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I wasn’t sure I could claim to be happy.
But I was okay. I was content enough.
Eventually, everyone drifted off to the staff housing down the hill from the resort, while I headed back upstairs with Antonio to what was starting to feel like the bachelor wing of the hotel. When we’d begun construction, one whole wing had been staff housing and it had felt a lot like old squadron days, all of us just down the hall from one another. But now it seemed like everyone had coupled off, and the family housing on the resort property was a better fit. Houses were built, and there was basically a tiny suburb of Kasper Ridge down there now—a park, a playground. Hell, they’d probably started a homeowner’s association.
Despite the increasingly family feel of the resort, I appreciated that my friends still made a point of hanging out up here after work when they could. I didn’t have any true family besides my sister. But I had my friends, and it seemed pretty obvious they were going to have to be enough for me. They were probably more than I deserved, anyway.
Chapter Three
A Conference Conundrum
EMILY
“We could have just gotten a hotel room in Denver and saved ourselves the trouble.” Christine was officially traveled out.
“We’d miss all the panels and workshops,” I pointed out, my eyes fixed on the ever-changing landscape outside the window of the shuttle.
“I really want to not be enclosed inside a metal tube anymore. This is why I don’t leave home, Em.” Christine was a fiction writer with a long backlist of titles to her name. Though I didn’t aspire to write romance, she was kind of my idol. She was, however, a little bit reclusive when left to her own devices.
“We’ll be there soon,” I told my friend. To be honest, I was ready to be done traveling too. The flight from San Diego hadn’t been bad but trying to find our luggage and then our shuttle amidst the insanity of the Denver airport had been a lot. Plus, we weren’t the only writers catching the shuttle. The thingwas stuffed, and though I’d always thought most writers were introverted like Christine, it didn’t seem to be true. Many of them seemed loud and chattery.
There were eight of us on the little bus headed for Kasper Ridge, and it seemed like the other six all knew each other from somewhere. They’d begun talking like old friends the second we’d bumped into each other at the airport curb, and the conversation hadn’t waned in the three hours we’d been en route. The other writers had been friendly and said hello when we’d first met up, but now they were involved in conversation about their own projects and mutual friends, and the two of us were largely forgotten at the back of the bus. I didn’t blame Christine for being worn out. The squeals and laughter were a lot, even for a confirmed extrovert like me.
“I can’t believe how beautiful it is up here.” I continued watching the world slide by through the windows, catching an occasional glimpse of the sprawling mountaintops in the distance through a gap in the trees. Mostly though, the winding road up the mountain was vision enough. It felt like it had been carved into the mountainside, towering pine trees shooting up on both sides of the two-lane highway, shading the route as the late afternoon sun drifted downward.
“It’s hard to see anything with the constant twisting and turning.” Christine looked a bit green.
“Can’t be much farther,” I assured her again, but my own stomach was unsettled too. It had been easy to forget during the practicalities and logistics of travel, but in just a little while, I’d be at the Kasper Ridge Resort—where Archie Kasper lived. I’d be in close proximity to the man who’d changed my family forever, the man my father hated. I still hadn’t really figured out how I felt about that, about him. I didn’t share my father’s one-sided hatred, I knew that. But I did want the chance to meet him, to understand my feelings for myself, even if I never mentionedwho I was. And I didn’t think I would—I needed to get my story first.
“Fifteen minutes,” the driver called back. The announcement had the effect of silencing the noisy group ahead of us, and the last moments of the ride were thankfully quiet.
Finally, the shuttle pulled up outside an enormous structure with a huge overhang built to shield arriving cars from weather. The whole resort spread out in what looked like two wings, all wood and glass and dark iron accents. It was like a log cabin had married a skyscraper, and the entire thing had watched “The Shining” before getting fixated on the Hallmark Channel around the holidays.
Twinkle lights were flickering across the front of the resort, and enormous wreaths of fall foliage and evergreen hung at each of the sliding glass doors.
“Wow,” Christine said, standing on the curb and taking it all in.
“Holy shirtballs!” One of the other writers squealed.
“Well said.” I picked up my suitcase when it was deposited on the curb and tipped the driver. “Thank you.”
“Should we go check in?” I asked Christine. We’d booked a room together to save money, but I was guessing Christine probably wished she had her own space about now. I was wishing for my own space by this point too. The thought of seeing Archie Kasper was suddenly terrifying. Was he even here? Did he hang out around the hotel all the time? Maybe Dad was right and he just enjoyed the fruits of the resorts operations, spent his time lounging around somewhere else.
“Yes, let’s get our room.”
Like the outside, the hotel lobby was decorated in a fall theme, vibrant deep reds and golds everywhere in the form of garlands, gourds, and even a glorious tree in one corner that stretched at least twenty feet toward the high ceilings.
“Can you imagine what it must look like at Christmas?” I asked my friend in a reverent whisper.
She didn’t answer, intent instead on finding the right line to stand in to check us in. She’d booked the room, so it was in her name only, and I’d promised to pay her half at the end of the week.
The lobby was packed with people, and I could see that the adjacent bar also appeared to be stuffed to the gills. The official conference programming didn’t start until the following morning, and while I was pretty sure Christine had plans to isolate in our room and try to rebuild her enthusiasm for peopling, I was going to look around and see if I could get the lay of the land a bit. My editor had dangled the cover story in my face, but securing it depended on getting to the bottom of the crazy treasure hunt Archie Kasper had supposedly inherited with the hotel.
The woman who checked us in was friendly—not to mention beautiful—her name tag said “Annalee.” The other staff member working the desk was named Antonio, and I wondered if the resort had some kind of fixation on the first letter of the alphabet when it came to staffing. The Kaspers were Archie and Aubrey, according to everything I’d read.
There was a wait for the two elevators, so we left our suitcases to be brought up by the staff and Christine and I made our way up the grand staircase behind the reception desk and then up the next three flights of stairs. The going up the stairs was slow, but eventually, we found our room and Christine’s joy was almost a living thing bounding around inside the room with us.
A weight lifted from my shoulders as I stepped into the little living area and walked to peer out the huge window facing the back of the resort. The mountain reared up behind us in the distance, a ski lift dotting the hillside, which wasn’t yet coveredin snow. Our room was near the center of the resort, but I could see that it spanned to each side, and outside there was a massive courtyard beneath each wing, dotted with firepits and Adirondack chairs. One side also held what looked like the outdoor part of the restaurant, furnished with chairs, tables, and heaters on stands.
