and gold framed mirror over the waist-high bookshelves lining
the west wall. My eyes were shining, my cheeks were flushed. For all my vaunted cynicism, I had the
collector’s bug as bad as anyone. I wanted to believe this manuscript was the real thing.
This is the first and most important step toward getting ripped off.
If anyone should have learned that lesson, it was me. I shook my head at my reflection, and the glint
of the tiny black star in my earlobe caught my eye. I stared at it. Stared at my reflection as though running into an old acquaintance after many years. It seemed odd to me that I didn’t look any different. True, three years wasn’t exactly a lifetime, but I’d traveled metaphysical leagues in that time. The marks of that journey should have been on my face and threaded through my hair, but I looked the same as always. A tall and slender man with green eyes and chestnut hair. Granted, I needed a hair cut. The rain was making my hair curl. Three years ago I’d been getting my hair trimmed at The Green Room. Three years ago I would not have been heading out on an appraisal job in jeans. I’d have been wearing Kenneth Cole—right down
to a tie. But then three years ago I wouldn’t have considered taking a job from Mr. Stephanopoulos.
Not that there was anything wrong with this job. Very straightforward from the sound of it. Nor was
there anything wrong with jeans—or the way I looked. I was clean, shaven, and presentable enough. Maybe the real change was on the inside.
Safe to say, it wasn’t a change for the better.
www.samhainpublishing.com
11
Chapter Two
The Hotel Del Monte sat on twelve lushly wooded acres in the middle of some of the most expensive
real estate in Southern California. The hotel’s secluded location and small size, the rambling, pink stucco Spanish style ninety-two-room complex and its tranquil and luxuriant gardens full of trees, ornamental ponds and fragrant flowers made it one of the most romantic settings in Los Angeles. No long, anonymous corridors lined with room numbers. Most guest rooms and suites had private entrances and opened directly onto the hotel’s gardens. If I was a guy in the market for a honeymoon, Hotel Del Monte would be my first choice.
I asked at the front desk for Room 103 and then headed out through the ancient sycamores and tree
ferns. I crossed a small arched red and gold bridge from where I could see the graceful bell tower on the other side of the small lake where the swans were taking shelter. The rain pattered on the leaves of the lemon and orange trees lining the cobbled path, glittered on the petals of the rose bushes. It smelled good, like walking in the woods. The city seemed very far away.
I found Room 103 without too much trouble, ducking into the stone alcove and knocking on the door.
Rain dripped musically from the eaves and ran down the back of my neck.
I shivered. I needed a raincoat, but with only about fifteen to twenty days of rain a year, there were better things to spend one’s pennies on. Like books. There was a 1924 edition of Gertrude Chandler
Warner’s The Box-Car Children I had my eye on for this year’s Christmas present to myself.
The hotel room door swung abruptly open. An unsmiling, dark-haired man stood framed against an
elegant background of pale cabbage roses and ivy. He was about forty. Tall, rawboned, lean. He wore faded jeans, a cream-colored sweater over a white tee shirt, and horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a bookish angel.
“James Winter?” he inquired, looking me over like he’d caught me cheating on my chemistry quiz.
“Professor Crisparkle?”
My surprise must have been obvious. “Is there a problem?” he returned sternly.
“No. Not at all.”
The problem was he was gorgeous. It was a no-nonsense brand of gorgeousness, though. Far from
detracting from his dark, grave good looks, the glasses accentuated them.
I smiled my very best smile—despite the rain trickling
the west wall. My eyes were shining, my cheeks were flushed. For all my vaunted cynicism, I had the
collector’s bug as bad as anyone. I wanted to believe this manuscript was the real thing.
This is the first and most important step toward getting ripped off.
If anyone should have learned that lesson, it was me. I shook my head at my reflection, and the glint
of the tiny black star in my earlobe caught my eye. I stared at it. Stared at my reflection as though running into an old acquaintance after many years. It seemed odd to me that I didn’t look any different. True, three years wasn’t exactly a lifetime, but I’d traveled metaphysical leagues in that time. The marks of that journey should have been on my face and threaded through my hair, but I looked the same as always. A tall and slender man with green eyes and chestnut hair. Granted, I needed a hair cut. The rain was making my hair curl. Three years ago I’d been getting my hair trimmed at The Green Room. Three years ago I would not have been heading out on an appraisal job in jeans. I’d have been wearing Kenneth Cole—right down
to a tie. But then three years ago I wouldn’t have considered taking a job from Mr. Stephanopoulos.
Not that there was anything wrong with this job. Very straightforward from the sound of it. Nor was
there anything wrong with jeans—or the way I looked. I was clean, shaven, and presentable enough. Maybe the real change was on the inside.
Safe to say, it wasn’t a change for the better.
www.samhainpublishing.com
11
Chapter Two
The Hotel Del Monte sat on twelve lushly wooded acres in the middle of some of the most expensive
real estate in Southern California. The hotel’s secluded location and small size, the rambling, pink stucco Spanish style ninety-two-room complex and its tranquil and luxuriant gardens full of trees, ornamental ponds and fragrant flowers made it one of the most romantic settings in Los Angeles. No long, anonymous corridors lined with room numbers. Most guest rooms and suites had private entrances and opened directly onto the hotel’s gardens. If I was a guy in the market for a honeymoon, Hotel Del Monte would be my first choice.
I asked at the front desk for Room 103 and then headed out through the ancient sycamores and tree
ferns. I crossed a small arched red and gold bridge from where I could see the graceful bell tower on the other side of the small lake where the swans were taking shelter. The rain pattered on the leaves of the lemon and orange trees lining the cobbled path, glittered on the petals of the rose bushes. It smelled good, like walking in the woods. The city seemed very far away.
I found Room 103 without too much trouble, ducking into the stone alcove and knocking on the door.
Rain dripped musically from the eaves and ran down the back of my neck.
I shivered. I needed a raincoat, but with only about fifteen to twenty days of rain a year, there were better things to spend one’s pennies on. Like books. There was a 1924 edition of Gertrude Chandler
Warner’s The Box-Car Children I had my eye on for this year’s Christmas present to myself.
The hotel room door swung abruptly open. An unsmiling, dark-haired man stood framed against an
elegant background of pale cabbage roses and ivy. He was about forty. Tall, rawboned, lean. He wore faded jeans, a cream-colored sweater over a white tee shirt, and horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a bookish angel.
“James Winter?” he inquired, looking me over like he’d caught me cheating on my chemistry quiz.
“Professor Crisparkle?”
My surprise must have been obvious. “Is there a problem?” he returned sternly.
“No. Not at all.”
The problem was he was gorgeous. It was a no-nonsense brand of gorgeousness, though. Far from
detracting from his dark, grave good looks, the glasses accentuated them.
I smiled my very best smile—despite the rain trickling
Similar Books
One Wild Cowboy
CATHY GILLEN THACKER
Swallow This
Joanna Blythman
The Workhouse Girl
Dilly Court
The Reaper Virus (Novella): Sarcophagus
Nathan Barnes
The Temple
Brian Smith
In Free Fall
Juli Zeh
The House on Dream Street
Dana Sachs
The List
Anne Calhoun