“Hello there, ladies. Welcome to the Gulch, can I interest you in a scavenger hunt to get to know our community?”
“We’d love that,” Amadala gushes, waving at the ruckus behind us. “This seems like so much fun, we can’t wait to visit all the best spots.”
The female minotaur mutters something, but none of us can quite catch it. The dark elf grins and pats her forearm, never looking away from us.
“I believe what my friend Echo means is that you should grab one of the Scavenger Hunt lists from this table and make sure to visit each open business on Main. If you get all the clues, you can return them to me at the end of the night. We’ll enter all those folks into a drawing for a gift card to any haven business of their choice.”
Kingston grins. “Does it have to be here in Pine Gulch?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. If there’s a little deli in the city you adore and you want five hundred dollars of roast beef, it could be yours, pretty girl.”
Kingston laughs. “Aww you’ve got us pegged as city girls. What gave it away?”
He makes a show of perusing us one by one, his smile growing a little wider. “City girls have an intensity about ‘em that we don’t tend to have here in the country.” He winks at Kingston. “We take everything nice and slow around here.”
Amadala waves a hand in front of her face, mouth dropped open as we share a surreptitious look. This dark elf is hot beyond belief, and obviously a flirt.
Kingston winks back at him. “Will you be, uh,manningthis booth all night then?”
He beams at our group. “Sure will, girls. Here.” Reaching down, he grabs four sheets of pumpkin orange paper and hands them to us. “I’m guessing you came from the Welcome Inn, but make sure to grab the secret word from Keriann before she’s done for the night.”
We promise we will before we leave the welcome tent. Kingston flashes the dark elf a sultry smile over her shoulder. Outside, Amadala stops our group so we can take a look at the Scavenger Hunt handout.
My stomach rumbles at the promise of food from either Betty’s or Whiskey Business Saloon.
Amadala smiles at me. “Drinks and burgers, ladies?”
“Hells yeah!” we shout.
This is gonna be a night to remember.
Dain
Whiskey Business is full to the brim with monsters hanging over the bar vying for my attention. I pour a mead for the troll male in front of me while cleaning a whiskey glass so I can make a drink for the pretty vampire next to him. Beads of sweat roll down the side of my neck and between my wings. I’ve got them tucked extra tight at my back, but the reality is that the bar here was never meant for a gargoyle of my size. It’s a tight fit on the best of days.
Shanna, the pixie female bartending with me tonight, flashes a sympathetic smile. “Gonna be a long night, huh?”
I smile and nod. I won’t get out of here until midnight at least, but that’s fine. Pine Gulch celebrates a ton of holidays but it’s part of why I stay here—apart from the wide open spaces, I make great money running the bar during one of our many celebrations.
Three hours fly by as our guests get ever drunker. The kitchen’s barely keeping up with the orders, but thankfully most monsters are understanding. The tables are first come first served tonight given that there’s no way a hostess could wrangle this melee.
“Excuse me?”
A sultry voice breaks through my thoughts. I look up into the greenest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen. They seem almost lit from within, they’re so pale. The black-haired human smiles up at me. She’s wearing a ruffled purple jean dress that clings to her thin figure. Leaves are embroidered along the neckline and down the bodice. I’d bet a dollar to a donut she’s a green witch, and the design’s a subtle nod to her ability to work with plants.
“Howdy.” I flash her my sexiest smile.
Pink tinges her cheeks, and she smiles back. “Errr, howdy, pardner.”
I burst out laughing. It sounds so awkward like that. Shaking my head, I lean onto my forearms on the bar. “No better way to look like a tourist than tryin’ that. Can I get you somethin’ to drink?”
She glances at my forearms, her blush growing deeper. The faintest scent of pumpkin mead mixes with something deeper…raspberry? I want to lean over the bar and bury my nose in her neck.
And I absolutely cannot do that, so I force my eyes to remain on hers as I wait for her response.
She waves an orange Scavenger Hunt paper at me. “I’ll take a Blue Jean, please. I had one of those on the train and damn, that’s good. But also, I’m supposed to ask you the type of horse that inhabits Pine Gulch’s gulch.” She bats her lashes and leans her chin in her palm. “You wouldn’t be able to help a girl with that, would you?”
I grab a glass and begin making the drink as I smile at her. “You making good progress on that paper or just getting started?”
