Chapter 16
Piper
Back in my suite, I picked at the lunch I’d ordered from room service.
My meetings were done. Now, all I had to do was stew and worry about Chance.
My phone dinged and I snatched it up, thinking maybe Everett had messaged. Or maybe Chance had finally responded. It was from my mom.
Hope you’re actually having a weekend off, my darling. If you hear from your brother, let me know. He’s not returning my messages.
I bit my lip and pulled a face. I did not want my mom to worry. She’d worried enough for a lifetime. And if Gram got too stressed, it could affect her heart.
I had to find Chance and deal with his mess. I just wasn’t sure how to go about that. Ugh. I hated not having a plan. I liked action and getting things done. I was a problem solver. That’s what I did.
After shooting my brother a millionth text message, I decided to distract myself. I grabbed my tablet and pulled up the plans for the pool.
Rich, the building contractor, and his team would be here Monday to start erecting the tenting. Then, once that was in place, he’d start digging out the pool. I made myself go over the materials list and the timeline.
Despite how fabulous the pool and the new spa would be, my mind kept wandering. My chest was tight.
I kept seeing those men leap out of the car. Kept feeling hands grabbing at me. Kept hearing the screech of tires.
I closed my eyes and thought of Everett. Curled up on his couch in front of the fire, held against his strong body, I’d felt…safe.
It was something I wasn’t used to. Not since my father had left us. Growing up, I’d never felt safe. I’d always known how hard things were, always been worried. I used to chew my nails to nothing—a terrible habit I’d forced myself to stop.
There was a knock at my door and I stiffened. Shaking my head, I rose and hurried over to look in the peephole. Tessa stood there, and who I guessed was Allie and Sierra standing beside her, although I could only see their arms.
I opened the door. “What are—?”
She pushed inside, followed by the others.
“How are you?” Tessa pulled me in for a hug. She squeezed me hard.
“I’m fine.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You were almost abducted last night. You were upset.”
“Rightly so.” Sierra threw her tiny, fit body onto my couch. “An attempted abduction would rattle anyone.”
I looked at Allie. “Are you all right?”
The brunette waved a hand. “I’ve actually been abducted before, remember. I’m practically an expert at this.”
My stomach clenched. I remembered she’d tangled with some dangerous extreme-sports guests who’d been dealing drugs. Unsurprisingly, Caden had rescued her.
“She knows Caden would go to the end of the Earth to keep her safe,” Tessa said. “He’d tear Windward apart to find her if she’s ever abducted. Again.”
I stumbled over to the couch and dropped down. “This is all because of my brother. His troubles are way bigger than anything he’s done before, and I don’t know how to extract him from this.”
“I say leave him to deal with it,” Sierra muttered.
“I can’t. He’s my brother.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Family. Can’t live with them, can’t stop wading in when they need you.”
“He’s not answering my messages or calls. And he owes some unknown bad guy a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Jesus,” Allie murmured.
“I can’t let my mom or grandmother find out.
They’ll stress. My grandmother has heart troubles.
” My stomach clenched. There was no way Gram could ever find out the depths of what Chance had gotten himself into.
“Everett, Caden, and Ro are trying to deal with this, by finding Chance, but not including me. He’s my brother. ”
“Okay.” Tessa circled in front of me and sat on the coffee table. “We’ll help you.”
I blinked, and the women all nodded.
“What?”
“We’ll help you come up with a plan to help your brother,” Tessa said in a no-nonsense tone, patting my knee.
“Why?”
She looked a little pissed. “Because we’re your friends.”
I looked at them all. When I’d first arrived here, I’d been the evil outsider, out to change their beloved mountain resort. But over time, things had changed, and they’d welcomed me into their group.
I suddenly felt like crying. “You like me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Allie said. “Of course, we like you. We don’t invite just anyone to cocktail night.”
“And Everett seems to like you too.” Tessa raised eyebrow.
I straightened. “Murray and I…”
Tessa looked like she was fighting a smile. “Yes?”
“He took care of me. Last night, and the night I was attacked. He…”
“Likes you,” Tessa said. “Even when you’re fighting.”
“Especially when you’re fighting,” Sierra added.
“We’re too different.”
“Oh please, my fiancé is a billionaire hotelier raised in New York City.” Tessa waved a hand. “I’m a Windward girl, so don’t talk to me about being opposites.”
Allie raised a hand. “Same. I’m a single mom who says what I think, and my man is a formerly closed-off military man.”
Sierra leaned forward. “Did you kiss again?”
I felt more heat in my cheeks. Dammit, I didn’t blush.
“You did,” she said in a smug voice.
I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with my confusing feelings for Everett right now. “Can we focus on my brother?”
Sierra nodded. “Good idea. Deal with your brother, then you and Everett can fuck each other’s brains out.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, mostly because the idea of fucking Everett lit me up in several places. Oh, boy.
“So, where do you think your brother might be?” Tessa asked.
With a sigh, I sank back against the cushions. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, he’s short on money, clearly,” Allie said. “Where would he stay? Does he have friends here?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“So, a cheap hotel,” Sierra said.
Tessa snapped her fingers. “There are some nasty ones out by the highway. We could check them, show his photo around. See if anyone has seen him.”
I sat up. “That’s a good idea.”
“And he likes to gamble,” Sierra added.
My chest tightened. “Card games, mainly.”
“I know a couple of bars in town that hold, let’s say, not-so-legal card games with gambling involved,” she said.
“You do?” Tessa asked, surprised.
“I run activities, I hear things. Plus, I dated this guy once who took me to one. So, let’s go. We can take my car.”
“Wait,” Allie said. “People out there want to snatch Piper. If we’re galivanting around, they might see her and try again.” She lowered her voice. “And I know a few men who’d be very pissed off.”
My stomach coiled. Everett had warned me to stay in the hotel.
But I couldn’t just sit around. I couldn’t let my brother get hurt, or worse. Plus, I was an adult and had a brain.
“She needs a disguise,” Sierra said.
“I know.” Allie snapped her fingers. “A wig.”
“Yes, we have some left over from the Halloween Spooktacular. From the staff costumes.” Sierra popped to her feet. “Let me go and grab one. I’ll be right back.”
Soon, I was wearing jeans and a dark-green corduroy jacket, with my blonde hair tucked under a black, chin-length bob wig.
As a group, we hustled out of the hotel, working hard not to run into anyone.
By anyone, we meant Ro, Caden, and Everett.
We piled into Sierra’s Honda SUV.
“Hotels first?” the blonde asked.
I nodded, looking at my phone. “Let’s try the Comfort Stay Inn first.”
Thirty minutes later, we’d checked the three cheap hotels near the highway.
Tessa had not hidden her horror at being near hotels so beneath her standards.
Sierra had proven she could make anyone talk to her with her wide smile and beautiful face.
I’d shown the bored receptionists a photo of Chance on my phone. No one had seen him.
My burst of enthusiasm had started to wane.
Maybe he’d left Windward? I swallowed. Maybe he’d left to save himself, and tossed me under the bus.
“Okay, we’re going to the Red Moose first.” Sierra turned a corner. “It was the place I went to before, and I know it’s popular with some locals and intrepid tourists.”
The Red Moose exterior featured lots of wooden posts, a carved wood-and-red sign, and double wooden doors covered in lots of stickers.
We walked in, and the place wasn’t busy.
I hid my grimace. There was one wall of hewn logs, the floor was stone, and the bar was made of river rock with wooden stumps topped with red leather cushions for stools.
They’d really leaned into the mountain vibe.
Several sets of antlers hung from the walls.
I guessed the place would get busier when people finished work and the skiers came in from the slopes.
There was a young bartender behind the bar, but a door at the back of the bar opened and an older woman stepped out. Her dark hair had a few streaks of gray in it, but she rocked the look. Her killer curves filled out her tight jeans.
She eyed us and her gaze narrowed. “You girls lost?”
“No.” Tessa stepped forward. “We were hoping you could help us.”
“Depends.”
I touched Tessa’s arm and pushed through the others. “I’m looking for my brother. He’s in trouble and…he has a gambling problem.”
The woman’s face went cool. “Don’t know anything about that.”
“We know you run card games out the back,” Sierra said.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” I assured her. “I just need to find Chance.” I held up my phone.
She looked at the screen and her face hardened. “That’s your brother?”
I tensed. “Yes. He was here?”
She sniffed. “He was. Played a few games, and ended up five K in the hole.”
“He lost five thousand dollars,” I said woodenly.
“He did and he skipped out without paying. I had to cover it, so I didn’t end up with unhappy clientele. So, you find him, tell him I’m looking for him.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“Not your fault.” Her gaze stayed on my face. “Honey, that boy might be easy on the eyes, but he needs to grow up. You always pull him out of the fire, he isn’t going to stop dancing with the flames.”
“You aren’t the only one he owes, and I don’t want him to get hurt.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “And I don’t want my mother and grandmother to get upset.”
“Admirable, but life is life. Shit happens, and when other people are creating the shit, you don’t have much control over that.”
Not exactly a life lesson I could put on a mug or T-shirt.
I opened my handbag, reaching for my wallet. “I’ll pay you back the money he owes you.” I couldn’t easily come up with a hundred thousand, but this woman was a local businessowner, so I could help her out.
The woman shook her head. “Not you who owes me, it’s your brother. You find him, tell him he needs to pay me back or work it off.” She circled behind the bar, clearly done talking with us.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
She met my gaze again and jerked her chin up. “Don’t take his bad choices on, trust me.”
As we walked out of the bar, I felt a little sick.
“Hey.” Tessa wrapped an arm around me. “It’s going to be all right. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it will.”
I nodded, but didn’t believe her.
We reached Sierra’s car and piled in. I sat in the front passenger seat, staring out the windshield. Allie and Tessa got in the back.
“Okay, next stop is the Black Nugget.” Sierra started the engine.
We drove in silence to the next bar. She pulled into a parking spot just down from the Black Nugget. This one looked even seedier than the Red Moose.
What were we doing? I was dragging my friends into a seedy bar, maybe putting them in danger.
“Listen, maybe we should—”
Someone stepped up beside the car and rapped their knuckles on the glass. Someone stepped up on the other side of the car and yanked the driver’s side door open.
I looked out the window…
Into Everett’s face.
His mouth was a flat line, and he looked pissed.
Uh-oh.
Allie and Tessa scrambled out of the backseat.
“Have you lost your mind?” Caden said, his voice a low roar.
Allie straightened. “Caden—”
“We have a kid who depends on us. You’ve been in the sights of bad guys before and you’re looking to repeat that?”
“I’m to blame,” I said quickly.
“I told you to stay in the hotel,” Everett clipped. “Where you’d be safe.”
“He’s my brother. I have to find him.”
A muscle ticked in Everett’s jaw.
“It’s not safe for Piper to stay out here.” Caden started herding Allie toward a large, black Yukon. It was one of the hotel’s SUVs. Ro already had an arm around Tessa and his other hand at Sierra’s back.
I took a step to follow.
“No, you’re with me.” Crowding me close, Everett started toward his truck parked nearby.
“Everett—”
“Quiet.” He got me in the passenger side, then slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Anger throbbed off him so hard I could feel it. “I wore a wig.”
He made a low, growling sound. Then he reached over and yanked the wig off.
I huffed out a breath and finger-combed my hair.
Back at the hotel, he pulled into a parking spot right by the employee entrance. I pushed open the car door and slid out.
“I am an adult, you know. I didn’t think someone would try and grab me, in the middle of a group, in the middle of the day.”
Suddenly, he was there, backing me up against his truck. I gasped and grabbed his arms.
“You have no idea who these people are. You know your brother owes them a lot of money and they had no qualms about attacking an innocent woman. They could do anything.”
My chest hitched. Shit, I hadn’t exactly thought that all through. “Everett—”
He gripped my jaw, forced me to meet his angry eyes. “You put yourself at risk, and the others.”
My stomach flip-flopped.
“Someone could have taken you, and I wouldn’t have been close enough to help. Wouldn’t know where they’d have taken you.”
Now, something inside me melted. I was usually the one who worried and took care of others. I wasn’t used to someone worrying about me. “I’m okay.”
“They could have taken you, hurt you—”
“Everett,” I whispered.
He made a low sound, then his mouth was on mine.
The kiss was hard, fast, and a little rough. And I liked it. So much. I moaned into his mouth, my hands clutching him.
When he lifted his head, I didn’t even know what planet I was on. I blinked and licked my lips.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” His fingers trailed up my jaw. “Come on. We’re going to eat in the great room.”
“You’re staying for dinner?” I asked.
“Yeah. We can test out the moody new chef’s cooking. Plus, I’m making sure you don’t move your very fine ass out of this hotel.”
My gaze narrowed, and suddenly, I was feeling less melty.
He took my hand and pulled me toward the hotel entrance. “You leave the hotel again, Piper, there will be consequences. Got it?”
I wanted to argue, but reminded myself he was worried about me and helping me out. “Got it.”