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I’d seen pics of this place on Socialface, but they didn’t do it justice.
“Wow,” I said.
Gabriel watched me as if my reaction was far more interesting than the wooden freaking castle. The dude probably thought this was all so mundane, since he grew up in a castle or something. “We didn’t have money when I was a child”probably meant his parents only had a small castle instead of a big one. Only one yacht instead of five.
Wallace came around the side carrying my bags, and my bags only. Not a single bag for Gabriel. Sure, he was already wearing a weather resistant coat and pants, along with snow boots, but had he really brought nothing else to wear?
It was just one day. Maybe I’d let Juno talk me into bringing too much. No time to second guess myself now.
I reached for my bags.
Wallace shook his head. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am, let me carry them.”
He was smiling so widely and so sweetly I actually believed him. He totally loved his job.
The three of us headed up to the building, with Wallace leading the way. With every step, Gabriel grew stiffer. I twisted my fingers together so I didn’t reach out to reassure him.
He was scared. I was here for him. But that didn’t mean he’d want me touching him.
Halfway to the building, Wallace stopped walking. He set down my bags and turned around to us. “Almost forgot Pamela wanted me to give you these.”
He pulled two folded packets of papers from his jacket and handed one to each of us.
Rules of Engagementwas typed across the front page.
Like the movie?
“Who is Pamela?” I asked.
Gabriel glowered at the paperwork. “Corporate consultant.”
Whatever that was supposed to mean.
I flipped to the second page, a table of contents. I flipped through some more just to see what all was in here. There was a history of the chalet—Alpine Aurora named for Aurora Williams, an almost-Olympic alpine skier in her youth. Williams established the ski resort on the very slopes where she once trained. During the 1900s, the land was owned by a timber magnate…yada yada yada…something about a fire.
That caught my attention.
The fire part turned out to be not nearly as interesting as I’d expected. The mill burned down. No one died, which was good, but there were also no interesting details like if the building went down from arson or got struck by lightning or something. It was probably just boring old negligence and an accident like some dude set down his torch to take a pee break. Even that would have been more interesting than the no details I actually got.
I skipped ahead to pages and photographs of business dudes with smaller accompanying pics and descriptions of people I assumed were their families, likely key players in Biotabloom.
This could be useful for the social aspects of the day. Too bad Wallace hadn’t given the packets to us sooner. I bet Gabriel would have appreciated the chance to prepare on the drive. Honestly, I probably still would have taken that nap.
“This is good stuff,” I told Wallace. “Thank you.”
Gabriel didn’t say anything.
Wallace beamed at me.
“Are you going to be skiing too?” I asked him.
“No,” Wallace said. “I’ll be heading into Boarsville for the day. It’s a little town about twenty minutes from here. I still have some shopping to do for Valentine’s, and I’m hoping I might find something good for my wife at one of those little fancy shops.”
“That sounds nice,” I told him.
“Fingers crossed,” he said.
“Let’s continue on our way,” Gabriel said, his voice colder than the biting winter air.
