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“We don’t allow pets at the lodge. All guests sign the paperwork spelling out the rules from the outset. No pets except for service dogs are allowed,” Blake said.
“So what do we do now? My cousin is one of my bridesmaids,” the bride haughtily said, as if being queen for the day changed the rules for the lodge.
“Your cousin will have to pay for the damages and the cost of cleaning the room. She can’t stay here any longer. The dogs can be boarded, butshe’ll have to find other accommodations.” Blake was being a lot sterner than Kayla would have been.
Sure, normally that was how this worked for sneaking in pets and causing so much trouble, but Kayla still had to handle things for the bride until she and her groom married and took off.
Kayla would have said everything that Blake had except that the bride’s cousin couldn’t stay here any longer. Not in that room because they had to clean it up and she had to pay for the damages and such. But if the bridesmaid wanted to stay with another guest—then so be it. Though Kayla had to say that it was the first time she thought the bride looked human—when she was loving on the dogs.
Then a woman came into the banquet room and her eyes widened to see the dogs. Kayla figured she was the owner. Sure enough, they whipped around to greet her with just as much enthusiasm as they had with the bride.
“I take it you’re the dogs’ owner. You can either take them to the Silver Town Animal Clinic where they can be boarded, or you can pay to have them transported there,” Blake said.
One of the men in the wedding party came over and petted the dogs. “I’ll take the dogs to the clinic. You got their leashes?” he asked the bridesmaid.
“In the room.” She sounded mad and upset that she’d been found out. What did she expect? Thather dogs would just quietly sleep in the room all day? She gave him the room key.
“You’ll need to pack up your things also, miss,” Blake said. “I’ll go with you.” He glanced back at the others in the wedding party who were petting or talking to the dogs. “Just make sure the dogs don’t leave the banquet room until they have their leashes and are leaving the lodge.”
Though Kayla knew Blake didn’t like seeing the dogs in the banquet room either. Well, neither did she, unless they were service dogs.
“Do you need me to do anything else here?” Landon asked Kayla.
She shook her head.
“Okay, I’m returning to the sixty-year-old’s birthday party that I’m handling then.” Landon left after that.
“Unless you need me, I’m going to take care of the bridesmaid and her extra charges,” Roxie said. “Blake can have someone clean up the room and change the linens.”
“Sounds good.” Kayla was gladshedidn’t have to charge the bridesmaid for all those expenses. The bridesmaid wouldn’t like it, but she shouldn’t have sneaked her dogs into the lodge like that when she knew pets weren’t allowed.
“You have a dog in the lobby,” the bride told Kayla as Roxie left, her voice cutting.
“He’s a rescue dog.” Kayla explained what he did.
Surprisingly, the bride smiled. “Wow, that’s really cool.”
But as soon as Blake returned with the man who had the leashes in hand and he escorted him and the dogs out of the banquet room, the bride turned into Bridezilla again and was snapping at her bridesmaids to get everything set up pronto. And to do it right.
Kayla shook her head.
In Green Valley, Nate and Nicole went to speak with Sarah next, thinking she might shed some light on what had happened to Phil. But when they arrived at her apartment, Everest opened the door to their knock. They should have expected that might be the case. “We don’t want any,” Everest said, not waiting for them to explain why they were there. Then Everest frowned at them. “Hell, don’t I know you?” he said to Nicole.
“We’re private investigators hired by Phil’s family to learn what we can about where he has gone to.” Nate felt like he knew Everest too. From somewhere. He frowned. “Were you in the army?”
Everest frowned. “I told you; we don’t want any.” He shut the door in their faces.
“Hmm, so he’s guilty of foul play and doesn’t want to say anything or he’ll incriminate himself?” Nicole asked Nate as they got into his car.
“Yeah, I’d say so. And he sure looks like someone I’ve seen before. Maybe in the army.”
Nicole snapped her fingers. “He was the one who crashed into my car while driving a government van. I broke my leg and suffered a concussion. He went on the run, and when he was caught, they found he’d been drinking whiskey in the van and was DUI. He was kicked out of the service.”
“Oh, yeah… I remember him at the post at some time when I was stationed there. He ran through a stop sign in the hospital zone and one of the military police stopped him. He did it right in front of the officer too.”
Nicole pulled her hair back into a clip. “He sounds like bad news. The accident happened ten years ago, so I just didn’t connect the name with the soldier. They always called him Corporal Johnson. I didn’t know his first name was Everest or that he lived in Green Valley. I don’t know, but a man who would screw up his service career so bad over drinking and driving a military vehicle, who knows what else he could get himself into. Particularly with a powerful father who can fix things for him.”
Nate rubbed his chin. “I agree, and I knew him as Corporal Johnson too.”
