Tangled Love on Pelican Point (Island County Series Book 3) (5 page)

“I can’t tell if you’re serious.” My brow arched in a joking manner while I flipped on the vacuum.

I actually didn’t mind working as a housekeeper at the Loxxy. It was a boutique hotel. Most of the time, the rooms were in decent condition after the guests left. I loved to organize and make things tidy, and what better place than a swanky hotel room?

That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

Besides, in my current predicament, who was I to complain about money coming in?

Several months ago, I’d gotten a promotion to Assistant Manager of Hospitality. It bumped my salary up slightly, but the workload that shifted my way made me wonder what I’d gotten myself into. In addition to cleaning, my added duties included scheduling, ordering supplies, and keeping track of inventory.

I finished vacuuming under the bed and tidied the end table as Marcy refreshed the basket of complimentary bottled water and local chocolates.

“Another room without a tip,” Marcy grumbled. “Is that becoming the norm, or am I bad luck?”

“I don’t think it’s intentional. I think people just forget on their way out the door.” I pushed the vacuum into the hall and grabbed a stack of towels and washcloths. “But it’s always nice when they remember.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve got a Great Dane to feed.”

Island life wasn’t always easy. Some people were fortunate to have thriving businesses on the island, while others commuted to Seattle. For the rest of us, we depended on service jobs, and those gems weren’t always the most prosperous. I intended to change that. If I could just get a bigger following at my Etsy shop, maybe someday I could be an employer.

I stacked most of the towels on the teak shelves and placed the washcloths on the granite vanity as Marcy came into the bathroom and caught my reflection in the mirror.

“You doing okay?” she asked, placing a tiny soap on a seashell dish. “You have circles under your eyes.”

“Just exhausted.”

“I heard Natalie, our island’s hopeless romantic, got engaged yesterday. Does that have something to do with it?” Marcy’s smiled widened, the wrinkles around her green eyes deepening slightly. Her blonde hair was twisted into a knot and pinned with a large clip.

“It might.” I grinned. “Can you believe our town florist held out for her first love?”

“No, I can’t imagine playing those odds.” Marcy chuckled.

“I always hoped that would happen for her, but I had my doubts. I honestly can’t imagine being so deeply in love with someone that no one else will do. I’m not patient enough.”

Marcy took in a deep breath, looking horrified. “What other kind of love would you imagine?”

“How long have you been with Jack?” I asked, ignoring her question.

“Twelve years this December, and it only feels like yesterday.” She narrowed her eyes and studied me. “Are you telling me you’ve never been in love?”

“Not that I know of.” My grin widened. “And it’s something I should remember, right?”

Marcy laughed and shook her head. “Let’s hope.”

“I’ve had the occasional boyfriend, but no real guy has ever just stopped me in my tracks.”

“Real?”

“Well, I have some fictional guys who do a pretty good job of ruining the real world for me.”

“Speaking of . . . I know I’m too old for this question. And yes, I know better than to care, but was Anthony Hill at the party? I heard he’s back on the island.”

I let out a groan and felt my cheeks warm.

Marcy adjusted one of the towels. “Let me guess. He’s one of your fictional men.”

“No comment.” The heat ran down my cheeks to my neck and chest. “Anyway, the party didn’t make me tired. My dad had some difficulties last night, so I spent the night at their house to help my stepmom out.”

Marcy’s expression fell.

“What?”

“It’s not my place.”

“Come on. It’s Fireweed. Everything is everybody’s place, or at least that’s usually how it works.” I turned around and walked out of the room with Marcy right behind. We pushed the cart to the next vacant room, and I opened the door to a mess. The sheets from the bed were draped over the couch. One of the chairs had been tipped over near the double doors overlooking the water, and the fireplace had been left blazing.

The room felt like a sauna.

Marcy came up behind me and gasped. “Maybe Anthony Hill stayed in this room and had a party.”

“He’s staying at his house.” I’d said too much.

“So Anthony
was
at the party.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t say that. Now tell me why when I mentioned my dad, your expression changed.”

“It wasn’t over your dad.”

“Then what or who?” I asked, peeking into the bathroom. It had also encountered a tornado of epic proportions. Towels clung to every surface, empty liquor bottles spilled out of the garbage can, and day-old food containers sat on the vanity.

Maybe Anthony did make an appearance here.

“It’s not my place.” She let out a deep breath. “While you’re out in the world killing yourself, some people take advantage of your kindness.”

I tied the first garbage bag and glanced at Marcy.

“Jack saw your mom—”

“Stepmom,” I corrected.

“Stepmom at the bar,” she finished.

My eyes flashed to hers. This was news to me. My stepmom told me she needed to help an elderly friend who couldn’t get her wood fireplace started.

“Are you sure?”

“Jack was the bartender on duty last night. He said she got pretty lit, and he wound up calling someone to come get her.”

“Well, it wasn’t me who came to her rescue.”

My heartbeat slowly started climbing as I saw Marcy’s gaze harden.

“This isn’t the first time either, Sophie. I just didn’t think it was any of my business.” She started rolling up the dirty sheets but stopped to throw me a sympathetic grin. “Seeing you this tired made me feel bad, and something told me you didn’t have a clue.”

“Not a clue.” I shook my head and went back into the bathroom to try not to scream. How many times had this gone on? Was I this naïve? This stupid? I stared at the empty tissue box and held back my tears.

Why this? Why was this about to make me cry when I had so many options?

I could cry about the rent. I could cry about my dad’s hospital bills. I could cry about not having enough to send out a customer’s order. But no. Hearing my stepmom lied to me was what got the waterworks flowing.

Because deep in my heart, I knew who came to pick up my stepmom. I wiped away the tears and sucked in a deep breath. My dad deserved so much better.

“At this rate, I won’t get the rooms finished by Christmas, let alone three o’clock.” I walked into the hall and regrouped, only I really couldn’t. I was so angry at my stepmom that my pulse pounded in my ears.

I grabbed the bathroom cleaner and marched back into the room as Marcy went into the hall.

“And I bet the person who came to pick up my stepmom wasn’t female,” I said over my shoulder.

Marcy walked by with a stack of clean sheets and grimaced.

“Well, this is why I’m not sure I buy the whole love thing. I think some families are just cursed,” I continued. “I don’t think the price a person has to pay to try out love is worth it.”

“Don’t be silly,” Marcy called from the bedroom.

“I’m not. I’ve seen what happens when the wrong people get together time and again. First, my parents argued like lions and hyenas while I was growing up, and then they saved their divorce for my graduation day. Next, my stepmom decides ‘till death do us part’ isn’t literal, and my dad is clinging hopelessly to a love that doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, my mother left Fireweed Island, and her children still haven’t caught up to her how many years later?”

The moment my parents divorced, I saw a side of my mom I never imagined. She resented the life that had been dealt her, and in turn, I often felt she resented my brother and me.

Her actions only solidified my hypothesis once I turned eighteen and she fled the island, never to return.

I was nothing like my mother, and I never would be. Life had always been complicated, but I promised myself I’d never turn into her. I’d prided myself in having her bitter gene skip right over me. Unfortunately, the bitterness landed on my brother instead, but he didn’t live on the island, so I rarely had to deal with it.

“Well, you haven’t had the ideal example of what love can be, but I promise you, my dear. You’re not cursed.” Marcy was only about ten years older than me, but she seemed worlds apart and so much further along in life.

“Only time will tell.” I thought back to my stepmom’s behavior last night. I should have known. She was far too eager about wanting to go help her friend with her fireplace. But then again, who was I to judge how difficult it must be to care for someone so ill?

“I can’t imagine the stress my stepmom must feel day in and day out.” I took in a deep breath and let it fill my lungs before I squirted the cleaner in the stone shower.

Marcy popped her head into the bathroom.

“I can’t imagine the stress a daughter must feel thinking she has to save the world and make excuses for poor behavior and decisions.” Marcy pulled out a white slip of paper from the pocket of her beige uniform and dangled the receipt in front of me.

I ran the water to rinse off the cleaning solution and glanced at her.

“The bar tab.” She scowled.

My eyes fell to the total with tip. “Over a hundred dollars?”

“She bought a few tables some drinks.”

“How very considerate of her.” I shoved aside the anger that wanted to bubble over aside. I didn’t have time for my stepmom. We had forty-one more rooms to somehow finish before three o’clock, and I had to keep my wits about me for my other shift at the restaurant tonight. I needed a great night of tips to offset the lousy day of few tips.

“I’m not showing you this to cause problems. I just think it’s about time you knew all the facts and maybe start making choices for yourself instead of being misled and compromising your own wellbeing.”

“Well, it adds credit to my thoughts about love.” I stood up and wiped my hands off on my pants. “But onward. Time to vacuum. And this time, we’re in luck.”

Marcy followed my gaze to a ten-dollar bill on the bathroom vanity.

“Maybe so.” Marcy let out a sigh and watched me grab the vacuum and plug it in without another word.

The moment the roar of the vacuum surrounded us I realized why I enjoyed doing this particular task so much. I didn’t have to talk to people. I didn’t have to face the fact that I was being taken advantage of when I didn’t see an obvious way out. Not yet, anyway.

While I was busy making payment arrangements for my dad’s medical expenses at a hundred a month, my stepmom was blowing the equivalent at a bar. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to rack up a bill that totaled even fifty at our local dive bar. That took real work.

The more I thought about it, the more livid I became. I stopped buying supplies for my Etsy store so I could help them with this month’s groceries, and she went out and drank away a hundred dollars.

Marcy walked in front of me and pointed at the ground. I’d been vacuuming the same square of carpet for several minutes.

“Sorry,” I hollered and began to quickly canvass the rest of the room.

Now that I had this information, what in the world did I intend to do with it?

I turned off the vacuum and watched Marcy carry in the rest of the towels.

“Let’s talk about some of the fictional men,” Marcy called from the bathroom. “I think I just threw enough reality at you for one day.” She eyed me suspiciously. “Tell me about Mr. Anthony Hill.”

“If you’ve read any of the tabloids, you know he isn’t an ideal boyfriend, fiction or otherwise.”

But for some reason, just his name brought a flutter of unrealistic expectations, and I forced down the thrill of imagining what it would be like to date a rock star, even for only a night.

“Is there a particular reason you’re ignoring Anthony’s texts?” Natalie asked, leaning against the counter.

I’d stopped by her florist shop to pick up flowers for the Loxxy. Every Wednesday, we traded out bouquets in the lobby. I volunteered to be the courier so I had an excuse to visit. Today’s arrangement was particularly large with orange Gerber daisies bursting out of the vase and dark purple tulips draping over the edges. Hopefully, I’d manage to get it back to the hotel in one piece.

“Who said Anthony had texted?” I asked, staring at the menu and avoiding Natalie’s probing stare.

“I do happen to be engaged to his brother, you know.” Natalie walked behind the barista stand and waved in front of me. “Let me make you a white mocha with a splash of raspberry syrup.”

“You’re trying to butter me up with free drinks?”

Natalie began preparing the mocha, and I wandered around the shop, taking in her latest décor. Natalie’s shop sported reminders that Halloween was right around the corner. Between the large velvet bats dangling overhead to the ghosts draped in the window display, Natalie never missed an opportunity to decorate. She even named her espresso drinks after the holidays to get us all in the spirit.