Read Online Alpine for You by Maddy Hunter - Free Book Online Page A

the city tour. I buttoned the top button of my tomato red raincoat and pulled my hood over my head for warmth, but there was no hiding from the wind. I was already starting to shiver.
    “Did you find a watch?” Nana asked.
    “I sure did,” I said proudly. “And it’s a beauty.”
    Bernice didn’t find my enthusiasm contagious. “Did they forget to set the time for you? You almost missed the tour. Then what would you have done?”
    Right. Like there was a chance I could lose thirty name-tagged, white-haired, camera-toting seniors wearing Pioneer Seed Corn hats and schlepping canvas bags with TRIANGLE TOURS stamped eighteen thousand times on the front and back. But I couldn’t be upset with Bernice. If I’d woken up this morning with bags the size of craters under my eyes, I’d be grumpy, too.
    “What do you think?” I asked Nana as I flashed my wrist in front of her face.
    She made a little whistling sound through her dentures. “Gucci. Looks expensive.”
    “The clerk said the magic word.”
    “Half price?”
    “Water-resistant.” So what if it was going to set me back three months rent? At least I could walk past the shower in the hotel now without breaking out in a cold sweat. Besides, the clerk hadn’t believed I could spring for one of her watches, so I needed to prove that I could sink into debt just as well as the next guy. Boy, did I show her!
    We snaked our way down a cobblestoned alley whose storefront windows sported the latest fall fashions on mannequins who looked more anorexic than the salesclerk in Bucherer. I had a sneaking suspicion Lane Bryant didn’t do much business in Lucerne. We stopped in an open courtyard and vied for position around a woman I couldn’t see for the sea of umbrellas in front of me. “Good morning!” she called out to us. “My name is Sonya.” She spoke with a heavy accent that sounded kind of Russian to me. Or maybe Swedish. Somewhere close by I heard a high-pitched humming like a smoke alarm going off.
    “What’s that noise?” I whispered to Nana.
    “Bernice’s hearin’ aid. Her battery must be gettin’ low. Always sounds like her head’s gonna blow up when that happens.”
    “Is anyone having trouble hearing me?” Sonya shouted.
    Not now, but I would if Bernice’s head decided to explode. Time to move to a better spot. I circled around the back of the crowd and stopped in front of a stone fountain that stood in the middle of the square.
    “We’re standing on the site of…” SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT! The rain pelting the cobblestones drowned out her voice. I cupped my ear to hear better.
    “…built in 1178…” SPISHHHHHHHHHH! The fountain behind me geysered into life like an open hydrant, spewing cataracts of water in eight different directions. I hurried closer to the crowd.
    “…it’s the oldest…” WORRRRRRRRRSH! A man with a garden hose started power blasting the cobblestones beside me. WORRRRRRRRRSH! I leaped out of the way to avoid the spray. Good time to be washing down the pavement. I guess he figured a driving rain wouldn’t do the job well enough for him. WORRRRRRRRRSH! This was nice. Not only couldn’t I see our local guide, I couldn’t hear her anymore either.
    “Can you hear anything?” Jane Hanson appeared beside me, hunched beneath her umbrella and shivering in the cold.
    “What I’ve gotten so far is that this place is old.”
    “If Andy were here, he’d know.” Jane was dressed for the weather in a fatigue green belted raincoat that looked as if she’d picked it up at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop, a plastic rain bonnet, white bucks on her feet, and a camera bag over her shoulder. All she was missing was a sign around her neck that said, TOURIST. She raised her voice to be heard above the background noise. “Andy came into the drugstore last week and told me he’d done a lot of reading about the area. The Rassmusons and Teigs teased him about his cushy job, but he was very serious about his escort duties. I can’t