The old Ford Ranger groaned like a dying beast as Cole Sterling wrestled it up the final incline. The engine, which had coughed and sputtered for the last twenty miles of winding mountain road, finally gave a shuddering gasp and settled into a rattling idle.
He killed the ignition, and the sudden silence was filled with the sigh of wind through ancient pine trees.
Through the cracked windshield, Whispering Pines Lodge looked exactly like the photos in the corporate portfolio: a sprawling, two-story structure of dark timber and river stone, its wide porch inviting and its many windows glowing with a warm, honeyed light against the deepening twilight.
The portfolio, however, had failed to capture the soul of the place. It hadn’t mentioned the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth that clung to the air, or the way the building seemed to have grown from the mountainside rather than being built upon it.
It was a fortress of homespun comfort, a bulwark against the encroaching wilderness.
Cole ran a hand over his three-day stubble, the unfamiliar rasp a reminder of the man he was supposed to be.
Cole Sterling, CEO of Sterling Global Hospitality, wouldn’t be caught dead in this rust-bucket truck, wearing jeans worn thin at the knees and a flannel shirt that smelled faintly of mothballs.
But Cal, the new handyman? This was his uniform.
He’d argued against this harebrained scheme. “Just send a regional manager,” he’d told his board.
“Someone anonymous.” But the numbers for Whispering Pines were an anomaly.
Occupancy was down, yet guest satisfaction was through the roof. Maintenance requests were skyrocketing, yet the property manager insisted everything was fine.
It was a puzzle, and Cole Sterling had built an empire on solving puzzles. He’d decided the only way to get a true read on the situation was to see it from the ground up.
He swung himself out of the truck, his work boots landing with a solid crunch on the gravel. The air was crisp, sharp with the promise of a cold mountain night.
He stretched, feeling the ache of the long drive settle into his bones. This was it.
Phase one: embed and observe.
Before he could even grab his duffel bag, the heavy oak door of the lodge swung open, spilling a rectangle of warm light onto the porch. A figure was silhouetted in the doorway, hands on hips, posture radiating an immediate and unmistakable aura of ‘do not mess with me.’
As she stepped into the light, he saw she was younger than he’d expected. Late twenties, maybe.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe, practical ponytail, and her face, though framed by a few stray wisps of hair, was all sharp angles and intelligent, assessing eyes.
She wore a simple fleece vest over a Henley, her arms crossed as she descended the steps. She didn’t look like a manager from one of his corporate brochures; she looked like a queen surveying her domain.
“You’re the handyman?” she asked, her voice clear and carrying an edge of profound skepticism.
She stopped a few feet away, her gaze sweeping over him, from his scuffed boots to his beat-up truck, and he had the distinct impression he was failing some unspoken test.
“Cal,” he said, extending a hand. “Corporate sent me.”
She ignored his hand. “Maya Jimenez. I’m the manager.”
She finally met his eyes, and he felt the full force of her scrutiny. Her eyes were a deep, dark brown, and they held no welcome.
“You’re late. I expected you this afternoon.”
“Truck had some trouble coming up the pass,” he lied easily.
In reality, he’d spent two hours at a diner fifty miles back, steeling his nerves and practicing the slow, unhurried drawl of a man who worked with his hands.
Maya’s expression didn’t soften.
“Right. The ‘corporate office’ didn’t give me much notice.
Or a name. Just that they were sending ‘a specialist’.”
The way she said the word ‘specialist’ made it sound like an insult. “Let’s see what you’ll be working with.”
She turned on her heel and marched back toward the lodge, not bothering to see if he was following. Cole grabbed his duffel from the passenger seat and jogged to catch up, feeling oddly like a schoolboy summoned to the principal’s office.
The inside of the lodge was even more impressive up close. A massive stone fireplace dominated the main lobby, a healthy fire crackling in its hearth.
The air was warm, smelling of cedar and cinnamon. Worn leather couches were arranged in conversational nooks, and the walls were adorned with vintage snowshoes, framed topographical maps, and photos of smiling guests from decades past.
This wasn’t a hotel lobby; it was a family’s living room, built on a grander scale.
“This is the main hall,” Maya said, her voice a low, no-nonsense hum.
“The heart of the lodge. My grandparents built that fireplace with stone they pulled from the river themselves.”
She didn’t say it with pride so much as with a fierce, territorial defensiveness, as if daring him to find fault.
He followed her through an archway into a dining hall where a dozen or so guests were finishing their meals. The room buzzed with quiet conversation and the clinking of silverware.
A waitress with kind eyes and silver hair smiled at Maya as they passed.
“That’s Martha,” Maya noted.
“She’s been working here for thirty years. Her daughter is our head chef.”
Cole nodded, the lie he was living beginning to feel heavier, like a wet coat. He wasn’t just here to assess property values and operational inefficiencies.
He was wading into a community, a history. These weren’t employees; they were family.
Maya led him through a swinging door into the cavernous kitchen, all stainless steel and controlled chaos, then down a narrow hallway.
Her tour was brisk, efficient. She pointed out the main fuse boxes, the staff break room, the linen closets, her voice a clipped monologue of facts and figures. With every word, her love for the place became more apparent.
She knew every creaking floorboard, every temperamental boiler, every member of her staff by name and by story.
“And this is my office,” she said, gesturing to a small, cluttered room overflowing with binders, invoices, and a topographical map of the surrounding mountains that covered an entire wall, dotted with colored pins.
“If you need me, this is where I am. Which you will, because I want a report at the end of every day. What you did, what you found, how long it took you.”
“Got it,” Cole said, trying to sound suitably subservient. “Seems like a well-oiled machine.”
A flicker of something—frustration, maybe weariness—crossed her face before being instantly suppressed.
“It was. Lately, it’s been one thing after another. A water heater on the fritz in the west wing, a leak in the kitchen roof, half the porch lights shorting out.
Little things, but they add up. It’s like the lodge is falling apart all at once.”
Her guard was down for just a second, and in that moment, Cole saw past the formidable manager to the worried woman beneath. He saw the weight she was carrying.
“That’s what I’m here for,” he said, the words feeling hollow. He was here to find out if that string of “bad luck” was a reason to sell the land out from under her.
The shield snapped back into place. “We’ll see,” she said, her tone once again laced with suspicion.
“I’ve always handled the repairs myself, or with Ben, our groundskeeper. We don’t need an outsider. But corporate insisted.”
This was the moment. This was where the abstract guilt he’d been toying with solidified into a sharp, uncomfortable pang in his chest.
Outsider. She had no idea how right she was.
He was the ultimate outsider, the man behind the anonymous corporate entity she clearly disdained, walking through her home under false pretenses. He was here to pass judgment on her life’s work, on her grandparents’ legacy, all while pretending to be here to help.
“Your room is in the old workshop out back,” she said, leading him to a back door.
“It’s not much, but it’s dry and warm. We cleared out a space for a cot and a hot plate.
Ben will show you the main tool shed in the morning. Be ready at six a.m. sharp.
Your first job is that water heater.”
She pushed the door open, letting in a blast of cold night air. A simple gravel path led to a small, weathered outbuilding a hundred feet away.
“Right. Six a.m.,” Cole repeated.
Maya paused in the doorway, her hand on the frame, and looked at him one last time. The firelight from the main lodge caught in her dark eyes, and for a second, he thought she might say something more, something to bridge the gap between them.
Instead, she just said, “Don’t be late.”
Then she closed the door, leaving him alone in the sudden, profound darkness.
He walked the short path to the workshop, the gravel crunching under his boots. The room was exactly as she’d described: spartan, smelling of sawdust and oil, with a simple cot made up in the corner.
He dropped his duffel bag on the floor and sat on the edge of the thin mattress, the springs groaning in protest.
Through the workshop’s single grimy window, he could see the main lodge, a beacon of warmth and light against the vast, dark tapestry of the mountains. He could see the silhouettes of guests moving in the windows, could almost hear the murmur of their voices and the crackle of the fire.
He had come here on a mission of cold, hard logic. Assess the asset, determine its profitability, and make a decision.
But in the space of a twenty-minute tour, Maya Jimenez had changed the entire equation. She had shown him that Whispering Pines wasn’t an asset.
It wasn’t just timber and stone and a line item on a balance sheet.
It was a home. And he was the wolf at the door, dressed in handyman’s clothing.