Chapter 13

13

Meyra was finished with her shift at the front desk now. It had been a surprise shift—they'd had a girl Braelyn call off, and someone had to cover the gap—and now she was ready to go to her room for a while. She had a list of recipes she was studying. She wanted to try some allergy-friendly desserts now that Brandt was here again. He couldn't have eggs—it made it difficult to make her usual desserts.

Meyra was paying closer attention to possible cross-contamination, too. She'd created new rules for the kitchen and diner staff, just to be on the safe side.

She didn't know many people with egg allergies, and she needed someone to taste-test for her. There was a chocolate three-layer cake she wanted to figure out soon. Then she'd test it in the dining room at the inn and label it as allergen-friendly. It used vinegar and baking soda as the leavening agent, but she wanted to play with the chocolate ratio, too. Meyra would try it tomorrow and give him some. It did contain wheat flour. She was going to try a gluten-free version later, too.

She thought he deserved chocolate cake after what he'd been through.

She stepped into the elevator just as Brandt's sister almost ran in. She hit the button to close the door quickly and looked at Meyra. "I probably should have taken the stairs, but well…I figured the doors would shut before he got here. Since he had his bag and everything."

Meyra just blinked at her. Which he was she referring to? "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"

"Just playing Avoiding the Viking, really." She grinned with Brandt's smile. "It's a game we've been playing for a few weeks now. Gunnar will probably catch me eventually. He…always has before, anyway."

Gunnar. That was Gunnar Erickson, the beautiful blond man she had checked in just before ending her shift. He was her cousin Charlotte's good friend. Brandt's sister was playing games with him? Why?

It took Meyra a moment to figure it out. "Are you two involved?"

"Well…isn't that the million-dollar question? I have yet to figure out just what exactly I am doing with that man going forward." She had her hand over her stomach like she felt sick or something. "For now…I am going to bed. I am exhausted. And, well I have total brother overload. It's a real thing, a real thing."

Brandt's sister was a little weird, no denying that.

Meyra just told her good night and then headed to the entrance of the family wing. She'd wanted to see Brandt, but with his brothers there? Talk about intimidating. They were the kind of men who had always been very, very overwhelming. She'd done her time in the inn—now it was time to retreat.

The inn was really quiet when she made her way back down the next morning. She liked that time of day best. She'd make sure everything was prepped for the rest of the day. Then she would head over to the diner and do the same there. She'd work a few hours in both places. Then her sisters or cousins would tell her where they needed her next. It was her flex day. That meant she worked wherever. She was good with that—her family made it easy for her to keep to her routine. She knew how blessed she was with the family she had been given.

She had an easy life here at the inn. Meyra appreciated that every day.

She spent almost six hours at the inn, with only an hour at the diner. Daisy had been hiding out in the diner, she'd said and had chased Meyra away. Meyra wasn't exactly certain why Daisy had been hiding out in the diner—something about a man from Daisy's church being problematic, but Daisy hadn't gone into detail.

She hadn't even told Meyra who the guy was, either. Of course, Meyra hadn't asked. Privacy mattered when so many women lived together, after all. That was the family rule, too.

Her family could be a bit weird sometimes. Meyra was used to that, too, and she loved each and every one of them.

She made it back to the inn in time to see another set of guests arriving—two women and two little girls. She helped get them checked in. They were also from Finley Creek—apparently, Brandt's sister knew them.

They had been getting lots of guests from Finley Creek lately. Most of them did know Charlotte or Brandt, so it did make a little bit of sense. Or they were the cops coming up there from Texas.

About the drugs that were being found in Wyoming now.

Drugs that people had died over.

Meyra shivered when she remembered what those drugs were causing. People were dying. Even in Masterson County. They thought that the men who had attacked Brandt were involved with some of those drugs, too.

It just kept getting closer. Reiterating the truth—no one was really safe anywhere.

She ended up working the desk again that evening—she and Dylan had somehow ended up covering Abby's shift when she had called off next, but they had decided to hang out at the desk together instead of taking two half shifts. She liked being with Dylan, and when Daisy joined them, they had a lot to talk about.

Meyra was tired, but it was a good tired—the kind you felt after a long, uneventful day. She was still at the desk when a man walked up, wanting a room.

Daisy took him and checked him in quickly.

Then, they were going back to Dylan's room—Dylan had something she was worried about. Meyra was going to figure out what it was.

"I'm going to spot-check the dining room," she told Dylan as another man walked in the front doors, looking tired and rumpled and everything a few minutes after a set of DEA agents checked in, too. "I'll meet you upstairs in ten minutes."

"Great. Bring the rest of that cake you made. That cake was awesome, and I really need cake right now." Dylan looked at the man for a long moment, almost as if she knew him. Then she turned back to Meyra. "Man, everybody does start to look the same after a while in this biz, doesn't it?"

"It does. But I kind of like it. The routine of it."

"Yeah, I guess this is the place real Talleys belong. Safe and secure at the inn forever." Dylan shrugged, but Meyra wasn't stupid. Sometimes she got the feeling Dylan didn't feel secure at the inn at all.

Well, how could she? Dylan had been shot in the kitchen right down the hall. No wonder she looked a little scared there sometimes, right?