The honey-coloured wood walls and floors shone like a jewel box in the overhead lights. Framed photos of the mountain taken during every season dotted the walls and there were tables and chairs scattered around the wide lobby. A hum of conversation rose and fell as people wandered around the room and through it all, there was an almost electrical air about the place.
Elena swivelled her head from side to side, looking at everything as Damon guided her across the lobby to a closed door. "This is the private hallway to the family quarters," he told her and took a card from his pocket to slide into the key slot. "You can also use the main entrance of the Manor to get in without passing through the resort."
The door slid open and they stepped inside the hallway. Again, honey-coloured wood set the tone, making Elena think not only of a mountain cabin, but warmth and luxury.
"Your key will be in your suite, waiting for you," Damon was saying. "Your luggage probably beat us here, since we took the scenic route. You will find everything you need in your suite. There is even a small efficiency kitchen there and it has been stocked with the basics."
"Okay."
"There is also a main kitchen on the family level, if you really feel the urge to cook something. But the hotel restaurants will deliver, so you don't have to worry about that if you don't want to."
"Oh, I like cooking," she told him as they stopped in front of another door.
"Really?" Damon punched in some numbers and held the door back for her.
She raised her brows. "What's that face?"
"That face?"
He shrugged. "I'm just a bit surprised to know you like cooking. Not a lot of women enjoy cooking nowadays."
"I said I like cooking," she mused with a smile. "Didn't promise I was good at it."
"Make me dinner some night," he said, then stopped and frowned to himself as if he already regretted the words.
She blinked a couple of times. "Huh? Make you dinner?"
Damn, not the right choice of words, Damon admitted. He could see the deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression in her eyes.
"Business dinner," he said very quickly. "We have got a lot of things to go through. I have got a lot of paperwork you will want to see. Reports and printouts. We should ask Alaric to come along too."
She nodded. "Fine. I think I can manage to make a dinner for three."
"I can pick some take-out if it is too troublesome."
"Oh, sure." Elena stepped into the hall and sighed as she looked around. "It just keeps getting prettier."
The hallway they stepped into was wide, leading off in two directions. Wood floors, walls the colour of fog and a narrow table boasting a cobalt vase stuffed with roses and hydrangeas greeted her. Every few feet, an arched window let in sunlight and provided a view that was breathtaking. But she didn't have enough time to look around and enjoy it.
Damon pointed to the left. "Down there are four suites, and just past them, along the hallway, is the family room."
"Okay…" She noted that there was a large veranda and on there, there were tables and chairs with brightly coloured umbrellas.
No doubt about it, she had walked into a very different world in Mystic Falls than the one she was accustomed to. Then she realized that Damon was still talking and she turned around to watch him and listen.
"Past the family room is the stair that takes you to the master bedroom and five other bedrooms."
She tried to imagine growing up in this place, but it was hard to envision. So much space. So much open land for children to run and play. Smiling, she recalled that as a girl, she had thought the park her mother had taken her to was a veritable wilderness.
"Any of Grayson's family living here now?"
As if he could read the trepidation on her face, he smiled and said, "No. Grayson's brother John and his wife Isobel live in a different lodge but they are close by. His cousins Samantha and Christopher have moved out of here after they finished college but they are still within close proximity."
That was good. Elena would prefer to settle in a little before she was forced to deal with Grayson Gilbert's family.
"Are any of them here now?" Elena tried to steel herself for meeting the first of her new family. Though now that she thought about it, she wished she had a minute to drag a brush through her wind-tossed hair and to put on some makeup and—
"No," Damon said, interrupting her frenzied thoughts. "John had gone for a few days at the moment. He has been flying back and forth a lot to Hampton. He has been building hotels there. An expansion of the Gilbert resort. This time of the day, Isobel is probably busy with the hotel spa and yoga classes."
"What about Samantha and Christopher?"
"Well, like I said, Samantha has her own place in Mystic Falls, but she is here most days because she works for the resort. And Christopher and his wife Melissa live in the farthest lodge from the Manor, but anyone here can tell you where that is." He paused for a brief moment before continuing, "You won't be meeting them right now."
"Right."
Elena was beginning to understand that the Gilbert family seemed to be close as they had chosen to return to this town to settle down after they had finished their education. Obviously, their loyalty to family meant a lot. And that knowledge made her feel better, somehow. If family was everything to these people, then eventually, she might be able to have a relationship with all of them.
"How big is the Manor?" she suddenly asked, astonished at the length of the hallway.
"As big as the hotel. Including wings," Damon added with a smile.
"Amazing," she murmured as she walked up the stairs after him.
"Yeah, it is. Down here is your suite, plus two more. Farther along this hall, you will find the kitchen, the great room and what was Grayson's office. My office is inside the resort, but I do most of my work at home."
"Right. You don't live at the Manor. Where is your place from here?"
"I grew up in the Salvatore boarding house but I have my own place since I came back here a few years ago."
"The Salvatore boarding house?"
Damon chuckled. "My great-great-grandfather started the boarding house for the poor families who couldn't afford to have their own homes. They only had to pay when they had money. But the business ended when my grandfather was born."
"You said you only came back to Mystic Falls a few years ago. You were in Chicago all these years?"
"I worked for the FBI in the past," Damon said.
"Sounds exciting."
"I'm not a cop anymore, I'm a legal advisor," he said coolly. "I don't see much action."
She was curious. Something bad must have happened to him. "What makes you give up your job?"
He shrugged. "I spent months in ICU. Took a bullet in the chest."
Elena gasped. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"It has been a long time," he said.
Even though it had been a long time, it didn't mean it didn't happen and that it didn't leave some major wounds. You heal from wounds, if you are lucky, she thought, but there are always scars.
He surprised her with a smile. "In fact, I'm actually glad to be back here. It is home."
"You are not staying at the Salvatore boarding house?" she asked.
"No. But my parents are." He steered her towards one of the high, arched windows lining the hallway and pointed. "See the red roof just past that tall pine?"
She did. The building couldn't be more than a fifteen-minute walk from where she was standing. "Close."
"It is. So if you ever need anything…"
He was standing so near, she felt heat radiating from his body towards hers. He smelled so good, she wanted to breathe deeper and when she looked up into those blue-grey eyes, she had the strangest desire to lean in and…What was she thinking? Didn't she have enough going on in her life at the moment?
"Thanks," she said abruptly, taking a safe step back from him. "I will keep that in mind."
He watched her for a second or two and Elena wondered if he could tell what she had been thinking. If he could see that she had been wondering what he would taste like. If his lips were as soft and warm as they appeared to be.
But if he did know, then he was as determined as she to not draw attention to it. He scrubbed one hand across his face, then waved one arm out in front of him in silent invitation to continue on down the hall. He walked beside her and the heels of their shoes sounded out like gunshots in the stillness.
When he finally stopped in front of a door and opened it, Elena stepped past him and stopped dead on the threshold.
It was gorgeous, which shouldn't have surprised her. Everything about Gilbert Ridge was breathtaking. But somehow, she hadn't expected her room to be so…wonderful. After all, she was the stranger here and from what she could tell so far, her other family members had been no more thrilled to hear of her existence than she had been to hear about them. She had half expected an ordinary hotel room, lovely, but generic. This, she told herself as she walked farther into the room, was anything but generic.
The living room was done in various shades of blue. Pale blue walls, dark blue, overstuffed furniture, cobalt vases stuffed with flowers dripping heavy scent into the air and navy-blue drapes at the arched windows. The wood floor was dotted with braided rugs in shades of blue and cream and even the fireplace was fronted by tiles that looked like delft.
"Wow," she said and even that word was just so insignificant to the task.
"Glad you like it," he said, moving into the room behind her.
"What is not to like?" She did a slow turn, trying to see everything at once. Then her gaze landed on Damon again. "To tell the truth, I wasn't expecting anything like this."
He grinned briefly and something inside her twisted up tight in response. Really, the man had an almost magical smile. Good thing he didn't use it often.
"What were you expecting? A cell in a dungeon?"
She smiled and shrugged. "No, not that bad, but nothing so…"
"Isobel suggested you stay in this suite. She thought you would like it and your uncle John had no objection."
"No objection." Well, that was something, she supposed. "It was thoughtful of Isobel."
"You will like her. She is looking forward to meeting you."
"And the others?"
He paused for a long moment before he said, "They will come around."
"Just one big happy family, huh?" Funny, her excitement-driven nerves had become anxiety-driven in the blink of an eye. It seemed there were plenty of hard feelings for everyone to get through before they could even begin to relate to each other.
"You have as much right to be here as they do," he told her.
"Do I?" Elena shook her head and frowned as she threw out both hands as if to encompass the entire resort. "They grew up here. I'm the interloper. This is their home."
"You are Grayson's daughter. This is your home, too."
"What was Grayson like?" she asked nervously. "Was he stern?"
"Not bad," he said, crossing the room to stand by her side. "Your father was always busy. He wasn't stern but he was opinionated." Damon smiled ruefully. "He wasn't even my father and he was full of orders about what I should do with my life and the best way to do it."
"Sounds familiar," Elena mused, strolling to the window and staring out at the pool area and the mountains beyond. "I grew up with an aunt much like him."
"Maybe that insight will make it easier for you to understand his family."
"I guess we will see. Seems strange that this lovely place is practically empty. It is sad, somehow."
"Well," Damon allowed, "like I told you, Grayson was never married. The others have their own families and want their privacy."
She sighed a little. "I understand that family dynamics can be complicated."
"You could say that." He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and watched her as she walked to the sofa in her new home.
Damon continued to watch her as she inspected her new home. Something deep inside him that had been in coma for the past few years had slammed into wide-awake mode the moment he saw Elena at the airport.
She looked good. No, she looked better than good, he decided. She looked like exactly what – until now – he didn't know he needed.
He had reminded himself that there was a term for this kind of intense jolt. It was called sexual attraction, and it was merely a force of nature like heat lightning or wildfire – and just as dangerous.
Still, he could not remember the last time he had felt anything this powerful. What he knew for a fact was that there were only two options when it came dealing with forces of nature. A man either ran for shelter or went straight into the storm and to hell with the risks.
But Damon Salvatore didn't do trouble.
He probably should run for shelter.
"You said there was a stocked kitchen?"
"Yep." He pointed. "Right through there."
She went to investigate and off a short hall, she found a two-burner stove, a small refrigerator and several cupboards. The fridge was stocked with water, wine and soda along with fresh vegetables. There was a bowl of fruit on the abbreviated counter and she noticed that the window in the kitchen overlooked an English-style garden.
"Are you hungry?" Damon's voice came from directly behind her.
She turned around to look at him and admitted, "Actually, I am."
"Why don't we go get some lunch downstairs? I can answer your questions and you can meet Isobel at the same time. I will give her a ring."
Her uncle's wife, she reminded herself. The one who ran the hotel spa and yoga classes. Well, that meeting just might kill her appetite, but gamely she said, "Give me one minute to freshen up and I'm ready."
Ready for all of it, she added silently.