2. Walt
2
WALT
From the front desk, I watched Trey rush out of the dining room and up the stairs. He was cute but nervous. I turned to Jim, the concierge, and tapped his guestbook. "What do we know about the guest in room 317?" I kept my voice casual as if I was just noticing "the guest" for the first time. Not at all like I’d been studying him since he arrived three days ago.
Jim opened his book and flipped through it. "The guest in 317 is Trey Barker. He's a famous writer."
"Is he? He stayed here before, right?" I already knew the answer because I remembered Trey from earlier in the year. He was hard to forget, with his intense gray eyes and rippling, toned body. While I tried to get to know every guest as well as I could, some of them stood out more than others.
Jim was talking, but my mind was elsewhere. A writer… A writer? It was a perfect cover. He could investigate and interview, take notes and poke around, all in the name of writing.
"Wait, what kind of writer?"
Jim shrugged. "Uh…books."
"What kind of books?"
Jim was blushing as he turned his body toward the shelf behind him, obviously trying to hide something.
I reached around and grabbed the book in his hand that had a bookmark sticking out from the middle of it. There was a handsome cowboy on the cover, looking over his shoulder with his ass outlined in tight leather chaps. “Damn.” I whistled softly to myself. "The Slick Six, huh?"
"Yeah, well, that's his most popular series. I'm reading it for research purposes. Get to know the guests, ya know."
“I’m sure you are.” I handed the book to Jim and smiled. "Let me know how it is. Maybe I'll 'research' it after you."
As I walked away, I thought back to my brief interaction with him. Apparently, Trey Barker really was a writer. Then again, that didn't mean he wasn't also an agent. We'd been on fairly good terms with the feds since the big bust last year that took down one of the major crime families, but that didn’t mean we didn’t need to watch our backs.
This guy could be anyone. An independent investigator or paid by one of our competitors.
I didn’t know, but I planned to find out. Truthfully, I really didn't mind keeping an eye on him. Trey was a cute little thing, but I couldn't let myself get distracted. Since the bust, we'd caught three of Costa's men snooping around in our towns. They knew better, but some people never learned.
The first guy got beat up pretty good. The second guy…let's just say he went home without all his favorite parts. And the third guy? Well, he never made it home. I was hoping the Costas had given up and moved on to other vendettas, but we were on high alert for a while.
By the time I got to town to meet my cousin Luca for lunch and our weekly sit-down, I'd mostly pushed Trey Barker out of my mind. As the general manager for three of our properties, most of my time was spent at the resort, so I was usually the first to know when shit was going down.
If there was ever any trouble, it usually started or ended at the resort.
Luca was sitting in the back corner booth at our favorite diner when I walked in. He'd brought his baby, Henry, with him, and my mood immediately lightened.
As soon as Henry saw me, he reached up for me.
Luca laughed and held Henry out for me. "You want your Uncle Walt?"
I scooped Henry into my arms and bounced him up and down, blowing a raspberry on his chubby neck rolls. “How’s my big guy?”
He giggled and a line of drool spilled off his bottom lip.
I sat down across from Luca and grabbed Henry's teething ring. “Teething, I see?”
Luca smiled as he watched me help Henry wrap his chubby fist around the ring. "Yeah, the drooling is non-stop. I barely slept at all last night."
Despite being sleep-deprived, Luca looked fantastic. Married life and fatherhood suited him. As the head of our family for several years, he’d always looked tense and stressed out. But once Knox came into his life, he was a completely different man. Finding his omega, his husband, seemed to soothe his soul in every way.
"So you take the night shift, huh? Let Knox sleep."
Luca shrugged. "Yeah, Knox has to drive all over the state for his job. I don't want him to be tired on the road. And now I get to take a nap with Henry twice a day. It’s not a bad gig."
I laughed. "Yeah, sounds like it."
The waitress came by and took our orders as Henry began wriggling around. Luca handed me a bottle, and I tried to feed him. But Henry grabbed the bottle and did it himself, holding it with both hands and both feet as I cradled him in my lap.
Luca and I fell into our normal weekly check-in, and I gave him a rundown of the numbers for the hotel, the casino, and the restaurant. I debated telling him about Trey when he asked about anything unusual, but I held off. Trey did seem somewhat unusual, and normally, I would share that we had a famous person staying with us, but I didn’t want to burden Luca with my theories until I had more information. I still wasn't sure if Trey was telling the entire truth about who he was and why he was in town, but it was my job to know what was going on. As soon as I did, I’d fill in Luca. Until then, I didn't see any point in dragging him into it.
Henry was dozing off and my arm was falling asleep, so I transferred him into the stroller so he could sleep in peace. He was a cute little guy and almost made me wish I had a family of my own.
After we finished lunch, the waitress brought two coffees. Luca shook a sugar packet in his hand and glanced around the restaurant in a way that I knew meant something sensitive was coming. I leaned in closer so he could keep his voice down. “What’s up?”
"We got word there's a Costa insider staying at the resort."
" What? " Was it possible I'd missed a Costa coming into town, much less staying at the resort? Then Trey Barker's gray eyes flashed across my mind.
Luca nodded as he poured sugar into his coffee. "You haven't noticed anyone suspicious, have you?"
I slowly shook my head, still reluctant to tell Luca about Trey. "I'll go over the books with Jim today and make sure. Where'd you hear this, anyway?"
Luca glanced around again then his voice fell to a whisper. "Someone in the Bureau mentioned it to Knox."
My stomach lurched at that. Luca's husband still worked for the FBI and had access to classified information. He wasn’t undercover anymore, but if he was given information about our town, it was pretty reliable. "Well, that seems like pretty solid intel. Do you know if any feds are staying at the resort right now?"
"Nah. We have an agreement with them, so we’d know if they were."
My stomach tightened. If Trey wasn't a fed, was there any way he could be with the Costas? He didn't seem hard enough, but then again, what was a famous writer doing in our sleepy town anyway?
After Luca and I said good-bye, I walked past a little bookstore and paused before heading inside. Trey's books were front and center on their own display shelf. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the first book in the Slick Six series.
"You're gonna love it." The clerk slid my change and the book across the counter toward me with a swoony expression. “It’s so good.”
“So I’ve heard.” I smiled and turned the book over.
Trey's haunted eyes flashed up at me as I ran my thumb across his face. I'll figure you out, mystery man. Your secrets will be mine.