She sighed, heavily, and I waited for the wisdom she would attempt to depart upon me. “Listen, you told Caleb to book something, so he did. I have enough to do. I don’t need to do your work, too.”
“My work is your work, Ange. You’re my assistant. I thought you’d at least vet the place. What if they find me out here?”
She sighed, again. “How long did it take you to find the place, Hayes?”
“It was ridiculously hard to find,” I admitted. “It’s literally in the middle of nowhere.”
“And who else is there with you?”
“Not many from what I can see.”
“Then you’ll be fine. You’ll know if someone new shows up to camp. If they do, get out. They aren’t after your body, only your money.”
“Exactly what I’m worried about,” I replied. “Listen, it’s so cold out here the family jewels are about to fall off. I’m going to go warm up and pretend the next week isn’t happening.”
She groaned and laughed at the same time. “I didn’t need to know that information, but thanks for the image. Oh, and I should remind you,” she started and I grunted.
“Don’t be a dick,” I parroted. “Yeah, I got it.”
Her raucous laughter filled my ears. “I highly doubt it. Bye, Hayes.”
The phone clicked in my ear and I stared at the home screen. That woman was my lifeline, but she was also a pain in my ass. I should fire her. I dragged the sled toward the cabin and grunted again.
Yeah, fire her and lose all semblance of control in your life, Hayes.
“Hey there, ya!” a voice yelled and I froze, afraid to turn around. “You must be new here to Cashmere Camp. I’m a regular and ain’t never seen a car like yours around before.”
I froze, my mind flashing back to early this morning when this whole thing started. My eyes went closed and shouting filled my head.
“Hayes!”
“Hayes!”
“Can you tell us what happened that night?”
Voices called from all around me the moment I climbed out of my car. I snapped my suit coat together and buttoned it as I seamlessly gripped my briefcase in my other hand. I strode toward the entrance to my office building, pushing my way through the throng without touching another soul, which was a trick in itself. Cameras whirred. My name assaulted my ears. Bodies impeded my forward motion and I struggled to get through the throng of paparazzi.
What the fuck did they want? I bit my tongue to keep from screaming at them like the lunatic I wanted to be. They shouldn’t be here.
I slid my card through the reader and the moment the door beeped, I rolled through it and pushed it closed against the voices, camera flashes, and memories. I banged my head on the back of the door a couple of times. Why now? It’s been years since that night. Why do they want to hash it out again? Straightening my tie, I pushed off the door and strode down into the bowels of hell. Someone was going to pay for what I just went through, and I already knew whose head was going to be on my platter.
“Caleb!” I bellowed.
The head I envisioned popped out from behind a steel door. “Yes, Oh Mighty King?”
I lowered my briefcase to the floor the moment I stepped into his office. Everywhere you looked there were monitors. They showed every aspect of this building, which meant security should be tight. I walked to the one that showed the parking garage in real grainy black and white time. I tapped on the screen and we watched the paparazzi slither away toward whatever hole they had come out of. “See this?” I asked, tapping hard on the screen. “Why? Why? Did you forget how to do your job?”
He was in his chair, his feet up on another one and his arms crossed over his chest as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Nope. I’m doing my job. I’m monitoring the building as stated in my contract.”
I stood in front of him, my jaw set in a line of anger and frustration. “Do you think this is funny?”
“Nope,” he answered again, brushing some fuzz off his black pants. “I think it was inevitable, though.”
“Inevitable?”
He shrugged, dropped his feet to the floor, and stood. “Inevitable means it was bound to happen.”
“Don’t be a smartass, Caleb. I’m paying your salary.”
“No, I’m as much part of this company as you are, don’t forget that, big brother. Besides, my job isn’t to protect you, Hayes. My job is to protect the building.”
I took another step closer and stood nose-to-nose with him. “Your job is to protect the building and everyone who works here.”
“Which is exactly what I do. I can’t stop the tabloids and reporters, Hayes. I’m not a fucking bodyguard. They’re waiting at every door all day, every day. The cops can’t remove them unless they do something illegal, which they haven’t.”
I stared him down and grit my teeth. “They don’t belong in the parking garage. That’s private property.”
“It’s not, actually. The city owns the property and we lease it. You know this. You don’t have to like it, but I can’t call the cops every time they show up just because you don’t want to deal with your shit.”
“Caleb,” I warned, taking another step forward. “Check yourself. Remember who you’re talking to.”
“Who am I talking to? What are you going to do? Fire me? Good luck.”
He stared me down until I stepped back and my shoulders slumped from pure exhaustion. “I’m tired,” I said, my hands in my hair. “You have to get me out of here, bro. I can’t work. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t walk to my car without being assailed. I can’t go home since they’re waiting for me there, too. I can’t, Caleb.”
He held his hands out. “Relax, before you have an aneurysm. Get yourself squared away upstairs and I’ll have you booked out of here in an hour. Go,” he said, pointing to the door. “I’ve always got your back.”
I picked up my briefcase, my shoulders dejected and tired. “Thanks, I owe you one.”
“Eh? You okay, boy?” the voice asked again.
A regular. A local yokel. Probably safe to turn around.
I spun around slowly and came face-to-face with my very own Red Green, complete with beard and plaid trapper hat. “Hey,” I said lamely. “I’m new here for sure,” I answered in an attempt to be social. I wasn’t great at social, but sometimes you had to make nice.
He pointed straight out to the right. “I’ve been staying in cabin five for years now. The name’s Bob. Bob Boling,” he said, sticking his gloved hand out for me to shake. There was a dubious looking substance on it, but I shook it anyway, reminding myself to wash my gloves when I got to the cabin.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Hayes Wheeler,” I introduced myself, almost choking on the name. I hated being deceptive, but at the same time, I needed this time away without anyone knowing who I actually was.
“You’ll love it here,” he promised, dropping his hand and picking up a bucket by his side. “The fish are biting like crazy, but I don’t see any fishing gear,” he said, eyeing my sled.
“I’m not here to fish,” I answered, leaving it at that. “I better get to my cabin. It’s getting late and I’m freezing.”
He waved me off. “Sure, sure. I got some fish to clean. Mercy, you know Mercy?” he asked, pointing at the store I’d just left, so I nodded. “Mercy loves walleye, and I always share.”
“That’s nice of you, but if she lives here, why doesn’t she just catch her own fish?”
He tipped his head to the side and stared at me like I grew a second head. He was about to answer when my phone rang. I glanced at the display and held it up. “I have to take this, but it was nice to meet you.”
He waved goodbye while I brought the phone to my ear and sighed. Saved by the ring.
By the time I hung up with Caleb I was practically frozen to the tundra. By the time I got all my stuff inside the cabin, I was cold, cranky, and coughing. The last thing I needed was a cold, so I started a fire immediately, grateful one had been laid out in
the fireplace already, and took a hot shower. Well, it was more like a lukewarm shower, but at least I could feel my toes again.
I was born and raised in North Dakota and I was used to the cold, but my last-minute trip to the Hinterlands reminded me it had been years since I’d spent any time in the great outdoors. Thankfully, I was able to stop by Tractor Supply and grab enough warm winter wear to fit in at the camp. I hoped I’d fit in any way, but the look in Mercy’s eyes told me otherwise. She only needed one look to see I was definitely not a lumberjack, fisherman, or outdoorsman of any kind. That’s fine, whatever. I don’t care what other people think, even if they have the most beautiful pair of chocolate brown eyes I’d ever seen, and a lithe body that went on forever. Not to mention those globes sitting so perfectly on her chest. If she thought that flannel shirt she wore over her tank top offered any amount of modesty, she was sorely mistaken. She had cleavage that went on for miles, which said something considering she was a little sass of a thing. When she turned to walk away from me, and gave me a shot of that sweet ass gripped in perfect suspension by her tight leggings, I wasn’t sure if my legs would hold me up. It had been a long time since I’d had such a visceral reaction to a woman. In fact, I wasn’t sure I had ever reacted to a woman the way I had to Mercy. Not just physically, either. For once, I felt like I had met my match intellectually, too.
I rubbed my lower half and sighed. “Apparently, it’s been too long since I’ve gotten any,” I said to the empty room.
I busied myself setting up my computer, Ange’s voice ringing in my ears. If you worked less you might have time to get laid, she’d say on a regular basis. The ironic part is, she used to be the one I wanted to lay. Until she figured out work would always come first and she was nothing more than a distraction when I had the time. She makes me sound like a total ass, and the truth is, I am. Or was. Probably am. I’m working on it.
At thirty-five, I found little to get up for these days. Work was always waiting, but there was an emptiness inside me I could no longer fill with work the way I used to. Some would say I was just dealing with grief. Some would say I’d finally matured. Some would say I was restless. To a degree they were all right.
Considering what my real name was when I wasn’t hiding behind fake ones, I could have any woman I wanted, any time of the day or night. Hell, I could have multiple women a day, if I wanted to. I’d done it. It was unfulfilling. Take my word for it. When you’re on top of a woman, staring into her eyes, and you can’t even remember her name, you know you have a problem. That was the last time I took any woman for a roll in the hay. That was three years ago.
I mashed the button on my laptop and leaned back in the chair while it loaded, the fire crackling and warming the small but cozy cabin. I would survive a week here as long as the fire stayed burning and no one bothered me. All I had to do was convince my mind to stop worrying about the tabloids that were looking for me, convince my heart to stop aching over the loss I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from, and convince my groin to stop thinking about the woman in cabin zero.
Concentrate on this project, Hayes. When it’s complete you’ll finally be able to say you’re successful, my inner voice said.
I grunted and shook my head out of frustration and pain. “If only the man who cared about my success the most was still around,” I whispered to my cold empty heart.
CHAPTER THREE
MERCY
I stowed the Sno-Cat in the shed and trudged back to the house. I’d been working since sunup, and now that it was sundown, I was ready for a hot shower and a bowl of soup. I know, I live a glamorous life. Be envious. Truth be told, considering my past, I was lucky to be walking around a free woman and raking in the massive amount of cash I do every year.
I locked the door to the store, left my boots on the rug to melt off, and plodded to my living space. “Beast!” I called, his shaggy head missing from his food bowl where it was usually stuck this time of the evening. “Beast!” I called again, expecting him to mosey in from the bedroom, but he didn’t. Damn mutt. Now where did he get off to?
I opened the back door and stuck my head out into the night for a moment, before I pulled it back in and shivered. It was colder than a witch’s tit in a cast iron bra right now. Chances were high we’d get down into negative twenty windchills tonight. My mind wandered to Mr. I’m Definitely a Dick, as it had half the damn day, and I wondered if he’d survive. My gaze traveled to cabin four where smoke wafted from the chimney and a light burned in the small kitchenette. Guess he could manage fire building 101.
“Beast!” I called again, but he never came running in all his gangly glory.
I stomped back to the door of the store and jammed my boots on, tossing my coat around my shoulders and my hat on my head. “Just what I need.”
I yanked the door open and tromped outside. “You better not be playing hide and seek, you rotten beast!” I called out, my lips freezing instantly in the frigid wind. “I’ll make you sleep in the garage! You won’t like that when it’s twenty below!” I yelled with my hand cupped around my mouth.
It was an empty threat. He was a husky and he would love it. It was mostly a way to get him to come home by continually calling to him and using a tone that told him I wasn’t playing. He may be a puppy yet, but he knew when I meant business.
The door of cabin four flew open and a head popped out. “Could you keep it down? I’m trying to work in here.”
“Absolutely,” I called back, “as soon as you get your ass out here and help me find my dog!”
“I don’t have to, I’m a paying client!” he called, his voice equally aggravated.
“Fine, but you don’t own the place, so don’t tell me what to do!”
“Geez, woman. Did anyone ever teach you social skills?” he yelled in an accusatory tone.
I paused with my hand on my hip. “No, my mother was worse than I am. Thanks for asking.”
I spun on my heel and snickered when I heard the door of the cabin slam shut. Take that, Mr. Wheeler, I grumped. Or whatever your name is. Something told me it wasn’t Wheeler. He looked familiar the moment he walked in the door. I’d seen him somewhere before. It hadn’t come to me yet, but it would.
I jogged toward the parking lot while I yelled the dog’s name. The cold seeped into every bone in my body, but the idea of leaving Beast outside wasn’t appealing. He might be a husky, but he needed some kind of shelter from this wind. I stopped in the parking lot and did a full circle, listening intently. A strange scratching sound could be heard from somewhere in the area and I flicked the flashlight around. Deer? Wolf? Coyote? Any or all were possible. I didn’t see any eyes reflected back at me, so I called his name again.
“Beast!” I hollered, my tone desperate this time. I was unnerved by the strange scratching and rubbing sound.
The dog slunk around the side of the car and sat at my feet with his eyes downtrodden.
“Beast?” I said in that ‘what have you been up to?’ tone. “You need to come when I call you,” I scolded.
He glanced up at me, his eyes puppyish and his eyebrows wiggling. He licked my gloved hand as if that would make everything okay.
“Was that you digging?” I asked, eyeing him. His head hung again and he walked around the car in the direction he’d come. I shone the flashlight around and didn’t notice anything, until I got to the back tire. I gasped when my flashlight flipped around it. The tire was flat, and had half the outside tread chewed off. There was no way Beast was responsible for the flat, but he definitely was responsible for ruining it afterward. Great, I guess I was buying a new tire. Since there were only two people in camp, and only one drove a Mercedes, I think I knew who I was paying. I sighed in frustration at the night sky. He was definitely going to be a dick about this.
I clomped back around the car and stuck the flashlight in my mouth, grabbing Beast’s collar on the way by. “Let’s go, Mr. Destructo,” I grumbled around the flashlight, hauling him with me to the house. “You
’re supposed to eat your supper, not the guest’s tires,” I scolded.
I released him as soon as we got within sight of the cabin. He bounded to the door and sat on the deck, patiently waiting for me. I let him into the store and repeated my boot removal routine before I joined him in the back of the cabin. He had his nose in his bowl while I stoked the fire in the fireplace.
I sighed heavily and my shoulders slumped from fatigue. What a day. First, the snow. Then, Mr. Wheeler’s tire. I didn’t foresee tomorrow being much better.
The shower did the trick. Hot, steamy, and relaxing. Now I could snuggle up next to the fire and finish my book. Then again, maybe I’d watch a little TV first. I needed to get Mr. I’m Definitely a Dick out of my head. He kept creeping in like an annoying song or an STD. I snorted with laughter while I towel dried my hair.
“Hello,” I rasped to the mirror, my face pinched, “I’m Hayes Wheeler, and I’m very special,” I cooed, using a horrible British accent. “What?” I exclaimed, my hand to my cheek, “you have no wi-fi? How ever do you survive in this vast wasteland?”
I rolled my eyes, wrapped the towel around me, and stepped out of the bathroom. On the way to the bedroom I heard something drop.
“What are you into now, Beast?” I hollered, spinning around and coming face-to-face with Mr. Very Special himself.
My eyes widened and I gasped. “Wha — what are you doing in here?” I stutter asked.
His icy blue eyes bore into me like daggers. Oof, this guy. I couldn’t help but think he was equal parts sexy businessman and equal parts beastly bad boy. If I wasn’t already terrified he’d snap my lady parts in two, I might consider having a fling with him.
“Filing a complaint,” he answered, his voice steely cold.
“Take a number,” I sassed, “they’re at the counter.”
“Your beast of a dog ate my tire!” he exclaimed, his arms going up into the air. “Do you know how expensive those tires are?”
The Secrets Between Us (Billionaire CEO Romance) Page 2
