Only a Secret - Sneak Peek!

CHAPTER ONE

HARRISON

“Sasquatch, hit that thing again for me.” I dropped the walkie-talkie to my side and watched with satisfaction as the chair lift in front of me hummed back to life, the four-man chairs gliding smoothly through the bottom station, pausing for riders to get on, and then swooping away up the hill toward the top, where Sasquatch stood at the other controls. 

“Looking good, man.” His voice came through the speaker at my side and I picked it up to respond. 

“It better. Cost a fortune and the tramway inspector’s coming sometime this week.” We’d ended up putting in a new ski lift with the help of a couple installation engineers. The old ski lift I’d been trying to bring back to life for the opening winter season at the Kasper Ridge Resort was an antique. 

I’d finally convinced Ghost, the resort owner and my old Navy buddy, that springing for a modern system would pay off in the long run. A tough call, since the Resort was running completely in the red after a speedy renovation and ahead of its first real season, but it did give us two operational lifts—this one, and another at a halfway point that opened up another few runs from the top.

Lucy Dale and her construction crew had contracted with another outfit to clear and grade runs below the lift lines. All in all, it had not been cheap, but there’d be skiing when the place opened in November, and in Colorado, that meant people and money. 

“I’m coming down.” Sass’s voice held a familiar note of joviality, one that typically meant trouble. 

“Sass, no, do not jump on one of those—“ I didn’t have to finish the warning. Sasquatch had clearly hurled all two-hundred-plus pounds of himself onto a chair at the top of the lift, and I could hear his victory cry echoing down the mountainside. 

He’d better not do that shit when the inspector was here. 

As he came into view about ten minutes later, I watched him approach the station. The guy was always pulling pranks, making jokes. Even when we’d flown together back in the Navy, he often took things a bit too lightly for my liking. Flying a jet was life and death. Maybe a ski lift wasn’t quite as high stakes as the F-18, but it still paid to follow the rules. 

My oversized friend was still hooting and hollering as the chair brought him closer to the ground, and I decided I’d better give him a quick talking to. We’d be operating for real soon, with guests and impromptu inspections. There was no room for this bullshit. I switched off the motor and watched him swing to a stop, still a decent height in the air. 

“Hey!” He called down. “Brainiac, your lift quit.” 

“Yeah, I stopped it,” I yelled back up. Then I walked closer, so I didn’t have to raise my voice. “Listen up, Sass.” 

“Oh shit, I’m in trouble with the professor.” Sasquatch laughed to himself. 

“Just listen,” I suggested, looking up at his huge form, dangling overhead. “We’re about to bring on staff up here, and you need to be setting the right example. No one rides without an operator at each end. Not us, not the college kids who are gonna be working here this winter, not anyone. It’s dangerous, and pretty soon we’ll be subject to pop inspections.” 

“Right, right.” I didn’t think Sasquatch was really taking this seriously. 

“Ghost is counting on this.” It was a low blow, but I knew it would wipe that grin off Sasquatch’s face. 

He immediately looked regretful. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. He needs this to work.” 

“He does. We all do. But especially Ghost.” I didn’t have to say more. Sasquatch knew the story. We’d all been looking out for our friend a little bit since he’d lost his flight status and been discharged after the investigation into the mishap that ended his military career. It had shaken him. Hell, it would have shaken anyone. 

“I get the message, man,” Sasquatch called as I turned and headed back to the lift station. 

“Good.” I called back, grabbing my walkie-talkie from the console and securing the station for the night. It was time for dinner, and I was starving. I headed toward the big patio at the back of the resort, where Ghost’s sister Aubrey was lighting the big fire pit, her boyfriend—and the resort’s bar manager—Wiley, at her side. 

“Hey!” Sass called from behind me. 

The weather was good, and I figured he could jump from there if he got really desperate. He wasn’t more than ten feet up.

“Hey!” 

“You gonna leave him there?” Aubrey asked, glancing past me at the hulking figure on the bottom of the chair lift. 

“Till he learns his lesson.” I gave her a grin and headed inside to get dinner. 

When I returned to the fire pit, a plate full of smoked ribs in my hand and my stomach growling in anticipation, Sasquatch was ambling across the patio, grinning. 

“Thanks a lot for that, man. Nothing like a little parkour before dinner.” He poked me in the ribs, hard, but I held onto my plate and moved past him to one of the big Adirondack chairs around the fire pit. 

“You made Sass mad?” Monroe asked from my side, where she sat with Mateo, her fiancé. Most people called her Annalee now, but we’d flown together, and the fierce blonde would always be “Monroe” to me. 

“I taught him a lesson,” I said, digging into my first rib. 

“That was Sass mad?” Mateo asked, glancing after the hulking man who’d just ambled into the resort after cracking jokes and laughing loudly with Ghost and Fake Tom, who were both arriving to sit. 

“Sass doesn’t really do mad,” Monroe explained. “But if he veers to sarcasm, you’ve struck a nerve.” 

“He needs to take things a bit more seriously,” I suggested. 

“Or maybe you need to lighten up,” she shot back. 

I didn’t have a response for that—it wasn’t the first time it had been suggested, but light wasn’t really in my repertoire. 

“We’re all here, anyone got news?” Ghost asked from the other side of the space. 

I glanced around, the faces of the crew that had been getting this place into shape all summer surrounding me. Ghost and his sister Aubrey had inherited the place—along with some kind of crazy treasure hunt that we hadn’t solved yet—from their uncle Marvin. They’d recruited help as they needed it to get the resort back into operation, and in some ways, this group had become a family. 

Some of us were former Navy fighter pilots, and some of us were locals. And then there was Sass’s friend, Antonio, a former pro soccer player from San Diego. I hadn’t quite figured out what he was doing up here yet, but then again, I didn’t really know what I was doing here either. 

I told myself I was just figuring things out. Helping a friend. 

“Both lifts are working great, inspector coming this week,” I reported. “Staff interviews beginning of October.” 

“That’s two weeks,” Aubrey said. 

Ghost turned to his sister. “Those calendar-reading classes have really been paying off.” 

She threw a cob of corn at him. 

“Marvin would have been proud of you folks,” said Ernie, Lucy’s grandfather and the oldest among us. He’d been up here his whole life, had known the first incarnation of the Kasper Ridge Resort, and been friends with Marvin. “This place is every bit as magical as it was back in the day.” 

Lucy leaned toward her grandfather and bumped his shoulder with a soft smile on her face. 

“Thanks, sir. That means a lot,” Ghost said. 

“So the ski school and mountain staffing interviews are getting set up,” Aubrey said. “We need to get some people up here for the rest of the operations too. Servers, housekeepers, front desk staff.” 

“Can you put out some feelers locally?” Ghost asked, focusing his attention on Lucy and Mateo, since they’d both spent most of their lives in Kasper Ridge. 

“Yep,” Mateo said. “Might want to extend the search if you’re willing to offer housing, though. College kids will probably travel to stay here for the season.” 

I might have rolled my eyes. Because what we really needed was the mountain crawling with college kids. “Great.” 

Monroe leaned in close. “You did actually say that out loud.” 

I could feel the frown pulling the sides of my mouth down, but I decided not to let any more words out. Maintaining an upbeat attitude was not my strong suit, and I’d had more than enough of college kids. 

“Aren’t you a professor, Brainiac?” Fake Tom called across the dancing propane flames between us. “Figured you’d love college kids. All those young eager minds, desperate for you to impart your aged wisdom.” 

Fake Tom’s real name was Will, but his callsign was based on his desire to be called “Maverick” back in the Navy. His last name was Cruz, so he’d thought it was a sure thing. But that isn’t how callsigns generally worked, and his excitement at the name he wanted only led to everyone making sure he didn’t get it. He’d recently proposed to Lucy Dale, who’d been brought in to help with construction at the resort. 

There was a lot of coupling up going on up here. I was glad there were no more single women around. I was happy for my friends, but all this cheery romance was more than enough for me. It didn’t really suit my current state of mind.

“Yeah. I was a professor,” I confirmed, trying to keep any shade of emotion from my voice. I didn’t enjoy conversation at the best of times. I did not want to talk about my recent departure from my non-tenured position as an engineering professor. 

“I didn’t know that,” Antonio said, clearly in the mood to drive me over the brink with his good-natured questioning. “What did you teach?” 

“Mechanical engineering,” I said, shoving another rib in my mouth in hopes of signaling that we were done. 

“And will you go back to teaching?” he asked. 

Since no one else spoke, it seemed clear I was supposed to answer. 

“I’m on sabbatical,” I said. “And I need a drink.” I rose, and turned, heading inside to the bar. I didn’t want a drink, but I definitely didn’t want to talk about my current unemployment or the reason I had really been free to come up and play lift engineer for the summer. 

They’d find out soon enough if I didn’t figure out my next career move pretty fast. 

***

CHAPTER TWO 

PENNY

Shit. This could not be happening again. 

“Maybe it’s not that bad,” Mom said, sounding annoyingly upbeat in the face of my world exploding. Again. “Maybe there’s some way to capitalize on this, honey.” 

Her calling me ‘honey’ rubbed me the wrong way. We’d barely gotten back to speaking terms after everything, and that was only because of my father’s death. I’d thought he was the one driving their actions all those years ago. But maybe I was wrong. 

“There is no way to capitalize on my life imploding, Mom. This is a bad thing. Most people would recognize that.” My phone felt heavy and unwieldy in my sweaty palm. 

“I do,” she said quickly. “But when you’re famous, you have to expect that people want to hear what you’re up to. If you go quiet too long, they’ll invent things.” 

Maybe. But I wasn’t famous anymore. Not really. “Shit,” I breathed, staring out the dark window of my Brentwood apartment. “I thought things were getting better.” 

“Want me to call Paul?” Her voice had turned sweet, cloying. 

“Mom. I’m a grown woman. I can call my agent myself.” Though I hated speaking with Paul almost as much as I hated talking to my mother. 

“Okay.” Now she sounded chastised. Like I’d swatted at her. 

“Listen, I have to go,” I said. Exhaustion was sweeping through me, a heavy layer of darkness matching the dark suffusing the LA brightness outside my window. 

“Talk tomorrow!” Mom chirped, her voice full of false glee. 

I pictured her, ensconced in the cheap apartment she’d found in Englewood, the planes thundering overhead toward LAX at regular intervals. Her life was no better than mine, but I couldn’t even fake happiness. She had a gift. 

After I’d hung up, I pulled up the internet article again, unable to help myself. It was like having an aching tooth--you couldn’t help prodding it with your tongue, over and over, testing to see if it still hurt just as much as it had before. 

And this did. 

It had been a second date, though why I bothered even trying was beyond me. The guy had sworn he didn’t know anything about me beyond maybe having heard my name as a kid. He’d been charming. Handsome. Sweet. 

And his bedroom had been plush and welcoming. And equipped with a camera, evidently. A camera hidden in the headboard, it looked like. A camera to capture me being an idiot and trusting someone, yet again. Someone who was clearly going out with me under false pretenses. 

I slammed the lid to my laptop, some sick part of me hoping I’d broken it. Then I’d have an excuse to stay off the internet for a while. To avoid the stupid headlines on those seedy gossip pages: Child star caught in another sex scandal!  Our Girl Chrissy Isn’t So Innocent! Playtime Never Ends for Penny Claremont, aka Our Girl Chrissy. 

My little apartment, which had just begun to feel like home to me, now felt like a cage. Or a stage, which was far worse. There’d been a reporter waiting outside today, before I’d even seen the stupid video, and I realized now that it didn’t matter where I went, what life I tried to have. Here in Los Angeles, hell—maybe anywhere in California—people would never let me forget that I was Chrissy Alexander, that she was all they’d ever want me to be. 

I went to the bedroom, pulled a suitcase from the closet, and began stuffing it with clothes I didn’t even see as they passed through my hands. I was going to have to leave. To run away. I might have been acting like a child, but if I stayed here, I’d always be one. I’d never escape Chrissy Alexander, my alter ego. I’d never figure out who I really was. 

A plan formed slowly in my mind as I gathered shoes and shoved them into the suitcase. It was less of a plan, really. More of a loosely structured Hail Mary pass of extreme desperation. 

I sent a couple text messages. One to Paul, who promised to try to get the video taken down, and who—as ever—suggested a couple auditions I might like to go on. 

The second text was the Hail Mary. But Bennie responded almost immediately, every bit as sweet as she’d always been. 

Bennie: Definitely! Come whenever you like! I have room! 

That was all I needed. 

I picked up my phone again and arranged the car service and texted Bennie back, then took a last look around my apartment. Whatever was here didn’t feel like mine anyway. They could sell it. There was probably some sick asshole in this wretched town who’d buy Chrissy Alexander’s bedsheets and pots and pans. Hell, they could auction it all off or something. 

I sent another text from the car, letting my mom know I was leaving town for a while. And then I sank low into the leather of the seat, hoping that at this time of night there wouldn’t be many people at the airport. I bought a last-minute ticket to Denver on the way to LAX. I could have chartered a plane, but that would have been a whole other thing, and I didn’t want to drag some poor pilot out of bed at this hour. Flying commercial would hopefully give me a little bit of anonymity. 

Five hours later, the sun was just beginning to lift over the wide flat eastern horizon as the plane touched down in Colorado. Just another four-hour car ride, and I’d be there. 

Hopefully Kasper Ridge was small and inaccessible enough a place to hide in for a while. Bennie had to teach today, but she’d set me up with a spare key, and her school day gave me time to actually get some sleep. I barely even registered the appearance of her house as I stumbled across the threshold, locked the door, and located the guest room. I climbed into bed and immediately passed out. 

###

“Hey sleepyhead.” I rolled toward the weight that had settled on the mattress, murky confusion muddling my thoughts. “Penny.” 

Where was I? I lived alone, so why was there… ah, yes. Memories of my panicked flight from Los Angeles came sweeping back into my mind. 

“Hi,” I managed, turning to the voice and wrenching my eyes open. 

“I can’t believe you hopped a flight so fast,” Bennie said, her voice light and friendly. 

“I’m sorry,” I moaned, my vision swimming and then clearing to find my old friend sitting at the side of the bed, smiling kindly down at me. 

Bennie had a mass of naturally curly dark hair I’d always envied, and bright wide dark eyes that held every bit as much acceptance and kindness now as they did in my memories of her. 

“Don’t apologize,” she said, smiling. “I’m so happy to have you here.” 

I struggled a bit with my limbs, which felt heavy and dull, finally managing to sit up against the headboard. “God, I needed to sleep. What time is it?” 

“Almost five o’clock. I just got home from school a little while ago, but the girls are coming over, so I wanted to give you some time to wake up.” 

Alarm rang through me. “Girls?” 

My face must have betrayed my fear, because Bennie reached a hand for my arm. “Just Lucy and CeeCee,” she said, pronouncing these names as if I had any idea who these people were. “And Annalee.” 

I shook my head, both because I was not up to socializing, and because I didn’t know who the hell she was talking about. 

“You’ll love them all.” 

“I’m not in a peopling place, Ben. Maybe I’ll just hide in here?” 

“Definitely not,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in years. I’m dying to catch up.” 

“A quick internet search will tell you everything you need to know,” I whispered, dropping my eyes shut and rubbing a hand over my face. 

“Oh no,” Bennie said, a gentle hand taking my own from my face. “Are you okay?” 

“Well, I pretty much just abandoned my entire life to come here. It was the only place I could think to go where maybe no one would read those trashy sites.” 

One side of Bennie’s mouth lifted. “Small towns are awful for gossip, Penny.” 

My heart sank. 

“But this one is full of good people. No one will bother you here, no matter what’s on the internet. You can stay as long as you like.” 

Her reassurance helped, and I settled back against the headboard, feeling a little lighter. 

“So get up and do whatever you need to do. The girls will be here in a half hour for dinner and Bachelor Bay.” 

“You do not watch that trashy show.” 

“Oh yes, we do!” 

“But you’re a first grade teacher. Isn’t that kind of seedy for you?” I knew about Bachelor Bay. My agent had even suggested I go on the show as a bachelorette. That was the fourth time I fired him, but Paul just wouldn’t take a hint. He told me we were ride or die. Sometimes I thought about how old he was, and hoped maybe die was coming soon. 

“First grade teachers need to have fun too,” she said, her posture stiffening a bit. 

“Of course, I didn’t mean—“ 

“Get up!” she laughed, standing. “You’ve got your own bathroom there and you can come out when you’re ready.” She pointed to a door I’d assumed was a closet, and then disappeared back out of the room. 

Bennie was good people. She’d lived in Los Angeles a long time ago, and we’d been friends in middle school, during the years when I’d insisted that I wanted to go to public school, when I’d thought that would be the path to a normal life. And for a couple years, it was. The kids in Los Angeles were used to fame, and for a while, they let me be Penny Claremont. But in high school, everything had exploded. And by then, Bennie’s parents had moved here, to Kasper Ridge. 

###

I emerged from the bedroom full of something that felt like fear. I could hear the voices of Bennie’s friends echoing down the little hallway. They sounded light and friendly, and I stood there for a minute, listening. 

What would it be like, I wondered, to live up here, to have Bennie’s life? To go out and have friends, and teach school—though that was not something I was equipped to do. But the rest of it. What would it be like to be allowed such a normal, happy life? 

“He didn’t say that exactly,” a voice was saying. “It was more like he suggested that sex was better at high altitude because the air was thinner.” 

“How would that make it better?” Another voice asked. 

“I have no idea. Fewer molecules between you or something… Will is not a scientist.” 

The voices all laughed at this, and I felt a little bit of weight slide off my shoulders. They weren’t talking about me. That was good. 

I took a deep breath and stepped into the living room. 

“Hey,” I said to the ladies standing in Bennie’s kitchen. 

There were three of them. One was petite, with long dark hair waved around her shoulders. She wore a pair of tight jeans and a shirt that was cut low and revealed an athletically curvy frame that made me a little self-conscious of my own less-than-fit physique. The woman next to her might as well have been Marilyn Monroe—she was blond, buxom, and gorgeous. I fought an immediate urge to dislike her that must have come from going to too many auditions too early in life where I was constantly pitted against other girls and taught to see them as competition. And the third was tall and slim, strawberry blond hair pulled back into a ponytail and bright blue eyes assessing, but friendly. 

“Hey Penny,” Bennie said, coming around the little counter to take my arm and pull me closer. “I’d like to introduce you to my friends. This is Lucy, Annalee, and CeeCee.” 

“Hi,” I said, feeling awkward and disoriented. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“You too,” Lucy said, pouring a glass of white wine and sliding it toward me. “It’s so great that you were able to visit for a bit.” 

I nodded, accepting the glass and smiling at the smaller woman. “Thanks.” 

“How long are you staying?” The blonde—Annalee—asked. 

I glanced at Bennie, who smiled encouragingly. “I really don’t know,” I said. 

Annalee grinned. “That’s my story too,” she said. “Though now I might stay forever. This place does that to you.” 

“Or maybe Mateo did that to you,” Lucy said, raising an eyebrow. 

“Have you been here before?” CeeCee asked me. 

I shook my head, letting the cool crisp wine flood my mouth. I felt it work down my throat and could almost sense myself relaxing as it made its way through me. “Never.” 

“You’ll love it. River rafting, rock climbing, hiking,” she listed. 

“Skiing,” Bennie added. “Right, Lucy? You said they got the lifts going.” 

“They did,” Lucy confirmed. “At the Kasper Ridge Resort,” she told me. “So there will be skiing this winter for sure.” 

“I don’t know how to ski,” I said, beginning to feel more comfortable. 

“Perfect time to learn,” CeeCee said. 

“CeeCee thinks everyone is equipped for outdoor adventure,” Bennie told me. “She runs the adventure shop up here.” 

“All you need is a willingness to try,” CeeCee said. 

I smiled, looking between the friendly faces of Bennie’s friends. Not one of them had given me a sideways glance, not one had mentioned Our Girl Chrissy. I didn’t know if Bennie had briefed them ahead of time, or if it was possible I really could just be Penny up here. 

Either way, even if it was for only one night, I was going to enjoy it. 

***

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