As I began trudging up the hill, Jenn called after me. “Oh, and Samantha.”
I turned.
“Don’t worry about Noah. I’m sure he doesn’t hate you specifically. He just hates everyone from LuxeLife.”
I was beginning to feel like an extra in a supervillain origin story,The Tale of Super Mountain Grumpy Face. “Why does Noah hate everyone from LuxeLife?” I called back down the trail.
“Long story!”
I was about to press further, but Jenn had already turned back toward the stables, leaving me alone with my questions and my dread.
“Wonderful,” I mumbled to the empty woods. At least I hoped they were empty.
Chapter Seven
Gravel crunched under my heels as I dragged my Louis Vuitton up the steep path, its wheels collecting pine needles and small rocks along the way. Every rustle in the bushes sent waves of panic through my body. Was that a mountain lion? A bear? A rabid beaver with a taste for human flesh?
As I climbed higher, my thoughts returned to Noah, which only fueled my frustration. His piercing blue eyes kept materializing in my mind, along with those broad shoulders and the stubble that somehow looked deliberate rather than lazy.
“What kind of person just abandons someone at an airport?” I asked myself for the ten thousandth time. Clearly, Noah had some sort of problem with LuxeLife, but that didn’t give him the right to take it out on me. Did he hate LuxeLife that much? Did he hatemethat much? We’d barely exchanged ten sentences before he decided I wasn’t worth his precious mountain-man time.
Nobody could be that much of a jerk.
Nobody.
Except, apparently, for him.
One of the wheels on my Louis Vuitton got caught on a root, and when I tried to yank it loose, the whole suitcase tipped over like a helpless turtle. Which I assumed they didn’t have in Colorado. And if they did, it would probably be the flesh-eating kind.
As I struggled to reorient both myself and my luggage, my mind drifted once again to those blue eyes and broad shoulders.Jerk.Stupid jerk face. Stupid jerky jerk jerk … jerk.I was too exhausted to even come up with a proper insult.
After what felt like an eternity of climbing, I reached a fork in the road. “Left or right?” I muttered.
Neither direction had any signs, because why would a luxury resort want to help its guests avoid getting eaten? The right path looked slightly more worn, so I took it, hoping “worn” meant “frequently used by resort guests” and not “preferred hunting route for hungry bears.”
The trail curved through thick stands of pine trees, branches creating a canopy that filtered the remaining light into eerie patterns across the ground. My phone flashlight barely penetrated the shadows.
If I had been a character in one of those dark romantasy books, it would have been a good time for the hot werewolf to pop out and ravage me. But there was no hot werewolf. Only a grumpy mountain man with a pet wolf. And there certainly wouldn’t be any ravaging with him.
“Yikes!” Distracted by thoughts of Noah, I nearly plummeted to my death as the path opened suddenly onto a rocky overlook.
Below me stretched a mirror-smooth lake. Mountain peaks rose on all sides, their snow-capped tops tinged blue and grey.
“Well, this doesn’t suck.” It was a view that would get millions of likes … if I had any phone service to post it. I took a few pictures anyway. Maybe if I survived, I could post them later.
Turning around and doubling back, I made my way back to the intersection and took the left path. The trail grew steeper, and the forest grew denser, trees closing in on all sides. The only sounds were the labored breathing from my out-of-shape body and the occasional snap of a twig beneath my stumbling feet. Until …
Crack
I froze, heart thundering, oxygen-starved lungs clamping tight.
Rustle. Crack. Shuffle.
Something moved in the undergrowth. Just beyond my flashlight’s beam. “Hello?” My voice got swallowed by the dark.
RUSTLE … RUSTLE … RUSTLE
The rustling grew louder, accompanied by what sounded like ... scratching? Clawing? My mind conjured images of razor-sharp talons and glistening fangs.
