Read Chasing Chelsea for Free Online

single white bracelets over her thumb while she—
    “Oh!” Of course! Shaking her head at herself—“race lets”; what was she thinking ?—she slipped all three carefully back into the envelope. As soon as she was settled in, she’d figure out what to do with those too. First things first, though.
    On her receipt, she found a room number of R221, but there was definitely no map. Not even printed on the back of the included brochure. At any other hotel, a two hundred designation would put her room on the second floor, which was exactly where Chelsea was. So, at least she was on the right level. All she had to do now was find the “R” wing. If she was lucky, she might stumble across a directory. Or, failing that, she could ask someone.
    She shuffled through her papers again. Damn. No room key. That would probably have been given to her at the admissions tables. Except that she hadn’t really checked in.
    “Okay,” she said, pushing through the door to the main hall. First things first—wardrobe (very important, Selena had said) and then she’d check in like she should have done in the first place. What were those directions again? “Right, left, right, left.”
    Except that her first right dead-ended her in front of a giant window that overlooked a hedge-maze garden. This was not good.
    Hoping Selena was only off by one direction, Chelsea turned left and made her way down the hall to the next intersection. Unfortunately, turning right there found her facing giant double doors, but the wood plaque above them did not read ‘Wardrobe’. It read ‘Nursery’ instead.
    Never in her wildest dreams would she have expected an adult resort to have a daycare.  She hadn't seen any children on her bus or getting on the one that left before hers.  Who would bring their kids to a place like—
    The door opened and out spilled a bouncy thirty-something brunette in a short (very, very short) blue and white pinafore that barely came down far enough to cover her diaper. She was lacy and frilly, with her pretty pink lips locked around a pacifier and her short hair barely long enough for the pigtails she wore.
    She was accompanied by a well-dressed gentleman who held her hand. “Are you ready to visit the horsies?”
    The “little” girl nodded, bouncing and grinning and looking in that moment so much like Selena that Chelsea could only stare. She backed hastily to get out of their way, but the gentleman stopped when he saw her. He looked at her clothes, his mouth pulling into a frown. “Young lady, what are you doing out here dressed like that?”
    Glancing down at herself, Chelsea then looked at each of them in turn. She beat a hasty retreat back to the main hall, glancing back over her shoulder once just as she turned the corner, but neither the gentleman nor his “little” girl were pursuing her. They remained just outside the nursery doorway, the man still frowning and fishing what looked like a pager out of his pocket.
    Chelsea ducked out of sight, a thin quiver of panic digging in under her breastbone. She hadn’t been here one full hour yet and already she was in trouble. Screw Wardrobe. Her most important thing right now was finding those admissions tables. She had to get checked in so she could get her map, her room key and then spend the rest of the day hiding out while she tried to figure out what exactly she’d got herself into.
    Walking quickly, Chelsea fled the length of that long hall, through a wing filled with endless doors labeled N201 to N240, until she came to a windowed exit at the far end. She burst through that door onto a stone landing that overlooked a long and narrow grassy playground. Surrounded on three sides by tall Castle walls and gated at the far end for privacy, the playground was full of adults in Victorian-era children’s clothing—little girls dressed in a veritable rainbow of “Alice in Wonderland” dresses and little boys in short pants with matching jackets, knee socks and