Foreseen_ Lex (The Four #2) - Sloane Kennedy Page 0,3
and not return.
It was no skin off my nose. I’d get paid either way. If some uptight Richie Rich type wanted to get his hands dirty during his “rustic” vacation, that was fine by me.
I actually laughed out loud. Richie Rich and people like him had no clue what living rustically meant. The cabins that Harvey Parnell had built outside the small town of Fisher Cove were mini mansions compared to the small houses and cabins most residents, including me, lived in. When Harvey had announced he was building the cabins, people had been equally confused and curious. While Maine’s north woods offered many tourist opportunities, Fisher Cove itself had never been any kind of tourist destination simply because it’d been too damn hard to get to. Not to mention how unpredictable the weather was and the fact that the seasons included early winter, winter, late winter and, as the locals called it, “quick-it-stopped-snowing-so-now’s-our-chance-to-get-the-hell-out-of-here.”
Harvey Parnell wasn’t a foolish man, though, and he’d made himself a pretty penny on the cabins. The man actually had waiting lists for them. People were clearly eager to disconnect from the real world, and while there was usually some sort of culture shock when they learned no internet really meant no internet, by the time they left they were already planning their next visit and calling Harvey to get on the waiting list.
Harvey hadn’t brought in tons of tourists to Fisher Cove, but it gave the town of three hundred residents something to talk about all year round. It was an endless source of amusement for the townspeople to watch city folk adapt to the handful of shops and businesses that kept the town afloat. It was like a reverse zoo or aquarium. The exhibits came to us and we would inevitably find ourselves eagerly awaiting the next family or couple to come and entertain us with their city-ish-ness.
Except me. I dreaded the newcomers because it meant I had to put my hi-I’m-your-neighborly-caretaker-here-to-serve-you mask on.
I hated that fucking mask.
So I should have been relieved that the newest tenant of The Cabins at the Cove hadn’t held any punches when he’d shown his true colors right out of the gate the day before. I should have been looking forward to what essentially would have been a vacation of sorts, especially since the mysterious renter of Birch Cabin had also rented out the other two cabins.
One guy.
Three cabins, each capable of housing six guests.
It made no sense.
But I wasn’t paid to make sense of things. I was paid to keep the clients happy and comfortable.
Unless they were rude shitheads… those fuckers were on their own.
As I made my way to my truck, whistling for Brewer as I went, my mind went back to the rude shithead who’d kept me tossing and turning all night. I hadn’t been able to make much out about him other than he’d been wearing an expensive overcoat that most certainly wouldn’t keep him warm if he dared to step outside the cabin for any length of time. The only physical trait I’d been able to see had been his dark hair, which had been neatly trimmed on the sides and a bit longer on top.
I stopped mid-stride when my body reacted much the way it had the day before as I remembered one very unwelcome detail about the man’s hair.
I’d wanted to touch it.
It’d been the strangest thing. The asshole had been berating me with his crap about not wanting to be bothered, but all I’d been thinking about was how silky his hair looked and wanting to know if that was what it would feel like as it slid between my fingers.
The urge had been equally disturbing and exciting. Even if the guy hadn’t kicked me out, I likely would have gotten the hell out of there anyway because I hadn’t known what to make of the weird sensation.
By the time I’d gone to bed the night before, I’d come to the realization that I’d only been looking at the man as if he’d been on the other side of my camera. There’d been a time when my entire life had been all about capturing things like texture and color through the lens of a camera and making people want to do exactly what I had… reach out and touch it. While my days behind the camera were long over, clearly there was a little bit of residual desire when it came to my previous career.