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She smiled over at him. “I’m perfectly content without any clues.” She shot him a sassy grin. “Think you can handle that for the rest of the drive?”
He groaned dramatically. “I thought for sure you’d be too curious to wait!”
“Fine. Give me a clue.”
“Maybe now I don’t want to…”
“Reid!”
“Alright…this is going to make one of your childhood dreams come true,” he said. “There. That’s the only clue I’m giving.”
“Oh my God! Are we going to the ski resort?” she asked excitedly.
“What?! How did you guess that already? I had at least another seven clues ready because I was certain you wouldn’t figure it out!”
“You just turned on the road that said Sweetbriar Ridge Ski Resort,” she told him. “And there’s nothing else up this way.”
“Oh. Damn.” Disappointment flooded him because he had seriously been hoping to keep her guessing all the way up the mountain.
“I am so psyched that we’re doing this! I can’t believe you got clearance to bring me here!”
The rest of the drive was spent with Ashlynn talking about all the things she thought they were going to see—everything from hotel rooms that still had all their supplies and furniture in them, to rooms full of ski equipment.
When they pulled up twenty minutes later, he had to give her the safety talk.
First, he handed her a hardhat. “You need to wear this at all times. It’s for your own protection.” Then he handed her a pair of safety glasses. “These too.”
She nodded and put them on.
“Stay close to me, watch where you’re walking, and try not to touch or move anything because you don’t know how stable things are.”
She was practically bouncing in her seat. “Got it! Can we go? Can we go now?”
Laughing, he nodded and climbed out of the truck. Ashlynn was already out and waiting for him. And together, hand in hand, they made their way toward the main chalet. “There are certain areas we’re not allowed to go in because there are crews working, but we have permission to go around the back to one of the guest wings.”
“Okay, cool!”
After that, you would have thought he brought her to Disneyland. For two hours, they walked around this abandoned hotel and he had no idea why she found it so fascinating, just that she did. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he found himself pointing out things that shouldn’t have been a big deal—like packages of soap that were still in their wrappers—and smiled at her reaction to it all.
The sun was going down and that was his cue that they needed to head back to town. “There’s no electricity back here in the building, and I promised the foreman that we’d be out of here before it got dark.”
She shivered slightly. “That’s okay, because I can’t really feel my toes, so I’m ready to go.”
“Come on,” he said lightly, taking her hand and leading her out of the building and back to his truck. “What did you think?”
“It was freaking awesome! I mean…so much cooler than I thought it would be! Some of those rooms were perfectly preserved! I can’t believe that after all these years it wasn’t completely stripped down.”
There were some areas that had definitely been ransacked and graffitied, but for the most part, it looked like not many people came through.
“It was like a time capsule,” she went on as they made their way down the mountain. “So cool. Thank you. This was the best day!” Reaching over, she held his hand. “Thank you for making this happen for me. I’ll never forget it.”
He smiled at her. “It was my pleasure.” They drove in silence for a few minutes. “But our day’s not over yet. I’ve got a kickass dinner planned for us and then…we’ll see what happens from there.”
“Hmm…a kickass dinner, huh?”
He nodded.
“Are you going to tell me what it is or is it a surprise too?”
