Page 49 of Wolf's Gambit

“It’s small,” Lottie said unnecessarily.

“How much?” I asked, knowing it would be reasonable.

“Twenty dollars.”

“A night?”

“A week.”

I gaped at her. “Huh?”

“You help me clean the lodge and the cabins, and you only pay twenty dollars for your room.”

“Okay.”

Lottie scowled at me. “Okay? You don’t want paying more?”

“You’re paying me with the room, right?” I asked, putting my backpack on the bed.

“Right…”

“Then okay. Can I start tomorrow? I start at the bar soon.”

Lottie’s hand rested on the door handle. “You can start tomorrow,” she told me with a frown. “You better come back to the main house. You’ll need towels and a shower before you work tonight.”

Looking down at myself, I looked back up. “Did you just tell me I smell?”

“You one of them sensitive people?”

“Nope.”

“Good, ’cause you stink.” The wide, toothy grin she gave me made me laugh out loud.

Baywater Creek may not have a bay or a creek, but I could already tell it had good people. Maybe I wouldn’t need to find anything illegal to do to make money while I was here.

Maybe in this town, I could stay.

CHAPTER 13

Kezia

Three Weeks Later

“I swear to all that’s holy, that damn man is trying to piss me off,” Maggie mumbled as we both looked over the kitchen and the mess it was in.

Her husband, Dean, was the chef for the bar on the weekends, and while I couldn’t deny the man could cook, he was the messiest cook I’d ever seen. Every pot, pan, and griddle had been used. There wasn’t a spare space on either counter, and one of my sinks was piled high with dishes.

I’d been in Baywater Creek for two weeks, and I slipped into a rhythm between the bar and Lottie’s cabins easily enough. I still hadn’t mastered the chaos of Dean’s cooking yet, but I kept up with him while he was cooking, dish-wise. However, when the kitchen closed, he simply downed his tools and left, leaving his mess behind for Maggie and me to clean up.

When I first met her, I was sure she was simply kindhearted. After spending one weekend with Dean in the kitchen, I knew why she was willing to pay a stranger cash in hand to work in her kitchen. It had nothing to do with a big heart and more to do with the fact that most people would have insisted Dean do his own cleaning.

“Tell me again why you don’t make him stay and clean this up?” I grumbled as I started emptying one of my sinks of the dishes he had piled high.

“There are some fights I win with my husband,” Maggie told me seriously. “This isn’t one worth having. Again.”

One of the servers walked through the doors and stopped dead at the sight. “Holy shit,” Brian murmured. “He gone?”

“Yup,” Maggie confirmed. She looked Brian over. “What’s happening out there?”

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