2. Carver
two
carver
Jesus Christ. It was her.
Max.
My girl.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. I fucking tried, but it was impossible. I blinked, staring at the door and hurried towards it. Opening it just in time to watch her slip out of the building.
I hadn’t imagined her.
It was her.
She had been in my room. Fuck, did that mean she worked here? For me? The one rule I had set from my first day on the job. I couldn’t touch her. Not if I signed her paycheck. Housekeeping. Was she in housekeeping? Without thinking, I picked up the phone and called the manager.
“The Crown Ski Resort and Lodge, how can I help you?”
“Stan, this is Carver,” I rumbled a little too sharply. I needed to watch that. Stan Ledesky was a good guy. Great employee.
“Yes, Mr. Storm, how can I help you this evening?”
“Housekeeping was in my room,” I rumbled and heard him sigh.
“I know you didn’t want anyone in there, sir, but?—“
“What was her name?” I asked. Subtlety wasn’t a strength of mine.
“What? Why? What did Max do?”
“Max?” I repeated. Fucking hell, it was her. Shit, she was at the resort at this very moment. A smile grew on my face as something warm and fuzzy spread through my chest.
“Sir? Mr. Carver? Are you still there? Look, I’m not sure what she did, but to be fair, she usually isn’t in housekeeping. If she missed something?—“
“No!” I exclaimed. “Nothing like that. She did an incredible job,” I quickly complimented.
“Oh.” I could hear the relief in the old guy’s voice. “So, there was no problem?”
“Not one bit. She did a bang-up job in here. Is there any chance…” I hesitated. I was taking a big risk. I’d given her a massage the day before, pretending I worked at the spa instead of being the one who owned the whole place.
“Mr. Carver?”
“Could you get her to clean my office tomorrow?” I asked without another thought. I was playing with fire, bringing her into my space.
“Of course, sir. She will be here before she starts her shift in laundry.”
“Laundry?” I repeated, feeling my brows bunch together. What the hell is my girl doing in laundry?
“Yes, sir, that’s where she works. She’s a great employee. She’s been working for The Crown for almost eight years now.”
“Almost a decade,” I muttered.
“Yeah, since she was sixteen.” My girl was twenty-four. Fuck. Not only was she my employee, automatically making her off limits, but she was way too young for a man my age.
Eighteen years younger. Shit.
At forty-two, I didn’t date women under thirty. I’d made it a point. I didn’t want to be some kind of lame cliché like my own father was when he had been alive.
Date? My girl? I had fucking lost it. Does it matter if you have? a voice perked up in the back of my head. She’s yours, the voice stated with confidence. I licked my lips.
She’s mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. The word played in a loop, and I heard Stan clear his voice. Shit!
“Right… well, please have her clean my office if she has time,” I rumbled.
“Will do, sir. You won’t be disappointed.”
I really needed to have Harry talk to the man and reassure him we were more than happy with his performance. I had a feeling if The Crown would have gone under a long time ago if it weren’t for Stanley Ledesky.
“That isn’t possible,” I accidentally said out loud before ending the call.
I shut my bedroom door, and my feet took me directly to my laptop. I started it up despite having promised my brothers that I would be done with work for the night. I typed in her name and found out as much as I could.
Like a man possessed, I read through every page in her employee file. Every tidbit I could find on her. She’d been working at the resort for eight years. Since she was in high school. She was twenty-four, way too young for me, but fuck if that was going to get in the way.
Everything inside of me wanted to go stomping about the grounds to look for her. To find her and talk to her. To look into her beautiful dark eyes and get lost in that beautiful gaze of hers.
But I wasn’t who she thought I was. I got out of bed and paced around my room. I couldn’t just introduce myself, could I?
No. I couldn’t.
Not when she had trusted me to touch her naked body. Let me be the first man to caress her skin and hear her whimpered moans of relief. The only man , if I had anything to say about it. My eyes caught the polo shirt I’d worn the day before. The thing had been stiff and scratchy. Knowing she wore the same shirt, that coarse material touching her skin, made me head straight to my computer to make an order I hadn’t been planning on, but I had no choice. There was no way I could let my sweet girl wear something so rough. Not when her skin should only touch the finest fabrics. I sat back in the desk chair as I stroked the polo in my hand and dropped it on top of my keyboard. My hands tightened into fists and then relaxed.
She is here.
I had been driving myself close to crazy all day. Pissed at the world but mostly at myself for not asking for her phone number after her massage. I had no idea how I had been quick enough on my feet and told her the massage was on the house since it had been her first. I took the fifty-dollar bill out of my pocket, the same one she had forced me to take as a tip before I’d walked her out the front door all without someone bumping into us an giving away my identity.
Fuck, if Harrison found out what I’d done, he would shit a brick. I could only imagine how many boundaries and laws I’d broken by pretending to be a masseuse. How many more I will cross trying to get a peek at her.
Before I could stop myself, I changed into joggers and a hoodie and walked out.
“A run,” I mumbled to myself.
A run would be good for me. It would let me burn off some of the pent-up energy I had inside of me and figure out my next move when it came to Max.
I shouldn’t have a next move , the sliver of the sane man still inside of my head mumbled. I should keep to myself. And I definitely shouldn’t have her come up to my office to clean it. I had no idea why I’d asked Stan to do that. It was risky.
But you need to see her again , a little voice in my head whispered. The air was cooler, and the breeze helped me breathe, but not enough to temper the almost manic urge to go find her. To head to the laundry room just to look at her.
Almost like I had conjured her up, I saw her. She was pretty far away and in the darkness, so there was no way she could see me. I stopped running and leaned against a tree. My girl was outside, pushing the big bulky yellow housekeeping cart. Without a hoodie or a sweater. Fuck. I didn’t like it. My jaw clenched and my teeth mashed together. It looked like our employees were not only going to get new uniform shirts but sweaters as well. Maybe a jacket and matching beanie?
Suddenly, my girl stopped walking and glanced around. I slipped deeper into the shadows, wondering if she could feel me watching her. I had no idea how I was going to make her mine, how I would get her to forgive me for pretending to be someone I wasn’t, but I would. Because even though all we had exchanged were a couple of little words here and there, there was no denying Maxine Munoz was mine.
I watched her shake her head and continue to the main building of the resort. I followed her, waiting in the shadows, even after she had come back out and headed towards the small structure that held the laundry department. No matter how much I tried to talk myself into heading back to my room, I didn’t.
Instead, I stood sentry throughout the night until her shift ended. I watched from afar as she walked out with some girl with light brown hair. The one other person still working in the laundry department. I followed them, giving a wide berth so as not to call attention to myself acting like an obsessed zombie. She waved at the other girl and kept walking right out the resort and straight to the bus stop that was right outside the property.
The bus stop.
Fuck! I knew it was a small town, but I didn’t like the idea of my girl working hard through the night then having to get on public transportation. Everything inside of me yelled at me to head over, to offer her a ride to her place, but I knew it would be a mistake. I waited until she got on the bus and it disappeared from my view.
I headed to my room and changed into a different pair of joggers and the scratchy uniform shirt. I stepped out of my room a lot later than usual and almost at the same time as my brother. When Harry looked at me, I shook my head.
“Don’t say a word.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He lifted his hands with innocence, but I could see the sparkle in his gaze. He was full of shit.
“You sleep okay?” he asked, breaking the silence we had found ourselves in as we walked to our offices.
“No.” My jaw clenched. “I didn’t sleep for shit.”
“Any reason?” he asked, but I shook my head.
I had to tell Harry about Max, but not yet. What if this whole thing was in my head and I was blowing things out of proportion? What if I just needed to get laid? I grunted my goodbye and shut the door of my office before settling down onto my desk chair.
I pulled my phone out and scrolled through my contacts. There were more than a handful of names I could call or text for a hookup. I wasn’t bragging; it was just true. I had never been the kind of guy who thrived off being in a relationship. Not since I had been in college and my girlfriend had broken up with me for being emotionally unavailable.
Am I still emotionally unavailable?
I would have said yes without a thought just forty-eight hours earlier. But now? Now I wanted to see Max and tell her everything. The idea of some other woman touching me made my stomach turn. I wanted to find out everything about Max.
My knee bounced and the tips of my fingers tapped the top of my desk. I needed to get shit done. I went online and ordered more gear for the employees. Money I had but hadn’t wanted to spend. But fuck it; our employees deserved it. I would be damned if one in particular would ever be cold walking around the grounds late at night again. Not on my watch. Then I went on another site. One where I ordered tiny security cameras. The moment the order was processed, a knock sounded at my office door.
“Hey!” Harris said, and I looked at him. “I’m going into town, going to get lunch and some coffee. You want anything?” he offered.
“Actually…” Going into town didn’t sound bad. Max lived in town. “How about I go for you? I need a break.” Harrison’s eyes widened, and then I saw how his brow rise with suspicion.
“You need a break?” he asked. “You never take a break.”
“You had a point last night.” I shrugged. After our meeting at the brewery, Harrison got on me about working less. But in that moment, I could tell he thought I was full of shit. It was crazy how good he was at reading people, not that he was going to call me on it. I grabbed the hoodie I had taken off and tossed it on.
Again, he looked at me like I had sprouted a third eye. “Text me your coffee order you want from…”
“Pine and Grind,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Pine and Grind,” I repeated. “That’s off Main, right?”
“Right.” Harry tilted his head slightly.
“Why don’t you ask accounting and the front desk if they want something? Our treat,” I offered, immediately knowing I’d fucked up.
“Our treat?” he repeated before running his fingers through his hair. He was the one who always suggested we treat our staff to different goodies and what not. I was always the Scrooge.
“What did you do?” he asked. Fuck, am I that transparent?
“Nothing.”
“Bull. You’ve been weird since I bumped into you and the bagel fell on you.”
“Harr—“
“You disappeared for a couple of hours.” His eyes flashed with something I couldn’t read. Which was weird since Harry didn’t have a poker face to save his life.
“No, I didn’t.” It had only been an hour and a half. I wish it had been hours with Max. Max and her dulcet voice and soft eyes and silky-smooth skin. My hands clenched at my sides I could almost feel her skin beneath them. “Fine. If you don’t want me to go into town and you want to go?—“
“No, that’s fine. Just…” Harrison paused and sighed. “Please be nice, okay?”
“Nice?” I frowned. “I’m always nice.” He shot me a look that said otherwise. “I’ll be nice,” I mumbled, and he patted me on the back.
“I’ll text you everyone’s order.” He grinned and walked out of my office. I got up and glanced at myself in the mirror on the far wall. My hair was disheveled because I couldn’t stop running my fingers through it. Nerves about seeing her again. When that would be and needing it to be soon had amped up my anxiety. I shook my head. Pine and Grind was close to where she lived. What would be the chances she was out and about ? I grabbed my phone and keys and got out of there.
When I reached the parking lot, I decided to take a work truck instead of my Lexus. It made more sense with all the drinks I had to bring back. It wasn’t because I wanted to blend in as a regular guy or anything. Liar, a voice in my head whispered.
I had to come clean.
There was no way I could let her believe I was someone I wasn’t. That was the plan at least. Find a way to somehow bump into Max and tell her who I was. She would still be my employee and off limits, but at least I wouldn’t be lying. That would make it easier to rest. Right?