But maybe he should have interviewed Lauren. He had panicked. The girl flustered him so much in high school he’d reverted to his old ways and assumed she’d unnerve him again.
He ran down the beach and back up the bluff, and his attention wandered to giggling children playing on a swing set as he passed the elementary school. He still felt good that he’d helped to raise money to buy the new playground equipment all those years ago, and he never failed to smile at the wild irises he’d planted nearby that grew back year after year.
A woman dressed in a purple suit with spiked black heels stepped out from behind the slide. He stumbled, but kept himself upright. Those long legs were attached to the girl who used to be taller than him. He would never forget those legs from gym class. His heart skipped a beat and he was momentarily transported back in time, back to when he’d held a candle for the girl who didn’t know he existed.
Shifting his eyes upward, he noted the scowl emblazoned on the pretty face. She held up her hand as though that would keep him from running around her. What was she going to do, take off her come-hither heels and run after him? He could escape, but instead he let himself be held accountable for the quick, unthinking decision he’d made. He slowed his pace and stopped three feet in front of her.
Her flowery scent of lilac blossoms infused his senses. Sweat trickled down his back. He willed himself to hold her gaze and not be the first to speak, because if he did he was certain he’d say something stupid. On the other hand, he didn’t want to look completely witless, so he stood up a little straighter.
“Hello, Trey,” she said. She licked her bottom lip.
“Lauren.” He gave her a slight nod and tried to come up with a viable excuse for canceling the interview. He couldn’t say he was sick. He could say he hired someone else, but that wasn’t true.
She propped her hand on her hip and flipped her coffee-colored hair over her shoulder. “You canceled our appointment.”
“I did.” Best to keep his responses short. So far, so good—no signs of passing out, a definite improvement from eight years ago.
“Why?” Her green eyes pleaded with him.
He had no explanation for that, at least not a reasonable one. ‘I panicked’ wasn’t going to cut it.
“Uh. . .” He coughed, pretending his recent run had exerted him. He needed more time to think. What was a good excuse? He’d never been good at lying.
He straightened his spine. “I—I didn’t want to give you an interview,” he said. Now there was a genius response.
“Why?”
His tongue almost lodged in his throat and this time he choked for real.
“Are you all right?” She took a step closer to him.
He swallowed hard and righted himself. “Yes.”
“Do you want your party to have the most delicious foods imaginable or not?” she asked tersely.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” His chest still rose and fell with the exertion from his run. He couldn’t play this game. He was being ridiculously juvenile.
“Listen, Trey.” She rubbed her long fingers across her forehead before meeting his gaze. “I’m kind of having a hard time coming back to town.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “I could use a little help in re-establishing myself. You know Moose’s Tooth makes some of the most mouthwateringly delicious food in town. I have a list of ideas that would make the Salmon Catcher’s re-opening unique and memorable, if you’d just give me a chance to discuss them with you.” She scrutinized him with a contemplative glare, then let a few quiet moments pass. “Would you say something?”
“What’s there to say?”
“How about that you’ll give me the job.”
And have to stand next to her and smell her flowery scent. She’d lean over his desk and surely torture him by small degrees every day. “I—I should probably have given you an interview, but—”
She interrupted as if suddenly manners and etiquette mattered. “You know, we didn’t even start with hello. I mean, not really. I just jumped on your case, but Trey, I have to say, it’s nice to see you again. It’s nice to see a familiar face,” she said with a candid smile.
“Thanks. . . I think,” he replied flatly, wondering how she could be serious. She had plenty of friends in town with faces a lot more familiar than his. But he could have sworn she was checking out his legs. He had to be mistaken.
She laughed and smiled sweetly. “Listen, Trey. . . please, I really need this job. If you accept me back into the fold, then others will, too. I’ve got to make a go of this. Will you give me a chance?”
Accept her back into what fold? What was she talking about? He didn’t believe for one second that she was back in town to stay. He read her blog, but she didn’t know that. Her posts didn’t sound committed to living in Alaska again. She liked her life in California. “Lauren, the Moose’s Tooth has great food, but catering is another thing.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve been working for a catering company for years now. I’ve learned so much. Catering is more than fantastic food—you have to have a theme, and that’s what I’m dying to talk to you about.” Her voice sounded so enthusiastic. And genuine. Like sunshine. “And I know it doesn’t matter, but I was on a reality TV show on the food network. It’s called The Perfect Taste. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it, but the whole experience was amazing.”
He did know about her stint on The Perfect Taste because she’d written about it on her blog. And he’d watched the clip on YouTube afterward. Maybe more than once.
He’d been an ass for being unfair. An interview. He could give her an interview. She deserved that. It was the least he could do. Then he’d make a sound business decision based on her ideas, not based on some long ago unrequited love.
“Okay,” he said.
Her eyes lit up. “Okay I can have an interview, or, okay I can have the job?”
“Okay, I’ll give you an interview,” he said. “Call Kayla and I’ll have her set it up for tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Trey, you won’t regret it.”
He already did.
He walked past her.
Her heels clicked behind him on the sidewalk. “Thank you for giving me a chance,” she called out.
“You’re welcome.” He kept walking. He reached his truck, got in, turned the key’s ignition, and heard a tap tap tap on his window.
He glanced up and there she was, inches away from his driver’s side window, with her affable smile and emerald eyes full of expectations.
This was going to be a mistake. It had mistake written all over it.
He rolled down his window.
“What time tomorrow?” she asked with glee.
He gripped the steering wheel and put the shifter into gear. Didn’t he just say to call Kayla? “Uh, how about ten o’clock?” He had no idea if that would work, but he wasn’t going to take the time to call Kayla to ask. If he did that, he’d stay next to Lauren longer, smelling her flowery scent and making small talk. He might even let it slip that he reads her blog.
He needed to get some space so he could process what he’d just agreed to.
She beamed. “Ten o’clock sounds perfect.”
He gave her a little salute before hanging his elbow out the window and driving away.
Chapter Four
Lauren walked toward the Briggs Enterprises office, trying her best not to be nervous. She couldn’t give Trey the opportunity to say no. He had to hire her.
She had failed as an actress, failed to win The Perfect Taste—she couldn’t fail as a business owner, too. She had two options for Trey as far as themes went for the party. If he shot both of those down, she’d pull another idea from somewhere.
Inside the office, Kayla stood up from behind her desk to greet her. Lauren was surprised to see the woman looking so young, probably younger than her.
“Good morning, Miss Kinkade. Can I get you some coffee?”
“No, thank you, but please call me Lauren,” she said, and extended her
hand to Kayla.
They shook hands. “Okay, Lauren. If you’d like to take a seat, Mr. Briggs will see you shortly.”
“Great.” Lauren looked around the quaint office space, specifically at the photos on the wall. She immediately walked over to a large photo of Trey holding a King Salmon. His blue eyes mesmerized her. He wore a form-fitted T-shirt, just like yesterday, although in the photo he was wearing hip waders, too. She’d been so flustered seeing Trey up close that she’d nearly lost all focus. Thank God she’d convinced him to give her an interview instead of standing there ogling him.
He looked so different than he had in high school. She’d gotten used to seeing beautiful people since she worked with actors and actresses for the past eight years, but she’d never seen what any of them looked like in high school and how much they’d changed. Or how much plastic surgery had changed them.
Trey had been a small kid who always carried a comic book; now he was tall with the running grace of a gazelle. If his baby blue eyes weren’t enough to make a girl melt, he had a presence about him, just like the photo of him holding up his prized catch, as though he had life by the tail.
“That salmon never had a chance,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Trey’s quite proud of that King,” Kayla interjected.
“Yes.” Lauren peered at the photo more closely. His smile was beautiful. She hadn’t seen him smile yesterday. “He looks very happy.”
The plan was to stick to business and appeal to the businessman in Trey. He needed to know about her out-of-the-box creative catering ideas. She already had scrumptiously yummy food—that was a given—but now she had to share how the re-opening wouldn’t be a success without her as his caterer and quasi-party planner.
She eyed another beautifully framed photo of a huge log home near a lake with mountains in the background. She didn’t recognize it. The mountains were too close to be anywhere on the peninsula. “Where’s this place?”
“That’s the Forrester Lodge in Gold Creek, Alaska. Trey’s cousins own and built it. He wanted to give the hotel a more rustic Alaskan look, so he consulted with them about it.”
“Never heard of the Forrester Lodge.”
“It was built about five years ago. You’ve been gone. Plus it’s way up north of Fairbanks,” Kayla said matter-of-factly.
“It looks like an amazing place,” Lauren said quietly.
Lauren had come back to the Kenai Peninsula with huge reservations. Alaska was so rugged, and she’d gotten used to L.A.’s mild climate. She thought she was doing the right thing by returning to her childhood home, but she still wasn’t completely sure. “How long have you worked for Trey?” she asked.
“Only a couple months. When Mr. Briggs, Trey’s father, ran Briggs Enterprises, they only did new construction, but when Trey took over he expanded the business to renovating older buildings, too. Most people probably thought the old hotel should have been demolished, but not Trey.”
Lauren heard the pride in Kayla’s voice. She must admire Trey for what he was doing with the hotel, kind of how she had admired him and that old Ford pickup in high school. The guy couldn’t seem to do anything wrong.
“I’ll go see what the holdup is,” Kayla said before she disappeared around the corner.
Kayla emerged from the office a few moments later and directed Lauren inside. Trey sat behind a large cherry wood desk. Behind him, a floor-to-ceiling window sported a beautiful view of the Kenai River, but all Lauren could see was the beauty of Trey Briggs.
He removed his glasses and stood up. The guy had an unpretentious, down-to-earth presence about him. Unconsciously, Lauren reached up to her throat, as if feeling for her quickening pulse.
With only the desk between them, Trey stepped to the side of the room and pulled out a chair for her. Now that he was only inches away, the earthy scent of him enveloped her.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Lauren said, ignoring her dry mouth and heart palpitations. She noticed a curio cabinet in the corner containing Star Wars figurines. A small sign of the boy she used to know. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
He arched a brow and squared his shoulders before he sat behind his desk again. “You’re welcome.”
His blue eyes and discerning manner kept distracting her. In a perfect world, she’d begin with small talk about the weather or the gorgeous view he had from his office, or maybe even the new Star Wars movie, but she needed to forget all that and appeal to the business owner. So she decided to get straight to the point. “The hotel you bought, restored, and are re-opening has a hard time being filled to capacity in the winter.”
His body language was easily readable now. He thought she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
He straightened in his chair, then pressed his lips together. “I’m aware of that. It’s more important than ever to make sure it’s full every day in the summer months. That’s why I’m pushing to have it open in two weeks.”
“But did you know it’s rumored to be haunted?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a forced smile. “I’m aware the hotel comes with an urban legend, yes.”
His easy acceptance of the hotel’s haunting surprised her. She should have known he would have heard the story. They both grew up in the same small town after all. “So you know the story about the little boy?”
He leaned back in his chair, then rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Yes, it’s rumored that a young couple was staying on the third floor when their son disappeared.” His glittering blue eyes gazed at her with such intense scrutiny that her pulse pounded in her ears. “For years afterward, the hotel staff claimed to get calls from room 313, even when no one was staying in that room. They claim a child would say, ‘where’s my mommy?’ on the line before hanging up. It was actually never proven that the couple arrived with a child. There are varying accounts.” He leaned in closer. “What does this have to do with the re-opening of the hotel?”
She reminded herself to appeal to the business owner in him. There was no other way. “I did a search online. There are several hotels throughout the world that claim they are haunted. You’d think this would be a deterrent for customers, but in reality it’s a huge draw. And while Alaska has no problems filling hotel rooms in the summer, wintertime is another matter.”
“You aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know,” Trey said.
“It’s June now. You have no worries for filling your hotel to capacity, but for your grand re-opening, why not plant the seed and capitalize on the potential paranormal aspects of the hotel?” She pulled out her file. “Now, if you were opening in the fall, I’d definitely say let’s cater to the otherworldly.” She flipped open a page of the three-ring binder. She ran her finger down the list. “We’d make Zombie Gut Punch, Blood Salsa with olives that look like eyeballs, a Jack-o-Lantern cheese ball, Mummy cake. I have a list of drinks they could make at the bar, starting with Vampire cocktails, Bones of the Dead Margaritas, Spider Web Sangrias, and that’s just the beginning. If you don’t believe me about the popularity of haunted hotels, just do an Internet search. Seriously, Travelocity has an entire section for people who want to stay in a haunted hotel.”
He inched closer to her, leaning over the desk. “Interesting concept, but what you’re suggesting sounds more like a Halloween party.”
“I know. Sorry. That’s not what I’m suggesting. Only that you could capitalize on the haunted rumors,” she explained.
He leaned back in his leather swivel chair and eyed her carefully. She sensed his churning thoughts. “No, I’m not interested in propagating the idea that my hotel is haunted.”
So her first idea was shot down. On to the next. “I can understand that, so what about this? A huge trend today, especially among the twenty- and thirty-somethings, is cosplay. What I want to suggest is not some lame costume party, but rather, a comic book and sci-fi-themed cosplay party.” She stopped to take a breath before she forged on. “Everyone com
es to the grand re-opening in costume. So we cater not only to adults, but children as well.”
“Cosplay.” He eyed her quizzically. “You know about cosplay?”
“It’s the combination of two words ‘costume’ and ‘play.’ Participants don’t just dress up as some random character, they actually try to embody them, at least for a day. Typically from a comic book or science fiction or fantasy genre.”
He nodded. Then flexed the muscles of his jaw. “I know.”
He was toying with her. How silly of her to believe a comic book reader and Star Wars fan would know nothing about cosplay. “Of course you do,” she said, embarrassed.
“And you know about cosplay because you lived in L.A. with all those actor types.” He absently tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“Yes, I suppose it’s my actress background that helped me with some of my ideas. But I also worked for an amazing catering company for years.”
“I have someone else in mind to cater the hotel’s re-opening.” He stood up and paced across the room.
That was abrupt. She swallowed hard, determined not to let his hawk-like blue eyes unsettle her and her goal, but the scent of him pulled at her desires no matter how hard she tried to focus.
Suddenly this wasn’t about just the job. She wanted an excuse to be near him. Her fingers tingled with the sensation to touch him. A shiver ran through her. “But there’s more. I’m not finished.”
“Go on, I’m listening.” He stopped his pacing and rubbed his chin again.
“I know you like kids. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have done all that fundraising in high school to build more playgrounds. I’m sure you must know they have that new surgical pediatrician, Dr. Clayton, at the hospital now. People are coming from all over the state to see him. So we’ve got to consider young families that need a place to stay while they’re seeing the doctor. Kids would rather stay where they know some of their favorite characters may have stayed. You could even go so far as to have themed rooms?” She glanced as his curio cabinet. “You could have the ‘Wolverine room,’ the ‘Princess Leia room,’ the ‘Batman room.’ The rooms’ names could be as limitless as the comic books themselves. In fact, outside each of those rooms, you could have a glass cabinet with a comic book of that character. What if you called the grand re-opening cosplay celebration ‘AlaskaCon’?” Lauren had been so caught up in her ideas she hadn’t even realized she’d stood up.
Sweet Home Alaska Page 2