Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  “Know of any?”

  Skip smiled. “I could talk to my dad about it if you want.”

  “And?”

  “And you make it easy for guests to sign up, have them pay you in advance, keep a cut for yourself and share the rest with the charter company. Win-win.”

  “What’s it in for the charter company?”

  “Might help fill up some slow weekdays.”

  I thought about that for a few seconds. I was trying to fill up my slow weekdays, too.

  “Might help you out with those slow days, too.”

  I let out a long slow breath. Either Skip could read minds or my thoughts were obvious as hell. I’d prefer to think of myself as a woman with a little mystery, but I guess I’ll have to stick with cerebral instead of secretive.

  “I’ll think about it. If you happen to talk to your dad, you might ask him what he thinks.”

  “I can tell you already he’ll say yes.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Why aren’t you working the family boat? I figured you’d be training to take over the business one of these days.”

  Skip dug a hole in the sand with his bare toes. “Don’t know about that. Tourism isn’t exactly booming on this part of the coast. Not room enough for both of us on that boat.”

  “So a bar instead?”

  “Everybody drinks.”

  “But not everybody fishes.”

  “Think there’s a proverb goes something like that,” Skip said.

  Seagulls swept down to the sand nearby, talking to other seagulls and sending their cries over the salty waves. Toes in the sand, early morning sun and breeze stirring my hair and brushing my skin, a half-naked man within reach—it felt like vacation. Except it wasn’t.

  “Don’t see why you have to do anything at all,” Skip said.

  “I have to run The Gull.”

  “I know. I mean I don’t see why you have to do extra stuff.” He tipped his head toward the motel across the beach. “It seems to be going along just fine as it is. Has for years.”

  “And I have to keep it that way until my aunt and uncle get back. If I return it in even better condition—”

  Yelling from The Gull interrupted me. It was Rita. Standing on the pool deck, shading her eyes, and calling my name. Tulip stood next to her, barking to be helpful.

  “Come in here,” Rita yelled when she knew she had my attention. “And bring Skip with you.”

  He raised both eyebrows. “Breakfast invite, you think?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Mechanical problem?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What were you saying about returning The Gull better than you got it?” he asked.

  He might have been joking, but I didn’t feel like explaining to Skip or anyone else how desperate I was to prove I could be successful in more than just a classroom. They could all think whatever they wanted as they watched me work up a sweat to improve The Gull’s bottom line. I needed this to work, and it only took one glance at my student loan debt to understand why.

  “You coming?” Rita yelled. Rita was tough, loyal, predictable, and a colorful dresser. But she didn’t do subtle.

  “Better go,” I said. I turned and took a few steps, listening for Skip but hearing nothing but ocean. I glanced back. He hadn’t moved.

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “Waiting to be asked. I don’t work there anymore.”

  I faced him, hands on hips. “Fine. Will you please come into the motel with me?”

  “Best offer I’ve had in…”

  “Six months?”

  “Didn’t think we were going there, but yeah.”

  I shook my head, speechless but unable to stifle the start of a smile. This time when I headed for the motel, I heard soft swishing behind me.

  Rita met us on the edge of the concrete patio. “Got a teenage drama queen stuck in the bathroom in room seventeen.”

  “Bad hair day?” I asked.

  “Sticky door in seventeen. I swear I got that fixed for good last time,” Skip said.

  “Changes with the humidity. And the attitude of the person slamming it. In this case, we got a fifteen-year-old with her period and a momma she’s sick of listening to.”

  “Deadly combination,” I said.

  “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not going in alone,” Skip said. “And she better be wearing clothes.”

  I followed him to the stairs, Rita falling in right beside me. “Really ought to look into getting a full-time maintenance man,” she said in a fake whisper they could hear as far as Tampa, “since our old one quit to open his own bar.”

  Skip stopped, one foot on the first stair riser. “Which is where all my tools are.” He turned and brushed past us. “Hate to look like an amateur. Be right back.”

  We heard yelling and pounding from the open door on the second floor. “Think he’s coming back?” Rita asked.

  I listened to the shrill voices above our heads. Loud ones from an exasperated mother, muffled teenage sounds that sounded sulky even through a bathroom door.

  “Would you?” I asked.

  “Better tail him and drag him back. Make him a good offer for his services.”

  I rolled my eyes and trudged after Skip reasoning that it was more fun than going upstairs to the mother-daughter menstrual meltdown.

  Chapter Five

  “You sure this is a good idea?” Rita asked, eyeing the dozen or so women who’d checked into a block of rooms on the first floor.

  “It’ll be fun. They’ll be fine.” They were the first group of women signed up for my “Girl’s Night Out” package. And they were loud and excited.

  It seemed like a great idea. Team up with a local limo company, idle on a weeknight. Work with a local spa having a weekday in September slowdown. Take a group of gals for the works then a night out in downtown Barefoot Key. Limo them back to the motel to sleep it off. Rooms three through nine booked. No questions asked.

  Women ranging in age from twenty-five to fifty, hair color from pure to processed, and poundage from one-hundred-twenty and up hauled roller bags into the reception area of the office. They filled it with perfume and chatter until Rita cut me a glare and passed me a note.

  I need a Girl’s Night Out for myself. Right now, the note said.

  I shook my head. “No way. I need you to ride herd on this. You’re tougher than any of them.”

  She looked unconvinced.

  “And I have extra coupons for free manicures.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Rita said.

  “Any chance of a late checkout?” a woman wearing a pink leopard-print shirt and fifty extra pounds asked.

  “Usually an extra charge, but since you’re here with the package deal, I think we can make that happen,” Rita told her.

  Rita and I both knew the rooms weren’t booked until the following weekend anyway. That’s why my package plan to fill up lonely weeknights at The Gull seemed especially justified now. I felt righteous in my business savvy and pulled off a genuine smile. I just hoped my other ideas were as successful as this.

  The limo pulled up out front and a driver, black polyester suit and hat, appeared in the doorway. He looked overdressed in the shabby lobby but nonplussed by the perfume and noise. I figured limo drivers have seen it all. Twice. But they’re probably sworn to secrecy.

  “Give them ten minutes to get their luggage in their rooms, and then they’ll be ready to hit the spa,” I said, swiping my hair off my neck. All that female flesh overheated the small check-in area. Maybe I needed a full-time air-conditioning and maintenance man if I planned to do this very often. For the motel, I meant. I wondered if Skip would be willing to come back on a part-time arrangement. Maybe if I made him a good enough offer. I knew he was swimming in debt, and I was not above capitalizing on that.

  “Excuse me.” The voice was right behind me, male, and unfamiliar.

  A man wearing a yel
low polo shirt and the kind of pants everyone knew came with a concealed elastic waist stood behind me with a clipboard. Age-wise, he was somewhere between forty and eighty. Hard to tell.

  “Are you with the limo company?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I gestured toward the group of women. “Husband?”

  He laughed and pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “Nope.”

  “Spa Company?”

  He shook his head. “Florida Retired Traveler’s Agency.”

  All the air left my body in a rush leaving me feeling like an angel food cake that had gone terribly wrong and ended up one inch tall in the bottom of the pan.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” I said, trying to sound professional and friendly despite the chaos of estrogen everywhere around us.

  “I sent you a postcard asking if you’d be willing to do an interview for our magazine. You checked yes,” the man said.

  “I remember now.” I shot Rita a look that telegraphed the word emergency. She returned a look that said whatever he wants, good luck. “I’m just surprised you were so prompt.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Savvy Thorpe. Manager of the motel while its owners are on an extended vacation.”

  His hand was a little sweaty—or maybe it was mine—but his handshake was firmer than the rest of him looked. “Dalton Longfellow.”

  “Nice to meet you. Would you mind sitting on the patio for a few minutes while I get this group to their destination?”

  He looked dubiously at the all-female luggage brigade rolling in a wave toward the first floor rooms. “Bridal party?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” I said.

  I slid the glass door open and pointed to a patio table, shaded from the late afternoon sun by an aqua umbrella. Longfellow parked himself in a chair and I muscled the door shut. The last of the spa group was wheeling out the side door that led to the parking side of the first floor.

  All rooms on the bottom floor were two-doored. One entrance direct from the parking lot with a utilitarian door, one sliding door opening onto the beach on the other side. Second floor rooms only had one beachside door on the exterior hallway. I preferred the second floor for that reason. Having only one door cuts down on surprises.

  “Shit,” I whispered to Rita. “That guy is from the Florida Retired Traveler’s Agency.”

  “Never heard of it,” she said.

  “The FRTA,” I said, thinking the official initials would impress Rita.

  Rita grinned. “The FRTA, huh? Rearrange it a little and you’ve got FART. They should call themselves the old fart agency.”

  I cut a look to the patio, but the door was firmly shut and no way could Longfellow hear us. “Those old farts have money to burn at motels,” I said. “A good review from the magazine could really help us.”

  “Maybe if we want to fill the first floor,” Rita said. “Always get dinged because we don’t have an elevator and old people seem to think it’s a necessity.”

  “Have we ever considered adding one?”

  She shook her head. “Too expensive. Not worth the payoff.”

  “We’ve got plenty of other amenities to offer.”

  Rita raised both eyebrows. “Like what?”

  “Good rates.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Clean rooms.”

  “Yeah.”

  Rita examined her nails, probably considering the free manicures I’d offered while she waited for me to work on my sales pitch.

  “Great service,” I said.

  Rita scrunched her lips and shook her head very slowly side to side. “That all you got for polyester pants man out there?”

  “Help me out.”

  “Tell you what. We have to use what we’ve got. We’re Old Florida at its best. Got the beachside location, not much traffic, pretty quiet, and ambiance. Can’t beat ambiance.”

  “Think I can sell ambiance?”

  “You went to hotel school.”

  I considered that for a moment. I could picture new business cards and a promotional web presence offering people Old Florida—before theme parks, strip malls, and chain restaurants. We could cash in on the vacations of forty or fifty years ago. Beach, sun, local dining, orange blossom perfume, roadside stands selling fruit. Maybe the aqua could even stay.

  “And we have a pool,” Rita added, probably misinterpreting my silence for a lack of ideas and attempting to help me out.

  “We’re Old Florida,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “I mean it. We can package The Gull and sell it like that.”

  “You don’t mean sell it, right? You mean advertise it. Or should I start lookin’ for a job?”

  “Advertise it. Fill it with tour groups smothered in nostalgia. We’ll be busier than ever.”

  “Think Carol and Mike will go for that?” Rita asked.

  “Why not? They wanted me to make improvements without changing a thing. Since this motel is already stuck in the 1950s, it’s perfect.”

  If I could combine a marketing strategy with some packages, I could make an effective case for my business skills. I tried to do a quick calculation of cost versus return. I was going to need a spreadsheet and some analysis tools, but it just might help me get off the waitlist for the manager program.

  “I think you might be doing a zig when the rest of the town is investing in a zag,” Rita commented.

  I glanced around the dated lobby, trying to see it in a new light. A flicker of yellow through the condensation-fogged sliding glass door reminded me Dalton Longfellow was waiting with his clipboard. Maybe this was a great opportunity to sell an old, but new, idea.

  “It’s crazy. And that’s why I love it,” Rita said. “Hit the pool deck and talk up the old fart you got waiting under the umbrella. I’ll bring out some Old Florida lemonade in a minute when I get all these broads in the limo and out of here.”

  ****

  Maybe the idea’s simplicity was its greatest asset. I sat in front of the office computer at ten o’clock that night. Technically, I was waiting up for the limo that would bring a dozen manicured, massaged, drunk, and happy women back to their first floor rooms to sleep it off. I’d had Maria leave them extra ice and complimentary water and snacks before she left to go home to her kids.

  I flashed back to the courses I’d taken on branding and advertising for my business minor. What message did I want to send about The Gull Motel? How could I package and sell what I had without changing it? Opening a desktop publishing program, I played with free online clip art. Palm trees. Orange blossoms. Alligators. Water-skiing? Maybe. Any picture that said 1950s or 1960s Florida ended up in a slideshow.

  After an hour of picture-hunting, I poured a glass of wine and sat back to watch the images scroll automatically. I hoped a combination of wine, color, and repetition would cement the new image of The Gull in my mind. Glancing at the clock, I poured a second glass. The limo would be at least another hour. Maybe a whole lot longer, depending on how much fun they were having. Tulip was asleep under the desk, her nose on my bare foot.

  Old Florida scrolled before me, blurring ideas of coconuts, sand, sunshine, and bikinis. The mash-up started to congeal into an image of The Gull as the gateway to an old-time beach vacation. I pictured myself in a red bikini with white polka dots standing at the entrance to a vacation from my grandparents’ era. I smelled oranges and coconut-scented sunscreen in my imagination.

  It was a beach blanket movie, but it was a return-on-investment dream. I could sell what I already had with a little networking and an advertising campaign. I leaned forward and fiddled with an image on the screen. A palm tree shading a roadside fruit stand staffed by a woman in a broad hat. Perfect. Muted colors, a little patina, and a swooping seagull was the new image of The Gull Motel: Gateway to Old Florida Vacations.

  Genius. And I still had half a bottle of wine left.

  Movement in the doorway caught my attention.

  “Don’t want to sneak up on you,” Skip said. “
I know you hate that.” He held up a bag from a downtown restaurant we’d visited twice when we were old enough to be attracted to each other but too young to know what to do about it. “Brought you a late dinner. It’s only chicken strips and fries, but it’s gotta be better than what you’ve been cooking in your room.”

  Tulip’s head came up, her nose registering food. My nose and stomach were equally interested. “Come see this,” I said, motioning him over to my computer screen.

  Skip set the food bag on the desk within temptation distance. He leaned over me from behind, smelling faintly of sawdust. He wore no shirt as usual, the Florida evening retaining the heat of the day. Even in the air-conditioned office, he smelled like the warm outside evening. My body began a slow simmer without him even touching me. I was glad I had already done my thinking for the evening, because Skip tended to permeate my brain cells.

  “What am I looking at?” he asked. I wanted to suggest he look down my tank top, but I had to keep my head in the game of revitalizing my beach motel. And if I knew Skip, he was already looking down my tank top.

  “I’m thinking of rebranding The Gull so I can keep it the same but bring in more business. Just like my aunt and uncle asked.”

  “They asked you to bring in more business?”

  “Nope,” I said. “They asked me not to change anything but said I could try new things. I can only think of one way to do that.”

  “Rebranding? Are you changing the name?

  “Nope, it’ll still be The Gull Motel.”

  “Getting rid of aqua blue and seagulls? No more vinyl in the lobby and palm trees in concrete pots?” he asked. He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Great idea. I’m trying to get rid of that same fifty-year-old feel at my bar.”

  He refocused on the computer screen and leaned even closer, brushing his chest hair over my bare shoulder and lighting a fire that started to spread. Something about Skip made me want to forget I had anything else to do.

  But I did. I had a motel’s image to revitalize.

  “This picture looks old-style. I thought you were rebranding for the new crowd,” he said. He pulled a box of chicken strips from the bag, offered me one and took a bite out of another one.