6. Miles
6
MILES
I cast my gaze around the room. It was passable. Definitely not five-star quality. Barely three-star worthy. It was clean, but the entire building had that musty old smell to it. I guess that couldn’t be helped. At least the heater wasn’t blowing dust all over everything, and under the circumstances, I was glad to be warm.
It looked like I wasn’t going to be in the office tomorrow. I reached into my back pocket for my phone so I could message the team and let them know. Only my phone wasn’t in my pocket. I picked up my overcoat and searched all its pockets. Nothing.
“Where the fuck is my phone?” I asked the empty room.
And then I remembered exactly where it was. Resting on the center console of the rental and plugged into the charger. I hadn’t trusted the built-in GPS to get me back here without exploring the back roads it had taken me on when I had tried to leave town the first time. So I had used the GPS in my phone.
It was a good thing I had. The amount of snow had essentially run me off the road at a point where I could see the small downtown area. If I had gotten trapped in the backwoods… A shiver of imagined cold danced down my spine. I wasn’t about to go back out in the storm to track down my cell phone. I knew exactly where it was, and it wasn’t going anywhere soon.
I could go downstairs in a bit and see if that curvy innkeeper would let me use her computer. Damn it, no, I couldn’t. Her computer was down. Maybe in the morning.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at my feet. The leather of my shoes was spotted with large water stains. They were basically ruined. And my socks were wet. I wiggled my toes the best I could within the confines of my shoes. At least I could feel my toes. That could have been a disaster.
I kicked off the shoes and placed them and my socks in front of the radiator.
The room was warm enough that stripping down to my boxers wasn’t an issue. I spread my slacks out so the wet cuffs were closer to the radiator and could also dry.
Crawling into the bed, I clicked on the TV. It powered on just fine, but there was no signal anywhere. Right, the computer downstairs was offline. Whatever internet connection she had probably also ran the television programming.
I turned the TV off and tossed the remote onto the side table. No TV, no phone. Maybe there was a pad of paper and a pen in this place and I could get some of my thoughts about Brookdale written down. I rummaged in the various drawers in the room until I found a Sweet Mountain Inn branded notepad and a cheap pen.
Armed with some basic tools, I sat back down in the bed and poised the pen over the pad of paper. What were my thoughts on this town? Suddenly, it was as if I had no thoughts. I was pissed about the snowstorm. I was aggravated over the travel arrangements. But mostly, I was distracted by that woman downstairs.
Her mouth, those lips. She had long, silken hair that I wanted to twist up in my fists. Her body was all curves and softness. She would not be merely warm to wrap around. She would be hot. So hot. My groin tightened as I thought about her. I should at least find out her name if thoughts of her promised sexy dreams tonight.
Maybe tomorrow.
With the amount of snow that dropped in such a short amount of time, it could be days before all of it melted. I might be stuck for days. That wasn’t such a bad idea. It would give me plenty of time to get to know her.
There was no way she was Jackson’s vicious pit viper. No, the woman downstairs was entirely too sweet to have been the same person.
The next morning, after a rather long and boring night, I got dressed and made my way back downstairs to the lobby. Through the front windows I could see that snow was still drifting down. At least it no longer fell in the heavy blanket that buried the region the night before. It was gray and freezing out. The massive piles and drifts on the ground were a testament to a long and nasty night of bad weather.
Cold seeped in around the edges of the window casing. I rubbed my arms and stepped back into the area where there was still heat. It was a miracle my room had stayed as warm as it had if the larger public areas couldn’t hold the heat in.
A soft muttering broke the silence of the world covered in snow. I turned to see the innkeeper push into a sitting position on one of the couches in front of the fireplace. It was one of those old-fashioned, camel-backed styles, and slightly shabby.
She rubbed her face and let out a big yawn. “Oh, I’m sorry. You must be looking for breakfast. What time is it?”
I shrugged. “No idea. My watch lost power sometime last night, and my phone is an ice cube back in my rental car. Did you sleep down here?”
With more yawns, she crossed the lobby and started a pot of coffee. She then crossed to the computer and tapped at the keyboard, mumbling something about it still being down.
“I’ll be right back. I’ll go get the breakfast pastries. I didn’t have anything already set up.” Her hips swayed as she walked away. I followed like a puppy hoping to find a snack. I already found the snack. At this point, I hoped she’d let me get a bite of her.
“You know, I didn’t get your name last night,” I said.
“I’m Lydia.”
“So, Lydia, the owners wouldn’t have let you sleep on a bed last night?”
She paused and smiled at me. “I am the owner. I wanted to be available in case someone else made it through.”
“How very big-hearted of you.”
“Here,” she said as she shoved a box of Danishes into my arms. “Help me carry these back out front.”
“You know, I can be helpful in other ways too,” I said.
“Oh, yeah? How?”
“I can take a look at that broken lock, for one. Or I can replace it, if you have a replacement part already. That’s the kind of thing hotels keep, right?”
“I’m not giving you a discount on the room,” she said. I sensed a teasing tone in her voice.
“Not asking for one. But I’m stuck inside, and without access to the internet or anything on TV. I need something to keep me from getting bored.”
“Are you serious?” she asked. She took the breakfast offerings and displayed them next to the coffee pot.
“Completely.”
“How are you with small plumbing problems?”
“If you have the tools, I can do a few simple things.”
“Follow me,” she said with a delighted gleam in her eyes.
Lydia led me down to a hot and crowded basement. She showed me a workbench with tools that would have been old fifty years ago. At least a hammer was still the same basic tool it had been since cavemen figured how to tie a blunt rock onto the end of a stick.
She didn’t have a full list, but there were enough small fix-its to keep me busy for the rest of the morning.
Every time I saw Lydia, she had a sexy little smile on her face and a slight blush on her cheeks. She told me there was another guest in residence, but I didn’t believe her until lunchtime.
The inn’s kitchen wasn’t particularly large. And by commercial standards, it hadn’t been updated in years and would not have passed any intense inspections. There was a small table with chairs in the corner, and the refrigerator was an old avocado green monstrosity that reminded me of the refrigerator in the house I walked out of twenty years ago.
“You don’t make meals for your guests here?” I asked.
“Is that your way of saying you don’t want me to make you a grilled cheese sandwich?” Lydia laughed.
Her laughter was magical.
“No, not what I meant. You don’t serve meals from here, do you?”
“This is my kitchen. It just happens to be located in the inn, if that helps. It’s barely commercially graded, and only because of its location in the building. It’s not a working kitchen, if that’s what you’re asking. We don’t offer room service or meals. Your breakfast Danish came wrapped in plastic for a reason.”
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” someone called from the hallway.
Lydia crossed out of the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. “Hi, we’re down here. Come on in.”
An older, middle-aged man stopped before fully stepping inside. “I shouldn’t have to come to the kitchen to place my order.”
“Sorry about that, but with the storm I’m doing the best I can. I wanted to make sure you had something for lunch. I’m making grilled cheese. I wasn’t prepared for there to be a storm,” Lydia said.
“Grilled cheese? I’m not in kindergarten. Do you have a menu?” he asked.
Lydia shook her head. “No menu, not a restaurant. I’ve got cheese sandwiches, and soup for dinner. Unless you want more of the breakfast pastries, that’s really all I can offer.”
He huffed. “Bring it up to my room when it’s ready.”
“Hey, buddy, I don’t think you heard her. This isn’t a restaurant. If you want a sandwich, wait for her to make it, and then you can take it back to your room.”
Lydia handed the guy a plate with the first sandwich she made. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. “And this is so you can get something out of the drinks machine.”
He didn’t even say thank you before leaving.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know. Give him money for the drink machine,” I said.
“I know, but he wasn’t going to accept anything I could offer him to drink. This way, he leaves us alone.” She licked her lips as she looked up into my eyes.