover’s Trail since 2000?”
She hesitates. “No...”
“Seventy-eight percent.”
I pause to study her reaction, hoping the facts will start to chisel away at her but she stands like solid rock.
I continue on. “That trail is a barren wasteland of litter and dead shrubs that no one cares about anymore. I’m taking that land, tearing it down, and putting something worthwhile in its place. We’re even going to use the lumber from the healthy trees to build the houses. Nothing is wasted. I acquired the land legally. I went through all the appropriate channels from beginning to end and now, the damn city council wants that trail mowed down more than anybody. This project is happening whether you like it or not.”
I wait for a reaction — any reaction — but she just stands there.
That’s fine. Facts like this can’t be easy for her to hear. Soon, they’ll sink in and she’ll come around. That’s all she can do.
Finally, her lips twitch and she shakes with laughter.
I pause. “What are you doing? What’s so funny?”
She covers her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s just…” She chuckles again and throws on a serious face. “I did my research, har har. Seventy-eight percent.” Her arms move like a robot. “I’m a big, scary businessman.”
I take a step back. “Seriously?”
“Of course you think this thing is carved in stone. Your day runs on dotted lines.” She points at me. “Revolutions are built on hopes and dreams.”
I seethe with impatience. “I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but the entire world runs on dotted lines. No one gets paid with pixie dust and happy thoughts.”
“Well, we’ll see about that—”
Thunder crashes outside and the lights go out around us.
Hazel lets out a piercing shriek before toppling forward and clinging to me.
“Is it a bear?” she gasps and buries her face in my shoulder.
I stare down at her, unmoved by the weather but shaken by the fresh scent of her washed hair. “It’s just the storm,” I say. “The power usually cuts out when it gets this bad.”
“Oh,” she mutters, still clutching my shirt.
Her body heat blends with mine and I feel my pulse quicken in my chest.
I clear my throat. “If you let go of me, I can put out some candles.”
Slowly, she releases me and wraps her arms around herself instead. “Okay, cool…”
The orange fire reflects off her fearful face. I force myself to turn away from her, along with pushing the sudden urge to comfort her back down to the depths of hell where it belongs.
“Just sit down…” I tell her. “I’ll be right back.”
She silently lowers herself to sit by the fireplace and Pearl follows, curling up to rest at her feet.
Man’s best friend, my ass.
I glare at her before heading toward the storage closet at the back of the cabin.
Hopes and dreams. What a crock of shit.
I get her argument. I do. But this isn’t a revolution. It’s a damn trail at the edge of a mountain. She’s clinging to her mother’s story as if it were some universal truth, when in fact, it’s just anecdotal crap.
I open the closet and reach for the shoebox of candles I keep inside. Various aromas drift to my nose, among them vanilla and hazelnut, and I pause to think.
This project is set in stone. Hazel Smith will accept this and go home but I can’t in good conscience throw her out in this weather. She’s spending the night here on my turf. She may even have to stay through the weekend if the flooding is bad enough.
I have until Monday morning to convince her to drop this crusade. She’s a hopeless romantic. Her type is easily-swayed by charm and charisma and I can be full of both when I want to be.
This will be easy.
Nine
Hazel
I know what to do.
Leo’s a rich, pretty-boy and if there’s one thing men like him fawn over it’s a helpless damsel.
Getting inside his cabin was simple enough. Convincing him to cancel the project won’t be but I’m already chipping away at him. He can throw all the facts and percentages he wants at me but, in the end, there’s only one organ he’ll answer to and it certainly isn’t his brain.
Leo returns with a box of candles and sets them out in the four corners of the room, pausing to light each one before moving onto the next.
The dog licks my hand and I smile. “Your dog is pretty cool,” I say, giving her head another pat.
“Yeah,” Leo nods by the end table next to his chair. “She usually doesn’t care for new people but she seems to like you for some reason.”
“I gave her beef jerky.”
He chuckles as he flicks his lighter by the next candle. “That’d do it, I guess.”
The wick ignites, illuminating the center of the room and Leo lays the box on the floor by his feet. My gaze slides down his body in the dim light as he stands back up, taking in his tight jeans and rolled up sleeves. Jeez. I never realized how much I like a pair of thick, strong arms until I met this guy…
Leo turns to me and I flinch away, hoping it wasn’t too obvious how hard I was staring at him.
He sighs and takes a knee in front of me. “Look, Hazel…” I raise a brow at the correct mention of my name. “Let’s start over, all right? You could be here a while and the last thing I want is to be stuck out here with a whole lot of tension and sharp looks. There’s no reason why we can’t be civil about this.”
“Okay.” I nod at his shining, blue eyes. “That’d be great, actually.”
“You hungry?”
“A little, yeah.” I rub my stomach over the thick bathrobe. “I mean, not that the apple core didn’t fill me up or nothing.”
He smiles and picks up the nearest candle. “Come on.”
I stand and the dog rises with me to foll
ow him into the kitchen. She rushes past our feet and I see her already hovering over her bowl as we enter the room.
“Guess I’m not the only one…” I say, moving slowly to keep from bumping into anything as I try and navigate the dark room. My toe taps a chair leg and I bite my tongue instead of wincing.
Leo shakes his head. “She does that every time I walk in here,” he says. “But she’s already had her treats tonight and she doesn’t get more this late. She knows that. Isn’t that right, Pearl?”
The dog lets out a soft whine.
“Hey…” Leo leans over and gently bops her nose. “No.”
Pearl doesn’t move from her spot and continues to stare up at him.
I chuckle and take a seat at the wooden table for two. “She’s pretty good with the puppy eyes.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty bad at falling for it.” He reaches into a box above the fridge and grabs a dog treat from it. “Here, you mangy cur.”
Pearl snatches the bone from his fingers and takes off with it back into the living room.
“How long have you had her?” I ask.
“Since she was a puppy.” He opens the fridge to quickly grab a few packages of deli meat and cheese before shutting it back up. “Oddly enough, she wandered up onto my porch during a storm like this one. I brought her in, gave her some food, let her out the next morning to go back to wherever she came from, but she just kind of stuck around.”
“No one in town claimed her?”
“Nope,” he says, grabbing a loaf of bread from the pantry. “Put up signs for weeks. Called every vet and animal shelter for fifty miles to see if anyone was missing her but no one spoke up, so… I kept her.”
“Well, that was awfully kind of you, Leonard Jackman.”
He fires a playful glare at me. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m a cold-hearted jackass. Turkey or ham?”
“Turkey.”
“Cheddar or swiss?”
“Swiss.”
“Mayo?”
“No, thanks.”
“Cool.”
Leo looks down to focus on my sandwich and I take the moment to let the blush rush in and fade out again from my cheeks. He’s looking at me differently now; ever since the power went out. His voice is softer and kinder. He’s making me a damn sandwich, for Christ’s sake.