Noah muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a promise to feed us both to bears at his earliest opportunity.
Every one of my leg muscles protested as I staggered out of the resort shuttle, attempting to remember how walking worked. It seemed after two days on horseback, my body had forgotten it was designed for bipedal movement.
The gleaming glass doors of the grand entrance reflected my apocalyptic appearance in high definition. “Good Lord,” I gasped. I looked like I’d been dragged backward through a briar patch infested with wolverines, then thrown into a tornado.
The same fresh-faced bellhop who’d greeted me on my first day stood at attention by the entrance, his uniform so crisp and pristine it triggered a primal urge to run over and rub my forest-marinated body all over him just to mitigate the contrast.
His eyes widened as I approached, taking in my mud-splattered clothes and wild hair. “Miss Li? Are you okay?”
“Just peachy,” I croaked, attempting to smooth down what felt like a family of squirrels nesting in my hair. “That’s why they call it the great outdoors. Nothing says authentic Coloradolike returning with half the forest lodged in your underwear, right?”
“Um …” He held the door open as wide as possible, as though worried whatever I had might be contagious.
The resort lobby hit me with a wave of civilization so intense it was like landing on an alien planet. The marble floor gleamed. The massive stone fireplace radiated toasty warmth. The signature scent of sage and lavender wafted through the air conditioning, nearly masking the musky cabin stench that I was afraid had stuck to me permanently.
“Back to civilization,” I sighed. “Where I belong.”
My stomach growled when I caught a whiff of something sizzling from one of the resort’s restaurants, reminding me that chocolate truffles and charcuterie board fare weren’t sufficient sustenance after aDante’s Inferno-esque trek through the wilderness.
Images of the restaurant’s lunch menu flashed through my mind like a slideshow of culinary pornography. Truffle fries. Seven-bean Colorado chili with extra cheese and sour cream. A big plate of loaded Mountain nachos. All of it washed down with a pitcher of huckleberry jalapeño margaritas the size of a small mountain lake.
“First order of business, a rent payment worth of room service,” I said to myself. But then I remembered … I couldn’t ruin my appetite for my spa date with Noah.
Date?
Is that what it was going to be? A date? An actual date? Or did Noah only agree to meet me because his back was in horrible pain?
I shuffled toward the elevator, leaving a trail of forest debris in my wake. Date or not, I at least had to be presentable if I was going to be near another human being. Plus, I needed to call down to the front desk to see if they could send up a priest toperform an exorcism to remove whatever had taken up residence in my hair.
“Sam?” I froze mid-step, then turned to find Maya power-walking across the lobby. She waved frantically, heels clicking against the marble at a pace just shy of “jog.” A warning bell sounded in my mind, but I was too exhausted and my legs were too traumatized to run.
“Sam! Thank goodness I found you,” Maya said, out of breath as she reached me. “I’ve been trying to call since yesterday.”
I held up my phone, black-screened, cracked, and lifeless. “Dead battery.”
Maya’s mouth dropped open, apparently really looking at me for the first time. “What happened to you?”
“Long story involving rain, horses, lightning, and a cabin in the middle of a time warp.”
Maya’s eyes performed a comprehensive scan of my disheveled appearance. “And why do you smell like wet wool and ...” She leaned in and took a delicate sniff, then recoiled. “... feral buffalo?”
“That would be Yeti, I’m guessing. She used my face as a pillow.” I attempted to finger-comb my hair, dislodging what appeared to be part of a sap-covered pine cone. “I promise I’ll tell you the whole epic tale later, but right now?” I gestured at my general state of disarray. “I need the world’s hottest shower, clean clothes, and enough perfume to fill the Colorado River.”
Maya opened her mouth to protest, but I held up a mud-caked hand. “After that, Noah and I plan to try every single treatment on your spa menu.”
Her mouth dropped even further. “Noah agreed to everything on the spa menu?”
“Basically. Sort of.”
“Even the Alpine wax?” Maya’s eyes were a lot bigger than normal.
“Okay, maybe not that one. But once he realizes how much better his back feels after a nice massage, I’m hopeful his mood will be supple enough to at least try a manicure. And then after a few mimosas, we’ll see where we can go from there.”
“But Sam.” Maya gently took my hand. “You don’t have time …”
I held up my mud-caked hand again, then grimaced as a clump of something brown and sticky detached from my sleeve and hit the pristine floor with a thunk. “The only thing I can’t do is be around other humans. I have pine needles in places pine needles should never be. Give me an hour and unlimited hot water, and I’ll be somewhat presentable again. Maybe even capable of complete sentences.”
“You don’t have an hour,” Maya said, glancing at her watch. “You have about four minutes.”
