Cold Hearted by Winter Renshaw

Author:Winter Renshaw [Renshaw, Winter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-01-30T06:00:00+00:00

2

Daphne

“I’m a passenger with Jet Stream Airways.” I slide my hotel voucher across the front desk at the Blue Star Hotel across from the airport, feeling like the pregnant Virgin Mary desperately trying to find an inn for the night. “They said you might have a room available.”

I cross my fingers, and my toes, because the last three hotels I stopped by were at full occupancy being that it’s New Year’s Eve and one of their busiest days of the year. Seaview, California is one of those towns you could blink and miss, and because of that, their hotel situation is severely lacking.

The front desk clerk tucks her dyed purple hair behind her ear before pushing her thick-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose. She looks like one of those cool moms, the kind that let their kids get tattoos on their eighteenth birthday and probably competes in air guitar competitions nationally. Biting the corner of her pierced lip, she focuses on her computer monitor.

“I’m sure going to try, doll,” she says, her voice not holding the amount of certainty I’d like to hear in this type of situation. “An hour ago we were full, but I think there may have been a recent cancellation.”

Her long, electric-blue nails click against the keys and her expression lightens a moment later.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she says, exhaling. “The Diamond suite is available tonight.”

“Suite?”

“It’s all we have, unfortunately.” Her head tilts. “And it’s really nice. King bed. Mini bar. Jacuzzi. Your voucher will cover it.”

“Let me stop you there,” I cut her off when I remember none of this is coming out of my pocket. “I’ll take it.”

She smiles. “Sure thing. It won’t be ready for a little while, but feel free to wait in the lobby. We also have a bar down the left hall and past the pool.”

I slide her my ID so she can grab my name and sign off on a few liability waivers. Gathering my bags, I wheel myself to a nearby chair in the lobby and retrieve my phone so I can update Delilah. I’m not looking forward to this call, but there’s nothing I can do at this point.

“Hey,” Delilah answers her phone with apprehension in her voice. “Why are you calling? Why aren’t you on your plane?”

“Have you looked outside lately?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s snowing, but that’s normal. It’s December in Rixton Falls.”

“There’s apparently a huge snowstorm moving north. It’s right outside New York City right now. Don’t you ever watch the news?”

Delilah exhales, and I picture her plopping into her favorite chair. “I try not to. Too depressing, and everything makes me cry right now.”

“Yeah, well, they’re calling it one of the biggest snowstorms of the last decade,” I say.

“Lovely.”

“All flights headed east have been grounded. I was hoping maybe they’d divert us, you know? Like it’d be nice if they could maybe drop us off in, say, Colorado or Iowa or Ohio, but nope. I guess that’s not how this works.’

“So what are you going to do?” she asks.

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