by Julia London
The lodge was a great old place. It was an adobe structure with rustic beams and decor that had made some taxidermist rich. The pine plank wood floors were covered with thick rugs, and three elaborate stonework fireplaces kept the lobby warm. Everywhere a person looked were works of art, including pottery and painting. Each guest room had a spectacular view of the San Juan Mountains, private fireplace, Jacuzzi, and authentic bearskin rug.
TA had booked the entire lodge for the weekend, and every room would be occupied. In fact, once the guests started to arrive, there would be no room for Eli and Marnie, the chef, or the happy couple. The plan was for them to stay at the wedding site, about a thousand vertical feet up from the lodge, a quick four-wheeler drive up an old mining trail. On the day of the wedding, the guests would be ferried up on the back of four-wheelers by local boys who would be paid a small fortune to keep quiet about who their passengers were.
Once there, the guests would walk across an old wood-and-rope bridge that spanned a very deep but narrow ravine that looked like a gash in the mountain, formed by centuries of snow runoff. After crossing the swinging bridge, they would hike up to a small meadow on the banks of a smaller alpine lake, where an old cabin, left over from the heyday of silver mining, had been converted into a very exclusive and private retreat for very rich people.
That is where they would watch the two biggest American stars exchange their vows beneath a plastic model of the Arc de Triomphe. And then the party would be ferried back down to the lodge, where a huge, elaborate reception would take place.
Eli still hadn’t figured out how or when the feathers came into it.
He and Jack were trying to decide where to put the damn feathers when two effeminate men walked into the two-story lobby and openly grimaced at the sight of an elk’s head hanging above the reception desk.
“Little early for guests,” Eli muttered, nudging Jack, who looked up as the two men approached them. Eli was the first to extend his hand. “Eli McCain,” he said. “This is my partner Jack Price.”
“Oh!” the shorter of the two exclaimed, lighting up. “Are you a professional couple, too?”
Jack and Eli exchanged a quick look of shared horror.
“Professional guests, he means,” the taller man said on seeing their expressions, and calmly removed his mohair coat. “Dancers, maybe?”
“Whoa,” Jack said instantly, throwing up a hand. “We are not dancers.”
“And guests aren’t to arrive until Friday,” Eli added quickly.
“Oh, we’re not those guests,” the first man said, openly checking Eli out. “We’re professional guests. We were asked to arrive early to discuss the arrangements with Marnie and then, naturally, be on hand when guests start showing up.”
The notion of professional guests left Eli speechless. A quick look at Jack, whose mouth was gaping open, told Eli that he had no clue what a professional guest was, either. “Ah…Marnie hasn’t arrived yet,” Eli said, unable to think of anything else.
“No problem. We’ll just wait in the bar,” the first man said. “There is a bar, isn’t there?”
Eli pointed to a stuffed bear on their left. “Just past Old Smokey.”
“Thank God,” the taller one said, and away they went, smoothing their perfectly coiffed hair and recoiling from the various heads of game that hung from the walls.
“What the hell is a professional guest?” Jack demanded.
“Hell if I know,” Eli said and wondered when Marnie was going to get here and explain it to them.
Marnie was running late. She was enjoying the beautiful scenery as she leisurely drove the two-lane winding road, which, several signs noted, was closed during winter months due to snowfall. Marnie had been to Europe, and she had been to New York and Texas, but she had never seen the United States between the two coasts and it was breathtakingly beautiful. In the distance, the trees on the mountains looked like the stubble of a man’s beard, but up close, they were tall and majestic, towering up so far that they squeezed the sun from the sky. Some were so steep that it looked as if God had knifed off a piece, shearing them off so that He could put them side by side.
And now, here she was, seemingly the only one in the world—well, save the RV she had passed a couple of miles back—winding up and up to what seemed like the sky. There was absolutely no one in these mountains. No buildings, no signs. Nothing but a lot of signs warning drivers of cows crossing the road. And cows. Lots of cows. Who knew cows could live this high? Wasn’t someone worried the cows would be eaten by bears?
Up and up Marnie wound, the Jeep slowing on steep grades. Just when she began to fear she was lost, she found the turnoff to the lodge. She turned left and drove past a field of cows munching on yellow and pink flowers.
She was smiling when she drove across the cattle guard that marked the entrance to the Piedra Lodge. After a short and bumpy ride up a gravelly road, the lodge suddenly appeared before her, built up the side of the mountain with varying levels, so every window had a view of the spectacular surroundings.
The only thing that marred the vista was the dozens of four-wheelers and Jeeps and big crates scattered about the grounds. The site of them jarred Marnie from her trip through the wilderness. It seemed criminal, somehow, to have brought civilization and dropped it here.
She parked her Jeep next to several others and grabbed her backpack and organizer. She’d get her other bag later. At the moment, she was too busy filling her lungs with mountain air. Was anything more invigorating?
Eli saw her before she saw him—her good looks were hard to miss among all the workers who had gathered to erect the massive reception tent behind the lodge.
She looked fantastic—she was wearing skintight hiking pants, a T-shirt that just reached her belly button, and a hooded sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back into a thick coppery ponytail, and on her feet were all-trail shoes. The girl looked like she was going to hike to the top of San Miguel Peak and kick its ass before dinner.
Her face lit up with a smile when she saw him, he was happy to note, and she waved, as if he hadn’t seen her. He actually waved back. Marnie walked across a plank of flooring the workmen had put down. “Hey,” she said, grinning broadly, all but skidding to a stop in front of him.
“Hey,” he said, grinning a little himself.
Her brows dipped a little over her beaming smile. “Wow…you don’t look so good.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m sorry.” She laughed. “You just look really tired. Rough trip?”
He was tired. And he hadn’t had a chance to shave or clean up since he’d arrived. “Nah, it was all right. What about you, coppertop?” he asked with a grin. “You look like you’re ready to do a cross-country trek.”
“Too much, you think?” she asked, looking down at her outfit.
“No,” he said, his gaze sweeping her curves. Man, he liked her curves. “Just perfect,” he said honestly, and received a warm and grateful smile for it. “So you want to see where it’s all going to go down?”
Her eyes instantly lit up. “Yes!”
“Okay. Just a couple questions first,” he said, and put his hand to her elbow, turned her around, and pointed to the snowblowers.
“Oh great!” she exclaimed. “They arrived a day early.”
“They came with two hundred pounds of white feathers.”
“Two hundred pounds.” Her brow wrinkled. “That sounds like a lot of feathers.”
“It is a lot of feathers. What I’m wondering is why we have even one feather?”
“Oh,” she said, digging in her backpack and withdrawing a small notebook, “they’re for ambiance.”
She said it as if that would be obvious to even the biggest moron. He guessed he was the colossal moron, because he couldn’t see how feathers and ambiance went together.
Apparently, she saw his confusion. “You know…ambiance at the reception,” she said, as if that helped anything, and flipped open the notebook. “We’ll be gently blow
ing white feathers over everyone to simulate falling snow.”
Okay, he would never have guessed that. “What?”
Marnie didn’t answer—she was too busy staring at her little notebook. “Not two hundred pounds! A hundred pounds! How could they make that mistake? Tell me something,” she demanded of Eli. “Do I have a funny accent? Do I speak with a lisp? Do I not e-nun-ci-ate clearly enough?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
She groaned heavenward for a moment. “Oh well,” she said, abruptly cheerful. “Feathers are not that expensive. That’s only a couple hundred dollars extra.”
“For feathers.”
“Yes, for feathers. They’re not expensive, but they’re not free, either,” she said with a wink, and stuffed the notebook into her backpack.
“So…let me see if I’ve got this,” Eli tried, looking thoughtful. “We have about four hundred bucks worth of feathers—”
“That’s right.”
“And we rented two industrial blowers to blow them?”
“Yep,” she said, rising up on her toes and down again in a very proud fashion.
“And the snowblowers set us back…how much?”
“Two fifty. A day. Each.”
“Ah,” Eli said, nodding. “So we’re spending two grand to blow four hundred dollars worth of feathers.”
“Oh stop,” she said, and playfully poked him in the chest. “You’re just giving me a hard time. So come on, let’s go see where this thing is going down,” she said with a snap of her fingers and a little sway of her hips.
Eli couldn’t help himself—he chuckled and shook his head. “Come on.”
“Great. I’m dying to see it,” she said, and marched her fine butt out to the drive, passing him on her way to the row of Jeeps.
Eli stopped and, hands on hips, watched her march all the way to the Jeep she’d apparently parked. “Marnie?”
She whirled around. “Yes?”
“Over here,” he said, pointing to the four-wheelers.
Her gaze shifted to the four-wheelers. “How cool!”
A person had to like that about Marnie—she was easy to amuse.
He had her get on the four-wheeler first, then straddled it in front of her, easing back between her legs. He couldn’t help but be reminded of another, more intimate moment he had been between her legs, and when Marnie slipped her hands around his waist to hold on, he had to grit his teeth to keep from wallowing in that memory like a pig in slop. He’d just spent more than a week getting her out from under his skin, and he wasn’t going to let her creep back in there just because she was damn good-looking and pleasingly soft.
They drove up through thick stands of pines and spruce and aspen trees and occasional cottonwoods. Purple thistle grew alongside the old road between fuzzy pink flowers and thousands of little white and yellow flowers. When they reached the old rope bridge, Eli shut the four-wheeler off, and Marnie climbed off the back.
“Listen,” she whispered.
Eli listened, thinking she might have heard an elk crashing through the forest. “What do you hear?”
“Nothing,” she said, turning around to him, beaming. “Nothing but the wind in the trees and rushing water. It’s fantastic, isn’t it? It’s like we’re the only two people on earth.”
Her smile seeped into his veins, and he felt slightly awkward because of it. He motioned for her to follow him. They walked up a short distance to the rope bridge. Eli went first, calling over his shoulder for Marnie to grab both sides of the rope rail before she stepped onto the planks, moving easily across. He then turned around with the intention of helping Marnie off.
Only Marnie had not started. Marnie was gripping the rope rails and staring wide-eyed down to the bottom of the ravine.
“Don’t look down,” he suggested.
“I can’t help it. This doesn’t look very sturdy,” she said from the other side.
“It’s fine. Just look at me and come across.”
She didn’t exactly look at him, she glared at him, and gripping the rope railings, she slid one foot out onto the planks, and then another. And then she was running across in little tiny strides. With a shriek, she flung herself at Eli when she reached the last plank; he caught her before they went tumbling to the ground.
Marnie clutched the fabric of his shirt tightly and stared up at him. Her heart was pounding so hard he could see the leap of her pulse in her throat.
“See?” he asked. “It wasn’t so bad.”
“Speak for yourself, Paul Bunyan,” she said, and let go of him. She straightened her tee, smoothed the loose hair from her eyes, and put on a bright smile. “So where is the arch going?”
With the feel of her in his arms still rattling around inside him, Eli pointed, and Marnie walked on, up a steep trail and around a boulder that protruded from the steep face of the mountain onto the trail, over trees that had fallen across the seldom used path, and then up a rocky slide until the trail opened into an alpine meadow.
“Omigod,” Marnie said between gulps of air.
It really was spectacular. The cabin was set beneath a stand of spruce trees, the outhouse ten feet away and connected by a covered walkway. The tiny lake glistened in the afternoon sun, and while the meadow was hardly large enough for more than a few tents and a fake arch, it was covered with flowers and tall yellow grass that looked like wheat, over which enormous butterflies flitted in and out.
“It’s fantastic!” Marnie exclaimed, walking forward. Eli joined her, and together they walked to the lake and looked at the fish swimming there. Eli pointed out some of the nearby peaks and the glimpse of a village at the base of the mountain range. They walked up to the log cabin, which boasted a spectacular view of the mountains. The porch was graced with two big padded wicker chairs, a marble table, and a small brazier for keeping feet warm.
Eli opened the door, put his hand on the small of Marnie’s back, and guided her across the threshold of the honeymoon cottage.
“Oh man, oh man, this is so charming and so romantic.” She sighed, looking around at the large, single room. “No wonder they wanted to be here.”
Thick beams of wood slanted across the ceiling, and from it hung an old cast-iron circle candelabra. Beneath it were two leather armchairs, directly before a surprisingly large hearth and near a long leather couch. Wood was stacked to the ceiling on either side of the fireplace. A huge and thick shaggy rug covered most of the floor.
On one side of the cabin was a raised platform, on which was a round, king-size bed. It was centered directly beneath a large ceiling mirror, and was covered with quilts stuffed with down. A trunk along the wall of the platform held wool blankets. A small closet had more blankets and linens, two plush bathrobes, and two sets of sheepskin slippers. Another door led to a single bath and sink—and a small heater, to pump hot water into the tub.
In the kitchen was a wood-burning stove and utility sink that had an old-fashioned handle pump. In addition, there was a small but elegant dining area. A wooden chest was actually a very large cooler, where some foodstuffs were stored. The pantry was stocked with china and crystal, and on the pantry door was a wine rack.
“What about food?” Marnie asked, giving the bed a little bounce.
“Breakfast foods are stored here,” Eli said, pointing to the chest. “Lunch and dinner are brought up from the lodge. When they are ready, the couple call for it over the walkie-talkie.”
“It’s very secluded, isn’t it?” Marnie asked.
“Very.”
She got up from the bed and walked to the hearth, and looked up at an original painting of a snowbound adobe house above the hearth.
“If I ever get married, I’d want it to be in a place like this.” She laughed. “Without the arch, I mean…but someplace really special.” She glanced at Eli over her shoulder and smiled. “Wouldn’t you?”
Funny, but the mere mention of marriage made him feel as if he were standing on a bed of hot coals. “I, ah…don’t plan
on marrying,” he said, and awkwardly put a hand to his nape and looked at the floor. How had she done it? How had she managed to slide back under his skin so quickly?
“Oh no?” she asked cheerfully. “Well, if you ever change your mind, you should consider this place.”
He said nothing, just kept rubbing the nape of his neck, feeling terribly conspicuous. Exposed. Transparent.
“Okay,” Marnie said, and stretched her arms high above her head. “I better get back.” She walked to where Eli was standing, and tipped her face up beneath his to get his attention. “By the way, you can relax. That wasn’t a proposal.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“No,” she said laughingly. “But you blanched and almost fainted. So shall we go? I am expecting some professional guests to arrive today.”
“Right, yes…and about those guys,” he said, opening the door. “What exactly is a professional guest?”
Her eyes widened with surprise, and then her face broke into a wreath of smiles. “Oh, Eli, you make me laugh,” she said, and walked out the door, leaving Eli to think he and Jack were the only men on the planet who didn’t know what professional guests were.
He locked up and followed Marnie out onto the porch, where she was sitting with one hip on the railing and a delectably rosy flush from the cool dry air. “At the risk of sounding really out of touch with the world, what is a professional guest?” he asked again.
“You really don’t know?”
“I really don’t.”
“They are usually men who make sure all the real guests are sufficiently entertained. They dance, they chat, they fetch champagne and cake. They pretend to be guests, but they make sure the party keeps going and that no one has a bad time.”
It took a moment for Eli to grasp the concept. After a moment, he said flatly, “You’re kidding.”
“No,” she said, smiling. “Why would I kid?”
“Come on, Marnie, you’re pulling my leg. There’s no such thing as a professional guest.”
“There is too! Think about it—you wouldn’t want to shell out this kind of dough for a wedding and then Aunt Cloris has a really bad time, right?”
