Feeling a little like a slightly scorched marshmallow, Arabella followed him through the house to the front door. “Thank your grandmother again for the jam.” The jars were still sitting on the coffee table in the living room. “I’m going to have to hide one away in my bedroom to keep it safe.”
“You know where there’s more.” He stepped out onto the porch.
She suddenly didn’t want him to go. “Insurance office. Really?”
He smiled slightly. “Really.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s as bad as a plastics manufacturer. That was my last job in New York.”
“Surprised you were able to tear yourself away,” he said dryly. “And insurance is boring only until you find yourself in need of it.”
“Sounds like a slogan but I’ll concede that point.”
His smile widened. He suddenly lowered his head slightly toward hers. “Is your brother’s fiancée pregnant?”
She gaped, and hearing a noise behind them in the kitchen, joined him on the porch so she could pull the door closed behind her. “You got that, too?” She pressed her hands over her mouth until she got control over her chortling. Then she grabbed his shirtfront urgently. “You can’t say anything, though.”
He covered her hands with his. “I promise.”
Just that easily, her knees went weak. Thanks to her own riotous imagination, the last week and a half had been an emotional roller coaster where he was concerned.
Which meant she needed to stop overreacting at his slightest touch and start acting like the adult she claimed to be.
She only needed to figure out how to think straight for more than ten seconds at a time whenever he touched her.
Simple enough, right?
“What’s going on inside that beautiful head of yours?”
She froze. “What do you mean?”
His eyes roved over her face. His thumb brushed against the back of her hand. “I can practically see the wheels turning.”
She made a face and shook her head. Her fingers finally listened to the frantic signals from her brain to release his shirt and she pulled her hands from beneath his. “The sunset,” she lied. “Reminds me that I should get in there.” She tilted her head toward the door behind her. “Make sure I’m set for tomorrow. Big day and all.” She rubbed her hands together with false excitement. “Trainee program and such.”
“You might like it.”
“I’ll like it fine as long as it pays my way out of the twin bed I sleep in upstairs here.”
“Twin bed?”
She realized too late that was a topic better left alone. “It’s a small bedroom.” She fumbled behind her back for the door handle. “Maybe I’ll see you around the hotel.”
“Pretty sure you will.”
“Well.” She got the door open. “G’night.”
“Arabella.”
Her nerves went tight again. “Hmm?”
“It was a complicated week because of old business from California.”
Her mouth dried. Business? Or relationship? “Insurance business?”
His lips compressed. “Not exactly.”
Her stomach sank. Relationship then. Despite her little mental lecture about overreacting and overactive imaginations, she was as certain of that as she was about Harper being pregnant. “Are you married?”
His eyebrows yanked together. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
She didn’t like feeling foolish any more than the next person did and she lifted her chin. “That’s not an answer.”
“No, I am not married,” he said emphatically.
She felt a little like Tyler, then. Somewhat mollified. Somewhat reassured. But not entirely convinced. “People have lied about that before.”
“You were involved with someone who was married?”
“Well, not once I learned the truth!” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice again. “It was just one date. We didn’t—” Her words freeze-dried on her tongue when he curled his palms over her shoulders.
“Arabella.” He exhaled and she felt the press of his fingertips through her knit dress. “One of these days, I hope you’ll want to be Bella to me again.”
Her knees went weak all over again.
“I am not married,” he said softly. “Never have been married.” His fingers squeezed her shoulders slightly. “The stuff from California is just...old...stuff. An inconvenience. And it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
Forget freeze-dried. Her mouth was suddenly watering and she swallowed hard. “Us? Is there an us?”
His fingers slipped her hair behind her ear before trailing along her jaw. “I think there could be.” His thumb reached her chin. Rested right below her lower lip. “Don’t you?”
The entirety of five months of fantasizing couldn’t match that single moment standing on her brother’s porch while the sunset beamed red and gold and orange behind Jay. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Then let’s just go one day at a time and see where it takes us. Hmm?”
She nodded jerkily. Every fiber of her soul wanted him to kiss her. But she’d asked for his kiss the last time and then he’d gone a whole week and then some before speaking to her. And then only because they’d run into each other at the hotel.
She didn’t have the guts to ask again.
Not even when he ran his thumb slowly over her lip.
Her knees were already mush. The rest of her bones followed suit.
As if he knew it, he smiled slightly. “G’night, Arabella.”
Then he turned and walked away.
Thankfully, the front door was hard and substantial. It held her up when she leaned weakly against it while she watched him climb into his truck parked at the curb. A moment later, his taillights were disappearing down the street.
“Call me Bella,” she whispered soundlessly.
Then the door opened behind her and she fell back, knocking straight into Brady.
“What the hell’re you doing?” He set her back onto her feet.
“Thinking that I can’t wait to have a place of my own!”
“Not that again. You can’t afford a place of your own.”
“Not yet, but I will. And I’d think you’d be glad about that.” She poked him in the chest. “Seeing how you’re going to need the room I’m using.”
“What for?”
She went around him toward the staircase. “Who for, would be more the point, wouldn’t it?”
“Bella—”
“Don’t worry.” She started up the stairs. “I won’t say a word more about it until the two of you are ready to announce it. But—” She shot him a look. “I just have to say one thing first.”
“Just one?”
She let the sarcasm pass and smiled broadly. “You’re already a heck of a dad, Brady. I can’t wait to see you with a baby, too.”
He frowned suddenly and seemed to find the newel post at the base of the staircase inordinately interesting. “What if I screw it up?”
She went back down a couple steps until she was at his eye-level. “Then you’ll adjust and do it better. But you won’t screw it up.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I see Tyler and Toby.” She gave him a quick, hard hug. “Gord and his wife knew what they were doing when they named you in their will as the boys’ guardian.”
“I can’t imagine life without them now,” Brady admitted huskily. “I wouldn’t have moved to Rambling Rose if not for them. Would never have met Harper.” He sniffed and gave an awkward laugh that just reminded her why he had always been her favorite brother. “Rambling Rose seems pretty lucky for those of the Fortune persuasion.”
Arabella smiled and gave him another hug. “That’s what I’m counting on, big brother.”
Then, before he c
ould make too big a deal out of that, she turned and hurried up the stairs.
* * *
“All right, then.” Sybil smiled at Arabella the next morning. Instead of leaving instructions at the front desk for her, she’d met Arabella there in person and escorted her to housekeeping. “I’ll leave you in Hallie’s capable hands to get you started. She’s an excellent floor supervisor so you couldn’t have a better trainer. We’ll check in again—officially—next week.” Nursing her coffee cup, she walked out of the office.
Hallie, who’d turned out to be the same girl that Arabella had seen cleaning in the lobby the day before, cast a measuring look over Arabella before hunting through a shelving unit stacked high with folded shirts wrapped in plastic. She pulled one out and handed it to Arabella. “You can try it on in the night supervisor’s office.” She waved at a darkened doorway. “It’s empty. Jordan quit a week ago and they haven’t replaced her yet.”
“Am I going to be fired if I admit I don’t know what the night supervisor even does?”
Hallie laughed. “Night supervisor’s responsible for all the public area cleaning that’s done while everyone else is supposed to be sleeping and makes sure that all guest requests are answered after regular hours.”
While she’d explained, Arabella had unzipped the plastic pouch and pulled out the T-shirt. It was black with the stylized Hotel Fortune logo embroidered in turquoise on the cap sleeve. “What about pants?” she asked as she headed toward the office.
“Those black jeans you’re wearing are fine. Basically anything black is allowed except leggings.” Hallie covered a yawn. “I’m going to grab a coffee. You want one?”
“I’ve already had two. Thanks, though.” She stepped into the office and found the light switch on the wall before closing the door.
Arabella whipped her own blouse off her head and pulled on the T-shirt. It was identical to the one that Hallie wore, though Hallie’s clung to her generous curves and Arabella’s hung loosely from her shoulders.
She left the office again and went to the lockers lining one wall adjacent to the control desk where an unsmiling woman sat in front of a computer with a phone headset on her head. Her name was Beulah, which would have probably wiped a smile off of Arabella’s face, too.
She’d already been assigned one of the lockers and she stored her blouse inside along with her book bag and lunch box that she’d crammed inside earlier. Hallie still hadn’t returned, so she pocketed her locker key and wandered over to the bulletin board that was covered with as many little scraps of paper as it was with large employment posters.
She peered closer at one of the scraps—Roommate Wanted—and made a mental note to check the board again in a few weeks when she had her first paycheck in the bank.
Two other young women, both wearing the turquoise-accented T-shirts, came in. They stopped in front of Beulah and signed in, then waited for the woman to give them their assignments for the morning.
Hallie returned then and she, too, stopped in front of Beulah. A few seconds later, she had a printed sheet in hand and came back over to Arabella. “You learn quick to stay on the right side of Beulah,” she said under her breath as she led Arabella out of the office. “She handles the scheduling for all the room attendants. Get on her bad side and she’ll either assign you enough rooms to kill an elephant or else so few that you’ll be looking for a second and third job just to make it through to payday.”
She led the way to the service elevator and they went down to the second floor. There, Hallie unlocked a door near the service elevator and rolled out one of the large carts stored inside. She showed Arabella the chart on the sheet that Beulah had given her, which indicated the rooms that had been occupied the night before and of those, which ones had already been vacated. “She coordinates with the front desk and will update us throughout the shift as more rooms are vacated. These ones that are circled—” she pointed out the rooms “—are stayovers. Multiple night stays, so it’s up to us to keep an eye out for them. If the guest takes the newspaper we leave outside the door overnight, we know they’re awake, for instance. If we see them leave for breakfast or for the pool, that sort of thing, we can turn the room while they’re gone.”
“How long does that take?”
“It’s a little faster than a total turn. But on average thirty minutes or so for a standard guest room, which is what all of yours are today.” As Hallie talked, she was busy counting out linens and supplies and adding them to the cart. “But it also depends on the state of the room. Some guests are complete and utter slobs and it takes longer.” She held up the box of disposable gloves. “Get used to these things,” she said dryly.
Arabella smiled weakly.
Once Hallie judged the cart ready, they were off.
For the next four hours, Arabella reached and stretched and squatted and crawled around, all for the purpose of leaving each room Fortune-Hotel perfect. Linens were changed. Every surface—from bathroom toilets to wall switch plates—was left polished and sanitized.
By the time they took their lunch break, Arabella felt like she’d been training for a marathon. “I never knew cleaning could be so hard,” she moaned after collapsing onto one of the molded plastic chairs at the round table Hallie commandeered. “I’ve never wanted a foot massage as badly as I do right now.” She had to content herself with curling and uncurling her toes inside her tennis shoes. For one, they were in a cafeteria so removing them was probably in poor taste. For another, if she took off her shoes, she wasn’t entirely certain she’d be capable of putting them on again. “How long have you been doing this?”
Hallie set a glossy magazine on the table, followed by a can of soda. “Six years.” She popped the top of the soda and unwrapped her sandwich. “I was working at a resort in Austin before I came here.”
“What made you want to come to Rambling Rose?”
“What else?” Hallie looked wry. “A guy, naturally. Of course, two months after I’d already signed an apartment lease here in Rambling Rose, the creep gives me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech and heads off to Chicago with an old girlfriend.”
“That stinks.”
Hallie shrugged. “What’re you going to do?” She winked. “Stink happens.”
Arabella groaned humorously. “Terrible.”
“Blame all the toilets I’ve cleaned in the last six years. I just hope things start picking up around this place.”
“What do you mean?”
Hallie shrugged again. “The owners put on a good front, but the vacancy rate’s still pretty high, even for Rambling Rose.” She chewed her sandwich and flipped open her magazine. “What about you? What brought you to town?”
I think you should know that...
...there may be an “us.”
“Family,” Arabella said instead. “Three of my brothers had already moved here.” She wasn’t hiding the fact that she bore the Fortune name, but since Sybil hadn’t introduced them using their full names, it just hadn’t come up yet.
Hallie’s dark eyes danced. “Any of ’em available?”
Arabella chuckled. “Only the two still living in Buffalo.”
“Bummer. I haven’t had a decent date in three months.” Hallie nodded toward Arabella’s barely-touched salad. “You’re gonna get even skinnier if you keep bringing rabbit food like that and then don’t even eat it. We’re back on in ten minutes.”
Arabella was starving, but the energy that it took to lift a fork seemed immense. “How many more rooms will we have?”
“Seven. We should have gotten six done this morning, but—”
“—I’m too slow,” Arabella finished. She’d never thought it was that complicated to clean mirrors but she’d ended up leaving fingerprints that necessitated re-cleaning more often than not. And she was supposed to be ready to go out on her own without Hallie’s help the following day.
> “Get yourself a pair of these.” Hallie held up the earbuds that were presently hanging loose around her neck. “You’ll work faster when there’s music going. Don’t ask me why, but it always works.”
“It better. Or I’ll be lucky if I’m not fired on my second day.”
“You’re in the trainee program,” Hallie said dryly. “Once you’re in the trainee program, you don’t get fired.”
“I’m only in the trainee program because they didn’t know where else to put me. Is that something you wanted to do?”
Hallie shook her head. “Being a floor supervisor is enough for me.” She was responsible for inspecting all the cleaned rooms before releasing them again to the front desk for use with another guest. “I’m not interested in getting into management. Too many reports to fill out. It’s more fun sticking to room cleaning.”
Arabella made a face. “I don’t know about that.”
“I even met a couple of celebrities in Austin who stayed at the resort.” Hallie flipped her magazine around to show Arabella an image of a ridiculously handsome man with dark eyes and short dark hair. “This guy? Grayson?” She air-quoted the name. “He used to be big in rodeo. Now his Grayson Gear clothes are everywhere. I have a pair of his jeans. Do wonders for my butt. Anyway, he stayed at our resort a couple of times when I first started working there. All the gossip magazines said he was a real player, but I thought he was super nice. And he tipped great.”
Arabella held her tongue. Hallie didn’t realize that Grayson was one of “those Fortunes” any more than she knew Arabella shared the name, too. Adam and Kane had met him several years ago at that wedding in Paseo that her father was still complaining about. She knew Grayson had two identical brothers, but that was the extent of it. She hadn’t met any of them herself. “Who else famous have you met?”
“Matt McIntyre. He’s on a daytime soap.” Hallie’s eyes lowered to half-mast. “Sexy,” she drawled. “But total slob.” She closed her magazine and tapped an inset photo on the cover of a man with long dark hair. “Wouldn’t mind cleaning his hotel room. He’s so hot I’m not sure I’d even care if he were a slob.”
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