Chapter Two
Sharee never entered a room silently. She swept in singing, or already talking to whoever she assumed was there.
This evening, she clomped up the stairs to Chloe’s apartment, warbling misheard lyrics to a popular ballad, something about loving someone so much she thought she would die-i-i!
Her key turned in the lock and she pushed open the door and stopped short.
“What are you doing here?” she asked Chloe.
“I live here, remember?”
Sharee dropped her backpack on the floor and shed her parka. “You spend way more time at work than here,” she said. “I thought Tuesday was your late night.”
“Nadia is closing for me tonight.” Chloe stood and came to stand beside her sister.
Sharee was five inches taller, not to mention curvier, blonder and more charismatic.
She took after her mother, their father’s second wife, a former model and amateur actress.
Chloe had their father’s dark hair and eyes, legacies from his Egyptian grandmother. “You and I need to talk.”
Sharee rolled her eyes. “You mean you’re going to lecture me about something else that’s wrong with me.
” She moved past her sister and headed for the kitchen.
“I’m starving. What do we have to eat?” Not waiting for an answer, she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a container of leftover lasagna.
She popped the lid off and started eating it, cold.
Chloe started to object that she had been saving the leftovers for her lunch tomorrow, but what was the point?
“I need to talk to you about the ski patroller you’ve been following around,” Chloe said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Brian. Good-looking, brown-eyed blond?”
“What about him?” She spoke around a mouthful of lasagna.
“He says you’ve been following him around. That you have a crush on him.”
“A crush?” Another eye roll. “As if I’m in third grade.”
“You’ve been following him around,” Chloe repeated.
Sharee ate the last of the lasagna and slid the container into the sink. “He works at a ski resort. I ski. Of course we’re going to run into each other.”
“You’ve been flirting with him.”
“I talk to him. Men always think I’m flirting, but that’s only because I’m pretty. They wish I was flirting with them.”
She tried to move past, but Chloe blocked her. “Sharee, you need to stop,” she said. “You don’t want another situation like last time.”
Sharee pouted, lips pushed out, cheeks round. She even looked beautiful doing that. “You talk like what happened with Cameron was all my fault,” she said. “But it wasn’t. I can’t help it if men are attracted to me. It’s so typical that they get away with anything and I get all the blame.”
“Cameron Douglas didn’t do anything wrong,” Chloe said.
“So now you’re on the side of the patriarchy.”
Chloe fought the urge to imitate Sharee’s eye roll. “He was your teacher. A married man. He had documentation of the harassment. You were caught on video camera.”
“How do you know?” Sharee asked. “You weren’t even there.”
“I know because Dad and Darinda told me.” Sharee’s mother had described the thirty-year-old chemistry teacher as “very attractive, but completely freaked out by the suggestion of any impropriety.” Chloe hadn’t asked, but she assumed the man was probably friendly.
Sharee’s type. Maybe he had even been flattered by attention from the pretty teenager.
But he had been smart enough to document every encounter with Sharee as soon as he sensed there could be trouble, and the school’s security cameras backed him up: Sharee waiting for him outside his classroom and in the school parking lot.
He saved the notes she sent to him, their content increasingly suggestive.
And Sharee’s own cell phone records showed the calls she had made to his personal cell, though he had never instigated any of these calls.
Ultimately, Douglas had gone to court to get a restraining order against Sharee, and she had been expelled from school.
Their parents had decided it would be best to send her to Colorado to live with Chloe.
She was supposed to be studying for her GED, but Chloe hadn’t seen much sign of that.
Instead, Sharee spent her days skiing and evenings out with friends.
And she had apparently found a new man to fixate on.
Chloe’s suggestion to their parents that Sharee might benefit from counseling and therapy had fallen on deaf ears.
Chloe decided to take another tack. “What would you think of coming to work for me at the salon? Just a few hours a week.” Chloe owned Moon Glow Salon and Spa, in the ski village.
Sharee looked wary. “Work doing what?”
“Whatever needs doing. Answering the phone. Tidying up. Helping the stylists. You’d be good with customers.”
Sharee narrowed her eyes. “Is this your way of keeping an eye on me?”
“No. I thought you might enjoy having something to do. And I’d pay you.”
“I already have things to do. And I have money. Mom tops up my account every week.”
Of course she did. Darinda might exile her daughter, but she wouldn’t leave her without money to buy whatever her heart desired. “Think about it,” she said.
Sharee shrugged. “I’ll think about it. But it won’t keep me from seeing Brian if I want.”
Brian again. Chloe wasn’t going to make the mistake of letting this infatuation go one step further. “Sharee, if you don’t stay away from that man, I’ll cut up your ski pass,” she said.
Sharee whirled on Chloe, her face full of such fury Chloe took a step back, fear jolting her. “You can’t do that,” Sharee said. “Mom and Dad bought me that pass.”
“I can and I will take it, if it means keeping you from getting arrested.”
“No one is going to arrest me for talking to a guy.”
“Don’t talk to him. Don’t go near him. Or I mean it, I’ll take your pass, and I’ll make sure the resort doesn’t issue a new one.”
Sharee stared at her, cheeks red, eyes too bright. “Fine. I’ll stay away from him. It’s not like there aren’t other guys who like me.”
“You’re supposed to be studying,” Chloe said.
“Just because you live like a nun doesn’t mean I have to.” Sharee shoved past her. Seconds later, the door to her room slammed.
Chloe sagged against the counter. Sharee’s parting shot had drawn blood.
Chloe hadn’t set out to lead such a solitary life, but between running her business and looking after her sister, she hadn’t had much time to meet Mr. Right—or even Mr. Right Now.
Relationships took time and attention—two things in short supply at the moment.
OVER THE NEXT three days, Brian did his best to avoid Sharee and to forget about the underwear tucked away in Connor’s desk drawer.
He devoted extra time to working with Daisy, a three-year-old golden retriever and certified avalanche rescue dog.
After the lifts closed on Friday, he and Daisy and patrollers Lily Alton and Anders Iverson stayed late with Lily’s Belgian Malinois, Shelby, and Anders’s black lab, Darth, to run drills where the patrollers took turns hiding and the dogs had to find them.
Though all the dogs were well-trained and certified, it was important to regularly reinforce their training.
When Brian returned to patrol headquarters at dusk to retrieve some gear, he was surprised to find Connor waiting for him. “We need to talk,” Connor said, in a tone that made Brian’s stomach knot.
“Has something happened?” Brian asked.
“Take a seat.” Connor indicated the plastic chair across from his desk.
Brian sat. “What is it?” he asked. Daisy came and nudged his hand, and he began rubbing her silky ears.
“There have been a couple of complaints about you from resort guests.”
Brian stared, confused. “What kind of complaints?”
Connor picked up a piece of printer paper. “One said you failed to pick up after Daisy on a ski run.”
“No way. I always pick up after her. I mean, that would be gross not to.”
“The second complaint says you were rude to a guest.”
“How was I rude?”
“This says you shoved her out of the way and called her by a derogatory name.”
Brian shook his head. “Come on, Connor. You know me. I don’t do things like that.”
“I know.” Connor set the paper aside. “So who have you ticked off enough to make them call in false complaints?”
“Who are the complaints from?” Brian asked.
“One is from Jane Smith. The second is from Gertrude Cavendish.”
“Those don’t sound like real names. Are they real names?”
“I checked with the pass office. They don’t have either name in their system.”
“Which means they’re fake. Like the complaints.” He sagged back against the chair. “Why would someone do this?”
“Do you think this could have anything to do with Sharee Anderson?” Connor asked. “You rebuffed her and now she’s seeking revenge?”
Would Sharee really do something like this? The memory of the look in her eyes when Brian had told her he wasn’t interested in her filled his head—wounded, with an undercurrent of real anger. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of days. Did you talk to her about the underwear?”
“I left a message for her to call me, but I didn’t get an answer.”
“What am I going to do?” Brian asked.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Connor said. “I’ll arrange a meeting with Human Resources. I’m going to suggest Sharee’s pass be revoked due to her harassing you.”
“You can’t prove she sent those messages.”
“Maybe there’s a recording of the calls she made,” Connor said. “I can check.”
Brian swiped his hands down his face. “This is only going to make her angry.”
“Probably,” Connor said. “But pulling her pass will make it more difficult for her to contact you. We should probably let the sheriff know about this, too, in case she shows up at your house.”
“I don’t know. Getting the sheriff involved seems so over-the-top.” Embarrassing for him and for Sharee. “Maybe if we ignore her, she’ll give up and move on,” Brian said. “I hate to raise a stink about this.”