“How would you like to travel to exotic places, Aly-enna? Are you up for some adventure?”

“My name is Winter.”

“I know it is. Answer the question.” His tone was frosty. He balled up the candy wrapper and squeezed it in his fist.

I had never told him my name. Maybe the guys at the lodge had mentioned it. A chill ran through me, numbing my feet and hands. My fear meshed with disappointment; I had never thought myself the type to freeze up in a harrowing situation.

He continued to hold out on me. Between commercial breaks, I picked up on voices in the back room. A woman’s voice. Someone I knew.

Relief swept through me. We could get out of this together. Whatever this is. The interchange between Max and the female seemed to be a discussion but a cordial one.

My mind swung back to his question. Josh had left me saddled with $50,000 in credit card bills and unpaid loans for the bar. The settlement wasn’t fair, but I wanted him out. He kept twice that much debt for himself. It was fairly honorable since he could have run off to Bora Bora with one of his boy toys and stuck me with all of it.

Plus I hated my job. Teaching is a noble profession, but I hadn’t been feeling very noble lately. And classes had just begun. I told myself this wasn’t a good way to start off the school year, but the pep talk did little to change my attitude. The kids’ behavior got more outrageous every fall. No one would stand up to them or the parents whose “little angels” were always in the right. And if you did (as I had last March—not pleasant), our administration wouldn’t back you up. The whole school environment was out of control. If it hadn’t been for the debt, I would have gone back to college and changed careers.