“Oh, these are definitely not the whosits. Haleigh and Enzo are firmly in whatsits territory. New money is always about what they are, not who. Don’t worry. You’ll perk right up. A little smoked trout and toast and you’ll be right as rain. The brunch here is absolutely divine.”
Now, for the record, Zoey wasn’t the pickiest of eaters. But in the last twenty-four hours, she’d only consumed a gummy bear drowning in alcohol and a hot dog made of Dasher or Dancer.
There would be no smoked trout and toast. Not over Zoey’s dead body.
“Give the whatsits my regards. I’m going to go barf for a while.”
“Oh, love. You really are unwell, aren’t you?”
“Not really. Just dramatic and embarrassed.”
Smiling with sympathy, Lana scooted closer and smoothed her hand over Zoey’s head. “Graham’s drinks can drop a tank. If you hadn’t gotten tipsy, I’d be shocked. Drink your Bloody Mary.”
“Lana? Why did Graham bring me home?”
“Because he lit up like a Christmas tree when he set eyes on you. And since you’re on vacation and haven’t been on a date since—what was his name?”
“We don’t say his name.”
“Since no-name, I thought it might be fun to see what he’d do about it.”
“And that didn’t seem like…I don’t know…a potentially dangerous situation to you?”
“With Graham Barnett? That boy is as sweet as they come. Besides, I was watching you through the diner windows the entire time.” She waggled her eyebrows again. “And then I followed him to the hotel. It was tons of fun, all sneaking about like a Hamburglar, watching him sweep you up in those masculine, rugged arms. Would you like to see the pictures?”
“I don’t want to hear any more.” Zoey covered her face with the pillow. “There’s too much wrong with all of this.”
“I’ve been with you all night. I came in right after he and the manager brought you to the room, so there’s no need to be concerned.”
“Things happen in cars.”
“Yes, but I would have arranged to have him murdered if he tried. See? All’s good.”
Zoey quit arguing. It was her own darn fault she’d gotten drunk, and things could have been worse. Lana could have flitted off into the night in another stranger’s car, leaving her completely alone. Hamburgling it was Lana’s way of taking care of her. Just like more alcohol in the morning, her friend’s intentions were good, even if her methods were…questionable.
Pulling the pillow down a couple of inches to peer at Lana, she asked with morbid curiosity. “Lana? Do you know people?”
A smug expression was not the answer Zoey was hoping for.
“Okeydokey. I might take that drink now.”
It was sweet how Lana seemed to find such pleasure in Zoey’s attempts to consume her Montgomery Bloody Mary, watching her with hopeful eyes. Zoey almost felt bad about crawling to the bathroom and gagging Lana’s handiwork back up again. As she draped herself on the couch this time, Zoey rubbed her forehead.
“I actually feel a little better now.” Narrowing her eyes at Lana, Zoey frowned. “You made me drink that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Of course. Well, now I know you’re alive, I need to get down to the spa for a quick spiff before finding Killian. There’s no time to go afterward. I have an important meeting this afternoon, then finalizing details for my event with the catering director, and after that, I’m meeting someone for drinks. And you know Killian will drag out brunch forever.”
“Mm-hmm.”
A hum of acknowledgment was her standard response when Lana started talking about places and people Zoey didn’t know. Trying to convince her friend she didn’t run in the same circles Lana did was far too time-consuming on a good day.
But something Lana said finally registered. “Wait.” Zoey narrowed her eyes. “What event? Lana, please don’t tell me you planned this vacation around a party.”
“It’s a bit more important than a simple party, love,” Lana told her. “The proper term is a gala, and I didn’t bring it up before you flew in because I know how avoidant you get of my friends.”
“Are they your friends though?”
“Acquaintances. And I won’t force you to go, but I would be very grateful if you did. I even arranged to have a few dresses available for you if you decide to humor me.”
In all the years of their friendship, Zoey had never been comfortable with Lana’s family or her acquaintances. But Lana looked so hopeful, and Zoey didn’t have the heart to tell her no.
“Can I reserve the right to not go? And give you a maybe?”
“Done.” Beaming, Lana hugged her. “Okay, off to get ready for the day.”
“The spiffing. I’ll do it,” Zoey valiantly volunteered. “Get your things, because I’m staying on the couch for another hour.”
“Are you sure? You really did get a bit more sloshed than I expected last night. There’s a perfectly acceptable beautician in the spa who’ll do.”
“And you’ll come back annoyed and frustrated because they never get your eye makeup right. Then I’ll end up fixing it anyway. I’ll trade you coffee for a spiffing.”
She half expected Lana to order the coffee, but her friend went to the room’s coffee maker instead. Lana was many things—too many things—but unobservant wasn’t one of them. Even though Zoey had maybe consumed half a dozen cups of coffee in front of her friend, Lana fixed it for her perfectly. One and a half creams, half a sugar.
“There you go.” Lana smiled at her warmly, giving Zoey the coffee and her makeup case. “Thank you, dearest. Now, make me beautiful.”
Even in her post-inebriated state, Zoey couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “You’re always beautiful.”
Growing up within driving distance of the suburbs of Chicago had its perks. Unable to remember a time when she and her family hadn’t been strapped for cash, a teenage Zoey had taken an extra job at a local department store in the makeup department. Somehow spritzing expensive cologne in unsuspecting patrons’ faces turned into perching on a stool next to the makeup counter.
She’d never had any formal training, but her hands were steady, and she had a good eye for what palettes brought out the color and sparkle in someone’s eyes. As jobs went, it hadn’t paid as much as she’d hoped for, but as life skills went, her ability to draw a line of liquid eyeliner with surgical precision benefitted her far more often than she would have expected.
Zoey learned what she needed to keep the women in her seats happy, but as a shy teenager with thick glasses and a single outfit nice enough to work in, she had been surprised to find how much she enjoyed it.
Somehow, in her detailed and determined interrogation of all things Zoey, Lana had discovered her past and put it to full use whenever she really needed a “spiff.”
Spiffing Lana for a date often took hours, the socialite nothing if not determined to look her best on the rare occurrences someone managed to catch her eye for an entire evening. But since this was just an afternoon rendezvous, whatever that entailed, Zoey made quicker work of her canvas.
“So what’s he like?”
“Hmm?”
“The person you’re having drinks with.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t catch his name. I was more focused on his hands.” Lana sighed lustily. At Zoey’s raised eyebrow, Lana added, “During my massage yesterday morning. Don’t be such a prude.”
“I’m not a prude.”
“Really?”
“I’m not a prude,” Zoey clarified. “I just don’t love being squished and squashed around by strangers.”
“Oh, you do not know what you’re missing.”
Maybe she didn’t. It had been a long time since Zoey had been squished, let alone squashed, by anyone, stranger or no.
Making Lana beautiful wasn’t hard.
She’d look great with a soggy paper bag over her head. But since Zoey loved her, she did her best to make Lana as fabulous as the resort in which they were staying. Then, when Lana rushed off to her breakfast, Zoey moved to the window.
Lana had been kind enough to leave the blackout curtains drawn, but Zoey braved the bright light peaking around the edges of the curtains, drawing them aside. She was met with a vibrant blue sky backdropping rows of mountains, jutting up like gorgeous, ragged teeth.
The part of Illinois she came from was flat as a pancake. Back there, she could see for miles, no matter where she looked. Adrift in a sea of cornfields and soybeans, broken up only by subdivisions and strip malls. Here, Zoey felt anchored in place. The mountains and the valley below were all she could see. She’d been in Moose Springs less than a day, and she’d already fallen in love with this tiny Alaskan town.
“Best vacation ever,” she whispered to herself. “Worth every penny.”
* * *
Hannah hadn’t let Graham buy her a drink. She had, however, let him pay her back the money he owed her.
It bothered Graham that he hadn’t remembered the two hundred dollars, although in his defense, New Year’s was his holiday to be the drunk one. To surround himself with his friends and family and take comfort in the oblivion of his own concoctions, knowing they had his back if he got too stupid.
“Too” was a relative term. Graham was well aware of the reputation preceding him.
Even though his night had run later than expected, with a sloshy little tourist to blame, Graham pulled himself out of bed early, determined to make full use of his morning. The Tourist Trap didn’t open until eleven, and Graham was an expert at not showing up a minute beforehand.
Even though his body wanted to hide under the covers for a few more hours, he had things to do. Chainsaws to oil. Large chunks of wood to carve.
The thirty-acre stretch of land lining the southern edge of the resort property had been in the Barnett family for generations. His parents had traded life in the woods for a nice condo near the inlet in Anchorage, closer to his mother’s job. Graham could have stayed in the main house, but they visited a lot, and he preferred his space.
Thankfully, the tiny log cabin just off the dirt access road was all Graham’s own.
Between the two of them, Graham and Easton built the cabin with their own hands. And okay, maybe the first time around, they kind of botched it up, and the second time, the woodburning stove caught the living room on fire, but the third time around, they crushed it. Maybe if Graham had known that his diner was going to be a financial success, he would have invested more in the size of his house, but interior walls seemed a little too complicated for a first home.
One of these days, if life let him stop making Growly Bears for a living, Graham was going to pack up his belongings and move north of Denali, where no one would ever—ever—ask him to take a selfie with them again.
Behind the cabin was a twenty-foot-long steel shipping container, inside of which was the meaning of life and all things that mattered to Graham. The reason why he could spend his days serving food to tourists and nights prying them out of his personal bubble.
His wood.
His glorious, magnificent wood.
The improvised workshop was full of it, from tiny chunks of scrap wood to logs as thick as a man’s torso, all in varying sizes and shapes. On one side of the workshop, a long table held Graham’s tools, his grandfather’s tools, and some bizarre torture-like instruments he assumed were his great-grandfather’s tools, but he wasn’t willing to put money on them. But the pièce de résistance of his collection was his set of carving tools.
Graham might be stuck in the body of a diner owner, but in his heart and soul, he was an artist, and he chose to express his artistic tendencies using high-powered chainsaws.
Several of his larger pieces wouldn’t fit in the shipping container, spilling out with deliberate disorganization in front of the workshop, including Graham’s pride and joy: an upright ten-foot-tall cedar log, complete with a five-foot-wide stump base. The piece dominated his carving area as if the tree had always grown there, just waiting for him to shape it into a masterpiece. The gnarls on the log were unique and complicated and could result in either a work of art or a chunked-off piece of junk. The log had stood in front of his workshop for the last six months, staring at him, daring him to have the guts to make something amazing from it.
The thing was—for as competent as Graham was at slinging processed meat—he kind of sucked at being a chainsaw artist.
“What do you think, Jake?” Graham called from just inside his workshop. “What are we carving this bad boy into?”
From his shaded tie-out spot on the cabin’s porch, safely out of range of flying wood chips, Graham’s furry companion wagged a silky black-and-white tail in acknowledgment.
Normally, Jake had the run of the place, but not when Graham was carving. The border collie had been blind ever since Graham found him as a puppy in a box next to the diner’s dumpster. Rage at the animal’s abandonment turned into full throttle adoration by the time he drove Jake home from the best vet in Anchorage, complete with puppy-safe chew toys and far too many outfits.
They’d come to an agreement. Jake only had to wear the outfits on special occasions, and when he did, he’d take the indignity without complaint.
Of course, the arrangement never stopped Graham from adding a hat or two to his friend upon occasion. Even now, Jake’s floppy speckled ears were topped with a knit cap matching Graham’s own. The caps were one of his mother’s better attempts at knitting, although she’d taken more care to fit Jake’s head than Graham’s. Mediocre artistry ran in the Barnett family.
“All right, buddy. I’m going to get the equipment going. Hang tight.”
Another lazy tail thump was followed by a yawn, Jake’s cloudy eyes covered by the soft wool.
When a head of short, vibrant pink hair popped around the corner of the shipping container’s open door, Graham wasn’t surprised. Even if he hadn’t heard the Jeep’s tires crunching gravel as it pulled up his drive, Jake’s single warning woof let Graham know not only was someone there to visit but the border collie recognized the vehicle.
“Hey. Is it safe to come in?”
“Safer than out there.” Graham finished changing the chain on his favorite chainsaw. “Be warned. I’m excessively rugged and masculine today.”
Rolling her eyes, Easton’s twin sister set her hip against the steel entrance of his workshop, crossing tattooed arms across her equally tattooed chest. “I’ll do my best to control myself. No promises.”
In shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops, Ashtyn Lockett looked every inch the born and bred Moose Springs resident she was. Where the tourists were still wearing sweaters and furry boots, Ashtyn looked readier for a day at the beach than a day hauling supplies across the state in her helicopter.
Besides similar eyes and the same rare smile, there was little resemblance between Ashtyn and Easton. Having been at the receiving end of more than one of the prettier Lockett twin’s grins, Graham knew how devastating they could be. Too bad the presence of a monster-sized brother always killed any romantic thoughts Graham might have entertained about her. Plus, Ash scared him twice as much as Easton ever could.
Graham hefted his chainsaw up. “I got it fixed. Pretty, huh?”
“Sure. I talked to Easton. He wants a rematch tomorrow at Rick’s after you close. Try to run them out early if you can.”
Graham started the chainsaw to check he hadn’t messed up anything, the meaty growl of the machine drowning out his words. “You could have called instead of stopped by, Ash. You’re secretly in love with me, aren’t you?”
“What?”
He revved the chainsaw a few times and then let it idle. “I said sure. I don’t mind taking East’s money.”
Ashtyn raised a
sculpted eyebrow, her gaze scraping his form, briefly landing on Graham’s bare stomach. “Yeah, right. You’ve always been too pretty for your own good, and you know it. What’s the point of the hat if you’re not going to wear a shirt?”
“Jake was cold this morning.”
The eyebrow arched higher. “And?”
Tucking a welder’s mask under his arm, Graham tilted his head. “I don’t understand the question.”
Snorting, she followed him out into the yard. “Hey, if you want to get impaled by chunks of flying debris, have at it.”
Jake whined from the porch at the sound of their footsteps.
“Abs of steel, Ash. Abs of steel.”
Ignoring him, Ash walked over to his prized log—the log of which artistic careers were made—and ran her finger along it. “Are you ever going to start this? Or are you just going to stare at it again?”
“Did you hear Jax is coming back into town?” he countered, waiting for her to step out of the way before circling the stump, looking for a proper angle of attack. “He’s supposed to be here next week.”
Ashtyn made a face. “I’d hoped that rumor was crap.”
“Didn’t anyone tell you to believe everything you hear?” When she rolled her eyes, he revved the chainsaw loudly. “Okay, I think this is going to be a snake.”
“What?” When Ash yelled to be heard over the chainsaw, Graham revved it again.
“A beaver. I’m making a beaver.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “A cleaver?”
“No, just a regular kitchen knife!”
Shaking her head, Ash’s lip quirked up. Taking a seat on a nearby lawn chair, intended for that exact purpose of sitting and staring at his soon-to-be masterpiece, Ash picked up a wood chip and lobbed it at his back.
“You can’t take anything seriously.”
“I seriously wish I’d gotten a couple more hours of sleep.” Letting the chainsaw idle, he turned to her. “Hey, do you know anything about the woman who came with Lana?”
“Why?”
The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska) Page 5
