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He glanced around the room. It was nice enough. Cozy, he supposed was the word, with two queen-size beds and not a lot of space for anything else. There was a small desk with a lamp, a dormer window looking over the woods behind the lodge, a partially open door into a bathroom and, incongruously, where the fourth wall ought to have been, a curtain made of white tarpaulin.
He walked across the room and pulled back the curtain far enough to see the buckets. There were half a dozen twenty-gallon plastic tubs, the kind that store pickles and condiments for industrial kitchens. The wooden beams above showed extensive water damage. Not quite the small leak he’d been told to expect.
“The girl who checked me in said they don’t normally rent this room because of the leaky roof,” he said, thinking that a new roof for this old lodge was going to cost a fortune.
“That’s what the young man who checked me in said.” She turned back to what she’d been doing when he’d come in, cutting the tags off an assortment of new clothes. “You’d better go back to the front desk and get another room.”
But his mama hadn’t raised any fools. If you didn’t count his older brother Steven. “They told me this was the last room.”
“Well, I was here first.”
“I’ll call down and get them to send someone up.”
She glared at him. She could patent that glare, it was so good. “What is the point? This room is taken.”
He’d never been in the army, but he knew that once you retreated from disputed turf it was tough to fight your way back. So he gave her his best smile, and it was usually pretty effective with women. “I’m sure it’s a simple clerical error.” He picked up the room phone before she could argue any more and asked for the manager to come up.
Fortunately, they didn’t have long to wait. The woman continued cutting tags off clothes, using a small, curved pair of nail scissors that clicked with annoyance.
They stayed like that, she snipping tags and he standing by the phone until a soft knock was heard. When he answered, a corporate-looking type in his fifties stood there with a bland, practiced, everything-will-be-fine smile. “How can we help you, sir?”
The manager’s smile wilted like week-old lettuce when the woman stepped up and yanked the door wide. “You seem to have booked both of us into the same room. I think we have a problem.”
And she was right. The manager, two front desk clerks and the computer all confirmed what he’d known from the moment that woman screamed. He and the lady in blue pajamas were both booked into the very last room in the hotel.
“But that’s impossible,” Emily argued. Emily Saunders, that was her name; he’d found out as they went through the bookings. “I can’t share a room with a strange man.”
“I’m not that strange once you get to know me,” he assured her.
She sent him a glance that suggested she didn’t find this setup remotely funny.
“I am very sorry, Ms. Saunders. There are simply no more rooms.”
“But I booked a single room. In advance.”
“Me, too,” he interjected.
“Naturally, your money will be refunded in full,” he promised them smoothly, which didn’t exactly solve the problem.
“What about the lobby?” she cried. “Isn’t there a cot, or a sofa or something he could sleep on?”
“All the cots are in use. And, as you’ll recall, we only have wing chairs in the lobby.”
“A sleeping bag on the floor, then.”
Jonah was a pretty easygoing guy, but this was going too far. He had his team to think of. “I have an important day tomorrow,” he told her. “I need my sleep. You bed down on the lobby floor.”
She stalked right up to him, nose to his collarbone. Their lack of equality in the height department seemed to aggravate her even more. “I have an important day tomorrow, too.”
“I’m competing in a hockey tournament.”
“I’m a bridesmaid in a wedding.”
“My condolences.”
The way her eyes suddenly widened, he got the odd feeling she agreed with his assessment of being stuck in a wedding party. “But this is ridiculous. There must be somewhere else you could stay.”
He’d booked the hotel for a reason. He was too old to bunk in with a bunch of hockey players trading war stories and shooting the bull. Most of the others were too old for it, too, but it didn’t stop them. He thought with wives and kids at home, they needed the male bonding time a lot more than he did. At this point, he’d rather sleep on the floor of the Elk Crossing Lodge’s lobby than on the floor of a cabin with six guys, at least half of whom were bound to snore. But he’d much rather sleep in a nice comfortable bed right here in this room.
“There isn’t anybody else I can stay with. What about you? Can’t you stay with somebody else from the wedding?”
She blinked at him once, slowly, and then shook her head sharply. “Impossible.”
He shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but we’ll just have to share for a night or two. There are two beds. I don’t snore.”
She crossed her hands under her breasts and he tried not to notice. “It’s not your snoring that worries me.”
“I don’t have evil designs on your body, either,” he said, trying to reassure her of his integrity. She was a good-looking woman and if they’d both stumbled into this hotel room in passion it would be one thing, but that wasn’t the case.
If he could get her to see him as a platonic roommate, they’d be fine. “Look—” he indicated the hockey stick leaning against the wall “—I’m playing two, three games a day. I’ll only be in the room to sleep, and too tired even to think about women.”
She raised one eyebrow as though finding that hard to believe, as indeed it was. He could probably be dead and still think about women. So he pulled his trump card. “You can trust me. I’m a cop.”
She seemed less than impressed by this display of trustworthiness. “What are you going to do? Arrest the bedbugs?”
“Thought I might shoot them.” For a second her mouth softened and she almost smiled, then caught herself.
She turned back to the doorway.
“Are you telling me there is absolutely no way you can force this man to leave my room?” she snapped at the three uniforms hovering nervously near the door.
The hotel manager took a deep breath. “The computer was malfunctioning and you were both given the same room. Unless one of you is willing to leave…” The manager glanced from one to the other, but they both held their ground. “I’m so sorry.”
“Can you at least tell me when I’ll have my clothes back?”
“As soon as possible. We’ve put a rush on everything.”
She turned back to him, her hair swinging in a silky curtain. “I carry mace. I’ll be sleeping with it under my pillow.”
“Hey, it’s got to be better to share a room with me than bedbugs.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
3
HAVING HER MINIMAL NEW wardrobe organized, Emily got out the nail polish. Tomorrow, the paper rose making continued, then, most of the out-of-town guests would have arrived so there was a big potluck dinner.
Even though Emily hadn’t grown up here, she’d spent a lot of time in Elk Crossing as a kid, because so much of her family still lived in the area. It was going to be quite the reunion.
It had been a weird day already, now she was supposed to share a room with a big, smelly hockey player?
She tried to ignore him as he schlepped his big, stupid hockey bag over to his side of the room. At least he was taking the bed beside the curtain, leaving her with the one closest to the door and the bathroom.
Once he’d settled himself, he said, “There’s no mini-bar or fridge.”
“No. They don’t rent the room, remember?”
He grunted and went out of the room, sadly not taking his belongings with him, only to return a minute later with a bucket of ice.
He unzipped his monstrously large sports bag and dug out a six-pack of Budweiser beer. Perhaps he felt the force of her gaze on him, because he glanced up. His eyes were blue and twinkled as if he thought this whole thing was a great joke.
He pulled a can out of the plastic holder. Held it aloft with his eyebrows raised. “Wanna beer?”
He gave her his beefcake calendar grin, as though he thought she might have missed it the first time he flashed it.
She figured they might as well try to get along since they were stuck here together, so she nodded. To her surprise he got up and brought her over the can, even popping the top when she looked helplessly at her wet nails. “Glass?”
“No, thanks.”
He nodded and went back to his bed. Stacked the pillows behind him and popped his own beer.
“Are you really a cop?”
For answer, he lifted his butt and dragged out his cop badge. She rose and went for a closer look. The badge told her that he was, indeed, a cop, and he was from Oregon.
“Sergeant Jonah Betts,” she read aloud.
He held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Emily Saunders.”
It was so ridiculous she had to chuckle. “Likewise.” They shook hands. He didn’t do the he-man squish-all-her-bones thing, but it was still a firm clasp. His hands were big and warm, but she noticed he was careful not to mess up her still-damp nails.
“Most people call me Emily.”
“So, how was your day, Emily?”
She returned to her seat at the desk and carefully painted her baby fingernail while she replied. “This has been a very strange day. Apart from the obvious bedbug thing, this morning. Let’s see, I went to Wal-Mart wearing clothes I would rather not have been seen in.”
He nodded, understanding. “I remember. I’m guessing that’s not your normal look.”
“No. So naturally I bumped into someone I sort of knew years ago, a big mouth who happens to be friends with my cousin who’s getting married.” Carefully re-screwing the lid on the polish, she blew on her fingertips. “She saw me in the lovely outfit I was wearing, buying fashion at Wal-Mart and couldn’t keep the story to herself. At the lunch today? My dad offered me a business loan, my mom said she could help me with the cost of the bridesmaid gown and my aunt tells me she’s going to set me up with my third cousin Buddy, the orthodontist.”
“Why didn’t you tell the nosy broad about the bedbugs?”
“I am staying in this hotel in order to avoid being billeted in a family room somewhere, either on a pullout couch or an air mattress. My family does big weddings, so I wouldn’t have the family room to myself, you understand. It would be like a weeklong slumber party on really bad mattresses with people I barely know.”
“So you chose me, instead.”
“You wouldn’t be so flattered if you knew my family.” She blew out a breath. “I’m sure there will be people checking out tomorrow and I’ll get another room. Once I’m in that family room? I’m stuck for the week.”
“What kind of business do you have?”
“I’m a massage therapist. I run a wellness clinic. We have naturopaths, a chiropractor, a nutritionist and a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine all on staff. We work as an integrated team.”
“Cool,” he said, though from his tone she guessed he wasn’t a big believer in alternative medicine.
“I enjoy it.”
“And, I’m guessing from the fact that they want to set you up with Cousin Buddy the orthodontist, that you’re single?”
“And loving it,” she informed him. After a day of pity for her spinster state, she was feeling militant.
He put up his hands, so fast she heard the beer slosh in the can. “Hey, I’m single, too. I get it.”
She looked at him curiously. Did the same unsubtle hints happen with men, too? “Do your family try to match you up with someone every chance they get?”
He sipped beer while thinking it over. Nodded. “My friends more. I’m the last one of my buddies still a free man. They see me as a challenge, but I aim to stay single.”
She raised her beer can in a toast. “To freedom.”
The both drank. “You want to watch some TV?”
“Sure.” Anything that would take her mind off the week ahead would be good.
While she applied a second coat of polish, he found the remote and punched channels. She heard him skip over some kind of cop show, make a rude remark about Dancing with the Stars, and then she heard the buzz of a news station. That she could live with. She was moving to her bed so she could see the TV when there was a knock on the door.
“Now what?”
“Do you mind?” She was closer to the door, but her polish was wet. “Maybe they’ve found another room.”
He rolled off the bed and padded to the door.
Opened it.
“Did you order an orange tent?” he asked, staring in some disbelief at the dress hanging from a chambermaid’s hand.
“My dress,” she cried, getting up. “Is it okay?” she asked the woman.
“Yes. We hung it in the big freezer. It’s what the exterminators told us to do. Anything that was on there will be dead by now.”
“Too bad that dress isn’t,” said Jonah.
THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE in town for the wedding that the potluck dinner that night was held in the Masonic Hall, where the wedding reception was also booked. Emily knew that in the next couple of days she’d spend many hours helping decorate the gymnasium-size space into what her aunt Irene insisted on calling the bower of bliss.
As an out-of-towner, Emily wasn’t expected to bring food, but she stopped at the deli anyhow and picked up a tub of potato salad. She’d have taken wine, but Uncle Bill had told her proudly he’d made enough for the entire week. Uncle Bill was a good man and one of her favorite relatives, but she’d rather use his wine as nail polish remover than drink the stuff.
As she walked in, her aunt rushed up to her. “Oh, Emily, I’m so glad you’re here. Cousin Buddy is dying to meet you.” She took the offered potato salad and dropped her voice, explaining, “He’s the one I was telling you about. Very successful. An orthodontist.”
She made flappy come-here motions with her hand to a guy standing with Emily’s mom and dad. Her folks immediately shooed him her way, acting in unison, so they looked like a vaudeville act. Yep, Emily thought, my family haven’t lost any of their subtlety.
