AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t have time right now,” she said, without glancing back.
“When will you?”
She didn’t answer, vanishing through a white door at the far end of the dining hall, beside a window that was probably used to pass drinks and meals through from the kitchen. A sign on the door read “Staff Only.” He considered knocking, but supposed that wouldn’t endear her to him, so he took a chair at one of the tables and waited for her to re-emerge.
Ten minutes passed. He checked the emails on his phone. Twenty unread, seven of which he needed to deal with. He switched on his email auto-responder to redirect new queries to Eli, then forwarded on the non-urgent emails and set about responding to the others. He was replying to an architect who’d significantly exceeded his budget when Kat marched back into the dining hall.
Sterling stood and matched his pace to hers. She was tall for a woman, but he was taller. “Does now suit?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said, having the decency to look apologetic as well as harried.
“When will? Tell me and I’ll wait until then.” He could find a quiet corner and keep himself occupied.
“At this point, I really couldn’t say. Maybe in a couple of hours. Could be longer.” She paused, turning to face him. “I’m having one of those days where everything that can go wrong is going wrong. I can’t judge how long it will take to get things under control. Sorry.”
Then she flicked her hair over her shoulder and raced off.
“What can I do to help?” he called after her, but she’d already turned a corner into the foyer and disappeared from sight. Sterling sighed, pocketed his phone, and went after her.
* * *
Kat announcedherself outside one of the guest bedrooms. When no one answered, she selected a key from her chain and let herself in, scanning the room for damage. Everything seemed in order. She checked the en suite bathroom. Except for a couple of towels on the floor, nothing was out of place. Trevor hadn’t gotten in here. She moved on to the next room and called out to Tina, the guest who was staying there.
Tina opened the door with a smile and the smell of fresh paint wafted out. “Hi, Kat.”
“Kia ora,” Kat replied. “Please tell me your room hasn’t been trashed by a big, chocolate-colored mastiff.”
Tina laughed. “It hasn’t. He came up to the outside door while I was painting, but I shooed him away.”
Thank God for small mercies. Kat shuddered to imagine the damage Trevor could cause if he stepped in Tina’s oil paints. “Glad to hear it. If he comes back, can you give me a yell?”
“Sure thing. Bye, now.” Tina closed the door. Kat didn’t take offense at the dismissal. Tina visited regularly to get alone time to paint. Once she got going, she could stand behind her canvas for hours without stopping.
The next room was Brooke’s, who hadn’t gotten so lucky. Muddy paw prints splotched the pale gray carpet, and papers had been knocked off the desk and strewn about the floor. Ducking into the bathroom, she hoped to find Trevor and put an end to his spree of destruction, but it was empty. Streaks of mud lined the interior of the bathtub, as if he’d leapt into it and struggled to get out again. If it weren’t so damned frustrating, she’d laugh. Trust the crazy dog to choose today, when her cleaner was away sick, to go on a rampage. When she found him…
“Whoa, what happened in here?”
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that the immaculate Sterling Knight had followed her and was staring at the bathtub, eyes wide with horror.
“This is a private room,” she said.
He shrugged. “The door was open. So, what happened?”
“My employee’s bull mastiff got a little overexcited and thought he’d share his excitement with us.”
Sterling’s eyes slid to the side and his expression pinched nervously. “Where is it now?”
“He is somewhere around here. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” She brushed past him and knocked on the next door, then let herself in. No muddy footprints in this room, but the outside door stood ajar, a breeze ruffling the net curtains, and the duvet had been dragged onto the floor, one corner touching the grass outside as though Trevor had started to make off with it before he’d been distracted by something else. Kat bundled the blanket under one arm, trudged up the hall to the linen cupboard, and chose a clean one to replace it.
Sterling stayed on her heels while she checked the remaining bedrooms which, thankfully, were undamaged and Trevor-free. Then she headed into the west wing, where renovations were ongoing. She crossed her fingers and prayed that whichever of the guests had been working in there last had shut all the doors.
She cheered aloud when the only sign of the mastiff was two dirty prints on a glass door. Wherever he was, he wasn’t in the lodge. He’d probably run off into the bush, in which case, he’d find his own way back. In the meantime, she needed to clean the floor and bathtub in Brooke’s room. Unfortunately, she couldn’t clean properly without hot water, and four guests had reported the hot water hadn’t been working.
“Damn,” she muttered.
“What is it?” Sterling asked from behind her.
She turned. “You’re still here?”
