The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska #1)(3)

The man seated at the counter next to them choked on his burger, unable to stop staring. Without asking, Graham reached over and topped off his soda. Being in close proximity to Lana was stressful for all of them.

“Graham, Zoey needs to have a Growly Bear and a Sloppy Dog. This is her first day here, and she has to have the true Moose Springs experience.”

Really? The true experience? What had his little dive come to?

“The Tourist Trap is everyone’s first pit stop,” she continued. “Having a Growly Bear is a rite of passage.”

Didn’t that just run a cold chill up his spine?

Realizing Lana was beaming impishly at him, Graham tossed another fry at her, this time aiming for her forehead. “You’re mean, L.”

“And you’re terribly predictable, love.” Dang, she’d caught it, just like the first.

“Fine, you win.” Lana was relentless when she wanted something, and Graham was too busy to invest the kind of effort it would take to drive her away. “This Zoey needs to ask for herself.”

Lana had a lot of friends, and sometimes one or two never materialized, leaving the extra drinks for her. Since he liked Lana, he let her get away with it, but two Growly Bears was one Growly Bear too many.

Heck, one Growly Bear was one too many, but try telling the masses of resort guests that. A solid third of the night’s clientele were drinking Growlies without the decency to feel ashamed of themselves.

“Poor Zoey flew coach,” Lana continued. “No wonder she’s not feeling well. I told her to join me last week, but no. It’s all work all the time with her.”

“Yes, us selfish plebeians with our jobs.”

Graham handed two burgers and a basket of fries to the customer waiting behind her. He didn’t bother asking how they wanted them. He’d learned quickly that if he gave a Moose Springs Resort tourist options, they’d still be making him read ingredient labels an hour later.

At first, Graham had exclusively taken cash payment, but there were only so many times he could be stared at with confusion by the ultra-rich before he broke down and bought a tablet for credit card swipes.

Lana leaned further over the counter. Yep. Those were a pair of breasts in his buns. As he added grilled onions to the next order of dogs, he put his palm on Lana’s shoulder with the other, gently straightening her. He personally didn’t mind, but Graham doubted the next table would like the smell of Chanel in their meal.

Lana snagged a beer from the tray he was preparing. Before he could stop her, she downed it without blinking.

“Hello, Moose Springs,” she cried out. “Beers for all my new friends, Graham. Let’s get this night started!”

The crowd cheered. Graham groaned.

With a look over her shoulder that could have brought a better man to his knees, Lana sauntered away, beer bottle at her hip as she mouthed “Growly Bear” to him.

With close to forty people in his twenty-five-maximum diner, he’d likely have to bust out the cases of Midnight Sun IPA that had just come in. When Lana said beer, she didn’t mean the cheap stuff. It wouldn’t be the first time that his repeat patroness walked away with a tab well into four digits. When someone had that kind of money…

“You’d never see me again,” Graham murmured as he started making tick marks on a piece of scratch paper to keep track of bottles, adding them as free drinks to the tables of those who claimed their freebies.

Three drinks per customer. That was his rule. One Growly Bear a night. Graham learned the hard way to keep that rule, no matter how ticked off the customers got. They could eat themselves into a coma, but Graham wasn’t going to hose any more vomit off his front walk or be responsible for someone wrecking a Ferrari on the winding mountain road back to the resort.

And if anyone got too angry? Well, Graham always enjoyed tossing crappy customers out of his establishment.

When a momentary hush fell over the crowd, accompanied by heavy boots stomping across the wood flooring, Graham’s lips curved. And as a body took the seat next to Graham’s line of impatient customers, he paused in his work to hand the newcomer a soda and a cheeseburger. No one said a word in protest.

“Thanks.” Easton Lockett’s deep rumble sounded like a freight train with a smoking habit, even though the owner of the voice would never even consider touching a cigarette.

Some people were tall. Some people were built like tanks, muscular and wide. And some looked like they could sneeze and take down a brick building.

Easton was bigger than all that.

Having to duck when he came through the diner’s very normal sized doorway, Easton was beard and man bun above every person in the room. Climbing through the mountains as a wilderness guide his entire adult life had only put muscle on Easton’s massive frame, shrinking the rest of the world down a few notches or two. Graham wasn’t a little guy, but there was something about being near his friend that made him feel itty-bitty.

Itty-bitty never had been a descriptor Graham enjoyed for himself, but when Easton handed him a ham and cheese hoagie, he decided that he’d let it go for the moment.

“Took your time,” Graham told him. “I’ve been waiting on you.”

Glancing at who wasn’t accompanying him, Graham raised an eyebrow. “Should I bother asking where my dog is?”

“Where do you think?” Easton grunted in response. “Curled up in my sister’s lap on the couch.”