Protecting Summer (2 page)

Summer, kneeling by the cleaning cart, stood up slowly and heard her knees creak in protest. She ignored the sound, grabbed a stack of towels, and headed into the little cabin she was currently cleaning. The job was monotonous and boring as hell, but it was a job and it allowed her the freedom to just…be. She’d needed it after the hellacious year she’d had. Cleaning hotel rooms wasn’t what she’d envisioned for her life, but for now, she didn’t want to be anywhere else. It was easy and comfortable and she could be anonymous. She couldn’t handle anything else right now.

Summer thought back on her life. She used to
be
somebody. She had her Master’s Degree in Human Resources and worked at a Fortune 500 company in Phoenix, Arizona. She was married and had a good salary, lived in a nice house, and had a perfect life. That life came crumbling down like a house of cards and Summer still wasn’t sure how it happened. She’d come home from work one day and her husband was gone. Just gone. All his stuff in the house moved out. There was a note on the kitchen counter that explained he wasn’t happy and had met another woman. He didn’t want to hurt Summer, but he didn’t love her anymore and he thought their life was a sham. Summer had been blindsided. Sure, she knew there wasn’t much passion in their relationship, but they were comfortable. Maybe that was the problem. They were too comfortable. Summer signed the divorce papers without contesting them when they’d arrived in the mail later that year. There was no point in protesting.

It wasn’t too long after she’d been officially divorced, that she learned her company was downsizing and she lost her job. She’d tried to find another position, with no luck. It seemed as if no one wanted to hire a thirty-six year old woman with only HR experience. They wanted to hire new graduates with no master’s degree so they could pay them less than her experience and education would warrant. Summer soon couldn’t pay her mortgage and lost the house.

Summer knew she was an introvert. Sure, she could socialize with anyone, but she had a hard time making lifelong friends. All her life she’d met people, but not one took the extra effort to keep in touch once she moved away. Not high school friends, not college friends, not friends from work. Summer wasn’t sure what it was about her that made people not want to form close attachments that would survive a long-distance relationship. Losing her job was no different. All of her coworkers were very sympathetic and made all sorts of offers to get together for lunch and nights out, but not one of them followed through. Summer was used to it.

She made friends easily enough, but they weren’t the kind of friends Summer saw on television and read about in books. They weren’t life-long friends who she could call up for a girls-night-out or crash at one of their houses temporarily.

One day she’d had enough. She’d been living in a crappy apartment where she didn’t feel safe and didn’t have any job prospects on the horizon. Summer packed up what was important to her, and just left. She drove her piece of crap car until it too died on her. She used the last of her money to get a bus ticket to the little town of Big Bear in the mountains of California.

Summer had seen the little motel called
Big Bear Lake Cabins
one day, and miraculously there was a “Help Wanted” sign in the office window. The owner wasn’t very friendly, but apparently, he was desperate, because he told her she had the job.

So here she was. No car. No money. All of her belongings fit into one suitcase. She was pathetic, but she was also free. No mortgage, no expectations. She had nothing, she was nobody. And for now it was heaven.

When she’d arrived with her suitcase in hand, Henry, the owner of the cabins, had been blunt with her.

“I don’t have any open cabins you can live in, but if you really need a place to stay, you can sleep in the building next to the office.”

“The storage building?” Summer had asked incredulously, looking askance at the tiny building that looked like it could hold a maid’s cart, and little else.

“Yup. There’s no kitchen or bathroom, but there’s a small shower and toilet in the back of the office that you can use.”

Summer had taken a deep breath and almost told Henry where he could shove his pathetic motel and his not-so-generous housing offer, but she bit her lip and meekly nodded. She really didn’t have a choice.

When Summer opened the storage building she saw that it did have a small sink, she was vastly relieved to know there was at least some running water in her new “home.” The sink was used mostly to fill the mop bucket, but it didn’t matter. Water was water. The building had no heat or no air conditioning, which in the summer months wasn’t a huge deal because it rarely got sweltering hot up in the mountains. Winter would be a bit dicier, but Summer figured she’d worry about that when the time came. Maybe by then she’d have earned enough money to move into a real apartment and it’d be a moot point. The little storage shack wasn’t very sturdy, but Summer knew that beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Her bed was a cot up against the wall. Henry had dug the thing out of some closet somewhere when she’d asked where she was supposed to sleep. It was missing one foot so it sat lop-sided and swayed precariously when she sat or lay down on it. Luckily, it was one of the back feet that was gone, so her head wasn’t hanging lower than her feet all night.

Mops, brooms, and shelves that held various cleaning implements and liquids surrounded Summer. It smelled like ammonia and other funky cleaning supplies, but she was thankful for it. She supposed some people would look at her and at her life and turn up their nose or even feel sorry or pity for her, but after living a so-called “perfect” life, and still being miserable, at least now Summer only had to rely on herself. It was liberating.

The only issue had with her new life was that she was always hungry. She wasn’t making enough money to be able to buy huge meals, and besides that, she had nowhere to put anything. She had no refrigerator and no stove to cook anything. Henry grudgingly provided breakfast for her, of course subtracting it from her already meager pay, but Summer was on her own for lunch and dinner.

Henry had explained why he served a continental breakfast to the people staying at the motel. “I sure as hell don’t want to, it’s wasted money if you ask me, but because of all those fancy-ass hotels and things now, people expect it. They’re cheapskates and want more and more for less and less money,” he’d complained to her.

Summer had just shook her head. She didn’t dare say aloud what she was thinking, namely that Henry himself was the cheapskate.

“Now I have to go shopping every damn week and buy fruit and shit. It’s expensive and I hate it. I get granola bars and cereal as well. The guests usually don’t stay and chat, they just grab the free breakfast I provide for them and head out to the slopes or to the lake.” Henry finally got to the heart of the matter, at least what was important to Summer. “I suppose it’d be okay if you grabbed something each morning as well, but don’t go crazy. If I catch you taking more than you can eat and taking advantage of me, I’ll change my mind.”

“Thank you, Henry. That’s very generous of you. I’ll just take something small each morning. I won’t take advantage.”

Henry had just grunted and said in a low voice, “Hope it stays that way.”

Even though Summer had promised to only take something small, she usually managed to grab an extra piece of fruit or bread at breakfast that she could snack on during the day. Dinner was usually out of the question. Summer couldn’t afford to actually pay to eat at any of the nearby lodges, and she had no transportation, or money, to eat at any of the fast food restaurants in town. So, after cleaning all the cabins, Summer either took a hike around the nearby lake, or she went back to her little cubby hole and tried to ignore her rumbling stomach.

Luckily, it hadn’t been too cold, or hadn’t been so far, but the warm weather was coming to a close. It was getting colder in the mountains. Henry had told Summer she could keep her job over the winter, but he warned her that she’d make even less money than she did now. They weren’t as busy in the winter and he couldn’t afford to pay her the full salary he was paying her now. Summer knew it was absurd. He wasn’t paying her very much as it was, but she agreed anyway. She figured it’d be a place to stay over the winter if she needed it, and if she felt like leaving, she would. Nothing was tying her here.

For the most part, Summer was satisfied. She was just tired. Tired of merely existing, but she didn’t know what to do. This was it for her. This was her life. Yes, she had a master’s degree, but it hadn’t helped keep her marriage intact, and hadn’t helped her keep her job. So be it.

Summer turned away from her cart with an armful of clean towels and turned, without looking, toward the door to the cabin. She bounced off a hard chest and would have fallen if the man she’d just plowed into hadn’t grabbed her elbows and steadied her. Summer looked up and gulped. She was looking at the best looking man she’d ever seen in her life. No lie. The best looking
and
scariest looking. The man was huge. At least a head taller than her five-eight. His arms were big. His hands were big. But the scariest thing about him, was the look on his face. He had a five o’clock shadow that didn’t hide the scars that covered the right side of his face. The scars pulled at his mouth and made it look like he was grimacing at her. His hair was dark and a little wild around his head. He was dressed head to toe in black. Each thing, taken separately, wouldn’t have worried her, but when Summer took in all of it at once, it was intimidating and actually scared her. But when the man didn’t actually do or say anything, just stood there, looking down at her with an incomprehensible look on his face, she got a little pissed. After a few seconds, when he
still
didn’t say anything, just continued to keep hold of her elbows and stare down at her, Summer knew she had to do something.

“Uh, sorry, sir,” she stammered out. Summer would’ve backed away from him if she could, but he was still holding on to her elbows where he’d grabbed her to steady her.

Summer expected him to apologize back, or at least respond verbally to her words, but he merely held on to her for a beat more, then let go and took a step back. He nodded at her, then stepped around her and headed toward another cabin that was nearby.

Summer watched him go. She wished she could’ve heard his voice. She bet it was low and rumbly. His butt was tight and….shit. What was she thinking? Summer whipped around and headed into the cabin she was cleaning. He wasn’t for her. No one was anymore. It wasn’t easy, but she put the big man out of her head and went back to the monotonous job of straightening up the cabin. If her thoughts strayed back to the man and his delectable ass every now and then, she figured no one would blame her. He was a fine specimen of the male species.

Mozart walked into his cabin and chuckled under his breath at the maid’s actions. She’d startled him as she ran right into him as he’d walked past her, but luckily he hadn’t knocked her over. He didn’t think he’d been walking quietly, and had thought for sure she knew he was there, but obviously he’d been wrong.

Mozart had been surprised at how well the woman fit in his arms. If he’d pulled her into him, her head would’ve fit right in the crook of his shoulder. Mozart couldn’t tell what kind of hair she had, as it was pulled back into a severe looking knot at the back of her head. Her hair seemed to be a mixture of light colors, but he could also tell she wasn’t young. Mozart was surprised to see that she wasn’t a college kid earning money while taking classes, but she also wasn’t elderly, working because she was bored. If he had to guess, Mozart would say she was probably around his age. Mid-thirties most likely. The
Big Bear Lake Cabins
was the last place he’d have expected to find someone like her.

She was attractive. Mozart admitted it, but didn’t like it. He was busy. But she smelled clean, she had laugh lines at the sides of her eyes, of course she’d probably call them crow’s feet. The complete package looked good.

Mozart laughed at himself. His thoughts were ridiculous. He’d had seen the look of interest in the woman’s eyes, before it’d turned to consternation. He’d seen it time and time again. Women would first think he was good looking, and then once they’d see his scars, they’d be turned off. But now that Mozart thought about it a bit more, the maid hadn’t seemed turned off, just startled. Once she’d had a chance to gain her equilibrium, she’d looked him straight in the eyes and even looked as if she was getting pissed at him. It’d been a long time since a woman had bothered to show him any
real
emotion. Mozart was too used to women being fake and doing anything they could to get him into bed. And that pissed look on her face was kinda cute.

Mozart shook his head and tried to put the maid out of his mind. He had to focus on Hurst and on where he might be. As good looking as she’d been, he didn’t have time for a roll in the hay. He thought about the information Tex had sent to him before he’d left Riverton. The man believed to be Hurst, was apparently camping out somewhere in the forest surrounding the lake. There’d been reports of petty thefts of small items that Mozart would bet his life had been Hurst. He pulled out the terrain maps of Big Bear and tried to narrow down where the son-of-a-bitch could be holed up. The forest surrounding the area was huge, but Mozart would find him if he was there. Mozart had been trained by the best. Hurst would have no idea he was being stalked until it was too late.