Finding Reese (Tremont Lodge Series Book 1) (11 page)

I don’t even realize that Lawson is in the room with me, too, until I feel him pulling me back toward him as my body falls backwards onto the bed, his hands encircling my waist from behind. With one quick move, he flips on top of me so that he straddles my body. “Reese, I want you so badly.” He kisses my neck, the chills shooting through my body more full of fear than any other emotion. I push with all my strength, but he doesn’t budge, his hands locking under my shoulder as he smothers my mouth with his, forcing his tongue inside. The rage that boils inside is stronger than any emotion I have ever felt—rage at Lawson, rage at my parents, rage for the future than never was. I bend my knee, and with all the force that I can muster, thrust it upward between Lawson’s legs. Instantly he releases my body and rolls over to his side, screaming in pain. I grab my purse and run out of the room before he can stop me.

Afraid he’ll stop the elevator if I’m inside, I decide to take the stairs. The walls are concrete as are the steps, and I can’t help but think that their contrast to the rustic, yet ornate décor of the lodge sums up my existence here. No matter how hard I try, I will always belong in this stale, cold world.

I am breathing hard by the time I get to the first floor. Taking a minute to catch my breath, I push open the door to the hallway. Lawson clutches my elbow and propels me down the hall toward the main lobby of the lodge. My body sends shock waves to every muscle that tenses on command.
Please, God. Please, God,
I pray in my head, afraid to speak.

It’s pure torture watching all of the sets of eyes lock onto us as we enter the lawn through the double doors of the lobby. “Let me go, Lawson,” I whisper through clenched teeth.

“I’ll let you go when our date’s over,” he hisses. “And it will end when I tell you it’s over.” If I run now I know I’ll be safe, but then what? He’ll send me home. I know he will. Then I’ll never know anything more about my family.

We walk across the cobblestone roads to the dormitory. The patio is teeming with people taking late night swims. Lawson squeezes my hand until it hurts. I bite my cheek to keep from crying and try to pull it away. Behind Lawson I see Bree talking with one of the girls who cleans on the floors below us. She waves when she sees me but stops midair and quickly withdraws her hand when she sees Lawson. I want to call out to her or will her to read my face, but she won’t look at me again. Instead, she turns to walk away in the direction of the ski lift. Lawson releases my hand and pushes me up against the nearest table, offering a full show for everyone on the patio. It’s rare that Lawson makes a social appearance here, so a quiet hush falls below the bass of the pop hits blaring from the radio. Why didn’t I follow Bree?

“Thanks, baby,” he says, grabbing my ass and lifting me up on the table. Before I even realize what’s happening, he kisses me on the lips for everyone to see. I am fueled by rage again, and nothing matters anymore. My hand smacks with pain as I release my fury across the side of his face. There is a hush across the patio followed by Lawson squeezing my wrist so hard it takes everything I have to not scream.

“You, bitch,” Lawson says. He leans in close so only I hear his words. “Don’t cross me again, Reese Prentice. No one makes a fool out of me.
No one.
Do you understand?” I shake my head
yes
just to get him away from me. His lips bruise mine as he latches on so tightly, trying to prove some point for all of his employees to witness. Then I run to my room, not stopping for fear he’ll be there again.

The last week has been filled with busy days and lonely nights. Helen asked us to add an hour to our cleaning shifts for the busy rush of the mid-summer season. There have been a lot of families staying on our floors, so Tinley and I have been sharing horror stories of poopy diapers and screaming children. She got bit yesterday when a toddler opened the door when she yelled
Maid Service
only to be greeted with a hysterical child who realized she was a stranger. Of course, in true Tinley style, she’d asked for the rest of the day off, but Helen had slapped anti-bacterial ointment and a bandage on her war wound and sent her to the next room. I wasn’t faring much better. Getting a baby jar full of green peas out of a white bedspread is a near impossible task.

Lawson has been absent from his room ever since our
date
a week ago. Since Tinley and I had taken the extra hours without too much balking, Helen had agreed to clean Lawson’s room herself. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had to go into that room and risk being alone with him again.

Tinley has been spending every night with Murphy, sometimes even bunking in his room, and ever since Bree saw me with Lawson, she hasn’t been talking to me. In fact, the first morning after she saw us, I saw her scrunching her mouth into funny shapes to keep from whistling. But not today. Today she whistled
Unfaithful
by Rhianna. If she only knew the truth.

And then there’s Finn. He’s avoiding me like the plague. He won’t even look at me when I pass him on the lawn or stand to the side of the stage during his sets, hoping to hear even the chorus of
Brown-Eyed Girl.
It’s the nights that are the hardest, a mixture of the confusion of my past with the possibilities of my future that are being stunted by my present decisions to chase the past.

I take the clipboard with my room assignments for today and check off the list in my head: trash, floors, bed, bathroom. Then I see Lawson exit his room. He is followed by three other guys, all about the same age, and all looking like they’ve walked off the pages of GQ Magazine. I shrink behind my cart, but it’s too late.

“Hey, guys, let me introduce you to my little friend. This is Reese. She’s a little spitfire, but guaranteed for a night of explosive fireworks if you can find her fuse.” They all laugh and slap Lawson on the back like he’s the quarterback of the douche bag team. “Take care of my friends, Reese. Anything they need, you have it ready. This here’s Carson. He’s getting married in a month and we’re celebrating all weekend.” Great—a whole room of Lawson’s to make my life a living hell. This is just awesome. I turn my cart toward the other end of the hall, walking away without even smiling, knowing full well that I’m being appreciated from this end, too.

Helen is folding towels in the laundry room when I check out at the end of the day. “What’s the matter, honey?” she asks. “You seem so sad this week.”

“I’m fine, Helen.” She gives me that
You’re full of crap
look, but just like with Tinley’s black eye, she doesn’t push, which makes me want to talk even more. “Helen, have you ever had a feeling that your life is spinning in the complete opposite direction from where you want it to go?”

“Sure, sure, Reese. That happens. Such is life. You just need to figure out how to turn the dial in the direction you want it to go.”

“But how can you do that when there are so many variables out of your control?”

“Take charge of what you
can
control, I guess, and leave the rest alone.” I consider her words and wonder if there’s another way to get the answers I need that don’t involve relying on Lawson.

“Helen, were you here in 1998?”

“1998? Of course I was, dear. I’ve been here for twenty years. Tell me what’s so special about that year.” She hands me a stack of towels to fold.

“I was a guest here when I was five.”

“Oh, that’s cool. You must have been a cute little girl.” She smiles. “Do you have pictures from your trip? I’d love to see them.”

“Actually, I do have one family picture on the lawn. But in that old restaurant on the mountain there’s a picture of me up on the wall. I’m dancing in front of the band, and my dad is there, too. And then there’s a picture in this book I took from the lodge library.” She watches me take the book from my purse, where I turn to the page with my mother and Blake at the pool. “That’s my mom and my baby brother Blake.” Helen’s face falls, her hands releasing a freshly folded pile of towels to the floor where they land in a jumbled heap. “Helen, what’s the matter?”

“That…that woman is your mother?” she asks, pointing to the picture. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, Helen. That’s my mother. Why? What do you know?” Helen clamps her mouth shut. I gently touch her arm, “Helen, you have to tell me.
Please.
What do you know about my mother?”

“You’re her,” she says, looking at me wide-eyed.

“I’m
who
?”

“The little girl who was left behind,” she whispers. The tears slide down my face as I drop to the pile of towels.

“Yes…yes, I am.” Helen drops to the floor, and there, in a pile of clean towels, embraces me in her arms, and I sob for the little girl lost until it tires my soul.

“We can’t talk here,” Helen says, motioning to the laundry room, which confuses me. She watches my gaze and shakes her head. “No, I mean, we can’t talk at the lodge. Meet me outside the front of the lodge at 7:00. We’ll drive into town, okay? Is that what you would like?”

“Yes, Helen. YES!” I hug her and she shoos me out of the room.

“Now don’t tell anyone of this.
No one.
Do you understand?”

“But what difference does it make?” I ask.

“It is not safe to talk here. Don’t even tell Tinley.
No one,
” she repeats.

“Okay, Helen. That’s fine. I can do that….”

“Restock your cart for tomorrow and be on your way. I have to rewash these towels.” She pushes me outside the room before I can speak another word.

Walking across the lawn, I can’t help but notice the lightness in my step. I feel like a burden has been lifted despite the fact that I’m not any closer to real answers. Finn is painting the back of a picket fence that separates the lawn from the back alley of the businesses along the cobblestone streets. He’s wearing a red bandana around his forehead, and I swear I start sweating just seeing him. Fueled with new courage by hope of what’s to come, I approach him.

“Hi, Finn,” I say. He pauses midstroke with his paintbrush but doesn’t turn around. “I was hoping that maybe I could treat you to that burger at Jack’s some time. I have plans for early evening, but maybe we could have a late dinner at 9:00? My treat.”

“I have plans,” he says, the first words spoken to me all week. At least it’s something.

“Maybe tomorrow then?” I ask, hopeful.

“Nope. Plans.”

“Is there any time this week that might work?” I ask.

“Reese, there’s no time for you this week, or next week, or the week after that.” I feel like a boulder has been thrown onto my chest.

“Look, Finn, what you saw with Lawson—what you might have heard—doesn’t mean anything. He was helping me with a problem, that’s all.”

“Glad you could find a friend to help,” he says sarcastically.

“I don’t expect you to understand, but for the record, I am not interested in Lawson on any level whatsoever except for the help he was providing with something personal. And I distinctly remember you telling me once that
you
liked
me
, so if there’s any time you might have available for me, I’d like you to find it. Finn stands up and puts his paintbrush in the can. Green paint stains his arms and hands, a light streak coloring the tattoo on his neck.

“Be at Jack’s at 9:00, or I’m done playing your game.”

“I am not playing any…fine, I’ll be there. Oh, and have you seen Bree?”

“I think I saw her in the rec office getting the supplies for tonight’s campfire.”

“Thanks. I’ll check there. See you tonight—at 9:00. He doesn’t see the smile cross my lips when I turn and walk away. It’s not until I reach the sidewalk that I realize I’ve been holding my breath.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Bree is loading a large basket full of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars when I find her in the back of the rec office. She doesn’t smile when I walk in the room.

“Hi, Bree.” She opens another box of graham crackers and rips open the plastic bag sending crumbs flying all over the basket. “Do you need some help?” Silence. “Look, I wanted to know if you’d like to go for a walk or something before you have to work at the fire pit.”

“I don’t feel like walking.”

“Okay, then how about we just sit and talk then?”

“Why do you want to talk to me? You’re hobnobbing with the boss now.”

“I’m not hobnobbing with anyone, Bree. Lawson is…well, he’s…. It’s complicated.”

“Do you know that I had to listen to Finn moan and groan for an hour the other night after his show when he saw you there with Lawson? It’s one thing to go on a date with another guy, Reese. I get that, but
with Lawson
? He’s like the anti-Christ, and you know it, too. I thought you were better than that. Even Tinley wouldn’t have flaunted herself with a guy in front of another guy who liked her.” I raise my eyebrows, and a slight hint of a smile crosses Bree’s face. “Okay, well, maybe Tinley would do that, but that’s the point. I thought you were different than the plastic money girls that are here—but you’re not.” First a boulder to the chest from Finn and now an arrow piercing my heart. Forgiveness is not easy to come by at Tremont Lodge.

“I may not be who you think I am, Bree, but I’m not plastic, and Lawson was the one who insisted we go to Finn’s show. I know he did it to piss Finn off, but Lawson was doing me a huge favor, and I had to uphold my end of the deal.

“Wait. You went on a date with Lawson because of a
deal
?”

“Yep.”

“Whoa. I can only imagine how desperate you must have been to choose that route.”

“You have no idea,” I say, kicking a loose rock out the front door.

“Get me a bottled water at the tiki hut and I’ll join you for a walk when I have the basket ready,” she says.

“Sounds great.”