Page 26 of Making New Plans

Chloe’s lips formed a grim line as she thought about it. Then she nodded again. “Fine. I’ll figure something out for training materials, and you can let me know if you have questions.”

I nodded as my gut clenched at her formal words. But this was what I wanted. To be nothing but professionals for my time here. It would make everything easier. Right?

“Well, then, good night,” I said with the emotion of a robot.

“Good night,” she responded softly before staring down at her ledgers.

I left, but I couldn’t suppress the twinge of desire in my chest to go back. Not just to her, but to that sizzling warmth that had enveloped us before everything went to hell.

I was in my room and flopped on my bed without really knowing how I got there. I’d felt so in control at the town event, teasing Chloe and knocking her off-balance. But then flirting with her in her office like that had given me a taste of a delicious, forbidden fruit. It made me ravenous for more.

Groaning, I buried my face into my pillow. Before long, I fell asleep imagining an entirely different end to the night. One where I hadn’t gone back to my room alone.

9

Chloe

Midnight came and went before I closed the ledgers in front of me with a sigh. I rubbed my eyes and released my hair from its ponytail. My scalp prickled in relief as I massaged it. Looking at pages of “meh” numbers and a spotty check-in calendar was disheartening to say the least. We weren’t floundering necessarily, but my stomach still heaved at the thought of showing Hunter. He’d nitpick through them like my mother inspecting an event I’d put together. Maybe he too would only see where I was lacking.

Ugh, Hunter. Alternating between mind-numbing accounts and over-analyzing our confrontation had me popping a few Advil. I couldn’t make sense of him. One minute he was teasing and fun, the next minute he was in crazy-sexy mode with wicked eyes and I’m-going-to-pounce posture, then bam! Lightning shift to jerk mode.

Granted, my comment about his breath had slipped out as artlessly as he’d responded to it, but my intentions had been good. I hadn’t wanted us to do something we’d regret later. We were going to have to work together for four more weeks. We’d only been around each for two days! The whole town already knew I struggled in the romance department. The last thing I needed was a headline in the Gazette like “Mayor’s Daughter Cavorting with Prodigal Lodge Owner Spells Disaster.”

I’d done the right thing. Definitely. For sure. Maybe sleep would help. And some time away from Hunter.

Before I could second-guess myself, I wrote on a sticky note: “Hunter, no need to work tomorrow. I’ll leave you some training materials on Monday. Chloe.” I double-checked it and deemed it good enough. Sneaking upstairs, avoiding every creak I remembered, I stuck the note to his door and fled.

Back in my office, I put the ledgers away, packed my bag, then left the sign on the front desk. If anyone called me tonight, I’d be telling them to knock on Hunter’s door.

* * *

After a short night of stressful dreams about a lion stalking me in the woods, I spent the entirety of my Sunday exhausted and twitchy. Unhealthy amounts of coffee only seemed to make it worse.

In between my usual duties around the lodge, I put together some training materials for Hunter to peruse. The day passed without a sighting of him. Whether that relieved me or intensified my anxiety, I couldn’t decide. He hadn’t been practicing Taekwondo on the beach either. Not that I checked or anything.

Before leaving for Sunday dinner, I taped a copy of my managerial schedule, a list of to-do items that I’d cut from my own list, and a roster of all the employees to his room door. My mission was to make him familiar with the lodge and its ins and outs so he couldn’t sign off on all of us without at least a nanosecond of hesitation.

My mother immediately called out my exhaustion at dinner. I just smiled and agreed that, yes, I had dark circles under my eyes, and yes, I should hire more help so I could focus more on having a fulfilling social life.

Sometimes the easiest path forward with Mom was to agree to everything she said while playing through a list of my favorite rock songs in my head.

Then Mom and Dad alternated on reminding me of every committee meeting I needed to attend, especially the Emergency Preparation one because they’d scheduled the annual town-sandbagging this week. Each one already existed in my planner, but I nodded along anyway.

The day concluded with my weekly phone call to my brother, Flynn, whose clock ran two hours behind me out in LA. He was his usual upbeat self, and also as usual, I didn’t tell him anything more serious than the projected heavy rainfall coming our way. I loved Flynn, but ever since he’d left Tangled River to be an artist in LA, our relationship had drifted further and further into “weather and funny anecdote” territory. We’d never talked about the family fights leading up to his departure. Or the deepening cracks in our family as a whole.

But what we had was good enough. For now.

Monday morning, I arrived the same time I always did but with the added sweep of the beach that I’d been doing the last couple of days. No Hunter. I was no outdoors-person, but there did seem to be tracks around the beach as if someone with bare feet had been moving a lot.

Frowning, I traipsed back into the lodge. The first thing I noticed was that my sticky notes were out of place on the front desk. No one but me touched those.

I solved the mystery two seconds later when I saw a line of three notes on my office door. They weren’t signed, but I knew exactly who they were from.

One read: “Thank you for the study materials. When’s the test?”

Lip curled, I read the next: “I’m thinking of destroying the snowshoe display next. Any objections?”

The third: “Item #5 on my to-do list is to walk through morning prep with George and Mable, which you said starts at 4 a.m. Please tell me this is a one-time thing.”

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