Once An Alpha (The S Files: Paranormal Investigation Agency – Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter Two

A flight attendant informed us over the speakers that our plane was about to land in Denver, and I leaned down and felt around my feet to make sure my laptop bag was still there in one piece. Good. It was there, along with the documents I’d stashed inside it before we left.

I’d barely even had a chance to look at them in between packing my things, heading to the airport and getting on the plane, all the while trying my best to ignore Lyndon. I wasn’t happy about being made to work with him, and I could tell it wasn’t exactly his idea of a fun time either.

“It’s a surprisingly sunny day in Denver today, so make sure you packed your sunglasses and enjoy your stay,” the attendant said over the speaker. “Thank you for flying with American Airlines.”

I rolled my eyes. I sure as hell wasn’t going to enjoy my stay with Lyndon attached. After we disembarked and grabbed our luggage, we caught a cab to the car rental place the agency had set us up with, and within an hour we were on the road.

“On the road again!” Lyndon sang, quoting some old song with his voice a perfect impersonation of a country hick as he bobbed his head up and down and then from side to side. Only he could look sexy doing something so ridiculous, and I pointedly looked away from him and out of the passenger side window before the area between my legs betrayed me yet again and flooded my panties.

“What’s the place we’re headed to called again?” I asked as I absentmindedly drummed my fingers against the base of the car window, watching the traffic and skyscrapers slowly disappear as we headed further and further southwest.

Lyndon sighed and glanced at me. “Did you even read the files, Myla?”

“Don’t call me that. It’s Agent Peyton to you,” I replied, adding an
asshole
under my breath. “And no, I haven’t really had much time to read any of these…ahem, files. If that’s what you want to call them.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “We’re headed to Bakewell Springs. Some hikers who were camping near there vanished a few days back. Still haven’t been found, and the cops there seem lost. So to speak.”

I jerked upright in my seat as he spoke. Where had I heard that town name before? I cycled back through my memories, and it suddenly came to me in a flash. All those years ago on the Girl Scout camp in Colorado with Billie telling us scary stories. One of them had been about a group of people that vanished on the side of a mountain right near…yep, you got it - Bakewell Springs.

“Wait a sec,” I said, my mind whirling. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?”

“Nope. So you have read the files,” Lyndon said, grinning at me. “Back in the 50’s, ten ski hikers disappeared up there. They only found two, with inconclusively-explained injuries. And over the years a lot of others have vanished in the area. Never found, no explanation. That’s what makes it so weird.”

A chill ran down my spine as I leafed through the file with all the missing persons reports. Our Girl Scout troop had camped so close to the area all those years ago. Nothing had happened to us, of course, but it very well could have judging by all the cases of people mysteriously vanishing there over the years.

“And why do they think we can help?” I grumbled a moment later. “Are we supposed to canvass the whole mountain area by ourselves? Dig through the snow?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “We need to look into any leads that the police there might have ignored. The more out-there kinda ones as well as the usual. Besides, there isn’t even any snow up there this time of the year.”

“Right, right,” I replied, rolling my eyes for what felt like the millionth time since I’d been partnered with him. “Paranormal phenomena possibly involving shifters. How could I forget?”

“See, you do learn fast,” he said with a sardonic grin, and I clipped him on the side with the file. My petty little revenge.

“Hey!” he protested. “Leave the driver alone! Unless you want a crash on your….oh, here we are.”

I looked across the road and saw that he was right. An old faded wooden sign greeted us.
Welcome to Bakewell Springs, home of America’s oldest casino and greatest mountain views. Population: 4,560

“America’s oldest casino?” I said, raising one eyebrow.

Lyndon shrugged. “Don’t ask me. We can ask a local when we check in at the motel.”

As we drove through the main street, I marveled at the old-fashioned buildings lining the street. It looked like something straight off a postcard. It was a nice, sleepy old town complete with old-world charm, nestled in a valley between two huge mountains. Hardly the sort of place where multiple disappearances would occur, although to be honest I didn’t know what I’d been expecting.

Lyndon pulled up at a brown stucco motel just off the town’s main strip, and I sighed with relief at the opportunity to finally get out and stretch my legs.

“So which side of the bed do you want?” Lyndon asked, removing his sunglasses and looking around for the reception office so we could check in. “Personally I prefer the right, but I’m amenable to change.”

“What?” I replied, my voice shrill with panic. “The agency couldn’t even shell out for more than one room? Listen, buddy…you can have the floor, because there is no way in hell that…”

He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Jeez, Myla…it was a joke. Of course we have separate rooms. Sorry, I meant
Agent Peyton.
”

“Oh.” I felt stupid, and my cheeks turned hot as I grabbed my luggage from the backseat and then followed him to the reception office over to the right. The receptionist greeted us and fiddled around with her computer, trying to find our reservations, and I looked around the little office as she did so.

There was a shelf stacked with tourist brochures, and I absentmindedly leafed through a couple of them. Apparently Bakewell Springs had been a silver mining boomtown back in the 1800’s, with a population of over twenty-five thousand. Around the same time as it was becoming a successful boomtown, lawmakers in Denver were trying to get rid of any gambling joints and saloons in the city, so all those sorts had moved to Bakewell Springs and set up shop there instead. The main saloon along the main street had become the country’s first official casino… according to the brochure anyway. It probably hadn’t been the country’s first, but little towns like this liked to claim things like that to grab tourists however they could.
Don’t like hiking or skiing? Hey, that’s okay, you can sit down, gamble and get wasted in America’s oldest casino instead!
Something like that.

When the silver mining industry had died down, so did the town’s population, dwindling all the way down to what it was today. Sad, but that was the way things went. At least they still had a fair amount of tourism to help out with their economy.

As I read through another brochure about surrounding tourist attractions and national parks, I was startled out of my reverie by Lyndon snapping his fingers under my nose.

“Hey, walking encyclopedia. Can you go five minutes without your nose buried in a book?”

I glanced up. “It’s not a book, it’s a brochure.”

“Whatever. I have our keys.” He dangled one in my face. “Here’s yours. I’ll grab your bags.”

“No, it’s fine!” I chased him out of the reception office, but he insisted on carrying my things to my room for me. My stomach did flip-flops at the sight of those tanned muscles tensing as he carried them, and I almost drooled when he turned and flashed that megawatt smile of his in my direction.

“Sure you don’t want to share a room?”

And there it was. Back to being an arrogant, sleazy prick. Snapping back to reality, I stomped into my room and stiffly thanked him for carrying my bags. He nodded and then asked me what our plans for dinner should be.

“We passed a decent-looking steakhouse on the way here,” he said. “What d’ya think of that?”

“Sure, sure,” I said, just wanting him to leave for a moment so I could compose myself. As much as I couldn’t stand him, I could feel my panties getting wetter and wetter in his presence, and my cheeks were still burning up. Jeez, how the hell was I going to pull off being partnered with him if I was already going this nuts? I could picture the headlines now.
FBI Agent Dies After Exposure to Lethal Amounts of Sexual Tension.
Or perhaps:
Local Woman Drowns After Flood In Panties.

It was like being tied to a chair while someone put all your favorite desserts on a table in front of you. You desperately wanted to eat them all, but you knew you couldn’t even touch them. I licked my lips at the thought of a big Lyndon sundae with extra whipped cream and flaked chocolate before chiding myself yet again.
Stop it! It doesn’t matter how undeniably hot he is. Not going to happen!

“Hey…Myla?” he said as I ushered him to the door and told him to come get me for dinner in an hour. “Can I ask you something?”

I folded my arms and looked up at him with a sigh. “You just did. But sure, go ahead.”

“Why do you hate me so much? Is it for the reason I think it is?” he asked.

“Probably,” I said, my eyebrows creasing together.

“Look, that was years ago,” he replied. “And you never even let me explain. If you’d just given me five minutes, I could’ve…”

I cut him off. “It doesn’t matter, Lyndon. Like you said, it was years ago. I don’t want to talk about it. But if it makes things easier for us working together, I’ll try to be nice. Okay?”

His shoulders sagged slightly. I couldn’t tell if it was due to relief or disappointment.

“Fine. I’ll go shower up and then grab you for dinner,” he said before turning and walking away.

I shut the door and then sat down, my arms trembling as I recalled our days back at the academy. Lyndon had been a star… when it came to attracting female attention, that is. Girls practically threw themselves at his feet everywhere he went, and he was capable of turning even the most vicious, jaded woman into a simpering mess with her panties bunched around her ankles.

Just seeing him around the academy made me all too aware of my appearance. I was short, chubby and nerdy with my glasses, frizzy black curls and coffee-colored skin that was somehow always prone to breakouts even though I’d been well into my early twenties at the time. And there he was, all muscles and height with women who resembled Maxim models draped over his shoulders at every single bar I saw him at.

Until one day he’d noticed me. I was supposed to be presenting a violent crimes assignment in front of an entire lecture theater filled with other students, and he’d been right there in the front row, piercing me with those gorgeous green eyes.

I’d gulped at first but didn’t falter as I went through my slides, and out of the corner of my eye I had noticed that he hadn’t looked away from me for even a second. When I was done and the class was over, he’d cornered me outside.

“Hey, your speech was great,” he’d said. “Really informative. I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m David Lyndon. What’s your name?”

Of course he hadn’t seen me before. Who’d notice the chubby nerd who spent the majority of her time with her nose buried in textbooks? At this stage we’d already been at the academy for three months, but I definitely knew who he was. Everyone knew who he was.

“I’m Myla,” I had replied. “Myla Peyton.”

“Myla…nice name. And nice to meet you. Hey, err… I don’t suppose you’d wanna grab dinner with me tomorrow night?”

And I’d almost melted right into the floor. All around us there were young women vying for his attention, and he was asking
me
out. He didn’t even seem to notice the other girls staring at him as we chatted; it was like he only had eyes for me. Just like in all the romance books and movies.  He’d even sounded vaguely nervous when he’d asked me to dinner! My stomach had fluttered around nervously, and I’d accepted his invitation almost immediately.

I’d been on a high all afternoon, and that high extended well into the next day as I excitedly prepared for the date with the help of my friend and roommate Keeya. She had aided me in smoothing my usually-untamable hair into something presentable, and picked out a black wrap dress that skimmed my generous curves and actually looked decent.

With a touch of mascara and eyeliner, I was ready to go, and Keeya waited with me until the clock struck six. Then seven. And then eight. By the time it was eight-thirty, I’d realized what had happened. I’d been stood up. My heart had sunk all the way into my stomach, and Keeya offered to take me out for gelato to make me feel better.

“Fuck that guy,” she’d said. “He isn’t worth even worrying about. Come on, there’s a new white chocolate and coconut flavored gelato that is to die for down at Il Gelato. Let’s go!”

And so we’d headed out. As we’d crossed the street with our deliciously-dripping waffle cones, I’d stopped in my tracks. There he was. Through a café window, I could see him sitting across a table from a thin and beautiful blonde girl, holding her hand.

So that’s what had happened. Something better had come along, so he’d forgotten all about our date. Or simply ditched me for the upgrade and hadn’t forgotten at all. Either way, he was on a date with some hot piece, and here I was wandering around feeling sick to my stomach that the first guy who had ever asked me out had screwed me over before he’d even tried to screw me.