The flight from Christchurch to LA, with a stopover in Honolulu for fuel, was about eighteen hours, followed by another three and a half hour flight into Denver. The three ladies stepped off the plane exhausted from the travel, but excited to see somewhere new, which was the point of the whole trip.
A cheerful tour guide named Ricky met them. 'He's cute,' Adele thought, thinking that taking tours would be better if their guide was hot. She shook her head and listened to what he had to say.
"Welcome to the Mile High City of Denver, everyone. I'm Ricky and I'll be your tour guide for the week that you're in town. First thing we're going to do is collect your baggage and then I'll drive everyone to their hotel to we can get you all settled in. There will not be any tours today but I will be staying in the hotel with you, just in case anyone has any questions or needs to locate something. Any questions?"
Ricky looked around at the tired faces and chuckled. "Okay. I think the best thing would be to get all loaded up and we'll get you back to the hotel for some rest. Follow me."
He led them to baggage claim, getting two baggage porters to help him with their large carts, since there were just shy of a dozen people in the tour group. Once bags were loaded, he led the group to an extremely large white van. With the help of the porters, everything was loaded into the back and the tour group loaded throughout the van. Adele was the last to get in and there was no room in the back. She looked inside, looking for a seat.
Ricky noticed her lack of seating, tipped the porters and walked up. "Miss, since there's no more room, feel free to sit in the front with me. I promise: I don't bite."
Adele grinned and grabbed the handle to the passenger side door. "I do, though. But only if you're lucky" she said, only loud enough for Ricky to hear. She climbed in, giving him a good view of her athletic legs and muscular behind as her pants stretched across her hips. He could only smile and shake his head, walking around to the driver's side and climbing in.
"It'll be about twenty five minutes to the hotel so feel free to get to know each other." He started the van and pulled away from the curb. "And what about you, miss? You seem to be stuck with me. Anything you want to talk about?"
Adele blushed slightly and she heard two giggles from the seat behind her. She turned and glared at Shannon and Mary, but didn't say anything. "My name is Adele and my two friends back there are Shannon and Mary." Ricky looked in the mirror, smiled and waved at her two companions. "We're from Christchurch and this is our first trip to the States."
"Well, then. Let me be the United States first ambassador to welcome you to our fine country. What brings you all this way?"
"We decided we needed a vacation. Work. Family. Relationships. You know, all that kind of thing." Adele saw a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned and saw Shannon making the 'ok' sign with the fingers on one hand and pumping her index finger of her other hand into it. Adele quickly turned and looked out the window, feeling her face burn as she heard the other two giggle again.
Ricky looked in the mirror again, but Shannon had moved her hands to smooth the pleats of her skirt, a smirk on her bright red lips. "Um, yes. Family and work. I know how those things can be stressful. But, if you don't mind me asking, why Denver? Why not Los Angeles or New York?"
Adele opened her mouth to answer, but Mary beat her to it. "Adele is looking for a mountain man to sweep her off her feet." The two in the seat behind him started laughing uncontrollably and he smiled, noticing that those two were very much in need of some sleep. Some of the other passengers had already fallen asleep, the rest quietly looking around or reading a book.
He cleared his throat. "So, a mountain man, hm? Why a mountain man?"
Adele couldn't keep from blushing again. "Someone big and rugged. But that's not really why we came here. We just needed to get away for a while. This seemed as good a spot at any."
Ricky nodded, but kept quiet. He needed to concentrate on the next few blocks since accidents were fairly common in this area. Some detached part of his mind asked if he counted as a 'mountain man.'
He pulled into the parking garage for the hotel and pulled up next to a large elevator. Ricky then pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call. A few minutes later, several bellhops made their way out of the elevator and started loading luggage. Passengers were standing in small groups talking or walking around and stretching.
Ricky led them into the elevator and up to the lobby. He walked up to the desk and asked for the room keys that would be provided. The desk clerk provided them, but frowned as he tried running a card through the activator. "Is there a problem," Ricky asked.
The desk clerk tried again and still it would not activate. "Let me check." He punched in a few keystrokes and then a few more. "Ah. It seems that one of the rooms reserved for this tour group had been given away to someone in the medical conference for this week. I'm sorry sir."
Ricky took a deep breath. "Okay. Whom was the room reserved for?"
"Adele Walker, sir. Every other room is still intact. Her's was given to a..."
"Look. I don't care whom it was given to. You need to find this woman another room. We made these reservations six weeks ago."
"Sir, we have no rooms left. All of them have been taken by the conference and your tour group."
"For the love of god. Maybe we should just find another hotel to use from now on."
"Sir, honestly, we treasure the business that your company sends us through these tours. Please give me a moment and I'm sure I can work something out."
Ricky glared at him. "I'll be right over there. Call me when you have something arranged."
He stalked off and went to talk to Adele and tell the rest of the tour group what was going on. Amazingly, there were a number of people who were willing to shuffle themselves around, just to give Adele a place to sleep.