A pained squeak escaped her as she lost herself completely out there in these Colorado woods.
Everything faded away—the memories of Lance, and the way he’d touched her body. Her responsibilities. The reasons for her being here. The plans for the night.
The human wants and emotions evaporated like fog in her head and were replaced by simpler thoughts.
How cold the snow was against her tiny paws. The unfamiliarity of the woods. A good look at the cabins. Houses meant food and she could use a snack.
The hamster scented the wind, but all she could smell was earth and snow and a tinge of smoke.
Where there were smoke smells, there was warmth and seeds. Maybe peanuts. Maybe corn.
Her little stomach growled and she scampered over a boot, jumped off, did an accidental roll, and then righted herself and went back to scampering. She could see everything. There were lots of Christmas tree needles here. Ouch. They poked at herlittle feet, so she scurried around them, zigzagging this way and that on her trek to the cabin with the smoke trail.
That place would definitely have food. She’d learned from experience. Maybe they had crackers. Oh! Maybe they had sweet stuff. Fruit? And candy. Gasp! Maybe it would have candy in there. She’d found a candy stash before in someone’s house and demolished it.
Her stomach growled again as she pushed her little legs harder.
She wanted candy. She needed candy. Yum, yum, yum, yum, give me candy.
She scampered faster. The cabin was far away, and the snow was in clumps, and she was famished.
A zing of excitement filled her little fuzzy body. She was going to snack for hours, and when she was full, she would shove so many snacks into her cheek pouches, she would be able to live on it forever and ever, and ever, and ever.
Snacks were the only thing that mattered.
Chapter Six
A scream pierced the air.
Lance had been cleaning up his tools but startled hard at the blood curdling sound. Heart pounding, he bolted for the front door of Lodge 2, threw it open and ran outside.
The angry woman who dressed in all black was high-knee stomping through the snow in front of her cabin. “I can’t do it! I can’t!” she shrieked. “I can’t do rodents!”
“Hey, what’s happening? Are you okay?” Lance asked.
“No!” she screamed, her cheeks bright read and her eyes full of terror. “It’s in there!” She pointed to her cabin.
“What’s in there?”
“A rat!”
Shhhit. “Okay, go to the main lodge, I’ll take care of it,” Lance assured her as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. The last thing the Woodpecker Inn needed was a bad review about rats in the cabins.
He connected a call to Brock.
“Yellow,” his friend answered.
“Hey, someone said they saw a rat in their cabin.”
“We don’t have rats in the cabins.”
“Yeah, well, she’s pretty friggin’ convinced. I sent her your way. I’ll take a look around.”
“This is the last thing we need right now,” Brock muttered.
“I know. I’ll let you know what I find.” He placed his palm on the cold wood of the door. It creaked open.
“Kitchen!” the woman yelled from where she was hiding behind a sapling.
