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Two quick vibrations startled me out of the mood. When I picked up my phone, I found I had two texts, both from Laurel.
Thanks for the information.
Is that you playing guitar in the lobby?
I smiled a little. She might not have wanted to talk to me face to face, but I guessed she was starting to get lonely. If the storm knocked out our cell service as it usually did, I wondered if she’d eventually emerge from her room.
Chapter fifteen
Laurel
As the snow fell, I was grateful for the fact that it hadn’t yet knocked out the cell towers. From being friends with Bailey over the years, I knew that there was a good chance they would go out in a storm like this. We had been texting for a good hour or two, but the music from the lobby was pulling at my ears the whole time. Eventually, I grabbed a book and my phone from my room before heading down the stairs.
There, I found Mr. Delaney strumming his guitar. He had a load of paper in front of him. Though I was curious to know what he was doing, I didn’t want to impose on him. I took a seat in one of the large chairs on the other side of the lobby, where I imagined many a guest had been able to sit while they waited for someone else from their party to arrive or while they waited to check into the lodge.
Being in the lodge’s lobby with only Mr. Delaney and his guitar had an unintended effect on me as I tried to read the mystery novel I’d brought down with me. Instead of being comforted by the extra company, since we were both doing our own things, I found myself jumping every time he started playing after he let it go silent again.
Even my phone vibrating to tell me that Bailey had texted was starting to make me jump.
“Are you all right over there, Laurel?” Mr. Delaney looked up from his guitar when he noticed what was going on. “If my guitar is too much, I can work on this song somewhere else.”
While it was touching that he was offering to leave the room, I shook my head.
“Everything’s fine. I actually prefer having something keeping the air from being completely still with such a storm outside,” I replied. “There’s not much else we can do to keep ourselves occupied. Do you know where Rick is?”
As much as I hated to admit it, Rick was the easier of the two men to relax around. Though they both had mountain man features to their personalities, Rick was less grumpy around me. He had actually started to open up to me. He’d shared some details with me about Mr. Delaney that I had a feeling I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Rick had even decided to give me his phone number in case things got even more awkward between myself and Mr. Delaney.
Though I doubted he would have made us make up, I had a feeling he had a vested interest in making sure there was a chef for the season, just as Mr. Delaney had.
“He went to get some mini fridges from Boise and got his truck stuck ,” Mr. Delaney revealed. “He’s going to be stuck there until the snow stops, at least.”
My heart sank.
Now I was stuck, alone with Mr. Delaney, for an undisclosed amount of time. It was going to be incredibly awkward since we had been fighting so much about the food we were going to be serving, and what it meant to be able to serve so much food. I still didn’t know if he fully forgave me for making the bar situation awkward. It had never been my intention to make him feel ill at ease, but sitting there in the lobby while he played guitar made me wonder if now might be my chance to get to know “Real Luke.”
Maybe, underneath all the uncomfortableness of the last few days, there really was a man worth knowing – a man who wrote thoughtful songs about life’s frustrations. If I could get past the discomfort that Mark’s betrayal caused me, perhaps there was even a chance to see if he could be as soft with me as he had been with some of the locals around Waterfront.
“Well, whatever happens with Rick, I don’t think it’ll help anything if you keep jumping every other minute,” Mr. Delaney finally said. “I have another guitar, if you’d like to learn.”
I wanted to believe he was extending an olive branch. Instead of immediately shutting the idea down and returning to the mystery in the novel, I put my bookmark between the pages. He smiled a little.
“Wait right here. I’ll get the other guitar.”
With that, he hopped up from the chair behind the counter and hurried off. I listened as his footsteps got further away. Perhaps he had decided to find a way to excuse himself for a few minutes to escape the uneasiness. If that was the case, would he even return with the guitar?
I picked up my phone to find that a text from Bailey awaited me.
How are you faring with Mr. Delaney and Rick there?
I pursed my lips. She had every reason to want to know how I was doing right now. However, I didn’t know how to answer. On the one hand, I was excited to learn how to play guitar. It had been a dream of mine since I was a kid, and if I could put aside my thoughts of Mark’s betrayal and stop jumping at every turn, perhaps this would be a good distraction.
As good as I can, I suppose. Mr. Delaney is going to teach me to play guitar.
I sent that message just as Mr. Delaney returned. He carried a simple acoustic guitar. It looked like it might have been the guitar that he learned how to play on because it looked old. The finish was coming off in some places, but the strings looked brand new and like they had been changed recently. If it was an old guitar, it still got used.
“Here you are. For now, I think it would be good for you to start with your fingers,” he said. “Learning how to use a pick is easy, but it’s learning how to place your fingers on the neck of the guitar that messes most people up.”
I nodded as I took the guitar from him. He pulled a secondary stool up for me, which made sense. I couldn’t easily strum a guitar if I had to play around the arms of a chair.
