“You don’t mean…?”

“I wish I didn’t. Lana, I’m so sorry.”

“Nonsense. You’re not any more in control of the weather than I am.” Lana tried for breezy, but inside, her brain was screaming.

The idea of spending the night made her shudder.

There was no choice though. Lana could see the road they’d taken had become impassable, and the weather was only getting worse. The wind had made visibility half what it was getting there, and even as she stood outside the restaurant, Lana could see less and less of their vehicle parked in the parking lot.

As much as she wanted to escape this place, doing so would be downright dangerous.

Rick went back inside to talk to the staff while Lana stayed where she was, growing colder by the moment. She stared at the sky as if she could turn off the snow by sheer force of will. Rick returned, standing at her side with a piece of paper in his hand.

“They have rooms.” Twisting her head to look back at him, she could see the pained expression on his face. “One for each of us. I guess the third is permanently occupied.”

“Permanently occupied?” Lana’s eyebrow rose of its own volition. “Who lives here? It has to be one of the family or the staff.”

Rick shot her a wry look. “That’s the same question I asked. Apparently, the answer is none of the above. They also said the bathroom is shared.”

The bathroom was shared. With someone who liked this place enough to stay there permanently.

Montgomerys didn’t run away screaming into snowstorms.

“We’re in rooms right next to each other. You can have whichever one is better.” Rick sounded embarrassed.

“I live out of hotels, dearest.” On a whim, Lana pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Stop worrying. This will be fine.”

Hazel eyes gazed down at her as warm, strong hands found her hips. “You’re trying really hard to make me feel better. It’s almost working.”

Lana looped her arm around his waist. She tugged him closer as she stepped back, her shoulders bumping into the exterior wall behind her.

Snowflakes dusted his shoulders and clung to his hair as Rick dipped his head. Then he stopped.

He stopped.

“We should get inside,” he said, his lips almost brushing her own.

“You’re kidding.” Lana puffed out a breath of disappointment when Rick pulled back.

“You’re shivering,” Rick said in explanation, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Okay, so maybe the manners thing wasn’t quite as good as it was cracked up to be.

As they went back into the bed-and-breakfast, Lana wondered what he would do if she ignored Carl and his mom and everything else, dragged Rick back outside, and forced a do-over. That wouldn’t be bad, right?

“Are you okay?” Rick asked as he handed her the keys to the rooms.

“Right as rain,” Lana said, because I’m thinking about jumping you might scare him off.

The old wooden stairs creaked as they climbed up to the second floor, where a hallway of rooms sat over the restaurant. And maybe in the daytime, it could have been cute. The hall had lots of pictures of Alaskan scenery, of wild animals, and old black-and-white photos of what might have been the owner’s family. But the lights flickered, and the floors were suspiciously stained beneath their coat of varnish.

“If we see twin girls at the end of this hallway, I’m using you as a human shield,” Rick said, bringing a quick laugh to Lana’s lips.

“I’ll beat you down the stairs.” Her feet sounded way too loud, as if every step echoed in the restaurant below.

They passed the shared bathroom. While Lana was as appreciative of an antique claw-foot tub as the next person, the floor-to-ceiling dark wood paneling and the spotted glass mirror above the pedestal sink only added to the dubious ambience. The next door over was their first assigned room.

“The door’s stuck.” Rick tried to twist the doorknob and pull at the same time, but it wouldn’t go anywhere. “It’s an old place,” he said as he jerked harder. “Or it opens to the inside.” A cute little look of concentration stole across his features as he pushed the door in. It continued to stay locked in the doorframe, unwilling to give way. “Huh.”

“It’s a door to nowhere. It’s a sign we shouldn’t go in.”

Rick grunted as he put his weight behind the door. “Would you rather stay in this hall?”

“It’s a nice hall. Cozy and less pit of doom-y.”

“It’s almost as if something’s pushing against the other side,” Rick said, then he blinked, realizing what he’d said. “Let’s try the next room.”

“You’re a wise man.” Lana patted his shoulder. “Did I ever tell you I spent a week at the Stanley in Estes Park? The elk were rutting, which was very interesting to behold. Also, it wasn’t nearly as haunted as people think. Only a little haunted. Medium haunted at most.”

“You’re not making me feel better.”

“All I’m saying is just because someplace seems creepy doesn’t mean that it is. Sometimes it’s…” Lana opened the room, then paused midsentence.

“Filled with dead squirrels with doll’s clothes?”

“Who are these people?” Lana asked, horrified.

“Who stays here permanently?” Rick countered.

“Let’s go back to room number one.” Lana shut the door and hurried back to the first room, putting distance between herself and the dolls. “Or we could be airlifted out of here. I can have a helicopter come get us.”

Even as she said it, Rick shook his head. Before he could respond, Lana sighed. “And probably get the pilot killed in this zero visibility. Fine. Push harder.”

“I am pushing.”

“With your muscles?”

“The ones I’ve got anyway.”

“Here, let me push.”

“I’m pretty sure I can—omph.”

The door abruptly gave way, banging open so hard, they stumbled into the room. Instinctively reaching out to steady him, Lana realized that Rick had done the same for her. His muscled arm had wrapped around her waist, holding her tight.

Lana had a very powerful family, but she couldn’t remember ever having someone reach out to help every time she stumbled. In her family, you either caught yourself, or you went down and learned from the fall. Reading too much into it wasn’t going to help her with this utterly relentless crush she’d developed for Rick. Still, his arm felt warm and solid around her, and Lana had to take a moment and a breath, letting herself remember that yes, she was human, and yes, she liked having a man’s touch.

She definitely should have kissed him outside, temperature be darned.

“You don’t have to hold me up,” Lana said.

“I was returning the favor.”

Only then did she realize that yes, his arm was around her, but both of hers were locked around him.

Rick didn’t seem uncomfortable with her death grip on him, but his lips had quirked up at the corners.

“You know those books and movies where the girl is clumsy and keeps falling and the guy has to rescue her from her lack of coordination?”

“We tend to watch things about time-traveling killer robots or driving cars into skyscrapers in our house,” Rick said. “But there was a point in my life when Diego wasn’t in complete control of the television. I’m vaguely familiar.”

“I’m not that girl. I might slip, but I always catch myself.”

“It’s highly probable that I’m that guy.” Rick winked at her roguishly before turning to investigate their surroundings.

The theme of wood-paneled walls continued throughout the room, making it darker than she would have preferred, especially with a single lamp on the dresser to provide light. The fireplace looked like it hadn’t been used in years, and the space heater on the floor was the kind that tipped over by accident, then promptly burned one’s house down.

There was no television, no radio, no phone. Just Rick, Lana, a bed, and a squirrel.

A single squirrel that was perched on the windowsill wearing a white cotton nightgown, dark hair flowing down its squirrel back in perfect curls as it stared longingly out the window. For some reason, that one bothered Lana most of all. Breaking the time-honored convention of not rearranging hotel decorations, Rick put the squirrel in the top drawer of an antique dresser, the only furniture in the room besides the bed.

Lana gave Rick a breezy laugh to cover the fact that she was sure she could hear something moving in that dresser drawer. She patted the mattress beneath her.

“So…which side do you prefer to sleep?” she asked, although to be honest, it wasn’t going to matter.

Lana was taking whichever side was farthest away from the squirrel.

* * *

She sat on the edge of the bed.

“Are you going to be okay in here?” Rick wasn’t the most observant of men, but despite her cheerfulness, Lana looked a little peaked around the edges. “I can leave you alone or stay—”

A door slammed downstairs, followed by a heavy thump. The kind of thump that involved a large object being dropped on a table. Then the kind of rhythmic, horrific chopping that came with butchering something with large kitchen weaponry. With every chop, she flinched, until the sound was replaced by a loud, high-pitched squealing noise. Midsqueal, it turned into a grinding noise that would haunt Rick to the end of his days.

“What is that?” Lana asked, eyes wide.

“I think they’re making sausage.”

“The house sausage?”

Rick nodded, sitting on the bed next to her.

“That’s it. I’m out.” Grabbing her jacket, Lana shrugged into it and hopped up. “There are plenty of ways to go, and I’m not letting this hotel of horrors be the thing that takes me down.”

She eyed the fireplace, then grabbed a nearby fire poker. Lana hefted it a couple times, took one iffy practice swing, then turned to the door.