Page 39 of Fight

Jake stared at her with his mouth agape.There was so much to process with what Cindy had just said.Of course the guy wouldn’t have said anything about how Jake was seconds away from smashing his face in. Like a typical bully, he’d decided to focus on someone who was a weaker, easier target for his ire and wounded ego—Lena.

“Lena really cares about her job here, Cindy. And she’s only been here two weeks. Why don’t you give her another chance?”

Cindy sighed and looked off to her computer. Jake could tell she was itching to get back to whatever she'd been typing.“Okay—for you Jake. Because you’re such a valued employee. But I’m going to put her back in training mode with Maggie. I don’t trust her to interact with guests independently. She's just…not right,” Cindy insisted, shaking her head with an exaggerated frown.

“I appreciate that, Cindy,” Jake replied solemnly as he rose from his chair, and got back on track to his office.

Well, that’s going to go over like a ton of bricks with Lena. To a certain extent, he agreed with Cindy. This really wasn’t the right work for Lena. She was too sulky and serious to be in a job that required her to deal with the public for so many hours a day.If she was going to be in this type of job, it needed to be somewhere a little less corporate and polished, maybe an independent type establishment that valued individuality a bit more.

As Jake walked into this office, he tossed his backpack on the floor and closed the door behind him. Catching sight of the sky outside his window, he walked across his office and stared out into the darkening afternoon.

It had been windy and cloudy all day, but the sun had beat down pleasantly and swatches of blue sky had peaked through the scattered gray clouds. It felt like the day couldn’t decide if it wanted to be sunny and calm, or cloudy and angry. Since he'd been inside the resort, it looked like the day had finally made its decision—angry and dark had won the draw. Heavy, gray clouds laid low in the sky covering the tops of the mountains and the waters of the lake looked choppy and aggressive.

What time is it? Is Lena back yet? Jake looked down at his watch to see it was about a quarter after five. He'd seen Daniel’s headlights when he picked her up early this morning, at about seven o'clock—almost eleven hours ago.She should be back by now.

He sent her a quick text:Hey, you back yet?

Pushing aside his concern, Jake sat down at his desk and caught up on the emails he’d missed while out on the trail.The minutes ticked by and he got caught up in responding to guests’ and coworkers’ emails before he heard rain starting to beat against his office window in sharp pellets.

He tapped his phone to see fifteen minutes had passed and he still didn’t have a response from Lena. Wondering if he should call Annie to see if she’d heard from her, he walked to his office's interior window and looked down into the well-lit lobby. It seemed especially bright and cozy down there with the storm brewing in the sky outside.

Maggie, Tenesia, and Norma were working the front desk and there was a decent line of guests in front of them. Tenesia and Norma were checking in large families and Maggie was talking to a solo guest; a tall, thin, blond guy.Wait a minute. He knew that particular tall, thin, blond guy. Jake swung open the door to his office and walked around the balcony until he reached the stairs to the lobby.

He ran down the stairs and when he finally approached the front desk, he confirmed it was, in fact, Daniel leaning over the desk to talk to Maggie closely. Maggie was eyeing him warily. When she saw Jake, her eyes flashed.“Jake,” she said brightly. “I was just talking to—”

“Where's Lena?” Jake barked loudly before Maggie could finish. Daniel turned to face Jake.He leaned casually and fluidly on the shiny desk and gave Jake a quick, dismissive once over. He was clean as a whistle, wearing dark-colored jeans and a black t-shirt, his blond hair was combed smoothly to the side.“Hey, bro,” he clipped out before turning back to Maggie to continue talking to her.

“Where is she?” Jake asked again roughly as he got closer to Daniel. Turning around again, Daniel swallowed heavily before yanking his thumb roughly back at Maggie. “It's really none of your business, bro. I was just telling Maggie here that I needed her to get in touch with Lena’s friend. So we’ve got it under control—you can be on your way.”

“I’m not going to ask you again.Where is she?” Jake grit the words out as he got even closer to Daniel. He was all up in his face now and Daniel blanched and looked around uncomfortably.

Finally, he let out a long, beleaguered sigh. “Look, it’s not that big of a deal. We got about halfway up the trail and Lena fell and hurt her ankle. She'sfine,” he insisted as an alarming look rose to Jake's face. “But she couldn’t walk. So I left her there and promised to get in touch with her friend when I got down here.”

“Youlefther there?! Where is she?”Jake started to bunch his hands into fists at his side. Daniel looked down nervously before answering.

“We’d walked a bit off the trail about halfway up.I left her near a big rock and some trees.”

“A big rock and some trees?! You left her on a mountain in this weather?” They could hear the rain coming down outside the warm, bright lobby. The guests who were close by murmured in speculation as they overheard pieces of their conversation.

Daniel looked at him like he was an idiot.“It wasn’t raining then, bro.”

Jake really lost it then. He lunged forward and grabbed Daniel by the collar of his shirt, wanting nothing more than to pound him into the granite of the front desk.

Daniel made a choking sound and started flailing wildly as he reached up to grab Jake's hands. “Let go of me, you psycho!” he shouted shrilly. Jake heard a sharp intake of breath from one of the guests standing in a huddle around them now.

“Jake!” Jake looked up to see Maggie’s alarmed face looking at him in horror. Dropping Daniel’s shirt, he took a deep breath.That was two days in a row that he’d come close to pounding someone in the face at the front desk.He needed to pull himself together.He was just wasting valuable time on this joker anyway.

Taking a deep breath, Jake let go of Daniel’s shirt and stepped back. “So you went up the Kodiak trail, right? How many miles did you go before she got hurt?”

Daniel straightened his shirt and shot Jake a dirty look.Finally, he looked thoughtfully to the side, biting his lip in concentration. “We got started on the trail at about eight thirty, and Lena fell at about one or so.Wedecided that I should come down and get help, so that’s why I’m here looking for her friend. I forgot her name, though—Amy?”

“It’s a quarter to six now. Why did it take you so long to get down the mountain?”She's been sitting up there waiting for seven hours?

“Well, I got down at about three. I stopped by Chipotle—I was so hungry—and also got a quick shower. I didn’t want to be walking around town looking like I just came out of the woods.” He said this while giving a Jake once-over, his distaste evident. Jake most definitely had just come out of the woods, and looked the part.

Jake took yet another deep breath and, once again, resisted knocking this idiot into next week. “So you were about three miles up?”

Daniel considered that for a minute before nodding. “Yeah, bro, and maybe about a hundred yards to the left of the path close to a giant boulder and a dense cluster of trees. We were looking for a little privacy,” he added with innuendo before turning around to wink at Maggie.

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