was a vivid cave of darkened lights and bright video feeds that would have devastated her sore head an hour before, but she was ready for it now. Eli, one of the security guards, was stationed in the room but he was working a crossword puzzle. If the resort were up and running, Charlie would’ve read him the riot act, but right now he was a bit superfluous.
“Hey, Eli. Why don’t you get out of here? Make the rounds of all the current construction areas just so they know you’re around.”
“Got it,” he said, giving her a quick nod of deference. Sometimes security guys could get shitty and macho about working for a young woman, but she’d managed to assemble a good team so far. She didn’t know how long that would last, though. Dawn’s disrespect would start filtering down. Charlie had to figure out what was going on with that woman and stop it before it spread.
Once Eli was gone, Charlie called up the video feed for the corridor that led to her studio on the first floor. Her place was near the elevators for easy access, so the camera was only a few yards from her door.
She fast-forwarded, flying through hours of video. When the tape showed 11:05 p.m., Dawn appeared in the hallway, and Charlie slowed the tape. She wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Dawn knock on her door, then knock again. She was surprised to see her try the doorknob, as if Charlie would leave her place unlocked, or, more importantly, that she’d be okay with her boss opening her door uninvited.
When the door didn’t budge, Dawn stared down at the knob for a long while. She glared at it, then turned to look directly up at the camera.
The skin on Charlie’s arms drew tight as goose bumps sprang to life.
On the video, Dawn frowned and then walked away. Charlie backed up the tape and paused it.
This wasn’t the kind of video they used at the local convenience store. This was crisp and digital. She could clearly see the tightness around Dawn’s eyes. The furtive line of her mouth.
Charlie stared her down.
People were always surprised that Charlie was in security, but these days it wasn’t about big, burly guys with concealed handguns. Well, it wasn’t only about them, though they certainly had their place in the ecosystem. These days it was more about prevention than enforcement. Charlie could read people. She could anticipate. She could pick up on interference that disturbed the flow of normal traffic. On small tells that revealed intentions.
She’d lost a little confidence in her own intuition after the setup in Tahoe, but it didn’t take much skill to read Dawn’s thoughts. That glance was irritation and arrogance, not with Charlie, but with the camera. She was clearly thinking, If only that stupid camera wasn’t there, I could use my master key to get inside.
What Charlie couldn’t see on Dawn’s face was why. Why? Yes, Charlie had met Dawn’s husband for drinks one evening, but if Dawn was going to be that paranoid about Charlie being a femme fatale, why had she recruited her for the job? It made no sense. None of it did.
They’d been close in high school, despite their different interests. Charlie had filled her time with volleyball and track and tutoring, and Dawn had been student council president and head of the honor society and in charge of half the student volunteer organizations. But they’d had something in common, she and Dawn and Sandra and a few other overachievers: none of them had been popular with boys. While other girls had been out drinking beer around bonfires with horny teenage cowboys, Dawn and Charlie and their group had usually been at school. They’d shared running jokes about saving themselves for marriage. They’d assured each other that those party girls were going nowhere fast. They’d shaken their heads at the bad judgment.
But they’d also secretly yearned. Charlie had, at least. She’d tutored those boys in the library after school. Sometimes she’d even gone to their houses to sit in their rooms with them. But she’d never been in danger of being led astray. She was just Charlie. One of the guys. Another runner on the track team. Taller than most of them and flatter-chested, too. They’d hung out with her. They’d asked if they could copy her homework. They’d shoved her on the shoulder when they joked. And then they’d sidled away to flirt with the fun girls.
So she’d claimed not to want anything to do with them and their restless hands and crude mouths, but boy, had she imagined!
Luckily, when she’d gotten to college, she’d found a new role. A new group of friends. She’d assumed Dawn had, too. But all Dawn seemed to have gotten was more uptight.
Charlie shook her head and unpaused the video. Shoulders tight, she scanned the remaining hours, but nothing else happened. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Her instincts had failed her in Tahoe, but she wasn’t going to let them fail her here. Dawn was jealous, that was all. Maybe Dawn’s husband had made a stupid comment about Charlie’s ass or something. Maybe Dawn had just expected Charlie to be the same harmless tomboy she’d known in high school. Whatever the reason, it was Dawn’s issue. Charlie wasn’t going to get sucked into it. Dawn had started spying on her, commenting on Charlie’s comings and goings, implying she was a man-stealing slut, so Charlie had moved out. End of story.
She wouldn’t be paranoid and scared. She wouldn’t turn into one of those people who was carried along by life, tumbled over and knocked around every time the current got too fast. Like her mother, who could never grab on to anything, could never find a handhold.
No. Charlie would work hard. She’d let the scandal in Tahoe die down. She’d pay off her legal bills. And then she’d find a job somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just not at the Meridian Resort.
But for today, just having her apartment at the Stud Farm was enough. She felt a little stronger. A little more herself. She’d hit rock bottom, but she was on her way back up now, and she’d be damned if she’d leave the best parts of herself behind.
“GODDAMN IT!” the ranch foreman yelled. “Pull!”
Walker wrapped the rope more tightly around his wrist, took it in both hands and hauled as hard as he could as the heifer struggled and fought against the mud. The slick goo must have felt like a predator’s mouth tugging her deeper in, and her eyes rolled in wild panic. Walker pulled harder, urging the other men on when they wanted to stop. The poor girl was going to freeze to death if they didn’t get her out. Granted, she was destined for the packing plant in a year or two, but there was no reason for her to go like this, cold and shaking and scared.
“Fuck this,” the hand next to him muttered.
“She’s almost there,” Walker said, getting a new grip on the rope. Actually, she seemed to be slipping deeper, but he wasn’t going to give up. “Come on. One more good haul should get her.” In the end, it took three more hauls, but they pulled her free. She stumbled a few feet, then went to her knees.
There wasn’t anything out here to clean her off with, and the ranch was a mile away, so Walker swept his gloved hand down her flank, over and over, sluicing off the thick mud. Her big body shook under his hands, but her panicked lowing had stopped. By the time he stood and went to his horse to grab a blanket, she was breathing almost normally. She struggled to her feet and took a few steps toward him.
“Well, look at that,” one of the cowboys crowed. “You really do have a way with the ladies.”
The younger one laughed. “I’ve heard they follow you around like cats in heat, but damn, I’d never heard anything about heifers.”
Walker laughed off the jokes and took the blanket over to scrub some warmth into the cow. It only took a few moments before she was alert enough to jerk away from his ministrations and trot back to the herd. Hopefully she’d stick close to the others and the collective body heat would do the rest.
“All right,” the foreman snapped. “Move ’em on the last mile, and come collect your pay.” He trotted off without a word of thanks.
They