by Sue Gibson
A Suite Geek
Suite Love Series, Book Three
By
Sue Gibson
A Suite Geek
Suite Love Series, Book Three By Sue Gibson
Copyright Information
Copyright © 2013 Sue Gibson, all rights reserved.
Published by Sue Gibson
ISBN
0-9919611-1-0
978-0-9919611-1-5
Cover Design - Littera Designs
This book is a work of complete fiction. Any names, places, incidents, characters are products of the author’s imagination and creativity or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is fully coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form whatsoever in any country whatsoever is forbidden.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my author friends who have generously offered support along the way.
Kait, Marie, Catherine
Much appreciation to my sister, Barb, for her insightful comments and keen eye.
Table of Contents
Chapter One 11
Chapter Two 17
Chapter Three 25
Chapter Four 34
Chapter Five 37
Chapter Six 42
Chapter Seven 49
Chapter Eight 59
Chapter Nine 65
Chapter Ten 76
Chapter Eleven 89
Chapter Twelve 94
Chapter Thirteen 104
Chapter Fourteen 116
Chapter Fifteen 121
Chapter Sixteen 135
Chapter Seventeen 147
Chapter Eighteen 154
Chapter Nineteen 161
Chapter Twenty 168
Chapter Twenty-One 178
A Suite Deal 183
A Suite Life 185
A Note to My Readers 187
About The Author 189
A Suite Geek
Chapter One
“Just to be clear,” Christy Graham said to her mother, “I’m in charge of recreation, not procreation.” It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked to do something beyond her job description. But really, this was a bit much. Reaching across the table, she tipped her mother’s bulging lunch bag to the placemat. Two sandwiches, a pair of juice boxes and a Ziploc stuffed with cookies tumbled across the table.
Christy tilted her head toward the bounty and arched an eyebrow. This was not the spontaneous drop-by Kathleen Graham had proclaimed on arrival, but a premeditated ambush with food as bait.
“You’re twisting my words.” Her mother blushed, flapped open a napkin, centered a tuna on whole wheat and slid it toward her daughter. “Eat up dear. I need to pick up your father’s suit on my way back to work.” On a slow day in Buttermilk Falls, Ontario, the elderly dry cleaner often closed shop early.
“Exactly what did you mean then?” She bit into the tangy sweetness and chewed slowly, savoring her mother’s homemade dressing. A simple sandwich shouldn’t taste this good, but it did. College cafeteria food had completely missed the mark, and later, in her tiny Ottawa apartment, she hadn’t produced anything much better. When she’d got the Nirvana’s job offer and the chance to move back home, her mother’s cooking had ranked third on the Pro list.
“For heaven sakes, Christy, I didn’t say a thing about procreation. Apparently Edward’s new boss insists he use up his vacation days. I only asked that when Edward arrives at your hotel that you introduce him to eligible women.” With her finger, Kathleen nudged the salt shaker closer to the pepper, illustrating just how small was her request. “Edward’s mother is worried that she’ll be too old to enjoy grandbabies by the time he gets around to producing them.”
“That’s procreation.”
Kathleen sighed and rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Don’t be difficult. I don’t blame Pauline for wanting grandchildren.” Her chin lifted in defense of her childhood friend. “You know how much Dad and I adore Tyler and April.”
“I know Mom, me too.” Her brother’s kids were impossibly cute and hopefully someday she’d be lucky enough to have kids as sweet. She reached for the second half of her sandwich, determined to keep the conversation focused on Edward. The last thing she needed right now was another blind date engineered by her mother. “Maybe Edward’s not ready.”
Her mother shook her head. “It’s not just babies she’s thinking about: she wants him to be happy. Apparently he’s exactly the way his father was at that age. He needs someone to entice him from his desk— show him the lighter side of life.”
Christy swiped at a creamy dollop clinging to her cheek. The Shillington’s lived in Ottawa, home to over a million people, half of them female. “There are a lot more eligible women in Ottawa than at the Nirvana Hotel.” Logic rarely worked on her mother, but it was worth a shot.
“He needs your kind of help.”
Heaving a sigh, she took a final shot. “Didn’t his mother advertise him on a couple of dating sites?”
Her mother closed her eyes, then folded her lunch bag and tucked it into her purse. “You don’t advertise on those sites, you…present.”
“Ok, fine. But I don’t see how Edward needs any more help, Mom.”
Kathleen glanced at her watch, then leveled a look of desperation across the table. “Apparently Edward has become…resistant…to his mother’s good intentions and refuses to go on any more blind dates.”
“Oh, really,” Christy mumbled into her sandwich.
So Edward had a backbone after all.
“And the women Edward finds on his own are female versions of himself,” Kathleen added with a dramatic eye roll, as she shifted to the front of her chair and leaned closer. Her mother understood the art of story building like nobody’s business.
“Things are about to change. Last night Pauline sent me a text. She said that she and her husband are retiring and moving from Ottawa…” She looked away, “to Vancouver Island.”
She reached for her mother’s hand. “I’m sorry, Mom.” Her mother’s friendship with Pauline had flourished for over forty years, lately including daily texts. But Vancouver Island was a five-hour flight away, not just a scenic drive.
Her mother produced a weak smile and pushed on. “With no one looking out for him, Pauline worries Edward won’t find a nice woman…in time.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Not that he isn’t a wonderful catch.”
“I’m sure he is.” She’d heard enough to know
Edward was honest, hard-working and successful. A smile blossomed on her mother’s face.
She held up her hand to stem premature assumptions. “But he’s a linear thinker—lives inside the box. And at the moment, his box isn’t big enough for a wife and babies. It’s all about his career right now.”
“Yes. Like you.” Her mother dropped her chin and looked up through her lashes.
Her parents assumed she wasn’t ready to settle down. It was easier to go along than admit that at twenty-six she’d all but given up on finding the right man. On a positive note, ten years of serial dating had honed her match-making skills to an art form.
“Finding a woman is ultimately Edward’s job, but providing him with a fun-filled couple of weeks, that I can do.”
Her mother’s lips thinned with disappointment. “And that includes introducing him to as many
female guests as possible.” Her mother shrugged her shoulders, apparently only partially satisfied.
“Edward is a really intelligent, focused guy who just needs someone to bring out his playful side.” She inched forward on her chair.
“That’s it ex
actly.” Her mother clapped her hands. “And as Recreational Director at the Nirvana, you’re the perfect person to help. And with your years and years of dating experience—”
Christy tossed her napkin to the center of the table. “I consider myself socially adept. Not to mention the fact that I majored in Recreation Management.”
With her thick, wavy blonde hair and big blue eyes, she’d always attracted attention from the opposite sex. But too often it was the wrong kind of attention, from
the wrong kind of man. On particularly trying weeks she’d even taken to wearing a flashy fake diamond on her ring finger while on duty at the posh hotel.
Her mother paused, her eyes brimming with empathy, her smile gentle. “Christy, I’m sorry. I know you’re sensitive about the ditzy blonde stereotype. You may be blonde and beautiful, but you’re also smart and very particular.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I overreacted.” Already, she regretted her knee-jerk response to her mother’s benign comment. She forced a smile. “Go ahead. Finish what you were saying.”
“Isn’t helping out socially…er…challenged folks like Edward really—your job?”
“I guess so,” she conceded. She was good, very good.
Her gaze shifted from her mother to the window. Beyond the stand of young maples, white-tipped waves lumbered to the shore depositing a frothy rim in their wake. Years ago, on days like this, she’d race to the shore with Delaney and Lily and scoop up the bubbly white stuff. They’d dump their bounty in a communal pile and hurry to build an ethereal castle. Inevitably, it collapsed into a watery disappointment. A smile pulled at her lips. Somehow the memory still felt good.
She peered farther down, to the glass façade of the Nirvana Hotel. Far from tainting the village’s quaint charm, the New Age hotel had reinvigorated the local commerce.
“Well?”
She returned her attention to her mother.
“I can’t promise anything. It’s July, our peak season. And I have my big seventies disco-themed dance coming up soon.”
Her mother dug into her purse, extracting a cell phone. “I can’t wait to tell Pauline.”
“Hold on.” She rolled her paper napkin into a ball. “I haven’t totally agreed yet. I haven’t seen Edward since I was six.”
Twenty years ago, she and Edward had played hide-and-seek while their mothers had chatted. He’d discovered her easily, crouched in a willow thicket, after he’d made remarkable use of a sleuthing kit that included some kind of tracking powder. A triumphant Edward had left sun burnt and with balls of prickly burrs stuck to his socks.
More recently, she knew, he’d collected an MBA and was considered a top internet researcher.
Her mother waited, purse in hand.
No doubt Edward was as happy as a clam in his shell and would only come out into the holiday sun under protest. Plus, an uptight socks-and-sandals guy plunked here against his will would not be an easy sell.
She leaned back in her chair, a plan for his metamorphosis already forming. “Okay. I’m officially in.”
“I knew you couldn’t pass this up!”
She raised her juice box in a toast, “To finding Edward happiness, whether he wants it or not.”
Chapter Two
Edward Shillington inched his deck chair closer to the illusive umbrella-shaped pocket of shade. In hindsight, choosing to read pool-side had been a mistake. Earlier, from his Penthouse balcony, the space had looked appealing, with only a few couples parked in deck chairs reading quietly. He’d figured it was as good a place as any to plow through his stack of industry periodicals. But by the time he’d changed from his suit into shorts and a cotton shirt and traded his shoes for sandals, the pool had been invaded by an army of over-stimulated children.
And it was hot. His shirt stuck to his back. He eyed the stuff he’d dumped out of his briefcase: sun block, insect repellent, sunglasses and a pair of miniature binoculars. His resigned sigh turned the heads of the people standing next to the outdoor bar.
“Edward Shillington?” The warm tone of the feminine voice implied familiarity of some sort. The hotel, although high-end, was in the middle of nowhere and he’d presumed he’d vacation in undisturbed anonymity for the next three weeks. Twisting in his chair, he squinted against the glare.
Silhouetted against the gleaming glass panels that fronted the Nirvana’s massive façade was the shape of a woman, a curvy woman smelling like the flowers that occasionally landed on the desks of his female colleagues.
“I noticed your name on my list of new registrants and I couldn’t wait to track you down. Welcome to the Nirvana, Edward.”
Pushing aside his reading material, he rose from the chair and shaded his eyes.
In full view she was gorgeous. Her hair was a mass of long, bouncing blonde curls held back from her tanned face by a thin, beaded headband that looked far too fragile to discipline the luscious locks. Her blue eyes were wide-set and fringed with impossibly long eyelashes. Well maybe not impossible, but improbable. Normally he’d class her as an ultra- feminine type, obsessed with fashion and hair products, but her well-defined arms and lightly tanned legs suggested she was athletic as well. A high school cheerleader, all grown up.
She smiled, revealing perfectly white, straight teeth. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. Back in high school, he’d been invisible to girls like this, until they’d needed help with their homework. As an adult, he avoided overtly beautiful women as much as possible. No point in actually seeking rejection.
“Sorry, should I know you?” Apparently she’d confused him with someone else.
She slayed him with another smile and tapped the slim brass plate attached to her pink t-shirt. He lowered his head and peered at the black type. Ah. She was a hotel employee, Recreation Director, in fact, paid to greet everyone like old friends.
“It’s me, Edward. Christy Graham.” Her smile intensified. He glanced toward the patio’s self-locking gate, a good thirty feet from his chair. “Our mothers have been friends for most of their lives.”
“Graham?” He shifted from foot to foot. His
mother’s friend Kathleen lived in Buttermilk Falls, near a tiny lake. He stuck his sweating hands into his pockets. And if memory served, he’d visited the Graham’s home when he was a boy.
At his new boss’s insistence, his secretary had booked the infamous Loon Lake Hotel. If she’d mentioned the local village, Buttermilk Falls, he’d missed the memo.
He re-examined the woman’s pretty face. Other than the big blue eyes, she was nothing like the rough-and-tumble tomboy he vaguely recalled. “Christy?”
“Yes, Edward, long time, right? I guess your mother didn’t mention that I’d left the Lord Elgin in Ottawa and moved back home to work at the Nirvana?”
He looked over her shoulder to the boats anchored in the bay. “Ah…no, I don’t believe she did.” If she had, he didn’t remember. He’d developed the habit of tuning out his mother while she recited the resume of an age-appropriate woman.
He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. Anyway, he could find his own dates. He’d dated a lot of women in the last year. Well, two. Both were intelligent, charming women. The fact that he hadn’t fallen in love with either one bothered his sentimental mother far more than it did him.
Christy thrust a brochure at him. “Here’s a list of the hotel’s activities. I’m sure you’ll find something that you’ll enjoy. And please,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes, “let me know if you need anything.”
He accepted the brochure, folding and stuffing it into his pocket. “Thanks. I’ll do that.” Was she flirting with him? The relentless smile and fluttering of lashes made it impossible for him to make sense of
her behavior. He’d never been any good at reading a
woman.
He backed up until his calves bumped his chair. She wasn’t leaving, so he assumed he was expected to carry on the conversation. Talk about how happy he was to be here and all t
hat. Trouble was, he wasn’t particularly.
He dropped his eyes to the patio stones and combed his memory for something, anything, to say. A boat buzzed past the hotel and from somewhere beyond the lilac hedge a cell phone rang. Finally, a bit of his mother’s ramblings came to mind.
“How are your parents and your… brother?” Now that was good, he congratulated himself. He’d remembered an older brother.
“Excellent,” she replied, her eyes lighting up. “Paul is married now. He teaches school over in Tay Valley. Mom is still with the post office and Dad is retired from policing.” Her body fairly hummed with her great appreciation of life’s ordinariness.
For a moment he envied her zest. Usually perky people were annoying, but she was almost sweet. He knew he was staring, and that staring was rude, but his gaze remained glued to her pretty face and flying hands.
“Edward, I’ll let you enjoy the sunshine for now, but don’t worry, I’ll be in touch later.”
“Uh…that’s not necessary.” He’d stop her before she had him playing mini-golf with the family of five currently gobbling up ice cream at the pool’s swim-up snack bar.
“It’s no problem! Talk to you later.” She turned and hurried across the manicured lawn that sloped toward the shore.
Drawing in the first full breath since she’d
appeared, he dropped into his chair and retrieved his magazines. Peering overtop a Maclean’s, he watched her walk away. She stopped now and again to chat, tossing her head and laughing with her selected guest. She worked the crowd beautifully, leaving a trail of appreciative vacationers in her wake.