by Ann Evans
“I don’t care about easing your conscience. What is it with you? Why won’t you just go away?”
There was something in his long-suffering and stricken voice that made her want to listen to him, but she’d made the decision to stay, and she wasn’t about to let him chase her off. “Your family likes the idea of me standing in for Addy, and what’s more, they seem to like me.”
She lifted one arm and made a muscle, then smothered another frown. She remembered it as being a lot more impressive. “See this? I got it working out for the Miami Beach Triathlon last spring. I didn’t win, but I was second in the swimming leg of the competition. For a little while, anyway.”
He was ignoring her, waving away those comments with a flailing hand as though chasing off a pesky mosquito. He shuffled over to a restaurant-size beverage cooler. “We don’t need anyone to swim anywhere,” he muttered. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no ocean. We’re surrounded by mountains.”
“My point is,” Kari said, coming around the table toward him, “I’m strong. I can do a lot around here. Everyone’s on board with it. Even your aunts seemed to like the idea, although they speak with such heavy Italian accents I only understood half of what they said. It’s the perfect solution.”
Nick stopped in front of the cooler, spread his arms across the front to brace himself, then expelled a huge sigh. The movement caused the belt of his robe to slip its knot. When he turned toward her at last, Kari was treated to a lovely sight—a muscled male chest sprinkled with dark hair. And not a single imperfection that she could see.
Ohhhh…. so that’s what the nurse meant by sexy. Yes, indeed.
He evidently saw her quick glance. He scowled and tugged his robe back together. He took a couple of steps toward her. She might have found it intimidating if he hadn’t been barefoot and his hair hadn’t been standing up in all directions like a little boy’s.
“It’s not the perfect solution,” he refuted as he jerked a better knot in his belt. “The perfect solution would be for you to go away and leave us alone. We don’t need you. I’ve already made arrangements for temporary help from one of the other resorts.”
“Your father says he’s going to tell you to cancel that. He thinks if I’m standing in for Addy, that should be enough.”
“Addy knows what’s required around here. You don’t.”
“I learn quickly.” She tried for a more reasonable tone. “Look, I suspect your father is also trying to make Addy feel less guilty about what happened. She’s very upset about not being able to pull her weight. And as I said, working here for a week will help ease my conscience a little, too.”
“And as I said, I’m not worried about your conscience,” he said harshly. “The situation is handled, and I’ll make that clear to my father in the morning. After that, you can consider your employment terminated.”
In spite of all her best efforts, he was getting to her. She bit her lip, trying to keep anything nasty from coming out of her mouth. “Your father hired me. I think he’ll have to be the one to fire me.” It was the best she could manage.
“Fine.” Nick squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then raked a distracted hand through his hair. “Fine. I can’t deal with any more tonight,” he mumbled almost to himself. “Tomorrow, then.”
She watched as he slid open the cooler door and pulled out a beer, mumbling to himself the whole time. The interior light washed his features with an eerie, harsh glow. Without another word to her, he turned to head out of the kitchen, the bottle swaying back and forth between two hooked fingers.
“Good night,” she called to his retreating back. “Sweet dreams.”
It came as no surprise that the sound of the swinging kitchen door was the only response she got.
HER STOMACH FULL, Kari went back to her room. Damn that Nick D’Angelo! Worry over what would transpire in the morning was sure to keep her sleepless the rest of the night.
Instead she fell asleep almost instantly and didn’t rouse again until someone had the gall to knock on her door a short time later.
“Come back later,” she croaked, refusing to open her eyes and chase sleep away completely.
“Signorina Churchill,” a muffled voice called from the other side of the door. “It’s Renata and Sofia. Wake up, please.”
Who?
Oh.
Addy had told her last night about her two Italian aunts—the “Zias,” she’d called them—widows from Verona or Venice or someplace in Italy that started with a V. The women had come to help Addy’s mother a few years ago and never gone back.
Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, Kari stumbled to the door and opened it a crack. She squinted out into the corridor. Both women smiled at her. Kari tried to sort out in her mind which one was which. Sofia had seemed the shyer of the two, a sweet dumpling of a woman. Renata was thinner, with a long nose and a commanding air about her.
“Can I help you, ladies?” Kari said, yawning.
“Good morning,” Aunt Sofia said. “It’s time for breakfast.”
Kari frowned as she glanced toward the window in her room. There was not one sliver of light anywhere near the curtains. She looked back at the women, who were both fully dressed and seemed ready for anything. Maybe Italians liked to meet the day before it actually became a day.
“Very sweet of you,” Kari managed to get out. “But I’m really not a morning person. Don’t wait breakfast for me. I’ll get something later.”
The women exchanged a look. Sofia seemed momentarily confused. Renata nudged closer to the door opening. She tucked her chin so she could catch Kari’s eye.
“Signorina Churchill,” she said in a firm but still friendly voice. “We’re not inviting you to breakfast. It’s time to serve breakfast. To our guests.”
“Oh.” It was starting to make sense now, but Kari couldn’t resist glancing at the glow-in-the-dark alarm clock. No need for that with the aunts around, she supposed. “Who eats breakfast at five o’clock in the morning besides birds and bad women?” she couldn’t resist asking.
Renata didn’t see any humor in that question. “Our dining room is open to guests from six-thirty until ten. Most of them like to get an early start, so that means we have to get an early start, as well. To—”
“Be ready for them,” Kari finished for her, holding up a forestalling hand. “I get it.”
“Adriana is a wonderful server,” Sofia said with a touch of worry in her voice. “Last night you did say you could take her place.”
Kari scraped hair out of her eyes. “No problem. I used to wait tables at a burger barn while I was in college. I can sling hash with the best of them.”
“Sling hash?” Sofia asked with a blank look.
“Not fancy enough for Lightning River’s menu, huh?”
“We don’t have a menu,” Renata replied, and Kari thought the woman actually ratcheted up her spine a notch to stand taller. “We offer a few different specialties every day. You’ll have to learn how to recite them properly. And to explain what’s in them.”
Wonderful, Kari thought. Just great. Why hadn’t she thought to pack her photographic memory and Italian phrase book when she’d left Florida? “I’m sure I can manage,” she said, mainly because Sofia looked really fretful now and Renata had begun to frown.
“Do you know how to do a Windsor napkin fold?” Renata asked, looking very doubtful that the answer would be yes.
“Does it involve more than wrapping a paper towel around a bunch of plastic silverware?”
“Oh, dear,” Sofia said.
The two women stood there in confusion for a moment.
Then, as if to defuse any trouble ahead from her sister, Sofia suddenly thrust a couple of hangers in Kari’s direction. They held a royal-blue polo shirt with the Lightning River Lodge logo above the pocket and a sharply creased pair of khakis. Kari hooked them with one finger while still managing a death grip on the blanket. “You and Adriana are similar in size. If these fit, I’ll see
that you get more.” She smiled suddenly, her features filled with pride. “Renata’s in charge of the dining room, but my specialties are housekeeping and laundry. After breakfast is out of the way, I’ll be showing you how to clean rooms.”
“Can’t wait,” Kari said in a weak voice.
“We aren’t open for lunch since most of the guests are out during the day,” Renata explained. “But you’ll have to help out at dinner, of course.”
“Of course.” Different, fancier napkin folds, Kari bet.
“Can you join us in the kitchen in fifteen minutes?” Renata asked. It wasn’t really an invitation.
“I’ll make it in ten,” Kari replied, determined to fly in the face of every instinct that told her she couldn’t possibly.
When the aunts had gone away, she sank down on the bed, then fell against the mattress. The movement brought a twinge of pain to her back, reminding her that the next few days were likely to be difficult.
And for more reasons than her back, it seemed. Memorizing menus. Learning how to do hospital corners on the beds. Scrubbing toilets, no doubt.
Yeah, she should be dead by Monday.
CHAPTER SIX
KARI MADE IT to the kitchen right on time.
Pretty good, considering she’d really only spent about six minutes getting ready. The other four minutes were spent wondering what she had gotten herself into. Was she really going to allow guilt to turn her into a pre-glass-slipper Cinderella?
Uncertainty swamped her until she caught her first sight of Addy. The girl looked even more pale and tired this morning, seated at the big wooden table, her arms angled out in front of her as she slipped slices of apple into her mouth. It was probably the heaviest thing she could hold right now. And yet, in spite of everything, she smiled up at Kari in genuine warmth.
That smile swept away the last of Kari’s doubts.
After last night’s conversation with Sam D’Angelo, Kari had known she couldn’t just walk out of the hospital without a backward glance. She’d once done an article on small business success stories, and she knew that family owned and operated companies like this one usually didn’t have a lot of maneuvering room during crunch times. Everyone had to pull their weight. Addy, who was a valuable member of the team according to her father, would be a big loss. Filling in for her seemed the least Kari could do, at least until she had to be on the plane to New Zealand.
Besides, if she was perfectly honest with herself, there were selfish reasons to stay, as well. Free room and board at Lightning River Lodge, with occasional time off, would keep her from dipping into her limited finances while she delved deeper into the circumstances of her father’s trip into Elk Creek Canyon. Since she’d missed the opportunity to camp out there on the anniversary date, she could revisit the National Park office and press harder for information about her father’s guide.
They certainly hadn’t been very helpful the first time, but she’d been in a hurry to make the helicopter flight. Maybe now there would be time to investigate a little more. Find out just why her father had chosen that area, if he had said anything at all that might clear up some of the mystery surrounding his death.
So the next few days would be full and demanding. She couldn’t be sure whether Sam D’Angelo had maneuvered her into volunteering or if guilt had just made her jump in with the offer to help out, but it was done now.
The only fly in the ointment was that middle-of-the-night conversation she’d had with the big pooh-bah of this whole operation, Nick D’Angelo. He wouldn’t care what everyone else around here thought. He wanted her gone.
She felt the need to mention that to Sam D’Angelo, who also sat in the kitchen, his wheelchair positioned just out of the way of traffic, which consisted of his wife Rose, directing everyone like the leader of a small orchestra, and the hurried movements of Renata and Sofia.
After greeting everyone, Kari found an excuse to speak to Sam D’Angelo in as much privacy as anyone in the family was likely to get—a secluded corner by the vegetable bins.
“Don’t worry,” the older man said when she finished filling him in. He waved his right hand in the air as though shooing flies, a habit Kari had already noticed in Nick. “I’ll handle him.”
“He seemed pretty determined not to have me around.”
The head of the D’Angelo family winked at her. “There are many roads that lead to Rome.”
Kari didn’t have a clue what that meant, but she nodded anyway. If the man wanted to champion her cause, she could see no reason to reject the offer. Then there was no more time for speculation because Renata whisked her away to learn the intricacies of the Windsor napkin fold that was used for breakfast.
Things moved more quickly and smoothly than she’d hoped. The D’Angelos and half a dozen employees came and went throughout the early morning, but the handsome, bad-tempered Nick wasn’t among them. Kari had finally stopped looking for him every time the double doors on either side of the room swung wide and concentrated on the duties she’d been assigned.
As she had suspected all along, the D’Angelos were a close-knit family who relied heavily on each other. Everyone seemed to have a job to do, including Sam. Rose ruled the kitchen with an iron fist and a twinkle in her eyes. The Zias were like a well-oiled machine, twin dynamos of industry.
They obviously adored Addy, constantly fussing over her and finding ways to make her feel useful. Kari noticed that all the D’Angelos laughed easily, squabbled noisily, and probably would have bludgeoned anyone who dared to upset this balance.
The fact that they welcomed Kari as they would one of their own, both last night and this morning, surprised her a little. Yet it also made her feel warm inside. As an only child, with a father who gallivanted the globe, Kari marveled at this kind of kinship and found herself feeling more than a little envious.
She discovered that the breakfast menu wasn’t nearly as intimidating as she had feared. The fare was mostly American, thank goodness, with only one elaborate frittata thrown in for anyone who opted for a real Italian breakfast.
Thankfully not all of the lodge’s sixteen rooms were booked, so the small dining room stayed busy but manageable.
Kari stood straight and recited the menu in precise, clear words, with pauses for effect. It reminded her of her fifth grade spelling bee, which she had aced with the word “cornucopia.”
She waited on three middle-aged rock climbers with matching sunburns who didn’t seem a bit impressed and ordered juice, coffee and English muffins. To go.
Her second table was more of an annoyance than a challenge. The young couple on their honeymoon had probably only come to the dining room because their bodies had finally insisted on nourishment. Particularly irritating was the attitude of the new wife. She didn’t listen to a word, just giggled and snuggled closer to her husband until Kari wanted to tell them both to take it outside.
As Kari stood patiently waiting for their order, the blonde flashed her baby blues at her groom and said in a girlishly high voice, “Oh, I can’t decide. You order for me.”
For crying out loud, it’s only bacon and eggs. Since when did getting married mean you couldn’t navigate a simple breakfast without consulting your husband?
Kari was extremely relieved to discover that she hadn’t actually said those words out loud. The woman only smiled and turned toward her new hubby, waiting. Renata, stationed within earshot, wouldn’t have to boil Kari in olive oil after all.
When the husband finished ordering, Kari pushed through the double doors and pulled the pad and pen out of her back pocket. The man had ordered two of almost everything on the menu, and she didn’t want to forget any of it.
“Bene, Kari,” Renata said with a pleased nod. “Very good.”
“Thanks,” Kari replied, scribbling down the order. She’d bet the new bride wasn’t going to be able to eat a tenth of what her husband had requested. Probably hadn’t even wanted it. She shook her head. Why hadn’t the silly woman just spoken up?
“What’s the matter?” Addy asked, catching Kari’s grimace.
Knowing Sam had gone to check on the front desk, Kari didn’t hesitate to share what she was thinking, having grown quickly comfortable around the women.
“Why does marriage turn women into such idiots?” she complained. “We have newlyweds out there, and the wife wouldn’t even order a glass of water without running it by her husband. Once he realized she was going to defer to everything he said, he turned into some sort of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.” Kari puffed out her chest and tucked her chin. In a low voice, hands on hips, she mimicked, “‘Is the frittata fried in butter or baked? Wouldn’t want my new lady to think it’s all right to start packing on the pounds just because she’s finally caught me. Ha, ha, ha.’”
She shook her head more vigorously as she handed Rose the newlyweds’ breakfast order. “Men can be such jerks. Why do we put up with them?”
The older women smiled, and Sofia even giggled.
Addy cocked her head, an odd grin on her lips. “I don’t know why women put up with them,” she said. Then she looked just past Kari. “What do you think, Nick?”
Kari whirled, shocked to find that her audience consisted of more than just D’Angelo women. Tucked in one corner of the kitchen was the bread station, and standing in front of the toaster, calmly buttering a slice of toast, stood Nick D’Angelo.
He didn’t look as if a smile had ever touched his lips in this lifetime. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind that he’d heard every word. Just replaying it in her mind made her nerve ends wince and the pit of her stomach fall away.
He didn’t respond immediately. For a long, long moment the only sound in the room was the scrape of his knife against the toasted bread. The tense silence made Kari wish she could grab the knife out of his hand and slit her wrists with it.
At last he said in a voice that was as buttery as his bread, “I think a man would have to be very foolish to stand in a room full of women and try to discuss that issue logically.”
“Are you saying you can’t have a logical discussion with women?” Kari asked. His tone made her feel stubborn, all of a sudden.
