Chapter 3 Presley
Locked Out, Let In
Knocking on a random door made me remember all of those true crime specials I watched late at night in college.
Sure, the likelihood that someone in one of these chalets was a serial killer was low, but never zero.
So, when the door opened to a little old lady looking in my direction, I was relieved.
“Hello, dear,” she said, with an endearing southern accent.
“Hi, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’ve just been locked out of my chalet. Do you possibly have a phone I could use?” Her eyes widened as she shook her head.
“No, I’m afraid not. I’ve managed to not keep up with technology, much to my children's chagrin. My kids are still out on the slopes. They have one, if you’d like to come inside and wait?
I have the fire going. If your little one can wait outside, that is.
I’m deathly allergic, I’m afraid.” As she pointed at Priscilla, I didn’t bother with a spiel about her being more hypoallergenic than most dogs.
I certainly wasn’t looking to impose, nor was I willing to keep Priscilla outside.
I looked down to the rest of the chalets.
I thought I’d start with number one, to see if anyone could help me, but I still had eight more.
“That’s okay. I might come back if I can’t find one sooner,” I said, giving her a smile. She reciprocated the gesture and shut the door, and Priscilla and I chugged on.
Trudging through the snow that separated the chalets, I considered my options.
If someone wasn’t in the rest of these with a phone ready to use, I could walk to the nearest business and see about using their phone.
But, when I got said phone, who was I going to call?
I hadn’t thought that one through. I’d have to remember the name of my property management company I booked through.
Was it Mountain Chalet’s or Chalets in the Mountains?
Groaning, I realized I’d have to ask them to look up a few sites so I could confirm even which one it was.
Once again, my insecurities and trauma of being called “too much” by the last few years of dates—which admittedly were few—came back into play.
I had been trying my hardest to tiptoe around people, lest they caught on to my reputation.
The truth? I didn’t think I was too much of anything.
I was successful in my career, inquisitive, and creative, but why did that mean I must become a doormat for men to wipe their feet on, so that they didn’t feel less than?
I just didn’t believe God created me with my gifts and abilities to be putting them away whenever a man came around. Ugh.
Shaking off my past, I handed it over to God as I stepped onto the cleared driveway of the next chalet. “Lord, I am perfectly content with Your love. I do not need a man to fulfill me.”
As I peered up at chalet three, a glow from inside and a humming of a generator told me this chalet was prepared for an outage. It gave off an amber glow like a lantern in this blizzard. I excitedly knocked on the door. But nothing could prepare me for the handsome jawline that opened the door.
It was him—the cowboy from the billboards.
I was certain of it. That stubble, that jawline—the scar on his face.
He was drop-dead gorgeous, and there I was, mumbling about needing help.
I took in his looks; he had dark brown hair that was long enough to run his fingers through, but short enough that it was manly.
Several inches taller than me; I’d guess he was six feet tall.
He relented, and I was inside, dripping wet snow over his beautiful, barnwood floors.
Oh, these puppies are heated, too. He has good taste.
Ford, as he introduced himself, told me his phone was broken.
There was a real epidemic of phones around these chalets!
Was Sage Mountain where smart phones came to die?
While contemplating this, I got momentarily lost in his chestnut eyes.
It was so warm and toasty in there, I found myself starting to not care when he said he had a key to my rented chalet.
Why, why, why? I had so many questions, but—I stopped myself.
That was usually where I got into the danger zone, and people wrote me off before they even knew me.
Wait. Why did I care? Was it not just thirty seconds ago I told God I was perfectly content?
His chalet was a little more. . . rustic.
Personalized. I realized this chalet wasn’t a rental, but he owned it.
If my chalet was “alpine chic,” this was “ranch rich,” I decided.
I wondered if he lived in it full time? Was he single or married?
I didn’t see a ring on his finger, not that I was interested.
I reminded myself and God, as I was constantly clueing Him into my every thought, but just for the sake of knowledge.
I did work in publishing, after all. Heck, I might write a book of my own one day and this could be prime information, whether or not this handsome—err, the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen up close, was available.
Available or not, he certainly didn’t seem emotionally available.
His words were few, but there was a kindness to him.
A stillness. Maybe a water that ran deep, if you will.
Exactly the type of man that I repelled with my every move.
My thoughts went back to Parker, a guy I went on two dates with.
One more date than usual. He told me I was beautiful and brought me flowers.
I thought, this could be it. But by the end of the date, he said being around me was akin to experiencing the Spanish Inquisition.
How was I supposed to know that I couldn’t ask questions about the movie he picked out for us to watch on his backyard projector?
I just wanted to know the name, who the actors were, and the year it was made.
Was this popcorn from a bag? I tried to avoid seed oils.
Who did the landscaping? It was nice but needed a strand of twinkle lights.
Back to the movie, I may have looked up the filming location when he lost his mind.
Turned the movie off. I was hurt, but shocked at his true colors.
The man went from sweet and kind to angry and short tempered.
I was relieved that I found out when I did rather than months down the road.
Now, as I stood before this hunk of a cowboy, I kept my pain to myself and let our encounter be short lived. No lollygagging. No loitering of any kind.
It was when I turned to leave, with the key to my chalet in hand, that I noticed the tiger mask hanging from a hook, and the words were out of my mouth before I could control it.
I could feel the energy in the room change as if he was cringing that I was still here.
But he was sitting across from me in the gondola that morning.
Now I knew why he was wearing the disguise—he was quite a famous figure.
I knew better than to point either of those facts out.
He was just trying to have a good time. I smirked at the thought of that woman going on and on about how good looking he was—little did she know he was sitting next to her!
Leaving his chalet, I tried not to notice that his heated floors melted some snow right off my boots. Surely, he was used to that. Priscilla and I were back outside, where I took the deepest breath of fresh air that I could muster while I processed what had just happened.
The key slid into the lock as it should have and turned easily.
I let out the breath I was holding. It was going to be okay.
I put Priscilla down in her warm bed while I tiptoed back out to my front door and grabbed the firewood I collected, not letting the door shut behind me.
Bringing it back inside, the chill in the air tickled my throat.
“It sure got cold in here fast,” I said to Priscilla, who was sitting on top of her blankets as she shivered dramatically, watching me load the wood stove.
After it was full of wood, I took a long match from the coffee table that was sitting next to a candle and swiped it on its box.
The zip of the flame was comforting and reassuring, but when I threw it into the stove, nothing happened.
Watching the little flame move down the length of the match until it fizzled out—hmm—this starting a fire thing was harder than I thought.
“Priscilla, I knew I should have put you into Girl Scouts last summer,” I said sarcastically, as I looked for some kind of paper I could throw inside to start the fire.
Then it dawned on me: I had piles, if not dozens of manuscripts in the back of my car.
Surely, in an emergency type of situation like this, burning one or three would be warranted?
Heck, it wasn’t like I didn’t print them out on my own printer; I had them all still backed up on my computer.
But the guilt of burning a book—be it in any form—rocked me.
I worked out an elaborate plan in my head as I propped the door open and walked to my car to retrieve them: I would write down all of the important facts—author’s name, title, and contact information—and the first thing I’d do when I returned to work was reprint them.