Mistletoe and Mr. Right

by Sarah Morgenthaler

  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 d
ay 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?”

  “Why what?”

  “You are so annoying.” Another wood chip bounced off his shoulder blade. “Why do you want to know?”

  Graham didn’t have a great answer for that. Instead, he hummed. “I think it should be a fish.”

  “Keep practicing, kid.” Ash rose to her feet and met him. Just under six feet tall, she had no trouble patting Graham on the head. “I’ll see you later. Some of us actually have to get to work on time. I’m taking Jake with me. I want some company today.”

  If Jake tolerated a life of hanging out behind a grill, he’d made it clear he preferred a life spent flying around with Ash. Graham had long since accepted that sharing custody of his puppy with the Lockett twins was for the best, even though he’d have preferred to keep Jake with him at all times. Sometimes—rarely but sometimes—life wasn’t just about him.

  “Remember Jake’s headset. The rotors are too loud. They give him headaches. And I’m not replacing any more of your things if he buries them. You know that’s his stress relief, and I refuse to embarrass him for his needs.”

  Snorting, Ash waved a hand in acknowledgment before stealing his dog, putting Jake and his knit cap in the back of her shiny black Jeep. At least he was riding in style. Gravel crunched as they disappeared up the drive. Left alone in the silence of his manly domain of awesomeness, Graham considered his mighty log.

  A snake. It should definitely be a snake.

  * * *

  A shower helped Zoey shed the worst of her muddled thoughts, as did a second cup of coffee. Stuffing her feet into her tennis shoes, she powered through the desire to crawl back onto the couch and sleep off the rest of her hangover. Texting Lana her plans to go hiking, Zoey grabbed her brand-new, airport-acquired Alaska messenger bag and tucked her glittery frog coin purse inside.

  There was absolutely no way Zoey was spending her first full day in Alaska inside a hotel room.

  When Zoey first realized she had saved enough to make this trip a reality, she hadn’t intended to spend her housing money on a couch in the swankiest resort in the state. An off-season visit had been far more in Zoey’s budget, but Lana kept pushing for her to come these two weeks, when Lana had already planned on being in Alaska. The Fourth of July was the height of the summer tourism season, and any alternate options within comfortable driving distance to Moose Springs had been booked months prior.

  Since Moose Springs was the hub of all amazing adventure excursions a person could hope for when visiting Alaska, Zoey had been unable to resist her friend’s offer.

  Staying in Anchorage was cheaper, but the lengthy drive and subsequent cost to travel to Moose Springs didn’t make the cheaper rooms worth it. Here in Moose Springs, Zoey wasn’t near the mountains. She was standing on one. Zoey wasn’t going to see the wildlife. Wildlife crisscrossed this town like an opening credit for the Discovery Channel, moose wandering across the roads, along the streets, poking their noses out from the tree lines everywhere.

  A couch in a luxury suite might be where Zoey was staying, but she would have slept in a bear-proof dumpster to be here.

  Zoey already knew her carefully planned budget would only go so far, but as she stepped out of the elevator and saw the closed entrance to one of the resort’s internationally touted five-diamond restaurants, curiosity got the best of her. A glass case built into the river rock wall displayed the menu. Pushing her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose, she stared at a piece of paper containing only a handful of dishes she even knew.

  “Looks like I could afford the side salad.” Shaking her head in bemusement, she glanced lower down the page to the chef’s choice seven-course meal. The price listed pulled a loud and unplanned choking noise from her throat.

  “Ma’am? May I help you find something?”

  A maid with the wildest mass of curly honey-blond hair beamed at her from behind an enormous stack of towels in her arms, both woman and towels dangerously close to tumbling over.

  The badge on her chest read “Hi, I’m Quinn, your Hospitality Specialist.”

  “Oh…umm. I’m just…”

  “If you’re hungry, there’s a great breakfast served in the—ooooh!” With a squeal, Quinn ducked and swerved, rebalancing the towels as they leaned even farther.

  “Do you need help with those? I can carry some if you want.”

  Quinn stared at her, eyes widening. Zoey found herself staring back, unaccustomed to seeing so much of another human being’s eyeballs.

  “You?” She squeaked. “Help me?”

  “Maybe?”

  The leaning tower of towels was about to topple, so Zoey grabbed the ones at the top of the stack while Quinn the hospitality specialist still considered her options.

  “Thank you.” Decision made, Quinn breathe
d a sigh of relief. “We’re dangerously close to being out of towels. I would have gotten in so much trouble for dropping these. They’re the special towels.”

  “You have special towels?”

  “Special guests require special towels. Erm, not that all our guests aren’t special. But you know…”

  “What’s a hospitality specialist?” Zoey asked curiously.

  “It’s their fancy way of saying I’m the maid for the high-profile guests.” Quinn made a playful face. “It’s still cleaning up people’s crap no matter how you spell it.” Already widened eyes widened even further, a deer in the headlights look if Zoey had ever seen one. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, hahahaha.”

  Some laughs made everyone else want to join in too. This was not one of those laughs. This was a glance around the immediate vicinity, just a little too loud, awkward kind of laugh. Zoey was tempted to save Quinn from herself by clamping a hand over her mouth.

  “I heard nothing,” Zoey promised, mimicking zipping her lip. “Where are we taking these?”

  “Up to the top. Here, this way.”

  Following Quinn down a series of hallways to a staff elevator, Zoey balanced her own towels as Quinn used a staff keycard for access. She hit the button for the penthouse suite.

  “I didn’t bring you up here,” Quinn said, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “Hannah would kill me.”

  “Hannah?”

  “The hotel night manager. Technically, Mrs. Harris is the general manager, but everyone knows Hannah’s actually in charge. We’re all just waiting for Mrs. Harris to croak.” A naughty snicker escaped around the pillar of towels. “She might have already. Mrs. Harris spends all her time napping in her office with the door closed.”

  Zoey opened her mouth to say something, but Quinn soldiered on cheerfully.

  “The guest list is crazy. We’re usually full up during peak season, but there’s never been so many high-profile guests in the resort at the same time. And they all need something special.” Quinn glanced at her from behind cotton. “Not that we mind. Our jobs are to keep everyone happy.”