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  She wished Dad would leave her alone. She could never forgive him for what he did.

  Bill smiled, breaking her thoughts. “Well, I’m sure if you need a day or so to deal with moving, or to deal with visiting a family member, we can arrange something.”

  “I might need a day or a few hours here and there for moving,” Carla said. “But I’m not that close to my family, so I really doubt I’ll need the time off to deal with family issues.”

  “Very good. So, would you like to accept the position?”

  Yes! Relief flooded through her. Carla couldn’t help but smile wide. “Of course. I’d love to.”

  “Wonderful!” Bill reached for the phone on his desk and pressed a button. “Mr. White?”

  A voice spoke through the intercom. “Yes, Mr. Richards?”

  “I’m very pleased to inform you that we’ve found a suitable candidate. Can you and Mr. Brown step into my office please?”

  “Right away, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Bill Richards released the intercom button and rose to his feet. He held out his hand to be shaken. “Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, Ms. Taylor.”

  Carla stood up and was shaking hands with Bill Richards, feeling good about today, feeling ecstatic that she’d been offered the position, when the door to Bill’s office opened and Mr. White and Mr. Brown entered.

  Carla turned to acknowledge them and didn’t know what hit her. The last thing she saw before one of the men punched her in the face was a third man standing behind them in the hallway. This man was of medium height, slightly overweight, with graying hair, dressed in dark slacks and a gray sweater. He made eye contact with Carla and smiled at her as one of the other men delivered a crushing blow to her face. She felt an explosion of pain across her nose and forehead, a scattering of stars across her vision, and then blackness.

  CHAPTER 1

  Rick Nicholson was day-dreaming at his desk when there was a tentative knock on the door to his office.

  He started, tearing his gaze away from the window which he’d been looking out of. He quickly gathered the papers he was working on and swept them into his tan briefcase, closed and latched the lid and quickly stowed it under his desk. On days like this, he couldn’t help but be captivated by the landscape outside. Nestled near the Ashley National Forest in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, the Bent Creek Country Club & Resort was certainly the most visually attractive job location he’d worked at. Rick had been the operations manager of the resort for almost two years since leaving his law career behind in Denver, Colorado. The income he now earned was considerably less, but he was definitely happier.

  The knock on his office door came again, more firm this time.

  “Come on in,” Rick said.

  The door opened and Carmen Hernandez poked her head in. “Excuse me, Mr. Nicholson, but can I speak with you, please?”

  “Sure,” Rick said. He beckoned for Carmen to enter and she did, closing the door behind her. She settled down in one of the two chairs positioned in front of his desk, looking nervous. Rick wondered if she was having trouble with the Daniels couple. One of the waitresses had lodged a complaint against them last night. Claimed they were sexually harassing her. Rick had found himself in an uncomfortable position; how to balance the needs of the employee in accordance to state and federal employment law against sexual harassment in the workplace, and how to avoid ruffling the feathers of Bent Creek’s extremely wealthy clients. Bent Creek Country Club was more than an exclusive country club that catered to the very rich; its members were rich, powerful people who paid for the privilege of being able to do whatever they wanted to do within the club’s gates. Last year another client, Drew Samples, had paid one of the groundsmen to grovel like a dog in front of him and lick his shoes in return for a crisp ten thousand dollar bill. The bastard had laughed about it with his snobby friends for days afterward.

  “What’s up, Carmen?” Rick asked.

  “Brian isn’t here,” Carmen stated.

  “Brian? You mean Charlie’s partner?” There were two Brian’s on the payroll. One worked in maintenance with Charlie Thompson, a big burly man who resembled a football lineman; the other Brian worked in the resort’s laundromat.

  Carmen nodded. “Yes. He’s not here.”

  “What do you mean, he’s not here?”

  Carmen shrugged. Rick watched her from across his desk. Carmen was ten years his senior and originally from Guatemala. One of a team of twelve maids who serviced the Bent Creek suites, Carmen sometimes worked twelve-hour shifts turning beds, cleaning and dusting rooms and lavish suites, and performing other cleaning duties on the grounds. She was a good worker. Rick heard nothing but good things from her team leader.

  “He’s not here. He was supposed to be servicing the generator outside the pool house this morning and Charlie can’t find him. I went to his room and he’s gone.”

  “You sure he isn’t elsewhere on the grounds?” The Bent Creek Country Club sat on forty square miles of rolling forests, creeks, and picturesque prairies. Many of its members hunted quail and deer during hunting season, and hiked the rugged canyons in the summer.

  Carmen shook her head. “No. Charlie called him, but he isn’t answering.”

  Rick shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, Carmen. You sure Brian didn’t just skip out?”

  “Skip out?”

  “Yeah. We had that happen last season. One of the pool boys slipped out toward the end of the season. Packed his bags, skipped out on a week’s pay. It happens.” Especially when the Board makes me hire guys on work release, he thought to himself.

  “No, Brian wouldn’t do that,” Carmen insisted. The look in her eyes, her body posture, told Rick all he needed to know. Carmen’s concern was deeper than worrying about a co-worker. Rick flashed on the previous month of the season; hadn’t he seen a lot of Carmen and Brian during their off-time together? Hanging out at the employee’s-only bar-and-grill, away from the rest of the establishment? Sitting by themselves in the corner booth, away from their other co-workers? Rick believed he had seen that. Experience told him they were seeing each other. Another thing to look out for in this day and age of the workplace from an employer standpoint—a jilted lover can always file a sexual harassment claim against an employer for turning a blind eye to the relationship. They could claim the company allowed a fellow employee to sexually harass them.

  Rick frowned slightly. What was he thinking? He’d had a one-night stand with one of the waitresses who worked the lounge, which was run by five-star Chef Jim Munchel, just a few nights ago. Despite the fact that it had been mutual, that it was she who had come on to him, Rick realized he shouldn’t have allowed it. He also shouldn’t have tried to follow up with her, hoping for a repeat performance. The waitress, Anna King, had treated that night as if it hadn’t happened, and she’d surely never responded to his overtures to pick up where they’d left off. Thinking about it now, and his thoughts on Brian Gaiman and Carmen Hernandez, only emphasized that he had to get through the next few days and then this season was officially over. That meant getting to the bottom of this Brian Gaiman thing.

  “Are you sure?” Rick asked her gently.

  “Si! I’m sure!”

  Rick knew he had to tread lightly here. He was sure Carmen knew that Brian was on work-release. Hell, the guy had been pretty frank about that to Charlie, his maintenance partner, on the first day. He’d also been honest about it to the few Bent Creek clients who’d privately praised the young man’s resourcefulness and work ethic to Rick. Brian wouldn’t be the first bad boy to sweep a woman off her feet and then skip town on her.

  “You do know that Brian is on work-release, right, Carmen?”

  “Si!” Carmen cast her eyes downward, as if ashamed she’d gotten herself involved with Brian. She forced her gaze back up to Rick’s. “But what does that have to do with the fact that he’s missing?”

  Rick told her about the pool guy from last season. As he related the story, C
armen grew silent. “And that guy wasn’t the first, either,” Rick said. “Paul Westcott told me we get at least one guy a year who skips out sometime during the late summer season. These guys are recently released from prison, they’re restless, they want to see their families, and they see this area as a place to make a clean escape. It happens.”

  Carmen shook her head, confusion on her features. “No, not with Brian. He wouldn’t do that. He wanted to...how do you say? He wanted to stay on the right track.”

  “I’m sure he did, Carmen, but—”

  “He would not have run off without telling me!”

  Rick regarded Carmen from across his desk. If there was any doubt to his suspicions that Carmen and Brian were having a fling, those doubts were gone now. It was all spelled out for him: ex-con with a seemingly heart of gold woos pretty older woman and promises her the world, then ditches her abruptly. He’d seen this movie many times.

  Rick shifted gears quickly. “Tell you what,” he said. “I will call Charlie to my office and have a talk with him. I’ll also call Paul and have him send somebody down to Brian’s quarters to check things out. How does that sound?”

  “Si!” Carmen said, nodding vigorously, looking relieved that Rick was taking her complaint seriously. “Gracias!”

  “No problem.” Rick stood up and ushered Carmen to the door. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything. In the meantime, if you hear anything, or if Brian contacts you or even drops by, let me know. Okay?”

  “Si, Mr. Nicholson. Gracias!” Carmen headed down the hall, small and compact in her light blue maid uniform. Rick watched her go, noting her trim figure for the first time. She looks like she’s lived a hard life, but she has a nice figure, he thought. I can see Brian helping himself to some of that.

  Rick stepped back into his office and closed the door behind him. He went to the window overlooking the north side of the property. The sky outside was a deep blue, with only a faint hint of clouds. To the right, far off in the distance, was a mountain range. To the left, vast plains and rolling hills. The Bent Creek Country Club & Resort was smack dab in the middle of the most beautiful stretch of land in the United States. Aside from taking up forty square miles of rolling wilderness, the facility boasted three hundred luxury rooms and suites, as well as a five star restaurant run by one of the top chefs in the world, Chef Jim Munchel. The facility also boasted a salon, a massage and steam room, two indoor pools, a large Olympic-style swimming pool, two gyms filled with state-of-the-art exercise equipment, basketball, racquetball and tennis courts. There was a gift shop, a newsstand that sold magazines, newspapers, and the latest best-sellers. There was also a small medical clinic on the grounds staffed with a physician’s assistant and a registered nurse. Knock on wood, so far the few medical emergencies that had sprung up had not required the services of a physician. For contingencies sake, there was an ambulance on the grounds, the nearest hospital only five miles away down Route 5.

  There was a stable with over a dozen pure-bred horses for various riding activities. There was a thirty-hole golf course, as well as a squash court. A firing range was nestled at the rear of the grounds near an accessway that merged into the vast wilderness of the national park, for hunting (during season).

  In short, it was everything anybody could ask for in a vacation resort.

  Rick Nicholson reflected on what had brought him to his current position as manager of operations of Bent Creek Country Club and Resorts as he looked out his office window. Even if he had not left his position as a partner in White, LaChance, and Weinstein, the law firm he’d been working at since graduating from law school, he never would have been able to afford the one hundred thousand dollar entry fee and the fifty thousand dollar yearly dues to be a member of Bent Creek.

  He’d been on the fast track to a partnership with the firm. Before he left, the senior partner, Mick LaChance, had pulled him aside and asked Rick to seriously reconsider his resignation. “Think about your future,” he’d implored. “Think about all the good you can do with us, all the good that will follow in your personal life if you stay on. At the rate you’re climbing, Rick, I can guarantee there will be a spot for you as a senior partner before you’re forty.”

  The problem was, Rick had never wanted to be a lawyer. That had been his father’s idea.

  And now Dad was dead. Exposure to Agent Orange in ‘Nam had led to cancer a decade ago. Rick had been in his final year of law school then and had finished, mostly to please his mother, who was devastated over his father’s passing. Rick himself had been in a numbed haze the next few years; finishing school, applying for and getting the job at White, LaChance and Weinstein, and then the years of long hours and no social life being a young lawyer often entailed. By the time he woke up and poked his head out, a good part of the first decade of the twenty-first century had passed and he was approaching thirty-six. He’d never married, rarely had time for a serious relationship, much less a romantic fling, and he still lived in the same apartment he’d moved into when he’d passed the bar exam. And he realized, with some degree of regret, that the life he’d been leading was not his; it was the life his father had wanted him to live.

  After taking stock of his finances and realizing he could afford to quit his position at the firm, he did. His decision surprised everybody, including all three senior partners, who still refused to accept his resignation. “We’re calling this an extended sabbatical,” Keith White told him at his going-away party, which had been held at a swanky downtown bar. Keith was the only partner he could trust to confide in completely, and Rick had told him everything; his self-doubt, how he’d felt pressured into becoming a lawyer by his father, how he needed time to get away and simply discover himself. “Take as much time as you need. We’ll hold a place for you,” Keith had said.

  Rick had appreciated the gesture and still kept in touch with Keith, who kept asking when he’d be back at the firm. The honest answer was Rick didn’t know.

  No sooner had Rick left the firm when his mother was stricken with cancer. Rick moved to Boulder, Colorado, to be closer to her. After four months, she insisted he resume his work. He hadn’t told her he’d quit the firm, so he’d headed back to Denver and tried to start over.

  Only he wasn’t entirely sure how to do that.

  Rick sighed. He sometimes wondered if he’d hit a mid-life crisis a bit early. He’d always wanted to be something other than being a lawyer. When he was in high school he’d wanted to be a commercial artist, but his parents had squashed that particular idea (how the hell do commercial artists make money, anyway? his dad had asked one evening in that tone of voice Rick always hated; disapproval. Go to college, be a lawyer. Don’t waste your life chasing a pipe dream.). Later, he’d wanted to be an airline pilot. By then he was studying pre-law and the switch to aeronautical engineering would have added another two years to his undergraduate degree. Besides, Dad would have been furious for flushing that money down the toilet. Nope, Rick was going to be a lawyer, whether he liked it or not.

  Rick never liked being a lawyer. He was very good at it, but he didn’t like it.

  And now with Dad gone, he had a chance to reclaim his life and do something for himself.

  Only he wasn’t sure how to go about and do that.

  Because Rick had not changed his lifestyle since leaving his position at the firm, he quickly found that his finances were dwindling. Not wanting to alert his mother to his unemployment status, he’d shifted gears quickly and cast a line out for gainful employment.

  He found it as an Operations Manager for the Bent Creek Country Club and Resorts, in Wyoming, which he got courtesy of a lead from a former colleague of a competing law firm he still hung out with on a social basis. “Why not just ask for your old job back?” the colleague, Jim Smothers, said one night over beers at a bar and grill they frequented.

  “Because I hate being a lawyer,” Rick had responded.

  “Yeah, I hate it too,” Jim said. “But the money’s sure good.”


  Thanks to his education and excellent referrals, securing the position with Bent Creek was easy. This was Rick’s second season here, and he was fairly certain that at the end of this season he would be offered a position at the holding company that ran the facility. Rick was hoping this was the case; he’d come to like the work he was doing as Operations Manager. He was liking it so much that he was discovering what was becoming very clear to him: his hidden passion—running a business.

  Over the past few months, as this realization had grown stronger, Rick realized that landing this position had been a godsend. He found that he really liked running a company. He liked the ins and outs of it, the mechanics of making sure the day-to-day operations ran smoothly. Sure, there were hiccups along the way, but Rick had a flair for navigating around nasty turns and surprises. His quick thinking and logical way of doing things, holdovers from his years in the legal profession, lent considerable assets to his new role, and he thrived in it. Maybe getting this job, which was originally intended to provide cushion income while he did some serious soul searching, was what he needed to find his true passion in life.

  With this realization in mind, during the six months he was unemployed after last season ended, Rick had reached out to one of the lawyers with his old firm about an old business proposition he’d floated some time back. Mike had only been too eager to get on the horn and contact the other players. By the time this season at Bent Creek was underway, the preliminary groundwork of their plan was in place. Rick had been doing his best to run things for it on his end up here, but that required stealth at times; he knew upper management generally frowned on employees working on their own businesses, even on their off time. Employees were generally expected to devote one hundred percent of their efforts and energies to their employers, as well as their loyalty. If what Rick and Mike were planning worked out though, Rick might not need to work at Bent Creek for much longer. In fact, this might be his last season. He’d been hoping the Board would offer him a permanent position, but he couldn’t count on that. In fact—