Freeing Reese (Tremont Lodge Series Book 3) by Marcy Blesy

coffee on the hot officer—pun intended—but it was Finn’s insistence on drying her off that went overboard.” She grins devilishly.
    “Tinley! I was trying to help!”
    “Sure, call it what you will, Finn. Let’s get out of here, okay? I didn’t travel 2300 miles to spend it in the parking lot of a hospital. Seriously, Reese how did you survive without me?”
    “I have no idea, Tinley. I have no idea.”

Chapter 13:
    The lodge is crazy busy with the after Christmas crowd. I haven’t seen this many kids since the summer. Only kids running after a Frisbee are not nearly as dangerous as kids on snowboards or skis. Finn has been skiing with Tinley and Murphy all day today, his day off. Though I wasn’t as much of a klutz as I thought I’d be that day Finn taught me how to ski after my first fall, I’m better suited to staying indoors, and even though Ted is feeling better, I need to be in tip-top shape to be ready to help him out in whatever capacity he needs. That means I’ll ride that chair lift to the top of the mountain but only to transfer supplies to the restaurant for their concessions and to wait for Finn and the crew to warm up next to the restaurant’s roaring fire.
    I settle the box of supplies—new hot chocolate mixes, bags of marshmallows, and Styrofoam cups—next to me on the chair lift. A group of foul-mouthed boys are screaming behind me, undoubtedly trying to impress the girls who are in the chair behind them. I turn around to glare at them, but they couldn’t care less. In that short amount of time, someone slides onto the chair next to me, and we continue moving up the mountain.
    “Hey! Shut the hell up back there!” Lawson picks up where my glare left off, though he gets more results than me, and the screaming subsides, at least for now.
    “What are you doing here?” I ask.
    “Helping deliver restaurant supplies it looks like,” he says, the flaps of his furry hat covering both sides of his face. I can see my reflection in his sunglasses, and I wonder why I agreed to wear the new hat Tinley brought me. What do people from California know about practical winter head-gear? I am probably the only one wearing real white rabbit fur on my head. Ugh.
    “In skis?” I ask, pointing to his feet.
    “Just watch. I can ski while holding supplies. I’m that good.”
    “That’s what you say about everything.” I roll my eyes, glad that I didn’t wear my sunglasses and he can see how unimpressed I am with him.
    “Why the piss-ant attitude?” he asks. “You know, besides the usual reasons.”
    “You sent those police officers breathing down my neck.”
    “I didn’t send anyone to breathe on you.”
    “Ha! Not funny! ” I say. “Yes, you did. Officer Bad Cop Kanicki and Officer Good Cop Folet. They wanted to know all about my relationship with Ted and knew about my, uh, shortcomings, in some of my lodge responsibilities. They knew about our administrative leave.”
    “I know exactly who you’re talking about, but only because that jerk Kanicki and Folet talked to me, too. They woke me the day after Christmas at 10:00. Who wakes someone that early anyway?”
    “They were at my door at 8:00.”
    “Oh—sorry. Anyway, I just assumed you told them to talk to me. They knew about me not being Ted’s real nephew and—”
    “Well, I did tell them that.” He slaps his leg and nearly drops the box of supplies. “Sorry. I thought you sent them to me, like I already said.”
    “But they asked me about a lot of stuff you wouldn’t know, too.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like about my relationship with Georgia and some gambling debt I’ve acquired over the years from a casino in Traverse City.”
    “You didn’t tell them about Georgia, did you?”
    “I didn’t tell them anything about Georgia. Do you think she had something to do with this?”
    “You mean about poisoning Ted?” I can only imagine his eyes are as big as saucers behind his sunglasses the way he sounds so