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  “Bryant Mountain House has always maintained the strictest of ties to the natural world.”

  “Bullshit, Trish had a package of Twinkies behind the check-in desk. I’d hardly think your version of nature includes cream filling, particularly not when said cream filling is fully inside a fluorescent-yellow fake sponge cake.”

  He frowned. “That’s not within protocol, I assure you.”

  “Protocol schmotocol, how do I get a TV brought up to my room?”

  “Impossible.”

  “Nothing’s impossible,” I quipped, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

  “Extra pillows? Possible. Plush comfortable robe?” He walked over to open the closet with a flourish. “So possible it’s already here. Ice cream sundae at three in the morning?” He walked toward the phone and picked it up. “Nothing would make us happier than to accommodate this request.”

  “So no one in the history of this place, since the invention of the talking picture box, has been allowed a television in their room?”

  He paused for the smallest of seconds before answering smoothly, “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Not an elderly sick woman who was unable to visit the Sunset Lounge but still wanted to watch her afternoon stories?” I pressed. “Or perhaps this horror writer from Maine who might’ve requested a television to watch one of his many novels that made it to the small screen? You’re telling me that not a single one of your many VIP guests who have visited, including, as your website proclaims, every sitting president, ever once was allowed a television in his room?”

  He frowned. “There may have been a small exception made, in a very extreme circumstance, but—”

  “Aha!” I cried. “And that’s what we have here, an extreme circumstance. So you just scurry on down to your extreme circumstance closet and bring me up a nice flat screen.” I plopped down in the stuffed chair in the corner, disrupting several layers of lace doily with one giant poof.

  The doilies may have softened not only the effect of the chair plop but the effect of my statements as well, as the bellman’s expression turned from barely contained frustration to one of aaand we’re done here. “Ms. Bixby, I’ll be more than happy to communicate your unusual request to the management team, now is that it?” He smiled, showing his even teeth.

  A television is an unusual request. Unbelievable.

  “That’s fine, I’ll be fine.” I sighed, now tired of this conversation. I wanted to unpack, settle in, and see what the hell else was weird about this place.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he replied, and as he stepped out into the hallway, he said, “Hope you have a great stay while you’re with us, Ms. Morgan.”

  “Thank you, I— Wait a minute, what did you call me? Who are you?”

  “Archie Bryant,” he replied, his grin now changing to something more like pure calculation. “Welcome to Bryant Mountain House.”

  The door swung shut and I was left standing there. Glaring. Archie Bryant, the son of the man who hired me. Who knew exactly who I was, that I was very much not Melanie Bixby, and that I’d checked in under false pretenses.

  Sonofa . . .

  Chapter 3

  I breathed in the cold air, exhaling in a puff as I contemplated how to deal with this wrinkle.

  Once the fair Mr. Bryant had left, I headed out onto the balcony. Every room, no matter the size, came with a balcony complete with two beautiful antique rocking chairs. And you’d want the rocking chair, provided the weather was a bit nicer, because this view . . .

  High up in the Catskills, the view was breathtaking. Even with the gray storm clouds it was stunning. The deep valley just below the resort gave way to the mountains marching off into the distance, the remains of the last snowfall still present on the tippy tops. Cold air swirled around my ankles, but I stayed a moment longer, lost in the quiet stillness. I rocked back and forth from the heel to the ball of my foot, my legs cramped from sitting in the car all day. I longed to get outside, stretch, run, my body screaming for a workout. But the rain had indeed turned to a wintry mix of slush and sleet, and I knew better than to take on a new trail in inclement weather.

  But I couldn’t get my mind off the fact that the bellman was the owner’s son. I should’ve suspected. He was dressed awfully nice for a bellman—take away the fleece, which was covering up a white button-down and a tie, now that I thought about it, and those preppy chinos and shiny wingtips should’ve been a dead giveaway.

  Ugh, and that ridiculous conversation about the TV, something he’d surely remember when I was introduced to him in two days, after “Clara Morgan” officially checked in.

  Ah well. I’d had more controversial conversations with a hotel team than “get TVs, please.” I just would’ve preferred to begin that conversation on my own terms.

  Seriously. No TV. What year was this? And a TV room down in the Sunset Lounge was quaint to be sure, but that didn’t exactly help me when I needed some background noise.

  As long as I could remember I’ve preferred to have a TV on, even if I wasn’t watching it. When I ate, when I read, when I slept for sure, I needed the noise. I even left it on sometimes when I wasn’t home so it wasn’t so unearthly quiet, needing to hear something other than echoing silence when I came back at night. I’d scroll through until I found something that I could leave on in the background, interesting but not so interesting it would keep me awake. My favorite was when I could find an infomercial for one of those Time Life collections, maybe songs of the ’70s or my personal favorite, Classic Country. Nothing like a little Tammy Wynette or Marty Robbins to sing you to sleep, right?

  The fact was, I hadn’t gone to sleep without a TV on in . . . Jesus, how long had it been? My mind was racing already at the thought of sleeping tonight, trying to sleep tonight, in all that empty quiet. I wasn’t even sure I could sleep without that noise to break things up.

  When there was no noise, my mind began to take over. The nonanalytical part, where things were best kept packed up and sealed tight and stored away.

  I shook my head to clear it, took another deep breath of the chilly air, and decided to head back inside to unpack.

  “Oh, for the love . . . ow!” I shouted, as the bed banged down on my head for the third time. Unpacking proved difficult when the only closet in the room was in fact not a closet but a hiding place for another ancient contraption, the Murphy bed. Habit had me turning for the closet door as I unpacked each piece of clothing, and I kept forgetting that up on this mountain, with all the nature and the principled living, while there may not be a TV in every room there was most certainly a Murphy bed.

  I rubbed my head as I pushed the stupid thing back into the “closet,” then headed over to the armoire with another stack of clothes. Then marched straight to my bag, grabbed a Post-it and a marker and stuck a note on the closet that read, “Don’t fucking open this again!”

  I made another note, this one in my planner, adding something else to my list of things I’d need to address in this hotel.

  And with that, I was unpacked with the ease and economy of someone who literally spends the better part of her adult life living out of a suitcase.

  Not just her adult life.

  I cued up a travel podcast on my phone and cranked the volume, knowing I certainly wouldn’t disturb anyone on this floor. I closed my planner, once more running my fingers across my name on the front. It was obvious to me now that Archie had seen it, read it, realized I wasn’t who I said I was . . . but decided to play along? Was that the reason I was stuck over here in no-man’s-land, in the one occupied room on an otherwise entirely unoccupied floor? And if he did know who I was, which he did, why was he such . . . hmm . . . well . . . an ass?

  Deciding I’d better lay low until I figured out exactly what was going on, I canceled my dinner reservation and ordered room service instead. I contemplated calling back and asking them to send someone up to start a fire, but then realized they may very well send up Bellman Archie, so I put the k
ibosh on that real quick.

  I took a long soak in the deep tub, an antique claw-foot, of course. I read back over my notes on the property, caught up on email, did some research on the town of Bailey Falls . . . and was bored out of my gourd.

  I didn’t tell my girls I was coming to town—nothing betrays a pseudonym faster than two crazy people running pell-mell into the lobby and shouting, “Get your ass over here, Clara!” To be clear, while it would likely be Natalie doing the shouting, it’d be Roxie doing the pell-melling—no one would be safe.

  But now, as it got later and later and I was running out of things to do, and no television in the near future, my mind was beginning to spread out a bit. Always dangerous.

  Restless, I got up and headed over to the window. The icy slush slapped against the pane, making me regret not biting the bullet and ordering up a toasty fire. I peered through the frost that crept along the edges of the frame, seeing just a glimpse of a single lantern below and then a vast open shadow where the mountains lingered just out of sight. Another person might feel lonely. Another person might look out into all that inky blackness and see the one tiny light from just the one lantern and wonder if there was anyone else out there at all.

  Another person might. But I didn’t get lonely. You couldn’t be lonely unless you allowed yourself to feel it, and I’d learned at an early age to steel myself against that. To stiff upper lip it, to spine straighten and stand tall and turn what possibly could have been lonely feelings into a deep and certain resolve. A resolve that had protected and shielded me through seven different foster homes, keeping me focused on school and work rather than friends and family.

  Now, as an adult, I had the friends. As far as the family . . .

  I sighed, shook my head, and turned back to my room. Seeing that it was late enough now to justify going to sleep, I pulled on my pajamas and crawled between the sheets. Hmm, a bit thin and crackly. I grabbed another Post-it, wrote the words thread count quickly, and slapped it on the front of my planner. The to-do list was growing already and Clara Morgan hadn’t even officially arrived.

  I flipped off the lights, slipped farther down into the bed, and listened to the squeaks and creaks of an old building turning in for the night. A slight whistle from the radiator in the corner, icy slush still hitting the window—all noises a blessed television would tune out.

  Turning on another travel podcast, this one about the central market in Istanbul, I willed my body to shut down and rest. My last thought before slipping into sleep was that if Archie Bryant knew who I really was all along, then he really was an ass for not saying so.

  Archie Bryant. Pffft.

  The next morning was clear and cold. When my alarm went off at my usual five thirty, I woke up groggy and foggy. I hadn’t slept well, which was unusual. I was on the road so much, I actually slept better in hotels than at home. Occupational hazard I guess. It wasn’t just that the bed wasn’t comfortable—it was a bit soft and sagged in the middle slightly—but it wasn’t anything I could put my finger on. I’d just spent the better part of the night flipping and flopping.

  I thought about indulging in a rare occurrence, an extra nine-minute snooze, but now that the Bryant family knew I was on the property, I needed to be ready for whatever might come at me today. The first thing I’d do, however, was get in a run.

  I’d always been a runner, it was something I’d picked up early on, around seventh grade. I was fast as a kid, but I quickly realized that what I really had was endurance. I was energetic almost to a fault when I was small, something I’d been reminded of frequently. But put me on a cross-country course and I could run for days. Hot, cold, rainy, it didn’t matter as long as I could feel the ground beneath me and hear that steady drum of my feet passing mile four, mile five, mile six, and on and on and on.

  All runners know when you hit a certain point, your body just takes over and you sink into your rhythm. I did my best planning when I was running. The ideas took shape, solutions to problems were presented in a coherent way, and a plan came together as I moved over whatever terrain I was running on.

  I was nineteen when I completed my first marathon. It was the year I was in Santa Barbara with Roxie and Natalie, and I’d gotten it into my head that I could do it. My friends hated running, exercise of any kind wasn’t something to enjoy, it was merely something to be suffered through occasionally when they were trying to work off that entire batch of churros we’d all consumed in our pastry class. Mine were inedible. Natalie’s may have been toxic. But Roxie’s were epic.

  So yeah, I ran alone mostly. After that first marathon it was like a light went on, and I realized there was an entire community of road warriors just like me who loved to run through that perfect pain that comes when you push your body to do something, especially when it’s pretty sure it can’t but does it anyway. The mind over matter, conquering that little voice in your head that tells you to stop, it’s too much, it’s too hard, you can’t do it.

  I could do it. And I ran my ass off up and down the California coast that year, addicted to the thrill of crossing that finish line. A fair swimmer and a pretty good bike rider, I was twenty-one when I completed my first triathlon. I had to train harder for that than anything, the water and cycle portions not coming to me as naturally as running, but as I became more and more efficient in these sports, I began to enjoy triathlons almost as much as marathons.

  I was always training. I was always conditioning. And I was always either recovering from a race or getting ready for one.

  My line of work lent itself perfectly to this lifestyle, and a lifestyle is exactly what it was. I could never call what I did a hobby, because it really was a key part of everything and anything I did.

  I was in great shape, so I could indulge in food and wine as I pleased, but I still exercised moderation in all things because while an extra slice of chocolate cake might not stick around long as unburned calories in my body, it could throw my sugar off, make me sluggish, and make a five-mile run—my usual three to four days per week—pure hell.

  I slipped into leggings and a T-shirt, laced up my running shoes, and headed down to the gym.

  Oh boy.

  The “gym” at Bryant Mountain House was . . . oh man, it just was. Added onto the main house sometime in the 1920s as a “gymnasium,” it’d been overhauled in the 1980s when Jane Fonda fever swept the country and then put into dry dock ever since. It was huge, but that was all it had going for it. There were a few ancient exercise bikes, some free weights and benches, an honest to God NordicTrack next to a row of honest to wow ThighMasters. All along the walls were ballet studio mirrors interspersed with inspirational posters, including a cat that was still desperately Hangin’ In There. But underneath the high-gloss mauve and turquoise I was now becoming accustomed to as the Bryant palette, there were beautiful wide-planked floors of pumpkin-colored pine. Faint outlines of the original “gymnasium” were still evident here and there along the floor, and each end of the gym was, of course, anchored by fireplaces.

  And tucked into a corner, one new piece of equipment—a state-of-the-art treadmill.

  Wondering which wealthy donor had passed away and willed this to the cause, I shrugged and stepped up. And into some of that fully inside nature. Stretched out before me through an enormous picture window was the entire property, including an unobstructed view of the Catskills. I spent my time on the treadmill gazing out at the bare trees and sparkling blue sky above.

  What I already loved about Bryant Mountain House was that up here, it was like time had literally stood still. This forest and the hills surrounding it were as gorgeous as they were when the Bryant brothers came here that very first time, looked at it and knew this was where they’d build what would become their legacy. This place was purposefully pristine and a guest could so easily imagine a Jennifer Grey scampering up a woodland path in her jean shorts and Keds ready to cha-cha with the Bailey Falls version of Patrick Swayze. Sigh.

  But what I already loved
about this place was also what I was going to work very hard to tweak. I’m all for traditions, maybe even more than your average girl, but there were definitely some things that needed to be brought into this century. The rooms, the palette, the furniture, most certainly the gym. And it was going to be fun finding that balance between new and old, traditions but with a twist.

  I increased the incline slightly, raising the speed by one. My brain was beginning to puzzle out a plan for Bryant Mountain House and I needed to clear the mental decks.

  By six forty-five, I’d finished my run, wrapped a towel around my neck, and was leaving the gym when I ran smack into one very tall, very polished, very surprised Archie Bryant.

  Not seeing who it was initially, I pulled out my earbuds and tried to apologize. “Sorry! I’m so sorry, I—”

  “Careful, watch where you’re—”

  Speaking over each other, we both stopped short, our words hanging in the air as I tried again. “Mr. Bryant, I’m sorry about that, I didn’t think anyone else would be up this early.”

  “Early bird gets the worm, Ms. Bixby,” he replied, untangling his paperwork from my gym bag. Dressed impeccably in a dark gray suit, pale green tie, and paisley pocket square, he looked every inch to the manor born. He looked down at his suit now with distaste, as though I’d left a sweaty-girl imprint for him to wear on his chest all day. I gave it a quick once-over just to make sure that had in fact not happened, which of course it hadn’t. I was sweaty, but I wasn’t dripping wet for goodness’ sake. But it was time to bite this particular bullet.

  “Don’t you think we can drop the whole Ms. Bixby stuff?”

  “Oh, until you’re able to explain to my father and the rest of our team why the fancy expert he brought in from Boston is running around crashing into people while using a pseudonym, I’ll refer to you as any other guest who’s checked in to our beautiful hotel.” He leaned down a bit closer, and once more I could see the spray of freckles across his nose, this time against a significantly redder background. Angry, he was angry with me. And this clearly went beyond just an untimely bump in the hall. “I’m sure he’ll be most happy to make your acquaintance this morning.”