Chapter One – YVETTE
The bell above the door jingles and a rush of wind blows the snow in. Two men come with it.
“Shit.” I sigh under my breath. I was just getting ready to close. All the tourists from the nearby ski resort went home early this morning to beat the storm and the bar has been dead since lunch.
Apparently these two didn’t get the memo.
“I’m just saying,” the tall, rough one with the blond hair says. “It’s just a fantasy.”
The other one looks right at me and growls, “Would you shut the fuck up?” in a very low, very threatening whisper that makes my stomach clench for some reason.
He’s talking to his friend, not me. So I don’t know why I have that reaction.
But then again, I know why.
It irritates me though.
They both take a seat at the bar while I glance at my phone so I can pretend I’ve got some very important text conversation going. I even pretend to type.
Normally I’d be hospitable and welcoming but I’m not feeling very normal today. I’ve had too much to drink, too much time to think, and I’m tired.
The storm has been brewing just down the mountain for most of the day so I’ve got no cell service and no internet, but I’m nothing if not a pretender. My lies have been such a part of me for so long, this comes second nature.
I’m also pretty good at improvising.
My bar—the Snowbunny—is the only stop on the western side of the mountain until you get all the way down into Pagosa Springs. In the winter we are super busy Thursday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, especially when the snowpack at Wolf Creek Ski Area is this awesome.
Lots of locals come in during the week too. Plow guys, truckers, local cops, mail people—or mail person, since we only have one up here.
But it’s Sunday evening now, the snow has been falling steadily for almost four straight days, and it’s supposed to pick up as the final front comes through overnight. Anyone with sense has probably decided enough is enough and gone home.
So I’ve been bored, just counting down the minutes until I can close, and now I’m annoyed with the two strangers who just walked into my bar and ruined my plans.
At just under twelve thousand feet in elevation, people who live and work up here pretty much do whatever the fuck they want, whenever the fuck they want to do it, and I count myself one of them. That’s the perk of living on the top of a mountain in the middle of a dangerous switchback pass.
There’s no other reason why anyone would bother with all the inconveniences of living in such an isolated place.
Well, there are two other reasons, really.
One. They are ski bums. They live, breathe, and eat skiing. That’s mostly who lives up here in the winter.
But the locals aren’t ski bums. We’re here for reason number two. We want to be left alone.
These two who just walked in are not locals. I know that for sure because I know everyone around here and they know me.
When I look up at them again they’re having a tense, whispered conversation. I decide to move things along and say, “Can I get you something?”
The rough one drags his eyes off his friend to stare at me. His blue eyes are too blue. The kind of blue you see in photographs when someone’s gone a little crazy with the Photoshop. The kind of blue that draws you in and makes you speechless. The kind of blue that puts you under a spell so you can’t look away—and warns you not to look, all in the same moment.
“What?” I say. Because I don’t fall for spells, I don’t get lost in the eyes of strange men, and I take looks of warning very seriously.
He smiles and the spell evaporates.
Thought so, motherfucker.
He holds up two fingers in a v-sign and says, “Two Jacks, no ice.”
I nod and turn away to grab glasses, put them on the bar, and pour them each two fingers of Jack.
Then I look at the other one—the suit guy—and slide the glasses over to them, keeping my distance. “Thirty bucks.”
The suit guy glances up at the chalkboard above my head with the drink prices, then lifts an eyebrow at me. Like… really?
But I don’t care. If I overcharge them, they’ll get their shit together and leave. Get off this damn mountain while they still can and leave me alone.
Blue Eyes pulls a fifty out his wallet and throws it down. “Keep it all,” he says, then tucks his wallet into his pants and turns away to whisper at his friend so I can’t hear.
Whatever. I grab the fifty, shove it in my apron pocket, and walk around the other side of the bar so I can start stacking chairs on tables, dropping a not-so-subtle hint that they should drink their Jack and get the fuck out.