Tangled Love on Pelican Point (Island County Series Book 3) (23 page)

I’d already cleaned my allotted guestrooms with Marcy this morning, and now my afternoon was filled with finishing inventory and placing our orders for the month. My fingers trembled with pure anticipation at the thought of getting to start the orders. Knowing that something so life changing was in reach made me feel like I no longer needed sleep.

I pressed the button in the elevator for the basement and nearly floated down to my temporary home for the rest of the afternoon.

It was like all the stress over the last several months had started to slip away. With the amount of orders I received today, I could finish paying off the first credit card and start on another one. There was hope.

I grabbed a binder and walked over to the shelf holding all the soaps, conditioners, and lotions. I squatted and leaned into the shelf, counting the rows and multiplying the amounts, but it was almost impossible to stay focused.

“Beautiful arrangement today,” Marcy said, coming up behind me. “I was just upstairs talking to Brad.”

Brad was the assistant manager of the hotel. He was the son-in-law of the owners and always seemed pleasant enough, but I liked the owners better.

“There are talks of layoffs.”

I stood up, hitting my head on one of the shelves, and a row of bottled water tumbled to the floor. Rubbing my head, I let the bottles roll around and stared at Mary in disbelief. It didn’t make any sense. They had been remodeling all the rooms, the lobby, and the restaurant.

“What?”

“Brad said they had an awful September and October.”

I shook my head. “Our vacancy rates were the same average as years before. Plus, there were a couple of huge events.”

“Just thought I’d pass it on.”

“That doesn’t make sense, and he shouldn’t be talking to people about that.” I bent down and picked up the bottles.

“I didn’t think he should either. Maybe his in-laws are telling him that so they can give him the boot.”

I laughed.

“Serious.”

“That would be a lot of trouble.”

“Family dynamics are complicated.” Marcy laughed.

“Tell me about it.” I went back to counting the conditioner bottles while Marcy took a seat on one of the stools and began folding the clean towels.

Nick had been working on a huge order for the Loxxy. They’d begun trading out the furniture for his custom pieces all throughout the hotel. I was sure if he hadn’t gotten paid, he would’ve mentioned it to me. Something didn’t seem right about this piece of gossip, but more often than not, island gossip didn’t involve the same people or topic once it had made the rounds.

Besides, I had other things to worry about, like finding time to finish all the signs. Not to mention, any day now, I’d need to make the call for delivery of all the pieces for Anthony’s house. It was like everything I’d ever dreamed about was jumbling into one condensed period, but I was too worried to give up any one job because who knew how long any of this would last?

The rest of the afternoon ticked by painfully slow, and all I wanted to do was get to Anthony’s and back to my dad’s house to begin making the signs. I’d called in Loxxy’s order and decided to check my email again. It had been hours since I last glanced at it, and I was kind of worried by what I’d see.

When I slid my phone on, I saw several missed calls from Anthony but no voicemails. He was probably checking to see if my orders took a sudden turn.

“What are you smiling about?” Marcy asked, dusting her hands off and signing out for the day.

“Life, I guess,” I said, grinning.

“That’s what I like to hear.” She gave a quick wave and walked to the elevator. “See ya in a couple of days.”

“See ya.”

I set the binders back and tidied up the shelves from my inventory count, and nearly skipped to clock out and ride the elevator up to the lobby.

Once the double doors opened and I stepped off the elevator, I saw Brad coming toward me. I didn’t deal with him very often because I never gave him reason to bother me, but the look in his eyes concerned me.

“Sophie, I’d like to see you in my office for a moment.” Brad waved me over.

“Sure.” I glanced around the lobby, and no one seemed to notice as I made my way down the hallway.

Brad’s office had an oversized oak desk with not even one piece of paper on it, and a brown leather chair was pushed into the desk. A large, straggly Ficus tree sat in the corner next to a small couch. His office was the exact opposite of the rest of the hotel. It was drab and lacking personality.

“Please have a seat,” he said. I followed his direction and sat on the couch, sinking to the bottom.

“What can I help you with?” I asked as he pulled out his leather chair but didn’t sit.

“We’re looking at paring down and combining some of our departments.”

“Okay,” I said, unsure of what that had to do with me. Housekeeping was essential.

“We need your input on personnel in housekeeping.”

“Everyone works really hard. I don’t think Loxxy could have a better team.”

“I’m glad you feel that way. Are there any nonessentials?”

“Nonessentials? Absolutely not. With the amount of rooms to clean and the personnel, by some standards we’re actually understaffed. So no. We have no nonessentials, as you put it. With a check-out time of eleven and a check-in time of three, we’re right where we need to be.”

“We’ve been researching moving the check-out time to ten and pushing check-ins to four.”

“That would make for an awful guest experience. People come to Fireweed to escape the everyday, not be chased out of their hotel room.”

“Changing the times would allow for us to eliminate a housekeeping position,” Brad continued on. “I need you to tell me who you suggest for the cut.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away. You’re going to lay someone off before the holidays and our busiest season?”

“It’s the best move for Loxxy. I need the name by Friday.”

“Fine.”

I stood up and didn’t even give him another look. There was no way this was coming from Loxxy’s owners. Impossible.

I charged through the doors and jogged to the safety of my car. How in the world could everything in the world come crashing down at once?

There was no way I was going to give Brad a name. Everyone in housekeeping was a hard worker, and eliminating one position would make all the girls work even longer, harder hours. Not to mention, I refused to be responsible for changing someone’s life.

Absolutely not.

But first thing’s first. I needed to thank Anthony.

By the time I got to his house, I was extremely high-strung. I parked my car and dashed up the stairs, zeroing in on the doorbell and waiting impatiently for him to answer.

The moment the door opened, I flung myself into Anthony’s arms and knew letting him leave Fireweed was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever do.

“It’s so good to see you,” I whispered, feeling the warmth of his embrace.

“You too.” His lips pressed on my hair, and I took a deep breath in smelling his cologne. Facetime wasn’t going to cut it.

“So my day has been filled with one amazing surprise after another. Well, mostly amazing surprises . . . until about ten minutes ago.”

Anthony’s embrace lessened, and I took a step back. He looked concerned, but I shook my head.

“I want to start with all the good.” I snuck my phone out of my purse and slid open the email to see another fifty orders for my signs. I turned my phone so he could see all the emails for today. “I’m well over a hundred orders. I don’t even know how I’m going to fill them all, but I know I’ll be able to pull it off somehow.” I couldn’t even pretend to hide my excitement.

“Wow. That’s great. Must be some great word of mouth,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

“I thought that this morning, until Natty asked if I’d seen what you’d been up to, and since I didn’t follow you on Twitter and Facebook, I had no idea what she was talking about.”

“I’m wounded. You don’t follow me on social media? Isn’t that what’s supposed to immediately happen when you’re interested in someone?” he teased, holding my phone.

“I don’t know. I’ve never really been interested in someone before.” I smiled. “Until you.”

I grabbed my phone back and switched over to Twitter. “So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this.” I flipped my phone around and he grinned.

“Yeah, so that made me more excited than the orders flooding my inbox. Is it true, or was that a PR move?”

“I hope it’s true,” he said, pulling me into him.

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better, considering what went down at the florist shop. I started wondering if all women got that treatment, or—”

He groaned.

“Kidding.”

“When you do all these nice things, do you stop and wonder how it’s all gonna pan out beforehand?”

He shook his head. “I don’t give it much thought. I’m impulsive. Act now, worry about things later. But I’ve wanted to tell you something for a while now.”

“Is it more than a hundred and forty characters?”

“I think it is, actually.”

I rested my head on his chest and felt the soft beating of his heart and waited.

“So you know the fundraiser for you and your dad?” he asked.

I nodded, feeling his breath skate across the top of my head.

“There’s going to be a concert.”

“That’ll be cool. Will you still be here, or are you headed back to LA before then?”

“I’ll be here.” He let go of me and smiled. “Crimson Strings is playing.”

“What?” I asked. “Are you serious?”

“Jewels was relentless.”

“Wait a second. You acted like you didn’t know each other on Halloween.”

“We didn’t want to ruin the surprise, but I just couldn’t keep it from you anymore.”

I took a step back, looking into his eyes. “I don’t deserve all this.”

“You deserve more.” He threaded his fingers through mine. “Now, I’ve got another surprise for you.”

“Seriously, you have to stop,” I told him as he pulled me down the hall.

“I have an ulterior motive,” he teased me.

“And what is that?”

“I don’t want you to forget about me when I go to LA.”

I pulled him to a stop.

“Never.” I kissed him, feeling the emotions of the day settle over me.

“I want to show you something,” he said between kisses, and he pulled me into the family room, which had been transformed into something from my Etsy store.

“What have you done?” I asked, staring at rows of signs. “How did you pull this off?”

“Nick helped get me all set up.”

“How many are there?”

“Seventy-five,” he said proudly.

I walked, almost in a trance, to the couch, careful not to kick any of the signs and trying to absorb the kindness of this man.

“So that’s why you were asking me how long it took to make these?”

“I figured if you had five down in an hour, I’d probably only get three or so done in the same amount of time, but I’ve got a system down.”

“I’m so confused,” I whispered. “I don’t understand why.”

He sat next to me and tipped my chin toward him. “Because you don’t even realize the light you shine on the world—in my world. It finally hit me at Pelican Point that what you gave me was time and space. You didn’t shut down on me. You didn’t push me to tell you things. You didn’t push me away when you didn’t get answers from me. I’m used to people with their hands out, and you were the exact opposite. You wouldn’t even take what I wanted to offer. Like I’ve mentioned before, it’s refreshing.”

“Believe me, you’ve given me more than you can imagine,” I said, glancing at all the signs. “I mean, I could never repay you enough for everything you’ve done.”

“So what was the surprise that wasn’t a good one today?” he asked, shifting the topic away from him.

I let out a deep sigh and rested my head on his shoulder. “I was told that Loxxy was cutting back in the housekeeping department.”

“You lost your job?” Anthony’s voice was low.

“No. They want me to tell them who should be laid off, though, and I just can’t. I won’t. Everyone there needs their job as badly as any other.”

“Why are they asking you to make that decision?”

“I’m the assistant manager of the department.”

“Why isn’t the manager of the department making that decision?”

“Because there isn’t one. There are a lot of assistant managers at Loxxy and very few managers. They can get away with paying us less that way.” I gave a nervous laugh. “I’m sure this all sounds crazy to you, and I don’t want it to dampen what you just did for me. This is incredible.” I waved my hands toward the room.

“So you’re happy?”

“I’m honestly going to have to go to bed tonight pinching myself.” I looked at my phone and saw even more orders come through. “So how long did it wind up taking you?”

“About twenty-five hours between Nick and me. It’s a lot of work. Are you sure you want to do this?” he teased.

“Positive. It’s not that I don’t love every second of cleaning at Loxxy or serving food at the restaurant.” I winked. “But the idea of building something and creating something is my total fantasy.”