Page 13 of Arctic Panda's Secret Mate
And it didn’t really belong in a table setting drawer. What’s more, Tristan would have sworn that it hadn’t beenthere the day before. He had rifled down a little ways looking at the napkin options.
Had Breck found it and put it here as a prank? Tristan couldn’t figure out why he would think it was funny, but it made more sense than the idea that there was a friendly ghost in the chalet finding him exactly the tools he needed like some kind of Christmas miracle.
“We must have gotten two and a half feet of snow,” Breck said, carrying in a platter of bacon. “Welcome to your White Christmas!”
“Not mine!” Tristan laughed.
Isn’t it ours?Tristan’s bear asked, worried.
“Well, not just yours.” Breck adjusted some of the napkins Tristan had set out, glanced towards the kitchen, and dropped his voice. “I looked around in the broom closet and the furnace room for some of those carving tools you were looking for. No dice. But we can poke around in some of the outbuildings if you want to brave the snow.”
Either Breck was a master player, or he wasn’t behind the mysterious tools. “I found some, thanks! In the sideboard. Underneath the placemats.”
“These rentals. You never know what you’ll find where! Do you know that Chef found the cheese grater in with the strainers?”
“They…both have holes?”
Breck laughed. “That’s one way to sort things. And I tell you, I know some people with holes in their heads who ought to be in that cabinet, too.”
Tristan was not at all sure how to take that joke, so he just laughed, hoped it didn’t sound too uncertain, and finished setting out silverware, puzzling over the mystery of how the tools had shown up on request.
12
HAISLEY
Haisley wasbored.
The one (rather important) thing she’d forgotten when she made her ridiculous plan to isolate in her room was that she really wasn’t anygoodat isolation. She didn’t consider herself a social butterfly, but she hadn’t realized how much she enjoyed being around other people. During days that the chalet didn’t have guests, she usually had Dorothy, the live-in housekeeper, and could drive down into town and bearoundpeople when she got desperate.
She didn’t think being cooped up in her own room would be any worse than having the chalet to herself, but it was a hundred times more awful. She couldhearthem chattering away. When they were in the great room, she could just hear the hum of their distant laughter, and the chef (Chef!) had a booming voice that carried from the kitchen.
When they met for meals, she could make out most of their conversations, even when she wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. She had a suite with her bed right up against the dining room, and she had never been able to sleep withearplugs. She couldn’t drown them out with her own music or movies, so unless she hid in the bathroom and read in the bathtub, she was an unwilling silent partner in every confusing conversation.
Their topics were baffling, and the more Haisley heard, the more she was sure they were exotic animal smugglers. Their interactions lacked the snarky, back-biting banter that pretended to be clever in pursuit of status; it seemed unlikely that this was a CEO team building holiday retreat.
And if these guests were family, they had tighter family bonds than Haisley was used to. Her own family had so much drama and resentment that reunions deserved hazard pay, and she had let her correspondence diminish to holiday cards (very generic, already mailed) and perfunctory birthday calls for her siblings (who didn’t bother to do the same in return).
She would have taken a boring Christmas on her own over having to show up with gifts that wouldn’t be appreciated by people who only wanted her to side with them over some entitlement issue that painted everyone involved in a very unflattering light.
Beingboredcertainly wasn’t the worst problem to have.
The problem was that abored Haisleystarted having ideas.
The power flickered off for a few moments on the first snowy morning as they were clearing breakfast, and Haisley immediately wondered with a stab of hope if they would justleaveif it remained out.
The power came right back, but the idea lingered. Haisley knew enough about the building and its systems to stage a power outage. She had left instructions about setting up the backup generator, but a few ‘accidentally’ misplaced power cables would keep that from being anoption. After a few cold meals and no water pressure, surely they would pack up and leave.
Then she remembered that she wouldn’t have water pressure or heat, either, and wouldn’t even be able to sit in front of the fire like they would. Besides which, it looked like they’d gotten enough snow that they were trapped up here until the plows came through.
Mountain Crown was near the end of a long rural road that wouldn’t be any kind of priority, so it might even be a few days.
But the wheels in Haisley’s head were turning now.
Haisley knew this house inside out and backwards. She could make the place so subtly uncomfortable that by the time the roads were cleared, they would bedyingto leave, lined up at the door with their fur coats and their pet leopards.
It didn’t have to be as sweeping as a full-on power outage.
Haisley knew just where to start.
