The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska #1)(18)

Quinn stared at her, eyes widening. Zoey found herself staring back, unaccustomed to seeing so much of another human being’s eyeballs.

“You?” She squeaked. “Help me?”

“Maybe?”

The leaning tower of towels was about to topple, so Zoey grabbed the ones at the top of the stack while Quinn the hospitality specialist still considered her options.

“Thank you.” Decision made, Quinn breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re dangerously close to being out of towels. I would have gotten in so much trouble for dropping these. They’re the special towels.”

“You have special towels?”

“Special guests require special towels. Erm, not that all our guests aren’t special. But you know…”

“What’s a hospitality specialist?” Zoey asked curiously.

“It’s their fancy way of saying I’m the maid for the high-profile guests.” Quinn made a playful face. “It’s still cleaning up people’s crap no matter how you spell it.” Already widened eyes widened even further, a deer in the headlights look if Zoey had ever seen one. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, hahahaha.”

Some laughs made everyone else want to join in too. This was not one of those laughs. This was a glance around the immediate vicinity, just a little too loud, awkward kind of laugh. Zoey was tempted to save Quinn from herself by clamping a hand over her mouth.

“I heard nothing,” Zoey promised, mimicking zipping her lip. “Where are we taking these?”

“Up to the top. Here, this way.”

Following Quinn down a series of hallways to a staff elevator, Zoey balanced her own towels as Quinn used a staff keycard for access. She hit the button for the penthouse suite.

“I didn’t bring you up here,” Quinn said, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “Hannah would kill me.”

“Hannah?”

“The hotel night manager. Technically, Mrs. Harris is the general manager, but everyone knows Hannah’s actually in charge. We’re all just waiting for Mrs. Harris to croak.” A naughty snicker escaped around the pillar of towels. “She might have already. Mrs. Harris spends all her time napping in her office with the door closed.”

Zoey opened her mouth to say something, but Quinn soldiered on cheerfully.

“The guest list is crazy. We’re usually full up during peak season, but there’s never been so many high-profile guests in the resort at the same time. And they all need something special.” Quinn glanced at her from behind cotton. “Not that we mind. Our jobs are to keep everyone happy.”

“There’s a silent ‘but’ in there,” Zoey said, squishing her towels to see what made them so special.

“But it’s nice when there’s only a handful of you know what’s in the hotel at once. They’re running me ragged.” Quinn made another face, her eyes crinkling in mischief. “At least the tips are good.”

Considering Zoey’s profession as a career waitress, she could appreciate a strong tipper. A few more of them and she might have made it here a couple of years sooner.

The elevator door opened to a private hallway entrance, the staff elevator doors hidden from view at the end of the hall, blending into the décor so no one would notice the elevator—or the people working there. When they stepped into the penthouse suite, Zoey’s jaw dropped. Between the massive stone fireplace and a kitchen bigger than her place back home, the suite was the perfect combination of cozy, rustic opulence and space, with window after window revealing an utterly spectacular view of the Chugach Mountains.

“Oh wow.”

“Yeah, it never gets old. If you have to clean toilets, there are worse places.”

Prying into a stranger’s private room was wrong, but as Zoey stood in her spot, towels balanced in her arms with Quinn bustling around her, she couldn’t help but stare. The expensive purses just draped over the backs of chairs, bottles of champagne in buckets of ice already chilling despite the early morning hour. Gucci luggage stacked everywhere. She was astonished at the luxury around her.

“What do people pay for rooms like these?”

“More for one night than I make in a month.” Taking the towels from her, Quinn offered Zoey a grateful look. “And trust me, it’s not worth it. There’s nothing in here that we don’t have better down in town.”

She clamped a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that either.”

Zoey had the feeling Quinn’s secrets were secret to very few, if the last few minutes had proven anything. Still, she nodded in reassurance. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“I’ll have to unpack their things in a moment. They just arrived and went down for breakfast.”

“This isn’t Killian’s room, is it?” Trying not to touch anything, Zoey edged out of the room and into the open doorway, a backward kind of shuffle with her hands firmly in her pockets.

“Mr. Montgomery? Do you know him?”

“We didn’t meet in Greece last year.”

Quinn blinked, then powered through her confusion with vibrant optimism. “I’ll tell him you’re here, then. Have you been to the Tourist Trap yet? Everyone has to go there when they first get into town. It’s tradition.”