Page 56

Chapter 17

Shane

“Hey, George!”

The resort’s maintenance supervisor looked up from his desk and beamed at me. “Shane! Come on in! What’s up?”

He jumped up from his chair as if a horde of hyenas were chasing him.

“I don’t want to disturb you.” With my hands raised, I took a step back, and George rushed toward me.

“You’re not disturbing me!” George’s eyes widened, and he gestured wildly. “God, you’re doing me a favor!”

He looked almost comical as he tried to keep me in his office.

“This paperwork is such a pain. There’s a reason I took this job. I’ll let you in on a secret—it has nothing to do with writing reports to management.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe I should get an assistant. What do you say, Shane? Interested in a side job doing inventory reports and forwarding orders to accounting?”

The giant lumberjack batted his eyelashes, and I burst out laughing. George put his arm around me and sighed.

“Please tell me something’s broken! Tell me I need to come with you right now to . . . fix a water pipe?”

I patted his head with my free hand. “Sorry. No burst pipe. But something similar?”

George left me standing there and slipped into his jacket before I could finish speaking.

“That sounds like an on-site problem. You don’t need to say anything else. It’s best if I come with you.”

“Yes, I think so too,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m happy to make you happy.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, young Padawan. I’m the maintenance manager here. This has nothing to do with pleasure.”

He winked at me, and once again I wondered how old he was. In any case, he was a feast for the eyes.

“Very well, Jedi. Uh, Master? Jedi Master?”

He closed the door behind us and stopped abruptly. “Jedi? Master? What’s wrong with you? Why do you have to think about it?”

“Sorry.” I shrugged. “I’m not familiar with Star Trek.”

George sucked in his breath sharply and slapped a hand to his heart. With his eyes wide open, he dropped to his knees. He landed in the snow, but that must have hurt.

“Are you trying to kill me?” he gasped and stared at me with his hilariously wide eyes.

“Whatever I just said, it wasn’t worth it.” I pointed at him in the snow.

“It wasn’t worth it . . . ” He let himself fall to the side with a dramatic groan, and I grabbed his upper arm.

“Come on!” I pulled him up. Or tried to. My laughter didn’t exactly help, and George was no help either. Instead, he groaned dramatically.

We heard quick footsteps coming from the side of the path. “Is everything okay?”

We both turned around and saw Adriel rushing toward us. When he realized that George was fooling around, he slowed down. Nevertheless, he approached us, concern written on his face.

“Are you two alright?” A smile played around his lips as he stood in front of us and checked us both over.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for George. I only had a tiny task for him to do in our cabin. Instead of helping, he collapsed here for some flimsy reason.”

“Well!” George sat up indignantly, brushed the snow off his pants, and glared at me. Finally, he turned to Adriel, put his hand on his shoulder, and gazed deep into his eyes.