Page 5 of Defended by the Lumberjack (Moonshine Ridge Lumberjacks #2)
Chapter Five
July
M y phone buzzes and I smile as I read the text from Levi.
He's been texting all day, letting me know he meant every word he told me last night about our future together. I can't explain it, but I know he's right about being meant for each other.
I text him back to let him know I left a key for him with the front desk staff so he doesn't have to wait for me downstairs. I add silly hearts to the message and he sends back a kissing face and tells me he'll be here soon, even though it's still early and I have hours before my dinner shift ends.
"Hey, July?" Pepper Jones pokes her head through the kitchen door.
"Yeah?" My heart rate ramps up to one-sixty. Pepper and her husband, Eddy, are the owners of the ski resort-- my bosses.
"I know it's going to be late and all, but when you're done tonight, could you swing by the office?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure thing."
Pepper's friendly voice gives nothing away, but if the bosses want to see me at ten o'clock on a Saturday night, it can't be good. Especially not after the unhappy customer last night.
Even Levi's next text can't cheer me up as I start prepping for the early dinner crowd.
"Hey, Perry, I need to grab some things from the back." I give my assistant the heads up that I'll be out of the kitchen for a bit and push through the door to the hallway.
The owners did their best to build the state of the art kitchen in the space provided by the original nineteen-sixties architecture of the ski resort's main building, but inevitably, some of our supplies ended up being kept in a storage room that can't be accessed from inside the kitchen space.
Towels, storage containers, bowls, that sort of thing.
It seems the lunch crew didn't bother restocking the kitchen towels when they cleared out this afternoon, and not only am I the one with free hands at the moment, I could use a minute to myself.
"Hey Chef."
The man's voice catches me by surprise. When I turn around with an armful of dishtowels, he's standing in the store room doorway, blocking my exit.
"I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you in private."
The way he says "private" makes my skin crawl.
He takes a step just past the doorway and I see an older man with a slim build and thinning hair. A pot belly hangs over his belt and an unfriendly smile holds thin lips up at the corners.
I recognize him. This is the guy from that kept sending everything back last night. The guy that wasn't happy with anything that came out of my kitchen. The guy that's going to cost me my job.
"What do you want?" I clutch the towels and stand my ground, anger breaking through my initial fright.
"I was thinking we could make a deal," the guy tells me.
He says it casually, like he followed me in here to offer me a business opportunity. I laugh out loud, right in his face.
"You weren't satisfied with anything I served yesterday, I doubt there's any kind of deal we can make."
He takes a step further into the room with me and the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
The way he leers at me makes it pretty obvious what sort of "deal" he's talking about and the very thought makes bile rise in my throat.
"I think there's something you could serve to me that I'd be very satisfied with. If you let me put in a special order, I'll make sure to tell your boss that his new chef has the highest of my compliments."
I can't believe what I'm hearing. Did this man intentionally sabotage my job just so he could stack the odds in his favor when he propositioned me?
"I'm not making any deals with you. Get out of my way, I need to get back to the kitchen."
But he's not budging and I'm cornered.
Levi
" S he said leave. Her. Alone."
The guy damn near crumbles to the floor when I grab his shoulder, bending his knees as he tries to twist out of my grasp like the snake he is.
"I was just--"
"I heard what you were 'just.'"
Dragging the asshole out of the store room where I found him trying to blackmail my woman into letting him put his hands on her, he's lucky I haven't beaten him to a blood stain on the bottom of my boot. Yet .
I don't give a fuck what this shit stain for a human has to say as I drag his worthless ass through the big dining hall and toward the main lobby doors.
I don't give a fuck who sees me doing it, either. Far as I'm concerned, everyone in the resort needs to know the guy's a worthless predator.
"Levi!"
That voice is one of only two that would make me stop dead in my tracks at this moment. It's not July. My boss walks out of an office near the lobby's front desk, leveling a scowl at me that's a far cry from the man I was speaking with earlier today.
"What the hell is going on here?" Eddy Jones steps out of the office behind Clinton Murdock, both men making it clear that I'm the one they see as the problem here.
"This man accosted me, Mr. Jones, I demand that he be arrested immediately." The weasel weasels out of my grip, straightening his clothes and pointing back at me as he addresses Eddy directly.
July's hurried steps catch up to the group of men caught in a stand-off.
"Oh my God, thank you, Levi!" Her arms wrap around my waist, the desperate note of gratitude in her voice breaking me out of my rage.
"You okay, baby? Did he touch you?"
July shakes her head, letting me know she's unharmed, just scared.
"And that slut." The guy I'm still planning on flattening dares to point at July. I step forward, he steps behind Eddy Jones, Clinton steps between me and Eddy. "She propositioned me! Said she'd make it worth my while if I saved her job."
Eddy's pretty-boy features scrunch into confusion, but he doesn't argue with the man. Just looks my way, then at the employee whose back he oughta have. A quick glance passes between him and my boss and he turns his head to the woman at the front desk just a few feet from us.
"Sheriff's on the way," she tells the lot of us, and I know my day's going south pretty damn fast, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to defend my woman.
There's not enough room for all of us in Eddy's small office, so we've moved to a corner of the main lounge, where a fire crackles in the stone fireplace that takes up one whole wall of the room and a wall of windows looks out on happy skiers and snowboarders enjoying the winter landscape outside.
"Mr. Pendergrast is one of our bigger accounts.
" Eddy is explaining for Deputy Hawkins' notes that the weasel shit that deserves to get thrown off this mountain is the wallet behind a lucrative company contract for the lodge, footing an impressive expense fund for his employees and their families to enjoy the resort as part of their benefits package.
July's bottom lip trembles as she listens to her employer calmly explaining his personal interest in keeping the man happy.
"Clint? What's your stake in this?" Hawk directs his next question at my boss, using a casual tone that suggests the two men know each other personally.
Clinton nods toward me.
"Levi works for the company. Came by bright and early this morning to give me what for over ruining his girl's job. No clue what he was going on about, but glad he found a girl."
Clinton runs a gaze between everyone gathered for the occasion. His permanent scowl, scowling deeper when he looks at the stranger among us. Robert Pendergrast's face reddens.
"Came up to talk first hand with Jones. Make sure he understood how impressed the Murdocks were with his new house chef. Drop off a token of our appreciation for the young lady's hard work."