Rocky Mountain Mayhem (5 page)

“Cute. I’ll go check it out.”

“Okay, we’ll meet you next door at the art
gallery.”

Wendy caught up with Vivian, Kate and Lucy a
few minutes later and showed off her purchase of a baby bear
stuffed animal. “Found it fitting,” she said.

“Check out the naked Indian,” Vivian giggled
as Wendy put away the bear.

“He’s not naked,” she replied. “He has a
little bitty square covering his ding-a-ling.”

“Well, I imagine there’s something
interesting going on under there. Who sculpted this? A man or a
woman?”

Lucy read the bronze nameplate. “William
Neff. I’m guessing that’s a man.”

“It’s gotta be big then. Men tend to
exaggerate.”

Kate laughed. “If Shaun was sculpted, they
wouldn’t allow kids in.”

“Oh, really,” Wendy said with a butt bump.
“No wonder you’re almost two years in and not complaining.”

Kate just smiled and turned to a painting of
aspen trees.

The girls admired more of the paintings and
Mr. Neff’s various (semi) naked sculptures before heading back to
the hotel to freshen up for dinner.

Lucy sprinted ahead and reached the hotel
elevator first. She frantically pushed the button. “I gotta use
el bathroom-ola
.”

“You know, hitting the button does not make
the elevator come any faster,” Vivian said.

“It makes me feel better!” Lucy said, as she
pushed the button three more times.

After letting Lucy into the room Vivian threw
her purse onto the bed and took a deep breath. “Y’all smell
that?”

“Smell what?” Kate asked. “My sinuses are
stopped up. I need to use my neti pot.” She then explained the
saline-up-the-nose device.

“That’s disgusting,” Vivian said.

“It works,” Kate responded. “My allergies are
practically nonexistent now. And you know they used to be
horrific.”

“Probably from growing up in the Get-Down and
being around those nasty, germy cockroaches,” Lucy yelled from
behind the closed door.

“First, my mom kept a very clean house.
Second, I’m allergic to way more than cockroaches. However, on my
skin test those came up as mega-allergic.”

“You can get a brain-eating amoeba from
flushing your nose out like that,” Vivian said.

“Y’all are grossing me out,” Wendy shivered.
“Enough!”

Vivian ran her fingers up Wendy’s arm in an
insect-like motion. “My mom broke her toe running from a cockroach.
Those suckers can fly.”

Wendy swatted at her. “I like to stomp ’em
and smush ’em. Pop.”

“Enough insect talk, ladies,” Lucy said,
coming out of the restroom and throwing her hands up. “What am I
supposed to be smelling?” She took a long sniff of the air. “Cuz
all I smell are cleaning products, which is my favorite scent.”

“It smelled like men’s cologne to me when I
first walked in the door, like the kind Craig wears,” Vivian said.
“I don’t smell it anymore. I must be imagining things.”

“I don’t smell anything, and my sniffer works
just fine,” Wendy said.

“Let’s get ready to go out. Layer up,
ladies,” Lucy said. “It’ll get chilly tonight.” She set out a tank
top, dark purple cashmere sweater and gray wool coat.

Vivian pulled a red, short-sleeved shirt out
of her suitcase. “I’m not a layer girl. I’m going to have to find
something else to warm me up tonight.”

“Did you see the bartender downstairs?” Wendy
asked as she put on a black, turtleneck sweater.

“He looked like he could heat things up,”
Kate said, tugging on her Uggs.

Vivian raised her eyebrows up and down a few
times. “Let’s go introduce our sexy selves.”

THE hotel’s Western yet refined lounge, the
Tree Bark Bar, was quiet with only three patrons, an older couple
drinking martinis, and a man reading the paper, sipping on a beer.
The intricately carved antique woodwork caught Vivian’s eye, but
the main attraction was the sexy, sandy-blond bartender.

She sat down in front of the taps where he
pulled a pint. Vivian took in his broad shoulders, blue eyes and
white teeth and asked what his specialty was.

“Buttery Nipples,” he replied with a sly
smile.

“Give us a round.”

“None for me,” Kate said.

He got to work with the Bailey’s and
butterscotch schnapps and set out four shot glasses.

“What’s your name?” Lucy asked.

“Eric,” he said and handed Kate a glass of
water, three girls a shot and then helped himself to one. Holding
it up, he offered a toast, “To my favorite buttery treat.”

“Yeeeee-haw!” Vivian hollered, then slammed
her nipple.

“So what is there to do around here tonight?”
Kate asked Eric.

“Tonight’s kind of quiet since it’s
off-season. There’s a sports bar down the street that would be okay
called Bronco’s. Tomorrow night is service industry night at Club
Bighorn. Lots of action there, you should go.”

“Will you be there?” Vivian asked, leaning
toward him.

“If you’re there, I wouldn’t miss it.”

“I’m looking forward to some Aspen
action.”

“Any suggestions for dinner?” Wendy
asked.

“Great Italian on the corner two streets
down. Tell Donatelli I sent you. In fact, their desserts are often
compared to…” he leaned across the bar next to Vivian and whispered
in her ear, “orgasms.”

Screw the shot. That sent tingles far beyond
anywhere her Buttery Nipple had reached.

Vivian recovered and ordered another round.
“Eric, make us a Tree Bark Bar special.”

“Comin’ up!” He winked and started mixing
liquors into a tin, shook it up and poured the purple, frothy
liquid into three chilled martini glasses rimmed with sugar. He
floated a lemon twist in the icy layer on top.

“Lovely,” Wendy said, taking a sip. “And
tasty.”

“What is it?” Kate asked, sniffing
Vivian’s.

“My own little concoction.”

Lucy held her glass up so that Eric couldn’t
see her talking behind it and whispered to Vivian, “It’s his
loooove potion.”

Vivian giggled, took a sip, then asked Eric
about himself.

He was from Montana and had come to Colorado
to be a river guide. “Snow’s melting and I’m about done in Aspen,”
he said. “In fact, you should raft the Arkansas through the Royal
Gorge. There’s enough snow melt to make it worthwhile.”

Wendy looked apprehensive. “Snow and melt in
the same sentence with rafting. I don’t know.”

“They have wetsuits.”

“I’ve been down Clear Creek but never Royal
Gorge,” Lucy said, sipping her purple drink.

“I’ve been down the Guadalupe,” Vivian said
proudly.

“Wait, wait, wait. On a tube?” Eric
asked.

“Yeah. But I almost died once. It had rained
a lot and the tube rental people told me to go left at the falls
but my beer cooler went right, so I went right. I flipped out of my
tube but held my beer up. That’s how my friends knew where I was.
Thank god for Natty Lite, the homing beacon.”

“This isn’t the Guadalupe,” Eric said. “In
fact, there’s no alcohol allowed. But it’s a rush,
nonetheless.”

“Hey!” Wendy said. “I love the Guadalupe. It
might not be class-five whitewater, but it serves its purpose.
Lucy, I still love that picture of you wearing the giant sombrero
and holding your beer up, loud and proud.”

“Ugh. That was before the new me. No one can
ever see that picture.”

Since moving to Boulder three years ago, Lucy
had transformed herself into the definition of fit and healthy.

“I keep that picture in my bribery stash,”
Vivian teased.

“You wouldn’t!”

Vivian shrugged her shoulders. “No
comment.”

Wendy took a last sip of her purple drink and
stood up. “Y’all ready for dinner?”

Vivian and Lucy polished off their drinks and
said goodbye to Eric.

Picking up Vivian’s glass, he brushed his
fingers against hers. “Hope to see you tomorrow night.”

Vivian got goose bumps on her arm and
replied, “I have a feeling you will.”

Vivian and the girls walked down the
sidewalks in Aspen, going in and out of shops, until they reached
Donatelli’s a few blocks away. The hostess led them down a tight
spiral staircase to the quaint basement with six tables.
Claustrophobic Lucy indicated her disapproval with a not so
discreet, “Ahem,” so the hostess led them up a narrow staircase to
the second-floor and a balcony overlooking the street.

Vivian sat down and took a look around. “Oh
my god, I’m having a moment. I need some champagne.”

“What?” Wendy asked.

“The mountains are so majestic, the colors of
spring emerging. And the sunset is casting such glorious pink and
orange rays off the clouds. I’m just having a moment. We need
champagne.”

“Okay, I’m in.”

“I’ll have a sip,” Kate said.

The server walked up just in time to hear
Vivian’s comments. “Good evening ladies, my name is Marc. I’ll be
serving you tonight. May I suggest—”

Before he could answer, Lucy ordered a bottle
of Veuve Clicquot.

“Wonderful choice.”

While waiting on the server’s return, the
girls looked over the menu and decided on an appetizer of
bruschetta.

“I don’t eat tomatoes, but I’ll eat that,”
Vivian said. The other girls had wanted to order “exotic” items
like calamari or mussels in white wine. Vivian made gagging noises,
so they decided against it.

The server arrived with an ice-filled wine
bucket and two bottles.

“Did we order two?” Vivian asked. “What a
bunch of lushes we are!”

The waiter smiled. “No, one bottle is
compliments of the gentleman from the bar.”

“How nice of Eric,” Vivian said.

“Way to make friends with the bartender at
the Tree Bark,” Wendy said.

“Yeah, I think he’s hoping to pop your cork!”
Lucy laughed.

“Uh, hello! That cork was popped a looong
time ago!” Kate pushed Vivian’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t Eric from the Tree Bark.” Marc
said as he presented the champagne to Lucy.

“Even better, random strangers,” Lucy said
and approved the champagne.

Marc laughed and poured the bubble.

Vivian held up her champagne flute. “To the
majesty of the mountains.”

The girls clinked glasses, then Vivian said,
“So I need to finish telling y’all my crazy Craig story. He called
and called for several days after the Facebook thing happened and I
ignored all of them. Didn’t even listen to his messages. He quit
calling and a few days later, I came home and my house was trashed.
I’m talking stuff broken, things thrown everywhere, the works. I
called the cops and they took fingerprints, but I know it was
Craig. The one thing in the house that wasn’t disturbed was my bed,
and there was something there that hadn’t been there before. A
tulip was lying on my pillow.”

Wendy set her glass down. “Did he have a key?
How’d he get in?”

“I don’t really know how he got in. He didn’t
have a key and the alarm was set. I never told him the code, but I
guess he knew it since the alarm didn’t go off.”

“Creepy,” Kate said.

“Yep, it was, but it doesn’t end there. A few
days later an FBI agent came knocking on my door.”

“The feds?” Lucy asked.

“Apparently the cops got a hit from the
fingerprints they’d taken at my house, and it turns out Craig is
wanted by the FBI.”

“Oh my god, is he a serial killer or
something?”

“No, he’s wanted for credit card and wire
fraud.”

“Was he stealing people’s identities?” Kate
asked.

“Hank Tucker, the FBI agent, wouldn’t go into
too much detail, but evidently, Craig planted a bug into PIN pad
devices in stores and skimmed people’s credit card info.”

“How much money did he scam?” Lucy asked.

“I have no idea and he didn’t live all that
flashy. He told me he was an IT consultant.” Vivian sighed and
shook her head. “Those poor people he robbed.”

“So have you heard from him since he broke
in?” Wendy asked.

“No, thank god. Agent Tucker said if Craig
contacts me to let him know. Apparently, Craig moved out of his
apartment right after he broke into my house and he’s as elusive
like that coopa, choobra...”

“A Cuba Libre?” Lucy asked.

“That’s a rum and Coke with a lime, Lucy.”
Wendy said and laughed. “You mean a chupacabra.”

“Yeah, that’s it. That’s what he is. But he’s
a cocksucker, not a bloodsucker!”

“That’s really disturbing, Viv,” Wendy said.
“Do you think you’re safe?”

“I didn’t pick up on anything like that when
we dated until the night I called him out. He doesn’t have a
history of violence, at least not in any police records.”

“Tell your phone and lamp that,” Lucy
muttered. “What about the kids, do they know?”

“No, thank god. Rick had them for the
weekend, so I had plenty of time to get things in order before they
came home.”

“Are you sure you’re safe?” Wendy asked.

“Yes, I think it’s over. I pushed him into a
corner and he flipped. I think he’ll leave me alone. He’s got
bigger things to worry about. Besides, he skipped town and I doubt
he’s coming back.”

“I certainly hope so. In the meantime, let’s
toast the hot bartender who wants to share his heat with you,” Kate
said, clinking glasses with Vivian. “It’s those darn pheromones
again.”

“He was flirting a little,” Vivian said and
took a sip.

“It’s not her pheromones,” Lucy said. “It’s
her big boobs. Let’s be honest, look at those things.”

Vivian looked down at her V-necked blouse and
pushed her breasts together. “Whatever it is, I’m just glad I got
it.” She picked up her purse and pulled out two silver condom
packets, then covered her eyes with them. “I’m also glad I’ve got
these!”

THE girls lingered over dinner, finishing
both bottles, even though Kate only had one glass. Vivian savored
every bite of her spaghetti carbonara and Wendy, Kate and Lucy
raved over their trenette al pesto, lasagna and eggplant
parmigiana. The waiter, Marc, kept dropping hints to Lucy about
where he was going after his shift, to which she didn’t bite.