Page 2 of The Claiming of the Shrew (Fated Mountain Lodge #4)

The camping area adjacent to the lodge, barely more than trees when Leah first saw it, had grown by leaps and bounds over the past couple of years.

Now there were pleasant little gravel paths curving between the trees, and a number of campsites, mostly occupied.

Leah looked around curiously. This would be her first time camping out, aside from a couple of Girl Scout trips.

They couldn’t generally afford vacations when she was a kid, and Joy couldn’t take time off work anyway, so she had little experience.

She looked with fascination at the structures in the differently outfitted campsites, ranging from small tents to nice trailers.

Her own tent was a secondhand one she had picked up cheaply, and she hoped it wouldn’t be too embarrassing.

They found the lodge owners examining a partly built stage between the trees.

The two were a bit of an odd couple, Hester short and intense, Mauro tall and laid-back with his dark hair in loose, wind-tousled curls.

As Leah and Maggie approached, Leah saw that Mauro had his arm around Hester’s waist, leaning into her as they pointed at the trees and talked.

Mates, Leah thought, a bit wistfully.

It only made sense that Joy had found her mate first, because she was the older sister. But there was something about seeing Hester and Mauro together that hit Leah in a painful place in her chest.

Surely there’s a mate out there for me, she thought, marshaling her hopes like battlefield troops.

“Hi!” Hester exclaimed, as she turned and saw Leah. “Oh good, Maggie said you were coming. I had to scramble to find a campsite for you, but you’re reserved in number twenty-seven.”

Maggie pointed, and the sullen-looking stagehand slouched off with Leah’s luggage.

Leah looked after him with a frown. One thing the entire company had going for them was that most people were here because they loved it.

The enthusiasm was part of the appeal for her.

She had no idea what that guy’s problem was.

But she was quickly distracted by looking around at the sets.

Along with the flying apparatus, the pirate ship had been her pet project, and she was a little disappointed to see that it was mostly assembled already (they’d tried to get it down to a science on breaking down and rebuilding) and thrilled to see that it looked even better set up in the woods than she had hoped when they were putting it together in a parking lot.

There were fairy lights strung through the trees. This was going to be amazing .

“Yes, I think it’d be fine to anchor those wires between these two trees, as long as you take care not to damage the trees,” Hester was saying, talking to the stage manager, Alana, who nodded along as she marked on her clipboard.

Like almost everyone in the Menagerie, she wore multiple hats; as well as coordinating the sets and actors, she was also playing the role of Wendy in the play.

(Leah had not so subtly hinted that she would be fine playing Wendy, in case other people were busy, ahem, but this had only resulted in her becoming the understudy to Wendy and Peter Pan.

This would be fine unless they both came down with the flu on the same day.

Tragically, Alana had the constitution of a horse, which was appropriate since she also turned into one.)

“Hester!” Joy appeared out of the trees, a large pastry box in her hands. Several nearby actors instantly gravitated toward her like kids around an ice cream truck. “I delivered most of the baked stuff to the kitchen, but I couldn’t figure out how to get into the industrial freezer.”

“Oh, right, there’s a safety lock on it now. Yes, Mauro will show you.”

As Mauro went off with Joy, Hester made a beckoning gesture to Leah, who had started to turn and see if Alana needed anything done on the sets. “Excuse me, Leah, could you come with us for a minute, please? I wanted to talk to you.”

“Me?” Leah asked. She fell into step with Hester, following Mauro and Joy toward the lodge. “No problem, but ... I really don’t do anything with the bakery, that’s Joy’s area.”

“No, it’s your expertise I need.”

“Really?” Leah perked up. “About what?”

“The theater group. Joy says you’ve been with the group for a while, so they must know you pretty well, right?”

“I guess so? I mean, yes.”

Hester glanced around again. She lowered her voice.

“We’ve had a few complaints about valuable items, jewelry and such, going missing from guests in the lodge.

” Seeing Leah huff up indignantly, she hastily went on.

“I’m not blaming anyone in the theater group.

Actually, I overheard a couple of actors talking about someone misplacing a watch, so it might be happening there too. ”

“You have a thief at the lodge?” Leah asked, her interest perking up.

“I don’t know. We’ve only had complaints the last week or so, that I know of.

And there are a lot of new people here, with the campground full and many of the rooms in the hotel occupied as well.

I can’t really do much myself, at least not discreetly, but if you’ll be spending time with the theater people, I wondered if you might?—”

“Oh, oh! Do you want me to investigate?” Leah asked eagerly. “Because I can! I would love to! I always thought I would make a great detective.”

“No!” Hester said, looking alarmed. “I mean—not exactly. I was just hoping you could maybe keep an eye and an ear out, for people showing off jewelry they didn’t have before, or stray gossip, someone bragging, someone who might have seen something, that kind of thing.

I’m not an insider, and if I started nosing around, I would just scare people off. ”

Leah saluted. “Detective Shrew is on the job, ma’am!”

“Yes, thank you .... but keep it on the down-low, please. I really don’t want anyone to think I’m accusing them.”

Leah turned away, already thinking about how exactly she might direct conversations to sudden windfalls of money or small missing items, when she ran headlong into something solid and large that she had been too busy thinking about her future detective career to notice.

The Something moved and lightly caught her upper arms as she nearly lost her balance

“Whoa, are you okay?”

Leah looked up into an image of swoon-worthy masculinity. Eyes: gray, framed with thick lashes. Hair: dark. Cheekbones you could cut yourself on. Fake leather jacket accentuating a pair of shoulders to die for.

And something about him caught and held her—well, beyond the fact that he’d already caught and held her. Leah’s inner shrew let out one long scream of pure shrewish delight.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA!

“Are you my ma—?” she began.

“No!” the image of male loveliness interrupted.

“What?” said Leah, but he had already let go of her with a suddenness that was one step from pushing her away, wheeled and went off at a swift stride toward the hotel. He vanished through the doors.

“What?” Leah said again. All she could do was stare after him as he disappeared. “Uh, who was that, please?”

“Oh, that was one of the other guests,” Hester said, putting a hand on her arm to steady her. “Sorry, I thought you saw him there. Are you all right?”

“I don’t mind,” Leah said, still staring in the direction he had gone. “I don’t mind at all.” That was the most suspicious thing she had ever seen anyone do. Also, she wanted very badly to talk to him again. “Who is he?”

“I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell you that. In fact, I know I shouldn’t.”

“If— when I run into him in the restaurant or lounge or trees or ski trails,” Leah said, already planning to do exactly that, “I’ll just ask him anyway. It would speed things up a bit. Also, he’s currently my top suspect.”

“He’s—you just met him,” Hester said.

“Yes, and he took one look at me and sped off like a velocipede.”

“A bicycle?”

“No—a velocipede? A really fast centipede? Wait, does it mean a bicycle?”

“Yes,” Hester said. “It’s an old word for bicycle. Can we keep walking while we have this conversation? I need to help Joy unload the muffins.”

“Yes—yes, of course.” Leah fell into step with her, surreptitiously looking around for Mister Handsome and Suspicious. “Well, I’ve been using that word wrong all these years, nice to know. Anyway, he took one look at your lodge detective and sprinted off across the grounds. I call that suspicious.”

I really need to find him again.

“He doesn’t know you’re my—wait, you’re not the lodge detective,” Hester said. She looked as if she was about to say something else, but clamped down on it.

“He was standing right there,” Leah pointed out reasonably. “He could have heard every word we were saying.”

“He—well, all right, that’s not impossible, he might have. But?—”

“I’ll just find out his name anyway when I run into him coincidentally behind the woodshed.”

“Why would you be behind the woodshed?”

“Looking for clues,” Leah said.

“And he would be there because ...?”

“Lurking.”

Hester sighed. “All right, his name’s Fawkes. You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Fox? Does he turn into one?”

“What? No.” She enunciated more clearly, emphasizing the vowels. “Fawkes, like Guy Fawkes.”

“His name is Guy Fawkes?” Leah said, nonplused.

That would be hard to get used to. On the other hand, for those eyes and that jawline and the pecs that were definitely hiding under that beat-up faux leather jacket he’d been wearing .

.. she could make an effort. Guy, Guy—okay, screaming “Guy!” at the height of passion might be difficult, but she figured it was a grenade she could throw herself on, assuming she could also throw herself on Guy Fawkes at the same time?—

“No, no—Fawkes is his first name,” Hester said, interrupting Leah’s runaway and derailing train of thought. “Fawkes Bridges.”

“Oh my God, the poor man. Anyway, what room is he in?”

“I ... really can’t tell you that.”

“But would you tell Detective Shrew, ma’am?”

“You’re not a detective,” Joy declared, popping up at her elbow with a box of muffins.

“I am now,” Leah said.

Joy turned a quizzical look on Hester.

“Long story,” Hester said. “I may have made a mistake. Let me show you where to put those.”

They went off to discuss muffins, leaving Leah to ponder matters of missing guest valuables and a guy named Fawkes.

She knew she could come on a bit strong. But she hadn’t even had a chance to come on strong! Or come on at all! He hadn’t given her a chance. He just said one word to her and took off practically running.

That, Leah thought, was not how a mate meet-cute was supposed to go.

Also, if he really was her mate—or at least if he’d felt the same electric snap of connection that she’d felt—he ought to be looking for her.

She took a long look around. No Fawkes.

Damn.

She was aware that she really needed to figure out where Grumpy Stagehand (ooh, her first suspect, he was definitely suspicious) had hidden her luggage, see if she could get her tent set up, and start working on her actual job—helping set up the Peter Pan special effects and props.

But Hester was busy, and she knew Fawkes was staying in the lodge, so Leah went into the lobby while she had the chance.

Between Labor Day and Memorial Day, the lodge was officially closed, but in fact catered to shifters.

There were a number of guests in the lobby, mostly people she didn’t recognize, but also a couple of actors from the theater group.

Fawkes was nowhere in sight. Trying to look like she knew what she was doing, Leah glanced around for Hester and then went briskly behind the desk, where she reached underneath for the old-fashioned guest ledger.

It was the matter of a few moments to nose quietly through the ledger—that was what Hester got for keeping a guest list on paper instead of the computer.

It looked like Fawkes Bridges was staying in, ooh, the honeymoon suite, how interesting.

Leah quickly replaced the ledger and then headed off for the woods at a brisk clip to get back to work, already thinking about how exactly a shrew might wriggle under a hotel door the next time this mysterious, suspicious Fawkes guy happened to be out of his room.