From the Shadows (Buckhorn, Montana #2) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,5
of place. In fact, it looked as if housekeeping had just finished in there.
She cocked her head at a sound—not in her room, but in the one across the hall. That door, too, was ajar. She frowned. She could hear what sounded like running water coming from inside.
Stepping across the hall, she pushed the door all the way open. The room looked as if her teenage self had just left it. The bed was unmade and clothing was piled on a chair nearby. The table was covered with take-out containers, newspapers and other debris.
She could definitely hear water running from inside the bathroom. She’d recently called to have the water and power turned back on, only to be told it had been on for months. She’d thought her grandmother must have gotten confused and maintained the utility service.
Now she realized that she’d never seen a bill, which meant that whoever had had it turned back on must have paid for it. How odd.
Frowning, she inched toward the bathroom, the splash of running water growing louder. Like the room’s door, this one was also ajar. She put a finger to it and pushed. The door swung inward.
Hit by a cloud of steam, she could barely make out the black and white tiles on the floor, let alone the giant claw-foot tub in front of the window or the large glass-block walk-in shower across the room.
But as the steam began to dissipate out the now-fully-opened bathroom door, she saw wet, soapy flesh behind the glass blocks.
Opening her purse, she pulled out her small handgun her grandmother had gotten her for Christmas before advancing to the shower’s opening.
CHAPTER THREE
FINN STOOD UNDER the hot spray. He was going to miss this shower when he finally left here. That was about all he could say for the place. The bed was all right. Too large for one person, but the clean sheets he’d found in the laundry were Egyptian cotton, and the down comforter had been like floating in a cloud. He’d discovered everything he’d needed in the hotel once he’d gotten the electricity and water turned back on and had moved in.
He’d expected one of the locals to contact the hotel owner and rat him out. But after the first few weeks, he’d quit worrying about it. As he lathered up with the Swiss soap scented with chocolate and lavender, he told himself his stay here hadn’t been all that bad—except for the nights.
Come twilight, shadows began to form. By nightfall, the huge hotel began to make way too many noises that couldn’t be explained away easily. Too many nights, fueled by the old ghost stories, he’d heard footfalls out in the hallway, hammering somewhere deep in the building and the distinct sound of someone digging.
Once, he’d seen a blur of white move so swiftly at the end of the hall that he swore he’d glimpsed a woman for just an instant, her long blond hair billowing out behind her. He’d raced down there to find...nothing.
Nope, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t going to miss this place.
He turned his face up to let the spray rinse the soap from his hair that he’d trimmed a little—as well as his beard. Once he got to a real city, he’d visit a salon, but in the meantime... The soap ran down his chest to pool on the floor at his feet. As he turned, wiping water from his eyes, he saw her. For a startling second, she was a ghost from his nightmares.
But he was pretty sure that redheaded, blue-eyed ghosts didn’t carry guns.
* * *
“MIND HANDING ME a towel?” the man drawled as he nonchalantly turned off the shower. Casey watched him shake his dark head of too-long hair like a dog, droplets of water flying through the air.
She took a step back to avoid getting wet. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
He quit shaking off the water to look at her. Water droplets clung to his dark eyelashes, accentuating the deep blue of his eyes. “Taking a shower. I thought it was obvious. A towel, please?” He didn’t seem in the least embarrassed to be standing in front of her stark naked. Not that he had anything to be embarrassed about, since she could hardly miss his well-developed body. He was tall, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped and endowed.
She tossed him a towel. “You’re trespassing.”
He nodded. “And you’re early,” he said as he slowly dried himself off.