Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(6)

His grin came back and it was bigger this time, brighter, transforming his whole face making me think he might just be a friendly innkeeper in a biker town in the Rocky Mountains, just like he seemed.

“Sure you do. Ain’t shittin’ me, pretty lady.”

He was right. I wasn’t shitting him mostly because I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Figure, though,” he went on and his eyes moved toward the Harley, “you’d be worth whatever trouble you might cause.”

“What?” I whispered and he looked back at me.

“I’m a good judge of people,” he informed me instead of explaining himself.

“Yes?” I asked because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, moved closer to the edge of the pool and squatted down. I kept treading water and staring at him. “See,” he continued, still quiet, “any trouble you might cause I’m guessin’ would be trouble you don’t mean to cause.”

“I’ve never caused any trouble,” I told him.

This was true. I hadn’t. I was a good girl. I’d always been a good girl. I’d always made the right decisions and done the right things. I might have chosen the wrong husband and the wrong friends but they were the jerks in those scenarios, not me. I was nice. I was thoughtful. I was considerate. I looked out for my neighbors. I got up when old ladies needed a seat in a waiting room. I let people who had two or three items go in front of me at the checkout in grocery stores if I had a full cart of food. I kept secrets. I bit my lip when people I knew did stupid things I knew they would regret and then kept biting my lip when those stupid things bit them in the ass and they came to me and whined about it.

I didn’t wear mini-skirts, not ones with frayed hems, not any mini-skirts at all. If I did, I wouldn’t wear them with high-heeled sandals. Maybe flip-flops or flats but not high heels. I didn’t air kiss front desk reception guys named Ned even if I knew them. I didn’t drive a convertible. I didn’t rush out a door and throw myself in the arms of a man.

And I’d never laughed so loud I filled the air with music.

“Betty’s different than me,” Ned broke into my thoughts and I focused on him.

“She is?” I asked thinking I may have missed something.

“I’m a good judge of people, she’s got the sight.”

“The sight?” I repeated stupidly.

He grinned again while straightening, it was his big grin. He had all his teeth, the eyetooth was wonky but they were all clean and white and the rest were straight. His hair was a little thin, light brown. He wasn’t tall, not short either. Lean and on the thin side. And, I was beginning to believe, a genuinely nice guy, not the creepy night clerk at a hotel in Nowheresville.

“The sight.” He nodded then looked toward the hotel before he turned to me as I moved my arms through the water to take me back to the side so I could stop treading. I reached out and held onto the edge as he kept going. “She told me she met you and she just knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Somethin’ big was gonna happen.”

I blinked and it wasn’t to get the water out of my eyes.

“Something big?”

“Yep.”

“To me?”

“To you, through you, because of you, whatever. But whatever it is, it’ll be big and it’ll be good.”

I didn’t know what to do with this mostly because it was a little crazy.

“She said that?”

He nodded and crossed his arms on his chest, rocking back on his heels again.

“Yep. And she’s never wrong. We been married twenty-five years and she gets these feelin’s and, I’ll repeat, she’s never wrong. My Betty’s always right. Always.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I stayed silent.

“Anyhoots!” he exclaimed loudly. “Best leave you to your swim. You need anythin’ at all, you know where to find me. I hit the hay around midnight but you just gotta ring the buzzer outside the front door and it’ll wake me up. Yeah?”

I nodded.

“Anythin’ you need, pretty lady, I mean that,” he said and it sounded like he meant it.

“Okay,” I replied.

“Glad to have you with us, Lauren.”

“Thanks, Ned.”

He lifted a hand in a wave and wandered back to the reception-slash-house.

I looked at the Harley and listened to the quiet of Carnal.

Then I forced out ten more laps (with three more rest periods), got out of the pool, toweled off, grabbed my stuff and ran to my room.

Chapter Two

A Job to Do

I spent more time wondering what to wear to work than I did training at Bubba’s.

Since Krystal was in a tank top the day before, I decided that it probably wasn’t work casual, more like anything goes. So I put on a nice pair of jeans, a belt and a peachy-pink colored t-shirt that had a crew neck and three ruffles made up the sleeves. I thought it was bright and cute. My ex, Brad, told me he thought it was a little young for me but I liked it, I thought it suited my coloring. I wore flip-flops because I usually wore flip-flops if I could but also because I figured I’d need comfortable shoes. I put in some earrings that were little dangles of peachy-pink crystals, a half-inch choker which was a net of peachy-pink beads and a bunch of bracelets that were elasticized bands of multi-colored crystal beads, peach, pink, peachy-pink, creamy peach, creamy pink, clear and I threw in a couple of blue ones to go with my jeans.