Larissa Learns to Breathe (6 page)

“So sorry!” she chirped, turning her back on him. “But this seat is taken.”

He looked a bit taken aback, but moved on to another table. Larissa wanted to throw her arms around Amelia, but she knew her friend was more the hands-off type.

“Larissa!” Amelia said. “And Tommy,” she added, as he took the remaining chair. “I've been having the most fascinating conversation with Donna and Gary here. Did you know they grew up on Key Grande? Donna used to row over here to pick blackberries. They grew wild on the eastern shore.”

Tommy quickly picked up the threads of the conversation, adding his own observations about some ecosystem along the coast or something…she wasn't really listening. She smiled and nodded, a trick she had picked up during her time at Torrence Capital, when looking like you were paying attention to industry forecast meetings was far more important than
actually
paying attention.

There were open bottles of wine in the center of the table; when her glass was empty, she helped herself to the white. It wasn't quite as good as the first glass, and she made a note to herself to ask Tommy for the name of the wine he had chosen, just as soon as he was done talking to the man on his left.

“How's the honeymoon suite?” Amelia inquired. By then, Larissa was feeling a little better, and not quite as shy as she'd been earlier in the evening. One of the women at the table had complimented both her dress and her eye shadow, which had eased her mind considerably. Telling the story of the little stone hut, Larissa realized that it was almost funny, in a certain light; and when her captive audience laughed appreciatively she decided she too would see the afternoon for what it was: an amusing misunderstanding.

“We'll make sure your cabin is at the top of the agenda for tomorrow,” Amelia said, slipping on her reading glasses and making a note on her tablet computer. Larissa glanced at its screen and saw that Amelia had a long checklist of agenda items. While she'd been napping and primping, Amelia had been getting to work.

“I haven't done a thing to prepare,” she admitted, taking a soothing gulp. She was feeling a bit light-headed; she really ought to go and get at least a salad. But the servers were clearing the dishes from the buffet, and the amateur trio was packing up their instruments.

Amelia tapped an item on the screen. “You'll be greeting your staff after the status meeting. They're gathering in the housekeeping staff lounge.”

Excellent. After Larissa got a bite to eat, she'd head back to her room—
Tommy's
room—and put together an agenda. She'd want to tour the linen supply room, the stockroom, the laundry. Check out the carts that she had ordered from the hospitality supply warehouse in New York. Review the scheduling spreadsheet she'd drafted and get an idea of which of her new employees might be tapped for supervisory roles. That would keep her busy for the remainder of the day, and then she could turn her attention to interviewing and hiring the remainder of the workers she would need next week, while the staff stocked and made up the bungalows as fast as the construction crews finished them.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Everything really
was
under control. She didn't need to worry. It was all going to be just fine. Now, she just needed one of those delicious looking crème brulees that she she'd seen everyone enjoying, since it looked like she'd missed dinner.

“Excuse me,” she said brightly. No one seemed to be paying much attention to her anyway. “I'll be right back.”

She threaded her way through the diners, who were beginning to gather their things and leave the patio, heading back to their rooms to get some rest before another grueling workday. She felt a bit unsteady—but some food in her stomach would help that. Whoops! Who left that chair right out in the open, where she could trip on it? She recovered her footing by grabbing the table, pulling the tablecloth halfway off and upending a water glass. Luckily, a man caught it before it rolled to the tiled patio.

“Thank you,” she effused. “That was very…”

What was the word she wanted? It was on the tip of her tongue, but by the time she thought of it, he'd turned away. “Graceful,” she settled on, enunciating the syllables carefully.

There, in the center of the dessert table, were two lovely little dishes of crème brulee, their crisp tops browned perfectly and garnished with raspberries and sprigs of mint. Larissa's mouth watered. But just as she was about to reach for one of the plates, they were both snatched away. She looked up to see a group of young women who she hadn't noticed earlier. They were dressed nicely, and enjoying a lively conversation.

“Excuse me,” Larissa said, a little more loudly than she intended. “That's my crème brulee.”

It
was
hers, wasn't it? She was getting a little fuzzy about the details, but she was pretty sure she'd seen it first. And honestly, these women had already had dinner, plus they hadn't had to get up at three a.m. to make a flight out of LaGuardia at six. Without thinking, Larissa reached for the plate that one of the young women was holding. Then they were both tugging at it. The girl looked confused, and for a moment Larissa tried to explain the whole situation to her, but she gave up and just grunted and tugged.

She almost had it. In fact, she
did
have it—long enough to flip it up into the air, so that the sweet mass of delectable dessert slid out of its ramekin and spun in a lazy turn, all in slow motion. The ramekin flew toward the girl and smacked her right in the forehead, and before Larissa could react, the mass of crème splatted wetly against her chest and slid down into her cleavage, disappearing into the front of her dress. It was cold and clammy, and Larissa clutched at it and shrieked and her heel got caught on something and she felt herself falling backward, and in that split second she had a flash of total clarity and realized with horror that she hadn't been fun and bright and scintillating at Amelia's table, she'd been just plain
drunk
, and now she'd started a food fight with a group of strangers.

She gave up and let herself fall, hoping she'd hit her head on something that wouldn't kill her but would put her into a coma that would blessedly make her forget the whole evening and keep her in the hospital until everyone else forgot too. She waited for the impact, the shock of pain and the sound of her skull cracking, but instead she felt herself caught in a pair of strong, muscular arms.

“Okay, darlin,' that's probably about enough for one night,” a familiar voice drawled. Tommy. Of course, it had to be Tommy who witnessed her terrible shame.

“Take me out of here,” she whispered. “Please. I never want to see those women again.”

“Well, that might be a little much to ask,” Tommy said. Then he picked her up as though she weighed nothing and started carrying her toward the exit. “Seeing as how they work for you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Someone was knocking on the window.

Larissa had been taking her time emerging from the mound of blankets and pillows under which she'd spent the night, on the theory that moving slowly would diminish the effects of her hangover. It had only taken her a split second to remember where she was when she woke up—breathing the scent of jasmine took care of that—but the rest of the details of the day before came back slowly, each new memory plunging her further into despair.

She'd had too much to drink and started a food fight with the women who she would be supervising. She'd been given this one last chance at a career, and she'd sunk it before it even set sail. Someone would have emailed Mr. Westermere by now—the eyes of every single person on the patio had been glued on her as Tommy practically carried her away—and the best that she could hope for was that he would fire her
before
the staff meeting rather than after, so that she could be spared the humiliation of facing them all again.

There was the knocking again. More of a
whapping
than a knocking, actually. Didn't people use the front door around here? Or had Larissa somehow slept through it? A thought occurred to her—no one knew that she was staying in Tommy's room; what if it was a woman looking for Tommy? A girlfriend? A hookup? She'd taken note, even through her haze, of all the pretty young women who'd greeted him last night, and she couldn't blame them: even among the construction staff, many of whom sported hard bodies and tans, Tommy stood out. He had that silky long hair, for one thing, and those green eyes with their golden flecks. Those incredibly white teeth and—

“Go away,” she moaned, quietly enough that any nubile young women wouldn't hear her. She crept out of bed and crawled on her hands and knees over to the window, where she could peep above the sill and, hopefully, find out who was out there without being seen.

Whap.

Larissa yelped as a dark form appeared in the window, then felt herself go weak with relief when she realized it was only Bluebell. Hearing her exclamation, the dog put its paws on the windowsill and barked joyously. Larissa tugged the window up and regarded the animal, who didn't seem to hold a grudge about any of her behavior so far.

“Hush,” she said. “Pipe down.”

But that just made Bluebell more excited. She ran in a circle one way and then the other before coming back and scratching at the glass.

“Can't you just go hang out with your master? Down in the honeymoon hut?”

A terrible thought occurred to her. What if, like Lassie, Bluebell had come for her because Tommy was hurt? What if the tides had come in, stranding Tommy on the roof of the cottage as angry waves crashed all around, waiting to drag him into the undertow and drown him? Or he might have fallen and hit his head on that Indiana limestone, and even now his lifeblood might be seeping into the white sands.

She pulled up the window all the way and Bluebell leapt over the sill and bounded into the room, nearly knocking her over before bolting through the house to the front door. The dog certainly seemed agitated. Was she trying to show Larissa the way?

“Okay, okay,” she muttered, slipping on the flat shoes she'd worn the day before and cursing herself for not packing a single pair of sensible sneakers. She was halfway to the door when she turned around and raced to the bathroom, grabbed her toothbrush and squeezed a dollop of toothpaste on it. “I'm sorry,” she called to Bluebell before plunging it between her teeth. “I can't save him with morning breath!”

After a cursory scrub Larissa took a detour through the kitchen to grab a knife—in case the emergency was that Tommy was being held captive by a madman, or slowly squeezed to death by a giant squid—and burst out the front door with Bluebell on her heels. She ran down the path to the beach as fast as she could, scuffing her shoes on rocks and roots. Only when she reached the steep incline down the hill did she realize that the dog had taken off in a different direction.

Well, maybe now Bluebell was going to get the doctor. Or the fire captain. Larissa knew that both posts had already been staffed; maybe Tommy had taught his dog to summon fire and rescue. One of her clients had a Belgian Malinois that had worked as a search and rescue dog for the FBI before retirement; it was one of the only dogs Larissa cared for who actually obeyed her, though Camper did so with a pained air, as though it was beneath him to work with amateurs.

She scrambled down the hill, hoping Bluebell would hurry back with someone who knew CPR. Larissa had taken the certification course twice and failed both times. It was just so much to remember, and emergencies—even fake ones that happened to traffic school dummies—made her nervous.

“Tommy!” she called, rounding the door of the little shack. Then she remembered there might be an intruder with him. “I'm armed!” she yelled belatedly, lowering her voice into what she hoped was an intimidating, booming register.

She hesitated at the door of the hut and peeked around the corner, ready to retreat if the crafty intruder called her bluff.

Tommy was sitting up in his sleeping bag, rubbing his eyes.

“You're armed?” he said sleepily. “With what, that fork you tried to stab Leticia with last night?”

Larissa's heart pounded with adrenaline overdrive, making her feel a little nauseous…although that might have been the hangover. There was no emergency. Bluebell hadn't been trying to save her master. As if to drive home the point that Larissa had failed, yet again, to handle the situation, the dog came trotting into the hut and plopped down on the sleeping bag next to Tommy, her big pink tongue hanging out. She batted her big, expressive brown eyes at Larissa and then yawned.

“I thought…” She ran a hand through her hair. While brushing her teeth she'd noticed that her mane had somehow grown overnight, the curls morphing into a hairdo suitable for an eighties rocker. Her eyes were ringed with smudged eyeliner to match—maybe, now that she'd failed her third career in a row, she could find work in a KISS tribute band. “I thought maybe you were hurt. Bluebell came to get me. She seemed…upset.”

Tommy opened his eyes wider. “You thought Bluebell came to get you so you could save me? From what—a seagull attack?”

Larissa felt her bottom lip tremble. “I wasn't thinking very clearly,” she mumbled, turning to go.

“Hey.”

She paused in the doorway but didn't turn around. Instead she looked out over the ocean where dawn was casting a silvery pink sheen on the placid waters lapping at the beach. So much for a stormy tide claiming him. Too bad it hadn't claimed
her
—maybe her life could have served as a warning to others, at least, and she could be remembered for something other than mugging an innocent woman for her dessert.

The old iron cot creaked. “Look,” Tommy said, his voice behind her ear, so close she could feel his breath on her neck. “You had a bad night. It happens. You didn't have anything to eat, and you were worried about work, and…well, things got a little out of hand. But these are
good
people who work here. They'll give you another chance. This will be forgotten in no time.”