Out of This World

Chapter 2

At least there really was a trail. We trudged along it, a sheer rock cliff on our right, a sharp drop-off on our left, at the bottom of which the river rolled and charged along its path. Some really loud birds squawked, as if scolding us for the interruption. Then a cute little squirrel ran out on a branch of a huge, towering tree and chattered at us.

“Oh, look how sweet,” I said.

He chirped again, and then chucked a pinecone at my head.

I ducked and screamed, and Kellan rolled with laughter.

“You wouldn’t be laughing if he’d hit me,” I said, pouting a little. “You’d be carrying my limp body!”

Kellan tried to stop laughing but couldn’t.

I huffed onward, and did my best to regain some dignity. But I’d like to point out, a quarter of a mile is a helluva lot farther than I could have imagined. Probably if I exercised, I wouldn’t be huffing and puffing and wishing for a box of cookies. But I didn’t. And I was.

But there was a trail. I grasped onto that fact, clinging to it like it was my fondest memory. It meant Jack had been telling the truth and, at the end of a quarter mile, we’d find the B &B.

And food.

And, God willing, a telephone, and even better, an Internet connection, which I’d use to find us a way out of here.

“How fast do you think we can get back home?”

“Not fast.”

“I bet I could call someone to come for us.”

“You’re not really going to chicken out that fast.” Kellan was right behind me on the trail, taking up the rear, which worried me.

What if we were being stalked by wolves or bears this very minute?

Or worse, the dreaded mountain cats?

Kel would get eaten first, and then I’d be all alone. On second thought, maybe being in front was a good thing. Still, I sped up as much as I could carrying my two large duffle bags and a box, which was filled with frozen meats. Yes, I’d peeked. This left Kellan with his single duffle bag and three boxes, all loaded with fruits, veggies, pastas and many more supplies, but no cookies.

I’d checked those boxes, too.

I really hated that Kellan knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t chicken out, that I would want to see this through. But that want was more abstract than actual. Because now that I was here, I was discovering a whole host of things about myself. Such as that it’s one thing to think of yourself as adventurous, another ballgame entirely to really be adventurous.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

“What, you missed that first-class meal on our last flight?”

Okay, in spite of myself, I laughed. My last boyfriend had been a leather-wearing biker guy from Santa Barbara. Mouthwateringly gorgeous. He’d been a doctor, too. Perfect, right?

Except for his utter lack of a sense of humor. In fact, he’d been something of an egotistical asshole, and in the end, I’d discovered I wanted more than hard pecs and a nice bank account.

Go figure.

Good things never last.

Dot claimed that was just an excuse to hold back, that I dated the wrong men on purpose, in effect sabotaging my own happiness to prove my own point.

Whatever. All I knew was that Kellan never went for the wrong women. No, he dated sweet, kind, peace-loving, tree-hugging, sensitive women who were his perfect complement.

But I couldn’t help noticing, none of his relationships lasted either. “Huh,” I said over the crack of various pine needles and twigs beneath my feet.

“Huh what?” Kel asked.

“I’m just wondering why you aren’t taken.”

“You mean because I’m such a catch with my high-powered job and buff bod?”

I didn’t look back, because I was still keeping an eye out for kamikaze squirrels, but I could hear the humor in his voice. I knew he didn’t make big bucks at Sea World, but he had a job that he was extremely passionate about and that had a certain sex appeal to it. And no, he wasn’t exactly a buff guy, not with his tall, lanky frame, but he had a great face and an easy smile that was contagious, and that a woman might pass him up made me mad. “You’re a catch, Kel.”

He let out a low laugh. “Okay.”

“You are.”

“Such a catch that you’re dying to nab me yourself, right?”

I was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question because one, he’d never made a move on me in all these years, and two, I’d never thought of him that way. I was spared from thinking that way now by the sound of my stomach growling so loudly, it startled a bird into flight.

“Feel free to tuck into that meat you’re carrying,” Kellan said, shifting the weight of all he carried. Not that he’d complained once.

Nope, not Kellan. At one point, he’d calmly opened his backpack, pulled out twine and rigged himself some sort of arm strap for the three boxes he carried. He’d offered to do the same for me, but I’d said I was fine.

If “fine” was hot, tired and increasingly grumpy.

“Believe me,” I said, “if anything in here was cooked, I’d have dived in by now.” I already had my sights set on a New York strip steak, as well as on one of the potatoes from box number three in Kellan’s arms. Loaded with butter and sour cream…Oh yeah…

“You okay?” Kel asked.

“No, but why?”

“Because you just sort of moaned.”

“It was nothing.” Only the thought of melted butter…

“Why are you huffing and puffing?”

“Um, because I’m out of shape, thanks for asking.”

Kellan, the jerk, wasn’t huffing and puffing at all. Probably because for his job swimming with dolphins, he actually used physical exertion.

I ought to try that sometime.

Or not.

“This stuff is heavy,” I said, adjusting the straps of both my duffle bags.

“You packed too much.”

“Did not.”

“Really? Then why do you need two gigantic duffle bags for three days in the wilderness?”

“Because things might come up.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Things.”

“Tell me what you brought,” he said.

“Oh, you know. Just the essentials.”

“Bet you brought makeup and fingernail polish.”

“Neither of which is heavy,” I pointed out.

Laughing, he shook his head.

Actually, the whole makeup thing had been a quandary. I’d had no idea what I’d need for the great outdoors, so I’d packed it all.

And truthfully? It was a tad bit heavier than I’d imagined.

“And what about shoes?” he asked.

Now there was a discussion I most definitely didn’t want to have. “What about them?”

“How many pairs?”

“Six.”

“Jesus.”

“Okay, four.”

“Haven’t you ever roughed it, Rach. Ever?”

Hey, I rough it every day of my life in the mean, tough streets of Los Angeles. I didn’t see a need to rough it on vacation as well.

“How many pairs of shoes did you really bring?”

“I don’t know why it matters to you,” I said, sniffing. “I’m not asking you to carry my bag.”

“Bags. Plural.”

Damn it. I hated that he was right. “See, this is why I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t want to have to disclose certain matters.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend because you date guys who are allergic to commitment.”

Okay, maybe that was true, too.

“I’m sweating,” I said, looking for just a little sympathy.

“Sweat is good for you.”

I couldn’t have heard him right, because I sure hadn’t received an ounce of sympathy anywhere. “Excuse me?”

“It’s good for you,” he repeated patiently.

My eyes narrowed, and I stopped and faced him. “Are you saying I could stand to lose a few pounds?”

“What?” He shook his head. “Of course not. What I said was-”

“I’ll have you know, I’m only a few pounds over my goal weight.”

“I do know-Look, you’re fine-”

“And most of those five pounds are water weight.”

“Rach, I am speaking English, right?” He asked this in the baffled tone of men everywhere who’d stepped into uncharted territory: a woman’s psyche. “I said you look fine,” he said. “You heard that part?”

“Fine?” I made a snort that sounded like my head had just gotten a flat tire. “The word ‘fine’ should be erased from the English language!”

He blinked, and eyed me like an unstable rock wall. “What’s wrong with the word ‘fine’?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t help you.”

“Okay, clearly the excursion has gone to your head. Take a lighter box,” he said, sounding a bit desperate to change the subject.

Typical guy.

“Here, take the fruits-and-veggies box,” he said.

Great. Fruits and veggies. I hate fruits and veggies. “Fine.”

This made him frown. “Why do you get to use that word, and I don’t?”

I didn’t answer. I was still obsessing over my weight. I really did plan on losing those extra five pounds. Okay, ten. Honest. Just not right now. Not when I was wishing for some cookies.

Or the end of the quarter mile.

I was really wishing for that, but the woods had swallowed us up. I had a blister on my left heel and my stomach was still growling, but I couldn’t complain because I was with a guy whose arms could fall off and he wouldn’t say so, and I didn’t want to look bad.

I really hated to look bad.

“What do you suppose are the chances there’s a day spa at Hideaway?”

He let out a laugh between pants. “Only you, Rach.”

“Hey, it’s possible.”

Something buzzed. It was either my brain matter beginning to boil or the biggest fly on the planet. Wait. Not a fly, but-“Ack, bee!”

And it was after me. Like really after me. This was no simple flyby either, but a serious I’m-going-sting-your-ass attack by a dive-bombing, maniac bee. I lifted my box higher, trying to protect my face, while screaming like…like the girly girl I was.

“Stand still,” Kellan advised.

Stand still? This was a bee, the mother of all bees, out for my blood.

“Rach, your box.” Kel was trying to balance his own three boxes while watching me dance around like an idiot. “I’m telling you, you’re going to spill-”

Just as he said it, my box toppled right out of my hands and crashed to the ground.

Good news: The bee got the hint that I was crazy, and took off.

Bad news: The box imploded upon impact. Frozen ribs, steaks and ground meat all scattered across the ground, their plastic wrap loosened, becoming marinated in pine needles, dirt, ants and who-knew-what-else.

I dropped to my knees, looked at that New York strip steak I’d wanted and let out a pathetic sound. I think my eyes welled up, but I pretended it was from the dust.

Beside me, two battered tennis shoes appeared. One was untied. I have no idea why I noticed such a thing at a time of crisis like this.

With a sigh, Kellan lowered his knees to the dirt beside me.

“A little dirt never hurt anyone,” he said in way-too-kind voice.

And how pathetic was it that I actually wanted to believe him? I tried not to fall apart. “You think we can apply the thirty-second rule?” I asked in a weak voice. “You know, if we pick it up within thirty seconds, it’s like no-harm-no-foul?”

“I do,” he said solemnly.

“Good. Because we can’t just leave it all here, right? I mean, we might attract those bears Jack mentioned, and he did say don’t feed them. Right?”

“Right,” he said dryly as we reached for the fallen meats, dirt and all. “That’s what you’re most concerned about: the bears eating your steak.”

See, this was the problem with good friends. They knew you too well.

We shuffled the contents of the boxes around-meaning Kellan gave me an easier load.

“You know what I don’t get?” I asked, again breathless after only one minute, and also boggled by my thought. “Guests pay to come here. As in, they pull out their checkbooks and pay.”

“Maybe they like the great outdoors.”

“And kamikaze squirrels?”

“And kamikaze squirrels.”

I still didn’t get it. “Are you telling me they all walk this same trail?”

Kellan lifted a shoulder. “Maybe besides a love for the outdoors and kamikaze squirrels, they also get a thrill out of killer bees.”

I laughed. I always laughed with him, I realized, even when things sucked. “You’d think they’d have put that on their Web site. Warning: Alaska is not for sissies.”

“I’m pretty sure most people know that already,” he pointed out. “Besides, you saw the Web site. It’s…lacking.”

Yet another concern on my mind. Hideaway B &B was mine now-assets and liabilities and all. I had no idea how good or bad things were financially, but one thing I did know: Whatever state the place was in, I was responsible for it, for the people who worked for it, for the bills, for still making a living back in L.A.

Yikes, I was going to have to be a real grownup here, not just the farce of a grownup I’d been up until now.

Scary stuff.

And funny, considering I’d never so much as bothered with the responsibility of anything more troublesome than fish, and yet now I owned a business.

A business I knew too little about. From the outdated Web site, it’d been difficult, if not impossible, to get a sense of what I was up against. There’d been only two pictures of the tall, mysterious inn: one in summer, one in winter.

The summer pic had been taken at dusk and had been too dark to be effective, not showing any of the inn’s distinguishing features, nor anything of its surroundings. The winter shot revealed snow up to the windows, and had been taken at night.

Snow.

Up to the windows.

During a night so dark, it gave a whole new meaning to the color black.

Boggling.

The site did boast that Hideaway was a hundred years old, and as we turned a corner and suddenly came to the clearing in which the inn sat, I could believe it. It looked just like the pictures, though I don’t know why that surprised me. The place was bigger than I’d expected, and it looked a bit like an old Victorian, but without the warmth and charm. Four stories high, it had a sharply slanted roof, myriad dark windows and eaves that made it look…foreboding. No, that had to be my imagination, because not only was the sun out but, despite it being early afternoon, smoke was coming from the chimney. Those should both be calming, right? So why did I suddenly have goose bumps?

My mom had warned me many times that Great-Great-Aunt Gertrude had been somewhat of a loony toons, and that no doubt her staff would be just as crazy. But coming from my mother, that had been, like, Hello, Mrs. Pot, I’m Black…

“At least someone’s here,” Kellan murmured, and nudged me up the walk with the big load in his arms, reminding me of the weight we were carrying. Or that he mostly carried. “Hopefully they’re expecting us. You did call ahead, right?”

“I called,” I said, the front porch creaking ominously beneath our feet. I looked at the hanging sign that read HIDEAWAY B &B. “But no one answered, not even an answering machine.”

“Is that code for ‘I didn’t really call because I forgot to think ahead’?”

“No,” I said a bit defensively. “My inability to organize or make plans and keep them has nothing to do with this. I really did try.”

It’d been frustrating and a little unnerving. This was a business, right? My business. “I e-mailed the contact from the Web site, too. Nothing.” We set down our boxes and bags on the front porch, and knocked.

No one answered.

I stepped off the porch, and looked up.

And up.

Wow, the place was tall. The chimney still had smoke coming out, so someone had to be here. Then I blinked because I thought I saw something. There, on the top floor, one of the windows…glowed, as if someone had walked past it with a flashlight or candle. But it was gone so quickly, I couldn’t be sure. “That’s odd,” I said in a normal voice that belied the way my heart had skipped a beat.

It got odder, when, in that same high-up window, I suddenly saw two faces, a young blond woman and a guy who looked like a twenty-something Harry Potter, their foreheads pressed to the glass as they stared down at me the same way I stared up at them.

And yet, in the very next blink, they were gone.

Vanished.

“Did you see them?” I asked Kellan hoarsely, because my voice had nearly gone, along with all the air in my lungs. I tugged on his sleeve. “There, in the window.”

“What did I miss?” He craned his neck and looked up in pretend horror. “Another squirrel tea party?”

“Ha ha, you’re a laugh a minute.”

But I couldn’t take my gaze off the window. Real or Memorex? Hard to tell. “Kellan.”

At the serious tone in my voice, he looked at me, amusement fading. “So what did you see?”

I shook my head. It sounded kind of crazy. “Never mind. It was nothing.”

Kellan knocked again, but we still got no answer.

Which meant I’d definitely imagined the couple. Oh boy. And they said losing touch with reality was the first symptom…

Kellan tried the doorknob. We stared at each other, both jumping a little when the door creaked as he pushed it open.

From inside came nothing but a big yawning silence.

“Hello?” I called out.

Nothing. Not a single sound. It was like the entire inn was holding its breath, and something cold and creepily foreboding danced down the back of my neck.

And then, from somewhere far upstairs, a door shut with a definitive click.

Kellan glanced at me, face unreadable. “Was that nothing, too?”

Thank God, I thought. He’d heard it. I wasn’t losing my mind.

At least, not completely.

Strange how much comfort I found in that one small fact. Still, I was feeling sorry-extremely sorry-that I’d so hastily jumped on a plane and hightailed it up here without more details. Honest to God, one of these days I was going to get it together and think things through.

“Hello?” Kellan called out, his voice louder and surer than mine. “Anyone home?”

“Yo, dude. In the kitchen.”

Kellan raised a brow so that it vanished beneath the hair falling into his eyes. That voice had come from an entirely different direction than the door closing upstairs. The voice was also Los Angeles, specifically San Fernando Valley, spoken in the slow, purposeful voice of a career slacker.

Kellan took my hand, a gesture for which I felt very grateful as we entered the house of horror. We stepped over the threshold into a large reception room with scarred wooden floors and scattered throw rugs, none of which matched. A giant moose head hung over the stone fireplace, its glassy-eyed stare seeming to pierce right through me. The windows were covered with lace slightly yellowed with time. The huge, L-shaped, chocolate leather couch and two beat-up leather recliners looked extremely well lived-in.

Spartan, but actually quite homey, even cozy, and somehow not nearly as bad as I’d imagined standing on the porch looking up at those two ghosts…

“You coming, or what?” asked the slacker voice.

Kel and I looked at each other, then moved through the large room and into a kitchen that smelled like wood smoke and spicy tea. This room was painted a bright, sunny yellow and white, also far more cheerful than the outside had let on. The ceiling was light pine siding, with copper pots hanging from the slats. There were also a few huge plants, green and thriving in a way that made me want to grab a paintbrush and a canvas.

But best yet, there was a large woodstove, lit and sending off a wave of warmth, which drew me like moth to flame.

There was a humongous oak table in the center of the room, and on it sat a large vase filled with fresh wildflowers, which gave off a scent that I imagined I would have smelled in the woods if I hadn’t been too busy whining all the way up here to notice.

The counters held various appliances and, most interestingly, a guy sitting Indian-style, facing away from us.

He grabbed our attention immediately. He wore a pair of army green cargo pants, a white thermal top and a wool hat with tassels that hung down and swung beneath each ear like earrings. His hands were in front of him, out of sight, but I feared he was cradling a bong as he stared out the window. “Ohhhmmm,” he sang.

Kellan craned his neck, and glanced at me. Nutso, his eyes said. I shot him a pacifying look.

“Um, hello?” I said.

Nutso-er, the man-slowly turned, and looked at us with eyes the color of light milk chocolate dotted with gold specks of mischief.

He was maybe thirty, with shaggy brown hair and a silly, crooked smile that was somehow contagious. And he wasn’t holding a bong, as I’d feared, but had his hands out in front of him with the palms together, in a yoga position.

“You’re Rachel Wood,” he said, hopping down off the counter, revealing a tall, athletic form. “The new boss here at Hideaway.”

I’d never been called a boss before-I was barely my own boss-so the greeting threw me for a loop.

“And you are?” Kellan asked him.

“Oh!” He shot us an amused grin. “Sorry. I’m Axel.”

When we both looked at him blankly, he said, “Expedition leader here at Hideaway.”

Kellan introduced himself while I chewed on the fact that I was “the boss.”

“Did you know Rachel was coming up here today?” Kellan asked Axel.

He shook his head. “Nah. When Gertrude’s attorney sent us the money she left us, he told us about her, that’s all. Said she was L.A. all the way, an artist, who’d be showing up eventually to see what’s what and then heading back to her murals in the city.”

I didn’t catch much of what he said after “the money she left us,” and I shook my head. “Wait. So you got something in the will?” I hadn’t even seen the will; I’d only spoken to the attorney on the phone.

“Well, of course,” Axel said. “I’m going to take a nice vacation. Somewhere warm, of course. I’m thinking Virgin Islands. Maybe the Caymans, depending on the surf reports, you know?”

Did I know? No, I didn’t know. I knew nothing. In fact, I knew less than nothing.

“Oh, and dudette, now that you’re here,” Axel went on, “you’ve got some back wages to pay.”

“But, what if I’d never shown up?” I asked, overwhelmed.

“Well, of course you were going to show up.” He smiled that smile that normally I’d consider contagious and return full force, but I couldn’t smile back right now because anxiety was gripping me.

“You’re Gert’s niece, aren’t you?” He chuckled, and the long tassels on his beanie swayed back and forth. “Probably just as organized and anal as she was, right?”

I smiled weakly. If he only knew…“I’ve been calling”-I tried to sound as if I was in control, when I was so not-“but I couldn’t get through.”

“Yeah. We lost the phone a while back.”

“We?”

“Marilee’s here somewhere, too. She’s the cook and housekeeper. You owe her some back wages as well.”

This just got better and better, didn’t it?

“We just heard her shut a door upstairs,” I said.

“Nope. She’s out back watering her flowers. As for getting a hold of us, you can text me on my cell, though I mostly don’t have any reception up here.” He patted his pocket, found it empty, frowned, then patted another pocket.

And yet another.

Still came up empty, not that he looked too troubled. “I had the thing earlier,” he murmured. His tassels hit him in the face as he bent, slapping at his pants.

“I also sent an e-mail,” I said.

“Yeah, not so good with the computer, dudette. Sorry.” Giving up on finding his cell, he turned away to grab a steaming mug off the counter.

“If there’s no phone, and no one is manning the Web site, how do potential guests make reservations?” I asked.

He blinked, then scratched his head, as he sipped at his drink. “Dunno. Gertrude used to do that.”

The woman had been buried for three weeks. A really bad feeling began to work its way through my system. “So no one’s been handling the business since she-”

“Well, I keep meaning to find that phone…”

Three weeks with no income, and yet the staff had been working. That seemed like unnecessary out-of-pocket expenses to me.

My pocket.

“Well,” Axel said, heading for the door, “time for my nooner.”

I had no idea what he meant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “But it’s past noon,” I said, looking at the small cuckoo clock on the counter. “It’s nearly four o’clock.”

Not seeming too concerned-and I had my doubts that he could get concerned about anything, even if his life depended on it-he shrugged. “You know what they say,” he said in that slow voice. “Better late than never.”

“Yeah. So who’s upstairs?”

“No one.”

“But-”

“Relax, Rachel Wood.” He accompanied this with a pat on my shoulder. “You’re here now, in God’s country. Just take it easy.”

Easier said than done.

“Time stands still here, dudette.” His smile widened. “Everything’s good.”

And with that, he was gone.

“Probably misplaced his crack pipe,” I said into the silence.

“I think it’s more a bong-type love affair,” Kellan said, and looked around. “Truth is, this place isn’t as bad as you imagined, Rach.”

“In what realm of reality?”

He shrugged. “If it wasn’t so completely inaccessible, it’d be worth something pretty decent on the real estate market. Might still be worth something.”

Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.

Hoping the same thing.