Free Lovers of Legend by Mac Flynn

Chapter 1
     
    I decided I was a sucker for stupid-jerk men. That's how I ended up with Greg Benson as my boyfriend. We'd met at a rock-climbing class one rainy afternoon, and he must not have been himself because he offered me a ride home even though it was out of his way. I fell for him, and we started dating, but I took things slow. No paddy-cake until I was sure he was the one. That was my rule, and he reluctantly followed it.
    My first hint that something wasn't quite right was the way he looked at other girls. I'll agree that guys will and should be able to look at other girls so long as they didn't touch what they hadn't bought through dinners and birthday gifts. Greg, however, looked at all the girls, and struck up conversations with them around corners where I couldn't see nor overhear them.
    I knew I should have faced him, but this was my first serious romance and I didn't want the puppy-dog glow to fade. Instead I ignored his suspicious behavior. When Greg suggested we go to a fancy lodge for a week-long trip to hike and explore I thought things were turning around. Boy, was I wrong.
    "You'll love the place, Ally. It's got great trails and a really nice lodge," he gushed to me for the hundredth time as we drove up the winding mountain road to said lodge. My real name was Alice, but everyone called me Ally.
    I smiled and sighed. "I believe you," I told him, also for the hundredth time.
    He sheepish grinned at me. "I've said that a lot, haven't I?" he asked me.
    "Only about a hundred times," I replied.
    "It's just that I want to have a great time here, and to be honest I've never been here before myself. I'm just repeating what one of the waitresses told me," he admitted.
    "I'm sure it'll be fine," I told him. I glanced out my window at the tall trees that surrounded the two-lane, paved road. So far, so good in my eyes. "You said we were staying in a small cabin near the lodge?" I wondered.
    "Yeah, one of those little things that have a bed, bath and TV, but we eat at the lodge," he explained. "There's also a swimming pool in there and a pool table room, and a big fireplace they light when someone wants to tell spooky stories. That way we won't get bored if it rains while we're there."
    I looked at the sky. It was getting late in this summer evening. Another hour or two and it'd be dark. Some ominous clouds on the horizon meant night would come even sooner. "How much farther?" I asked him.
    "Almost there." He leaned forward and squinted his eyes threw the dirty glass. We were in his small Geo and he wasn't the cleanest guy in the world. Hell, he may have been the dirtiest judging by the mounds of food wrappers at my feet, but I ignored them because I was stupid. He grinned and pointed through the grime. "Ah-ha! There it is!"
    I peered through the glass and saw that the road crested the steep slope and widened into a gravel parking lot. The lodge stood on our left. It was a two-story, rectangular behemoth built two centuries ago of hewn logs from the surrounding area. A large deck surrounded the front and either side, and there were long, tall windows that looked out on the deck. On the ground floor were more windows, but these were interrupted in the center by two thick entrance doors. Its rear buttressed a gentle hill where I could see openings in the trees that bespoke trails.
    Beyond the lodge along the road lay about twenty small cabins hewn from the same logs and lined up one beside the other. The four sides of the square buildings had a single window except the rear which had two, an extra for the bathroom. There were small porches in front of the sturdy doors, and each had their own parking spots on one side. They were quaint and cleaning-looking, and I was looking forward to staying in them.
    "Wow. How much did this place cost to rent?" I asked him.
    "Um, real expensive, but you're worth it," he replied.
    Greg parked the car in front of the lodge and we walked inside. The lobby was open to the second floor