Chapter 2
Everett
Heading into the maintenance workshop, I couldn’t get the scent of Piper Ellis out of my senses.
No doubt it was some expensive perfume, but she always smelled like a bouquet of flowers with an undertone of sultry jasmine.
With a shake of my head, I pushed through the door. She was always wearing tight skirts and skyscraper-high heels. They did amazing things to her long legs.
Quit thinking about her legs, Murray.
Piper was smart, driven, opinionated, and a city girl.
The last thing I needed was high maintenance in my life.
The workshop was busy, with the majority of my team hard at work. A few of the guys had been at the Windward for years, and could’ve retired, but they loved their work. At the other end of the group, I had young men and women learning the trades.
“Rob, how did you do with that plumbing issue on level two?” I asked.
“Kid flushed a toy down the toilet.” The gruff guy shook his head. “I got it free.”
We’d seen everything. Working at a hotel kept things interesting.
“We have a wiring issue in the restaurant.” Susie was the newest member of the team, fresh out of high school, but a hard worker. “I think the renovations might’ve messed something up.”
“I’ll look into it.” I pulled out my tablet and swiped the screen. The renovations were a headache. It wasn’t that I was against them. The improvements to the hotel would be great, it was just more work for me and my team. “Okay. Were all the jobs from housekeeping completed?”
“Yes,” Tony said. “There wasn’t much, thank the Lord.”
When housekeeping came across a problem, like something broken or damaged, they punted it to us.
I noticed Johnny glancing at his cellphone.
“Johnny? Everything okay?”
The young man jolted. He looked jumpy. “Yeah, sorry, Ev. I know I’m not supposed to look at my phone on shift, but Heather hasn’t been feeling great today.”
Heather was his wife who was eight months pregnant.
“Keep your phone, Johnny. Whatever you need.”
He shot me a relieved smile. “She’s had loads of those fake practice contractions.”
“Braxton Hicks,” Dee, one of my best team members, said. There wasn’t a plumbing, electrical, or repair problem that Dee couldn’t fix.
“Yeah.” Johnny nodded. “It’s hard to know if it’s real or not.”
“If you need to go early, go,” I said.
His phone beeped again, and this time his eyes went wide. “Oh fuck, she thinks her water just broke.” He stood there, frozen.
I swiveled. “Rob, drive Johnny home.”
“No, I know we’re shorthanded. I—”
“You’re in no state to drive.” I smiled at him. “Go and take care of your wife. You’ll be meeting your baby soon, daddy.”
“Daddy,” Johnny breathed. “Fuck.”
“Come on, big daddy.” Rob hustled the younger man toward the locker room.
“Right. Let’s finish this shift.” I grabbed my toolbox so I could take care of Johnny’s last jobs.
The work didn’t take me too long. I repaired a dent in a hallway wall where someone had whacked something into it. I tightened a loose central air grate in a guest room. I replaced a damaged painting in one of the suites with one from storage. Before I knew it, my shift was over.
“Night, everyone,” I called to my team, pulling on my suede jacket.
“Bye, Everett,” Dee called out. “See ya tomorrow.”
In the lobby, I looked for another glimpse of long legs and ridiculous heels, but didn’t see Piper. No doubt she was locked in the conference room on calls. That woman had lots of calls. She was a workaholic, for sure.
Shaking my head, I headed into the staff parking lot.
Cold air smacked me in the face, but I breathed it in.
I loved winter. My red Dodge Ram was covered in a few inches of snow.
I huddled in my jacket, wrapped my scarf around my neck and pulled my gloves on.
Then I pulled out my keys and remote started my truck to warm it up.
I knew the signs of a workaholic. My boots crunched on the snow. I’d been one, once.
I’d finished my engineering degree at the University of Colorado, and then taken a job with a big firm in California.
I’d loved it. At first.
The long hours, the challenging engineering design work, the huge paycheck. I thought I was on top of the world.
I’d thrived on it. I’d had no time to cook or eat, no time to date. My social life was the odd night out with work colleagues where we drank too much to blow off steam, or the odd random hookup.
I’d had no time to come home and see my mom and dad. No time to hike or ski. I didn’t do that a lot now, but occasionally, I got my skis out.
Several years had passed and I’d barely been home. Just lightning-fast visits for holidays, then back to work.
I hadn’t realized mom was sick.
She and Dad had kept it from me. She hadn’t wanted me to worry or to disrupt my work. By then, I’d been barreling towards burnout. I was no longer feeling the thrill from my work. Instead, I’d been tired and grumpy. Then Dad had called.
Mom was in the hospital.
Cancer.
I’d quit my job and come home.
Just been in time to watch Mom die. I’d spent the last two months with her. And being home with my parents had made me realize what I really wanted.
Not the eighty-to-a-hundred-hour grind of work. No more being burned out and not living my life. Not being so busy I wasn’t living.
My gaze moved to the snow-covered mountains. I’d grown up here, and the majesty still caught in my throat. I smiled. Mom had loved Windward. She’d loved those mountains. I felt her here.
I opened my truck, grabbed my scraper and brushed the snow off my windshield. Then I slid into the driver’s seat. My hands flexed on the steering wheel, then I set the truck in drive and headed home.
When I pulled up to my townhouse, I opened the garage door.
The place was the perfect size for me. It was located in a small, attractive complex surrounded by trees.
There was a trailhead close by that I made use of in the summer for running and hiking.
The bottom level was covered in natural stone, the upper level in forest-green siding, and the garage door was a warm wood.
I’d added a few touches inside, like redoing the floors in a nice maple and redoing the bathrooms. I’d even made a few pieces of furniture myself.
The best thing was my dad lived in the townhouse next door.
I pulled into the garage, but didn’t go inside. Instead, I crossed the snowy path to dad’s place. The door opened before I got to it.
“Hey, Everett. How was work?”
“Fine.” I stomped the snow off, then left my boots at the front door.
I’d inherited my body from Dad. He was tall and rangy, loved to play golf and hike in the summer, and had been an electrician before he’d retired. His hair had gone gray years ago, but his blue eyes were bright in his raw-boned face. I’d gotten my hazel eyes from my mom.
Dad gave me a one-armed hug. “Beer?”
“Sounds good.”
He walked to the kitchen. The place was the mirror image of mine.
The wall in the living area was covered in framed pictures of either him and mom, or all three of us.
My whole life was there from the day I was born, through school and college, to a recent shot of Dad and I on a hike with his dog in the summer.
They’d wanted more kids, but it hadn’t happened.
A low woof made me turn. Dad’s German Shepherd mix, Bear, was lounging in his dog bed near the fire. After Mom had died, Dad had found Bear at the local shelter.
“Too lazy to come and say hi,” I said.
Bear’s tail thumped.
“No crazy stories today?” Dad asked. “No naked guests busting down doors or chandeliers crashing to the floor.”
Those things had happened before. “Not today. Most exciting thing was a kid dropping marbles in the lobby and our COO almost taking a header.”
“The one who wears the heels?”
“That’s the one. She’s going to break an ankle one day.”
Dad got a faraway look in his eyes. “Still, there is something about a woman’s legs when she’s wearing high heels.”
I was not thinking about Piper’s very long, very slim legs. I grunted.
“I’ve got chili on, if you’re hungry,” Dad said.
I sipped my beer, already smelling his world-famous chili. “I won’t say no.”
He smiled. “Then take a load off.”
I sank into an armchair, thinking Piper Ellis and her designer heels wouldn’t be interested in homemade chili and a beer.
But this was exactly where I wanted to be.