Chapter 3 Zandra
THREE
Zandra
I stormed back to my motel room, fumbling with the key before finally getting the door unlocked.
“Callum O’Neal was there,” I announced after slamming and locking the door. “Right behind the bar. Can you believe that?”
Chloe wandered out from her hiding place under the bed, probably as thrilled with these accommodations as I was. The Pine Cone Motor Lodge was about as awful as motels got, reeking of stale cigarettes and onions. Give or take a whiff of cheap perfume.
But with my bank account so low and my credit card balances already inching up, a resort hotel on a mountain top had been out of my price range. Just a tad.
Would’ve been smarter to take the hundred bucks Callum owed me from our bet. But it was the principle of the thing.
I headed to the mini fridge to pull out dinner for both of us. “He’s just as arrogant as he was in high school, strutting around like a peacock who expects every woman in the vicinity to start drooling on command. Well, not me.”
When I’d first walked into the brewery, he’d looked instantly familiar.
He still had that same shaggy hair, medium brown with just enough curl to make it perpetually tousled.
Those thick-lashed eyes that had probably gotten him out of trouble countless times.
Backward baseball cap snug on his head. In high school, it had been the Broncos.
Tonight, his cap had read SRFD. Silver Ridge… Fire Department?
Not that I’d been memorizing details or anything.
“I don’t even care that he didn’t recognize me,” I continued, ripping open my pouch of tuna to mix in mayo and some pre-chopped veggies I’d picked up at the store. “I’ve changed a lot since high school. I mean, I should hope so, considering how long ago it was.”
If I was being honest, Callum had changed in ways too. Like the tattoos down one arm. His square jaw sported more stubble than it had when he was a teenager. He’d gotten even more muscular, his biceps straining against his T-shirt. Round glutes that filled out his jeans to an obscene degree.
Nnrgh. Okay, his ass was on point. He’d gained bulk in all the right places, and fine, it did look good on him. In an obvious, unoriginal way.
“The man is a walking advertisement for testosterone. Didn’t think he could get cockier than he was in high school, but he managed it.”
Chloe wasn’t paying me much attention, focused entirely on her dinner. I dug into my tuna and munched on a bag of baby carrots.
Maybe it had been a little bit fun, playing that guessing game with him. Trying to get him to figure out who I was. He’d almost made me laugh a couple of times. Plus, an easy hundred bucks to earn, even if I hadn’t taken it in the end.
“But then he just expected me to want to sleep with him, Coco.” She flicked her tail. “You would not believe this guy’s confidence. It’s remarkable, actually. Scientists should study him. He’s fascinating.”
To science, obviously. Not fascinating to me. I wanted nothing to do with the man.
He was the kind of guy who did whatever he wanted, regardless of consequences. Grinning happily the whole time.
Hopefully Callum didn’t work many bartending shifts at Hearthstone, because I had every intention of avoiding him.
Of course, I’d been dunking on Callum for being essentially the same person as in high school, but what did I have to show for all my supposed growth? A room in a questionable motel. A business wardrobe with no job to wear it to.
At least I had the freedom to eat whatever I wanted now. Ian had always thrown a fit if I opened a can of tuna fish within a five-mile radius of him.
The smell, Zandra. How can you stand that?
Guess what, Ian? Tuna was an affordable source of lean protein and healthy fats. Though it did have a tendency to smell up a room. Maybe he’d had a point about that particular complaint.
“Be right back, okay?” I told Chloe as I gathered up our trash to take it to the dumpster.
Outside, an old streetlight cast a weak urine-colored glow on the concrete. Ah, small-town charm.
I walked to the dumpster and tossed my small bag of trash inside. The lid clattered as I dropped it, and a few scraps of paper blew past, picked up by the breeze.
It wasn’t just the Pine Cone parking lot dampening my mood. My heart felt…desolate. Haunted by old memories that I couldn’t let rise to the surface.
Basically, life sucked for me at the moment.
Then I heard a scuff, like boots against concrete. My pulse accelerated.
“Hello?” I asked. No response.
I peered around the corner of the building. Nobody was there. Shit, I was imagining things.
Beyond the wan glow from the streetlight, the darkness was absolute in a way I’d forgotten, having spent so many years in the city. Out here, when the sun went down, it really went down.
A thick, suffocating blackness seemed to press against me. A creeping feeling scraped along my spine. Like someone was watching me from the shadows.
My entire body went cold, then hot.
“Nothing to see here,” I called out to the darkness. “Just a single lady well on her way into spinsterhood whose only friend is a cat.”
The joke fell flat in the oppressive quiet. The feeling of being watched intensified, and suddenly I wasn’t in the mood for self-deprecating humor anymore.
I thought of the creek on the night Jessa died. Moonlight glinting over rushing water.
My pulse thrummed against my throat as a thick lump gathered there.
“Hey!” I yelled into the dark. “Whoever’s out there can fuck off!”
My voice echoed back at me, but there was no other response. Still, every instinct I had was screaming at me to get back inside.
I rushed back to my room, slamming the door and turning every lock the cheap hardware offered. My hands were shaking as I checked the windows, making sure they were secure.
Then I sank to the carpet, my back to the door. Chloe dashed over and crawled into my lap, bumping her head against my stomach. My fingers smoothed over her soft fur, taking the comfort she knew I needed.
“We have to figure something out, Chloe,” I said, scooping her up and holding her close. “Because this is really not working for me.”
I didn’t know if I just meant the Pine Cone Motor Lodge, or Silver Ridge altogether.