by Sabrina York
COOPED UP FOR CHRISTMAS
By Sabrina York
Copyright © 2019 by Sabrina York
IBSN: 978-1-941497-47-0
Originally published in the Bestselling Anthology,
Christmas at Mistletoe Lodge
Edited by
Gaele Hi and Fedora Chen
Cover by Wicked Smart Designs
Dedication:
For Kim, for asking
Special Thanks to
Monica Britt, Tracey Diczban, Deb Diem, Pansy Petal Tina Marie Reiter, and Veronica Giles Westfall for your honest, essential and much appreciated critiques.
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What people are saying about Sabrina York’s Books
“Certain to entertain and satisfy readers.” –Publisher’s Weekly on Susana and the Scot
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“Bold and steamy...packed with passion and intrigue.”
―Publisher’s Weekly on Hannah and the Highlander
“Rebound...totally rocked my face off.” Insightful Minds Reviews
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NIGHT OWL REVIEWS TOP PICKS
Historical Romance:
Hannah and the Highlander, Susana and the Scot, Lana and the Laird, Dark Duke, Dark Fancy, Folly and Tarnished Honor
Contemporary Romance:
Snow Angels, Stud for Hire, Heart of Ash, Parker’s Passion, Devlin’s Dare and Dragonfly Kisses
Paranormal Romance:
Trickery
RECENT ACCOLADES
2018 Holt Medallion Winner, 2017 RITA® Nominee for Susana and the Scot, and 2017 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award.
Cooped Up for Christmas
By Sabrina York
If you’re a Below Deck fan, come visit the People Behind the Shrubbery…
Though she has a romantic holiday vacation planned with her boyfriend, Victoria Walker, VP of Hospitality for Eden Properties, Inc., is called to fill in for a flaky employee at the last moment. Forced to spend Christmas as Visit Manager at Eden’s luxury Mistletoe Lodge at Shannon Lake, Vic finds herself spinning to keep up as she revisits her first job—serving impossible clients, herding a veritable clowder of staff-kittens, and dealing with an overemotional French chef. To make matters worse, her client has requested high-octane snow sports, so the staff also includes former Navy SEAL, Cameron Cooper, who now works as an excitement adventure tour guide to the obscenely rich.
Oh, and also? Cameron is Vic’s ex. You know. The one you hope you never run into again, because he’s the only one with the power to shatter your heart…
Table of contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Also by Sabrina York
About the Author
Chapter One
One phone call. That’s all it took.
One lousy phone call from Grant and everything went to shit.
No romantic European getaway with Dirk in the Alps, sitting before a roaring fire with a cup of cocoa—and a whipped cream pouf—cradled in his muscled-arms, après ski.
No nocturnal visits to Munich’s Christkindlmarkt to snag a cone of sugar-roasted almonds.
No well-earned—through blood, sweat, tears, and bile—vacation.
Damn Darcy and her inane inclination to insinuate herself into romantic drama. She’d fallen in love, she said. She was lost, she said. She couldn’t live without him, she said. What kind of tripe was that? Men were a dime a dozen. Fish in a barrel.
Batteries in a vibrator.
One conks out? Pop in another. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.
Nothing to quit a job over. Q.U.I.T. Quit?
And this was not just a regular job. It was a career.
A springboard, perhaps.
In our business, we serve some of the most powerful people on the planet—politicians, cultural icons, movie stars, and business leaders. Sometimes in the most intimate ways. We’ve all signed NDAs. No one in Eden’s ranks has ever broken that sacred trust.
Eden, Inc. was a venerated name in the luxury hospitality industry. Guests knew they could trust us with their secrets. As a result, employees could go from working at Eden properties to working directly for a billionaire. Or a top-crust company. Or a sheikh.
This wasn’t a job. It was an audition.
You didn’t give up something like this for a man.
And Darcy? What on earth had happened to that beautiful, brilliant, independent Goddess of Feminine Strength and Wisdom? What had cooked her brain into a pudding? Had it been lust?
Yes. Of course it had been lust. Nothing burned as hot.
Love is a slow simmer.
But the trouble with the slow simmer is that it’s easy to huff out the flame.
Speaking of huffed out flames, one of my headlights flickered just then, and died.
Great. This was a challenging enough drive through the mountain roads in the snow without chains. Now I was blind to half the road as well.
I should have waited for daylight. I knew it. But—in a high-pitched and panicked voice—Grant Willits, the property manager, had informed me the clients were coming in at 10 am sharp tomorrow morning. They’d been very clear about that, and adamant that all staff present themselves in the drive at 10:01 sharp for inspection and introduction. I had to get there way before that, suss out the staff, prep the house, and make sure everything was in line. God only knew how Darcy had left things, in her besotted state of mind. There was no time for the luxury of daylight.
I leaned closer to the windshield, as though that would help penetrate the darkness, blocked out the incessant cheer of the Chipmunks singing on the radio, and tried to focus through the sloshing windshield wipers to spot the sign. I’d been to Eden’s Mistletoe Lodge at Shannon Lake before. I’d interned here, back when I was a kid. But that had been for a summer season. The trees hadn’t been heavy with snow, drifts hadn’t mounded on the roadside. Nothing looked familiar. Not even the view of the lake through the trees. I checked my GPS. Yep. Right on target.
Coolio. I started humming along with Alvin as I wound my way along the snow-covered track, dappled in moonlight.
And ah. When I turned that last corner… Yes. There it was.
Eden’s Mistletoe Lodge.
The property I remembered the most. And best.
An incredible swell rose through me as I felt it again. The tingle I hadn’t felt in…years. That fresh, free flush of youth.
Remember when life was an adventure and we loved to explore? Remember when mistakes were just boo-boos someone could kiss away? Remember that sweet, innocent lightness of soul?
Okay. Maybe it would be fun to walk down memory lane again.
And at Christmas. How lovely.
Maybe this unexpected disaster was a gift in disguise. Maybe I might owe Darcy a debt of thanks for jetting off after her lover, even though she knew damn well an extremely important client—who had paid an extraordinary amount of money to command the Eden’s Mistletoe Lodge at Shannon Lake, and its accompanying and bookable amenities for the entire week of Christmas—was about to check in.
It was always a good idea to at least try to see the bright side. Right?
Yes, I would have to miss a scintillating and romantic winter vacation in Switzerland with Dirk, but, if I was being honest, Dirk had been kind of pingin’ on my nerves lately. Nothing bad, though. Just that, well… He wasn’t—
Okay. No.
Had to stop that thought dead in its tracks.
Nope. No comparing Dirk to Coop.
They were two different men from two different times in my life. I had been a different woman with both of them, for pity’s sake.
Which, of course, led to the uncomfortable question, who am I now? Now that Dirk was—let’s admit it—starting to pall? Gorgeous, smart, funny, great in bed, shies away from commitment. He should be a perfect match for me.
He was.
We just needed a little…break.
He’d gone off happily alone—just called “seeyabye” as he sprinted off to catch the plane, which said a lot.
But I hadn’t cared that he hadn’t cared.
That said even more.
Whatever. I had a week to think things over. A week to wallow in nostalgia. A week to revisit the girl I’d been here, and take a look at the woman she’d become. I anticipated the calm and quiet week such deep thoughts required. It would be nice to be away from the pressures of my usual rat race for a while and, even though it was hardly a chalet in the Alps, this wouldn’t be a bad place to be for the holidays.
I parked the car by the staff lodge, which was hidden from the main lodge by shrubbery. It had always kind of amused me to be one of the people behind the shrubbery. You know, where the servants live.
Some people don’t cater to the idea of serving others. Don’t want to live behind the shrubbery, invisible and mute until, God-forbid, someone has a sudden craving for a blackberry almond milk smoothie at 3:42 am.
I, however, disagree.
I believe there is great nobility in serving others.
And in this business, great rewards.
The way I saw it, I was sacrificing my youth for my very comfortable middle and elder years. And it wasn’t a total sacrifice, was it? I lived a fabulous life hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Taking their castoffs. Welcoming their tips. I respected them and they—for the most part—respected me.
I really had loved it down here in the trenches. But it’s always easier to see it that way, isn’t it? In hindsight? Not that I didn’t love my current job with its cushy executive office—and private bathroom, thank you very much—a voice at the corporate table, and use of the company jet. But you never forget the place where you fell in love for the first time.
And I’m not talking about falling in love with a potential career when you’re eighteen—even though that happened too. I’m talking about that first, deep romantic love. The one you almost always screw up somehow.
God, I’d loved him.
It flooded me then, that memory, that feeling. The ache that sliced deep. Being in love. I shuddered involuntarily. It was hard to believe this emotion was running through me. And even the memory of it was intense—as though coming to this place had somehow cracked the protective shell I’d created around my gooey emotions, and I was in dire peril of having them ooze out all over the rental car.
Fact is, doctors haven’t been able to detect a romantic one bone in my body since…
Well, yeah.
Since here.
Because, yes, romance and this kind of life simply don’t mix.
With the full benefit of painful experience, I do what I can to avoid such disasters now. Now, I have two rules. Number one? Always be professional and remote with the clients. These are powerful people, but they also have powerful problems. You don’t want to get mixed up in their dark web. Do your job, keep your nose clean, and say thank you when they tip.
Rule number two? Don’t fraternize with the clients or the staff. For those of you who are unaware, that means no sex.
Been there. Done that. Burned the t-shirt.
Too bad Darcy hadn’t learned that lesson.
Then again, it could be a good thing, this sentimental romp down memory lane. Aside from the heartbreak at the end, that had been the most magical summer of my life, one that lingered in my memory. If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell the fresh-cut grass, hear the hum of the bees seeking pollen, feel the warmth of Coop’s cheek beneath my palm.
God, we’d been young then. Too young to be making any real-life decisions. Stupid, impulsive decisions. Like, Hey! Let’s join the Navy!
Do you think he might have chosen differently? If he’d known how much I loved him? Or would he have gone anyway?
Oh, it hardly mattered. He’d disappeared into the wild blue yonder. I’d long ago lost touch with anyone who’d known him then. And he wasn’t on Facebook. There were too many people with his name on Google searches to make any progress. And I wasn’t about to pay for a service to find him, because I’m not a creeper like that. I simply considered Cameron Cooper a trickle of water under a very ancient bridge.
Speaking of ancient bridges… It was still there, that adorable, pointless little fairy-tale bridge spanning a non-existent moat leading to the staff quarters, a tiny but cramped cottage off the main house. How delightful that someone thought it clever to make the servants’ quarters a whimsy.
I thrust old, unspoken resentments against my most beloved clients from my heart, and soldiered forward, through the front door and into my home for the next week (or until the clients left). I would enjoy this Christmas, serving a discerning clientele with impeccable style and grace, as I always have. And I would remember, and honor, my past self with gentle, forgiving, and supportive energy.
It would be like a spiritual spa vacation. A cake walk into the pantry of my past. It would be—
“Oh. Thank God you’re here.” A young woman with frizzled blonde hair and too-wide blue eyes, dressed in an oversized chef’s apron, grabbed at my sleeve as I stepped into the foyer of the staff quarters. “You must come at once.”
Ah yes. My staff. First impressions are so important. I thrust out my hand. “Hello there. I am Victoria—”
She brushed away my gracious introduction with a yelp. An actual yelp. “Please. Just come. Come at once. The chef is on fire.”
Ah.
Wonderful.
How wonderful to visit my past.
How nice to know that some things never change.
In this case, the insanity.
* * *
Okay. Technically, the chef was not on fire. I don’t know why the girl said that. Only his hat was on fire and that was easily solved. I simply grabbed the singed accessory with a pair of tongs and dropped it into a pot of boiling water next to a pan of flaming cherries. I ignored his squawk—and his complaint that I’d ruined his boiling water—because, seriously? Priorities, man.
Also, don’t wear flammable paper hats when you have a job setting brandy on fire. But that’s just me.
The chef was in a tizzy, the girl told me in a whisper, because he’d been in love with Darcy, and she’d left with no word whatsoever.
“So he set his hat on fire?”
She blanched. “He’s been drinking. I don’t think he did it on purpose.”
I glanced at the crumpled form of a man, sobbing in the corner and repeating over and over again, “Darcy, mon amour. Mon coeur. Mon être. Pourquoi? Pourquoi?”
Sheesh. What was in the water here? I’d fallen for a guy like Cooper—totally wrong for me—Darcy had fallen for a gazillionaire who’d made no bones about his intention to stay single. And then there was this… Whatever this was.<
br />
Too bad I didn’t have time to ruminate about it. There was too much work to do. We had to turn this damn house in twelve hours. First things first.
Like a general, I turned to the girl and said, “What’s your name?”
“Like, Olivia?”
It was, like, a question? Awesome.
Just then, a rebel curl sprang from the knot on her head, as though my demeanor was stressing her out and her hair was trying to escape. I took a deep breath and forced a smile-like-thing on my face so she wouldn’t be intimidated. I knew I was intimidating. I’d taken all those management personality tests that horrified my co-workers when they found out what I really was. I was pretty driven when it came to tasks, and had the unfortunate tendency to steamroll over people in the process of getting ’er done. I was trying to be more—what was it?—empathetic. Yeah. That’s it.
Gosh, I hadn’t always been like that. I used to be relaxed. I used to enjoy the moment, the people…not the task. When had I changed?
“And who is he?” I asked in a very soothing tone as I thrust a thumb at the sniveling soufflé.
“Noel. Noel Matisse. He’s the chef.”
Noel? Seriously? There was nothing even remotely Christmassy about him.
“All right, Olivia.” It was hard to not call her Like, Olivia, but somehow I managed. “Please assemble all the staff in the living room. I’d like to meet everyone and hand out the list of everything we need to do before ten am sharp.”
Her eyes widened. “Ten am? In the morning?”
I gave her the look. “Why yes, Olivia. Ten am, in the morning.”
She twined her fingers like a fricking Coventry orphan or something. Then she peeped up at me from beneath her bangs. “Some of them have already gone to bed.” Almost a whisper.
Gone to bed? I whipped out my cell phone. It was just ten. We had exactly twelve hours before Defcon 5.
“Well, Olivia,” I said with an evil smile. “Wake them up.”
