Snow Falling on Bluegrass (9 page)

While several of my colleagues chose napping in front of the fireplace as Sadie's scheduled afternoon “free time” activity, I chose to explore the lodge and forage for potential supplies. My plan was to build up stock for the black market operation I would open up as my coworkers became more desperate for luxury items like chocolate, toothpaste, and dry socks.

Or I would just hoard all the chocolate and socks for myself. Either way.

I carried a large duffel bag as I wandered around the guest floors, picking up random items like extra toilet paper rolls and towels from the janitorial closet. I felt like a postapocalyptic scavenger, or at the very least one of those crazy ladies who smuggle out hotel linens in their suitcases. But I figured it didn't count as looting as long as the KCT paid its bill. I eventually meandered to the third floor, where I found a large rec room stocked with pool tables and Ping-Pong equipment. There were several large, comfortable couches and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the lake. The view of the vast white lake would have been beautiful if the room hadn't been so freaking cold. I opened a storage closet and found a veritable jackpot of snowed-in activities. Scrabble, Rook, the Game of Life, Boggle, and Monopoly. There was more than enough stuff here to keep my coworkers happily occupied.

Stuffing the game boxes into my bag, I scanned the room for any other useful items. But unless we found a way to hand-crank a flat-screen TV, we were probably out of luck. It was a shame, really, that we wouldn't be able to make use of this beautiful space. But the windows let a crazy amount of cold leak into the room, and this happened to be one of the few communal spaces that didn't have a fireplace.

I frowned as I walked into the hall and closed the door behind me. Maybe I could come back to this room next year, I thought, assuming that we all survived this ordeal and Sadie was allowed to take us more than ten feet outside the office.

Finding your way around in a darkened hotel is more challenging than it sounds. As the light outside faded and I couldn't even count on the ambient light from exterior windows, I started to get a little panicky. I made jokes about scary movies, but deep down I knew there were no drifters or creepy ghost twins lurking in the hallways. Still, it was spooky to walk around these quiet, abandoned halls, unsure of what would greet you when you turned a corner.

My bag was getting heavy, the strap wearing a groove into my shoulder. I made stupid mistakes, doubled back, changed floors. The hotel didn't even have that complicated of a floor plan. I just kept thinking that any minute now, I would step through the double doors and find the main floor hallway leading to the lobby. Any minute.

Wait, was I on the first floor?

“Kelsey?” a concerned male voice called. “You okay?”

I jumped and turned, whipping my flashlight beam toward the voice. Well, my palms were sweaty, so I actually whipped my
flashlight
toward the voice. Fortunately Luke ducked out of the way before it could hit him in the head.

“Luke?” I exclaimed, clapping my hand over my mouth. Because laughing seemed very inappropriate.

Luke, however, seemed to see the humor in it, chuckling as my Maglite rolled down the hallway. “You've been gone awhile. Are you all right?”

I held up my bag and made the contents clink. “Just liberating your supplies. Don't worry. I'm keeping a list of what we're taking so we can add it to the bill.”

Luke scoffed as he took the heavy bag from me. “Eh, it's an emergency situation. The lodge isn't going to begrudge you toilet paper. As long as there's no damage, I will escape from this situation with a positive performance review.”

Luke's voice was more whiskey than chocolate sex. His thick accent was unexpectedly attractive. But part of me did wonder whether he had cousins named Bo and Daisy lurking around somewhere. He grinned and brushed my hair back behind my ear with the tips of his fingers.

Clearly my flirtation skills were off, because it had taken me an embarrassing amount of time to recognize that he was coming on to me.

“So what's the story with you and the Professor?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he doesn't seem to like me talking to you, and I saw that the two of you are, uh, close. Is he your boyfriend? Your protective older brother? A cousin with an inappropriate interest in you?”

“He's just a friend. Sort of. Not really. I guess.”

“Well, thank you, that clears it right up,” he said, laughing so loudly it echoed down the hall.

“I know.” I giggled. “It's kind of a mess. I've been into him for a really long time, but I don't know. And I just gave him some pretty major news and he didn't really respond. . . in a verbal way . . . so yeah, I don't know how he feels about me.”

“Well, given the way he looks at you and talks about you, I don't think not liking you is the problem.”

Charlie talked about me? To Luke? “I can only respond to that with a resounding ‘hmph.' ”

“I like you,” Luke told me. “And I'll tell you that flat out. I don't like games. I don't like miscommunication. What you see is what you get. So if you're interested, let me know.”

My mouth hung open. “That was very straightforward.”

“It's all part of the ‘no games' package.”

“Something I will consider,” I promised. “So why'd you come looking for me?”

“Well, if you don't know why, clearly my flirting skills aren't what they should be.”

I tilted my head and gave him a smile of pure delight. It had been a long time since I'd received honest, open interest from a man, attention that wasn't mixed with emotionally confusing doublespeak. A very long time. “You're flirting with me?”

“Man, I must be worse at this than I thought.”

“No, no, you are exactly the right mix of disarming forthrightness and subtle naughtiness,” I swore. “Points for style.”

“
You're
forthright and subtly naughty,” he shot back while his cheeks went pleasantly pink in the flashlight glow.

“Hey, I have a question for you,” I said, nudging at the sleeve of his ranger's jacket with my hand. “You're a desk clerk at the hotel, but your name tag says ‘Ranger' and you are wearing what looks to be a park ranger's uniform. So either you are really good at cosplay or you have a very strange division of responsibilities.”

Luke grinned at me, leading me down a stairwell marked
TO LOBBY
. Oh, sure, it was easy to find your way around this place when you worked here. “Well, technically I work for the state park system in either position. I was a park ranger full-time for a while, and it was great.”

“But then your partner was eaten by a rampaging bear and you just couldn't stand the survivor's guilt?” I suggested, stumbling a bit when my boot missed a step. Luke caught my elbow and righted me without comment.

“No, I got engaged,” he said. “Jennifer, my fiancée, didn't like the idea of living out in the ass end of nowhere just so we could be near a ranger station, or, God forbid, have to live in one. She searched through the job openings at the park system until she found this nice cushy position at Lake Lockwood, complete with a cabin on-site and privileges at the gift shop. All I had to do was be willing to fill in as an off-season desk clerk while continuing my winter duties.”

Wait a minute. I glanced down at his hand and raised a brow at the bandless ring finger. Maybe he was one of those guys who didn't wear a wedding ring for fear of losing his finger in an industrial accident? If so, he had no business flirting with me, forthrightly or otherwise.

“We didn't get married,” he assured me.

Apparently I was less subtle in my finger-staring than I thought. “Because you resented the fact that you changed jobs?”

“No, because she decided she liked the lodge's golf pro better than me.”

I gasped. What a bitch!

“Well, Jen had her good qualities. Otherwise, I wouldn't have stayed with her.”

And in addition to finger-staring, I was also bad at containing my internal dialogue.

“Sorry,” I said hastily. “No, you know what? Screw her. She made you change the course of your life and then she decided it still wasn't good enough for her. She knew what you did for a living when you were dating. It was exceedingly crappy to look at a great guy like you as a fixer-upper. Trust me, I know from fixer-upper, and you are not it. So I don't take it back. She was a bitch and if she were here, I would gladly slap her in the face with a salmon.”

He stared at me, alternating expressions of wonder and muted irritation crossing his face. “With a salmon?”

“I would follow with cream cheese,” I told him. “My vengeance is best served with bagels.”

He slipped his free hand into mine and gave it a squeeze. I missed his warmth when he dropped his hand back to his side. “You're an incredibly strange girl, and I mean that in the best possible way.”

“Trust me, I am aware.”

“Well, I'm still a ranger with all the privileges that rank gets me . . . which is not much. I do all the research and patrols expected of me. But in the off hours, I run the lodge's nature appreciation programs, give lectures on conservation and demonstrations. There's a great little nature center about four miles from here, and I help with the youth education programs there. We have a bunch of native owls, snakes, and deer. The kids love seeing them up close.”

I swear, my ovaries just did some sort of somersault. Good-looking, sweet and guileless as a golden retriever, and he liked kids? Maybe it was time I changed my type. There was something to be said for brawny and all-American. But I seemed to have enough romantic complications at the moment.

We opened the stairwell door to the lobby and I breathed a sigh of relief. Luke leaned in close and whispered, “I did have a reason to look for you earlier. Can you give me a hand with the dinner shift? I have a surprise for you.”

“It's not possum-related, is it?”

“I can guarantee you that it's not.”

“Then I will help you.”

6

In Which I Discover the Romantic Power of Cheap Frozen Pizza

I was happy to help Luke with dinner, not only because of the promised possum-free surprise but also because it kept me from the Boggle game Sadie was organizing. I expected to meet Luke in the kitchen, but I spotted him outside through the dining room windows, dragging one of the massive gas grills from the kitchen storage area to the wide veranda. I pulled my fluffy red hat over my head and poked my head out the door. “It seems like the wrong time for a barbecue.”

“There is a method to the madness,” he promised, pulling the cover from the grill and cranking up the propane tank. He lit the pilot and closed the lid with a flourish. “Heat source, heavy lid, effectively creating an oven. Redneck ingenuity at its finest.”

“Awesome!” I exclaimed. “What are we baking?”

“That's the surprise.” Luke very carefully picked his way across the icy porch and into the kitchen. He emerged with a stack of green-and-yellow Auntie Nina's boxes. “We are going to attempt the heretofore unknown propane-powered pizza oven.”

“Oooh, exotically prepared cardboard pizza,” I said, clapping my hands. “I love novelty dinners. You're a genius.”

“As much as it pains me, I have to give credit where credit's due. The Professor came up with this one.” His cheeks flushed. “He heard me tellin' Sadie about you waxin' poetic over a bunch of frozen pizzas and came up with the gas grill–pizza oven idea. It took me a while to find a full propane tank in one of the storage sheds. We don't have much need for them in the winter.”

I swear, my heart just skipped. Charlie had gone out of his way to engineer an oven for my favorite cheap frozen pizza. It may have been the most considerate, romantic gesture a guy had made for me in a while.

That was possibly the saddest statement ever.

Carefully, we unwrapped the partially thawed dough disks and threw them onto the iron cooking grates. We stood on the porch, hopping from foot to foot, waiting for the smell of cooking pizza to drift out of the grill cover. I giggled, Lord help me, I actually giggled. Smoking a pizza in the middle of frozen nowhere was the most fun I'd had in months.

And we were going to be eating Auntie Nina's, which I hadn't had in almost three years. Auntie Nina's was the cheapest pizza available at the Safeway near my college campus, and I'd stocked up on them as if imitation pepperoni were about to be declared illegal. College was the first time I'd been allowed to purchase and plan my own meals, so Auntie Nina's full range of products was stocked in my mini-fridge/freezer. My meals had been pretty restricted through high school, since my mother had somehow gotten it into her head that she could diet the curves off of me. I may have gone a little crazy on the carbs. My freshman fifteen was more of a freshman thirty, but given a choice between a size six and a life that included bacon, I was a hell of a lot happier dancing with the divine swine.

“See, scary snowpocalyptic start aside, today hasn't been all bad,” Luke insisted as he slid the first pizza from the grill. The pizzas were a bit singed but evenly cooked, and they smelled like home. “Interesting company, questionable pizza. I know how to show a girl a good time!”

“Oh, yes, you have game for days, Ranger.”

We brought the pizzas into the kitchen and Luke offered me the first slice of the bacon cheeseburger pizza, holding the gooey, greasy treat up to my lips. Giggling a bit madly, I bit into the thick yellow pseudo-cheese and cracker-like crust. And then I moaned in what could only be considered an indecent manner.

I opened my eyes to find Luke staring at me, wide eyed and openmouthed. “Yep, we should call the others for dinner.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I'm just going to go stand outside for a little while. It will be good for me. I need to, uh, calm down. “

“Go get the others!” I told him, tossing a dish towel at his back as he exited the kitchen. Laughing, I sliced the rest of the pizzas and carried them out to the communal dining room table. Humming happily, I placed the food out among the dishes Bonnie had set, eager to share my treat with my coworkers. I turned to find Charlie leaning against one of the booths, his arms crossed over his chest, watching me with a little grin on his face.

“Charlie!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms around his shoulders. “Thank you for redneck-engineering the pizza oven! It worked so well! I am so excited about dinner.”

“Well, it's important to keep you in the luxurious lifestyle to which you have become accustomed,” he said, gesturing at the ooey, gooey cheese. “Do you have a minute?”

I set the pizza cutter aside and covered the pizza with foil. “Sure.”

Charlie led me out of the dining room, through the lobby, and into the hallway, behind the blanket door that separated the lobby from the residential floors.

“Earlier, you said that you broke up with Darrell.”

“It took you that long to process that, huh?”

Charlie shrugged. “Well, you have to admit, it's more than a little shocking, Kelsey. I mean, I—we—everybody has been trying to convince you to break things off with Darrell for years. And then suddenly, you break up with him and say nothing for weeks? What's that about?”

“I don't want to rehash it. I've wasted too much time and breath on Darrell already. It's over, enough said. And I'm glad.”

“I'm glad, too. I couldn't stand to hear you talk about him, make excuses for him when I knew how unhappy he was making you. I want you to be happy, Kelsey, no matter what. That's all I ever wanted.”

“So why have you been so . . .”

“Yes?”

“I'm searching for the right word,” I told him. “Inconsistent. You've been inconsistent with me. I thought we were friends, but there are times when you're so distant, and it's like you don't even want to look at me. And it hurts my feelings, Charlie, really it does. And then, out in the woods, right after the possum thing, it was like you were going to—”

Just then, we heard a loud click behind us. The door to the changing/shower room opened. Sadie's face appeared in the darkened doorway.

I clicked my flashlight on, shining it in her face like something out of
Cops.
She hissed, covering her eyes with her arm. Sadie's wet hair was disheveled and her cheeks were rubbed raw. Given the distance at which Josh was following her out of the changing room, I guessed the damage had been done by beard stubble.

And then I noticed that Josh's zipper was down.

I scoffed. “Really, you snuck away from the group to have sex in a secluded area of an abandoned hotel? It's like the two of you have never seen a horror movie.”

Josh's and Sadie's faces were both red now, but I got the feeling that it was blood being redirected to their cheeks from . . . other places. I glanced back at Charlie, who seemed caught between giggling hysterically and passing out.

“Damn it, Kelsey, unless you're planning on using excessive force, get that flashlight out of my eyes,” Sadie snarked. “You're going to blind me. And we weren't having sex. We were just checking blankets over the doorways in the hall. You know, making sure the heat stays in the dining room.”

“From the changing room? Where the shower is?” Charlie asked skeptically.

I giggled. “Sinners.”

Josh pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shut up, Kelsey.”

“You will never lecture me about appropriate behavior at work functions again,” I told them both.

“They don't do that anyway,” Charlie reminded me.

“I like to hedge my bets.”

“Coming, Bonnie!” Sadie yelled suddenly. “I think I hear Bonnie calling me.”

“No, you don't,” I told her.

“I think I would hear it, too,” Josh told her, shaking his head.

“No, I'm pretty sure I do,” Sadie insisted, before yelling, “I'll be right there!” as if answering a call from the lobby. She smiled sweetly before disappearing through the blanket curtain.

“So you've found time for clandestine trysts in strange places, but not to propose?” I asked Josh.

“First of all, that wasn't a matter of time management, that was water conservation,” Josh told me.

“No, no details, please,” Charlie protested. “It will be hard enough making eye contact with Sadie as it is.”

“Please don't say ‘hard,' ” I told him, holding up one finger in his face without even looking at him. Charlie shuddered.

“And second,” Josh continued, as if Charlie hadn't spoken, “I haven't found the right moment yet. I want Sadie's proposal to be romantic and memorable . . . for good reasons.”

“It'll work out,” I promised him. “But until then, I do plan on mocking your illicit shower sex, marking you for abandoned-hotel-horror-movie death at every opportunity.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Josh assured me.

Charlie peered up at the shadowed ceiling, chewing his lip. “Still not able to make eye contact . . . because your fly is still down.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth to prevent an inelegant, honking laugh from escaping. Josh pushed through the blanket barrier without looking back at either of us. But before the blanket swung shut, we both heard the distinct rasp of a zipper.

“So Josh is going to propose to Sadie?” Charlie asked. “That's . . . well, it will be interesting to watch.”

“Yeah, if he manages to get through this without losing it or having a stroke, it will be a miracle. Someone has to supervise those two before they hurt themselves. So, I was saying, earlier, you've been sort of distant and—”

Suddenly, Josh reached around the blanket and yanked Charlie through. “Yipe!” Charlie cried.

“Josh, what are you doing?” I demanded, shoving the blanket aside. “I need him!” Charlie's dark slashing eyebrows rose. “For a conversation!” I added hastily.

“Just had a brilliant idea,” Josh said. “Charlie, Will's one of those creative thinkers, and you're one of those people who sees the property damage and injuries that could be caused by creative thoughts. You two are going to help me come up with a romantic, memorable moment that will shock my lady-friend into promising to marry me.”

“Wait, wait,” Charlie said. “I want to talk to her.”

“You guys can talk later,” Josh promised. “My state of desperation is now.”

And just like that, Josh pulled Charlie through the lobby blanket door and left me alone in the dark hallway with no resolution to my romantic quandary. Sighing, I wiped my hands over my face and then looked up at the ceiling. I was starting to think I was being lady-blocked by a higher power.

“That was really mean.”

I was going to need two slices of Auntie Nina's to deal with this.