by Josie Kerr
She’d felt a little awkward this morning, realizing she probably snored and knowing she looked like the biggest dork on the planet with her sleep mask and headphones, while Cal was barely rumpled. In fact, with the exception of the coffee stains on his shirt, he looked like he’d just sat down.
Kat cringed at the thought of the coffee-splattered shirt, which was, of course, entirely the result of her being a spaz. But how else was she going to react when she was waking up from a dream that included massive sexy times with the virtual stranger sitting next to her? She could barely look at him for the rest of the flight, though all she wanted to do was stare at him. That heavy dark stubble with just a few hints of silver and those bluest of blue eyes? So swoony. And tall. She’d gaped at how big he actually was when he’d gotten up to go to the restroom. She wasn’t a petite girl herself, being close to six feet tall in her size 10 socks. She closed her eyes and allowed herself ten minutes to daydream about the man, then it would be back to business and her mundane life.
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This trip wasn’t off to a good start at all. In fact, the last good thing she’d encountered that morning was the lovely daydream about Cal, and he might as well be a leprechaun, for all the good it did her by meeting him. The hired car had gotten a flat tire, and apparently, there wasn’t an Irish version of AAA. Then, when she’d finally gotten to the hotel, the assured early check-in didn’t exist. And finally, the biggest blow—her luggage, sent on the earlier flight from which she was bumped, was still MIA. And that’s how Kat found herself in the—admittedly, very posh—lobby bathroom, in her bra, taking a sink bath. She finished her perfunctory ablutions and then hoisted the hook of the garment bag over the stall door and unzipped it.
“Oh no.”
Kat stared at the contents of the garment bag. She squeezed her eyes shut, wished hard, and then whimpered a little when her smart business skirt, her no-wrinkle white blouse, and, most importantly, her favorite high-heeled shoes didn’t appear. Instead, a hideous, red, white, and blue eagle-print rayon shirt, crumpled khaki slacks, and a pair of formerly white sneakers lay cattywampus across a flimsy wire hanger.
“Son of a ham sandwich, this isn’t my bag!” Kat slapped her hands on her face. “Ow! Dang it!” She stared at the garment bag and noticed the luggage tag read “KFM,” not “KMF,” and groaned. She checked the baggage claim tag, and the numbers didn’t match.
“Focus, Kathleen. This is not the end of the world. You passed a shop on the way in. Maybe you can pick up another top, and the powers that be will just have to deal with your jeans and loafers. It’ll be fine.” She took a few deep breaths, and after touching up her makeup, Kat redonned her blouse, grabbed her bags, and set off for the hotel’s boutique.
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“I’m sorry there were no other rooms available, Mr. Harper. We can notify you if someone checks out early, but we’re not anticipating any rooms opening up. Is there anything else we can get for you?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. No, thank you, Ms. Noonan. This is . . .” Cal inhaled deeply, taking in a lungful of the crisp countryside air as he tried to grasp exactly what he was feeling. “I should have gotten my act together earlier. In any case, the room is everything that was promised.” He looked over his shoulder to where the event planner stood in the honeymoon suite’s living room. Her stance was all crisp professionalism, but her expression conveyed just a bit of sympathy, which Cal appreciated. He forced himself to smile and hoped that it didn’t look as grim as he felt. “Thank you for your flexibility.”
“Well, unfortunately, these things happen. I do hope you enjoy your stay at Wicklow House.” They stood in uncomfortable silence for a few moments, and then Ms. Noonan made an excuse to leave and exited the room.
Now Cal was all alone in an obnoxiously luxurious suite that he wasn’t quite sure he could even enjoy. He was exhausted and not the least bit hungover from his little self-pitying airplane binge from Atlanta to Boston, but he knew better than to succumb to the temptation to take a nap. Maybe a scalding shower and a proper breakfast would do him right; after all, there wasn’t anything better for a whiskey-induced headache than protein and fat. His stomach rumbled at the mere thought of food, but Cal decided to go ahead with the shower first.
Cal was examining his reflection in the mirror, trying to decide if he could get away with not shaving again, when he heard a light rap on the door, almost as if the person who knocked didn’t really want him to answer. He ignored it, thinking it was probably next door, when a second set of knocks and a familiar voice said, “Harper, open up. I know you’re not asleep.”
“Oh, fuck me,” Cal groaned as he fastened the belt on the hotel robe and flung open the door. “Alphonse, you son of a bitch, what the hell are you doing here?”
Cal’s best friend and unofficial business partner had the good sense to at least look ashamed. “I got your itinerary along with mine. I guess the conference registration has you linked to the restaurant.” The two men glared at each other until Alphonse asked, “Look, man, can I come in?”
Alphonse took a step, but Cal put his hand in the middle of his chest, stopping him. “Nope. I can’t deal with you while I’m bare-assed and on an empty stomach. I’ll meet you in the restaurant downstairs in twenty.”
Alphonse sighed but nodded and left without further comment.
Of course, Cal had known Alphonse had planned on being at the conference, but that was before all hell had broken loose at Pickett & Spence, the gastropub that the two best friends had built with Cal on spirits and Alphonse on everything else. Or rather, on top of everything else, as he had a tendency to mix business with pleasure. That worked sometimes, but Phonse’s dalliances also cost them several lucrative relationships with dessert designers and food distributors.
The biggest blow, though, was Alphonse’s silence regarding Cal’s wife’s infidelity. In hindsight, Cal knew he was better off without that gold-digging opportunist, but having his oldest friend in the world keep such information from him was devastating to both their friendship and Cal’s ego.
Now, almost six months later, it really didn’t matter who did what or who didn’t say something, the end result was Cal’s essentially leaving the restaurant he helped build. That had sucked. Hard. What sucked harder is that he didn’t seem to be able to get himself out of his funk, so much so that if he hadn’t had another source of income, he’d probably be homeless and eating food out of Pickett & Spence’s garbage can.
Cal’s stomach growled at the thought of food. He finished dressing and took one last look around the room in which he was supposed to be spending his honeymoon. It was spectacular. He had a visual of a rumpled woman tucked into one of the sumptuous reading chairs by the windows, but it wasn’t Amanda’s golden hair that shined in the sunlight; it was a rich auburn.
Damn. What was he thinking in not getting Kat’s number? Why had he choked? He’d never hesitated before, but then again, he generally didn’t have to ask for a number. Reluctant to examine that fact more closely, Cal headed down to the restaurant to find out what the hell was going on, even if he really didn’t want to know.
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“No, no, no. You’re not understanding. There is no hot water in room 624.” Kat peered in the mirror, trying to decide if her lips were actually blue from cold. She listened to the hotel employee make excuses, and she pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger in hopes of keeping her already-throbbing headache at bay. “No, it’s fine. I’m getting ready to go out. Please have someone come up and investigate. Thank you.”
“Well, that was invigorating,” Kat muttered as she pulled on the plush terry robe provided by the hotel. “Calming thoughts, Kathleen, calming thoughts.” She took a deep breath and blew it out, and then she repeated the same steps twice more. Had she achieved inner tranquility? Oh, hell no, but now she wasn’t liable to punch the next person she saw. Maybe
.
Her stomach rumbled, and Kat regretted not eating more of the admittedly substantial boxed lunch that the conference hosts provided. Her nerves usually didn’t get in the way of her appetite; in fact, it was generally the opposite.
“Screw it. I’m ordering room service.” She picked up the phone again and pressed the button that indicated “In-room Dining.” While she waited for an answer, Kat did her best to keep her mind blank and not obsess about the morning’s disastrous meeting. She’d be lucky if she had a job after that debacle. The worst part? Her own team seemed to have had a closed-door meeting before she got there that nullified the official meeting and made her participation moot.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
“Yeah?” Kat murmured, still distracted, and then she realized she was on the phone. “Oh, room service. Yes. Would it be possible to have a gentleman’s tea delivered to my room? It would? Thank you so much.” She hung up the phone, bundled herself in the robe, and flopped down onto the reading chair to await her meal. She’d read only a few pages when there was a knock on the door. Kat made sure the robe was securely tied around her waist—after all, her day was going quite poorly enough without flashing some poor, unsuspecting waiter who, knowing her luck, would sue her for mental distress about seeing a set of forty-two-year-old natural bosoms—and opened the door for the room service attendant, only to see the man who she suspected was instrumental in the morning’s subterfuge.
“Kitten.” Topher Reynolds stepped into Kat’s hotel room, and in her shock at seeing him, she stepped aside.
“What the heck do you think you’re doing?” Kat blustered, having regained some semblance of outrage, though she still held the door open.
“Room service!” The attendant wheeled a cart into Kat’s room and began uncovering plates and setting out the tea, all the while rapidly chattering before confirming that everything was as desired. Kat, dumbfounded by the appearance of both her ex-husband and her food, merely nodded, and the attendant exited the room as quickly as he’d whisked in.
Topher helped himself to one of the small sandwiches. “So, babe, good meeting this morning, right?” he asked through a mouthful of roast beef.
Kat watched him as he chewed her sandwich, acting like the entitled twat that he was, and she realized that she was absolutely done.
“Get the hell out of my room, Topher.” Kat pointed toward the hallway. “Now.”
“What’s your problem?” he scoffed before taking another bite of the sandwich.
“Hello! Are you so brain-dead that you don’t remember this morning?”
Topher waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, please, Kitten. Surely you can’t be mad about—”
“You completely undermined all the research we’d done by having that meeting!”
“Everyone knows the real deals are done over drinks, not in the boardroom. I meet with the boys on Thursday—”
Kat groaned. She should have suspected something when Topher’s uncle, the head of business development, poked his head into her office and asked if she had a current passport.
“Topher, you realize that those figures you agreed to practically guarantee that the restaurants are going to lose money on every single sale, right? It’s like the deal was meant to . . .” Kat snapped her mouth shut, a realization instantly coming to her. “Holy crap. Topher, what are you up to?”
“On second thought, I’d better go.” Topher tossed the half-consumed sandwich on the plate and made for the door. “Oh yeah, Uncle Donald wants you to call him, Kat. Something about a postmortem. You probably better do that pretty soon. I talked to him a few hours ago.”
Kat stood in the middle of the room, stunned, wondering what exactly had just happened. She was still pondering Topher’s cryptic words when there was another knock on the door. She looked through the peephole this time to avoid any unpleasant surprises and saw the doughy-faced bellhop standing outside with her very distinctive purple-and-green polka-dot suitcase.
She flung open the door and threw herself at the porter. “Oh my God, you are my favorite person on the planet right now!” she exclaimed as she hugged him tightly. The young man stammered and flushed dark red as she blathered at him and fumbled in her pocketbook for a small bill. He refused the tip and skittered out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Okay, then—no tip.” Kat turned around and caught her reflection in the dressing table mirror. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. No wonder he ran off. Nothing like showing your good china to a teenager, huh, Kat? Could this day get any worse?” she asked the universe. “Wait—don’t answer that.”
Her cell phone rang, and it was Donald Reynolds, initiating a video call.
Son of a ham sandwich.
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Cal poured himself two more fingers from the bottle of whiskey the waiter had helpfully left on the table. He drank it down, savoring the smooth burn that was just rough enough to loosen the knot in his chest. Damn, that was good. Hell, maybe he’d stay drunk for the next four days; it’d been years since he’d been on a good bender. After all, it wasn’t like he was accountable to anyone but himself. Maybe he’d spend his time sampling all the whiskeys the Emerald Isle had to offer and perhaps seek out some other local fare.
Cal snorted. The only local fare he was really interested in wasn’t even local, though he knew she was somewhere in the country. He’d been racking his brain about how to track the woman down, but one thing was for sure: he wasn’t going to find her if his ass stayed planted in this hotel restaurant, getting obliterated before noon. Cal swallowed the rest of the whiskey in his glass and signaled for the check.
The waiter brought the check and the cork to the table and turned again without saying a word. Cal left a generous cash tip underneath the receipt. He slipped his wallet into his pocket and scooped the bottle of whiskey off the table to finish in his room. He’d give himself one day to wallow, then he’d get his act together. As he was walking toward the door of the restaurant, a flash of brilliant auburn hair caught his attention.
There she was, sitting at a small two-person table, studying the menu with that same serious expression she assumed when she was looking over her thick stack of papers on the plane. She was even doing an adorable lip-chewing thing, and Cal wanted to stroke her plump bottom lip with his thumb.
She’d changed clothes and seemed to have been shopping, because there were several large bags in the unoccupied chair, discouraging anyone from attempting to take a seat at the table. But hell if Cal was going to let a shoebox get in the way of reintroducing himself to that intriguing redhead. He ambled over to the table, and when she didn’t raise her head from her intense study of the menu, Cal cleared his throat.
“Oh, yes, I would like a water and—you’re not the waiter.” Kat blinked her huge amber eyes.
“No, I’m not, but I’d like to be at your service,” Cal heard himself say and wondered what sort of cheesy-ass moron had taken over his vocal cords.
Kat’s lip twitched, but she didn’t invite him to sit. “You’re Cal. From the plane. From Georgia.”
Cal paused, unsure how to gauge her response. “Yes, I am. You’re Kat Fahey. From the plane. You live in Boston.” Cal flashed her a winning smile, hoping to mask his unsureness about how this conversation was proceeding. “May I sit down?”
“You want to sit with me?” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why?”
It was Cal’s turn to be confused. “Why not? I enjoyed talking with you on the plane.”
She’d begun chewing on her lip again. “Okay?”
Cal had just begun sliding the unoccupied chair from the table when he heard a man’s voice say from behind him, “Kitten, who’s your friend?”
Before Kat could open her mouth to answer, Cal found himself standing to his full height and sticking his hand out. “Calhoun Harper,” he said as he smoothly maneuvered around the other man so he was able to stand next to Kat.
“Pleased to meet you, M
r. Harper. I’m Christopher Reynolds.” He put his hands in his pockets. “But please call me Topher.”
Topher? What the hell kind of name is that?
Cal didn’t offer his nickname, and the two stared at each other for a tense moment before Topher asked, “So, how do you two know each other?” Topher looked directly at Kat, as if challenging her, and Cal didn’t like that one bit.
“I had the immense pleasure of spending the evening with Ms. Fahey,” Cal interjected before Kat could open her mouth. Cal got the result from Topher that he wanted—namely, the man gaped like a goldfish who’d flipped out of his tank, his mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out. But Kat? Yeah, Cal knew he’d overstepped a boundary by the frosty look in those intense eyes, but for now, her future wrath was worth the look on that jackass’s face. He pushed his luck. “I just noticed her in the restaurant and dropped by to ask her to accompany me to dinner tonight.”
“Kitten, remember you have the dinner with the Wicklow Distillery—” Topher began, but Kat held up her hand, effectively hushing him. Cal saw her narrow her eyes, and he invisibly braced for the blast he knew was coming. He might not know much, but years of being a bartender, coupled with having several dozen Southern women as relatives, taught him that happiness wasn’t waiting for anyone on the business end of that look.
“Remember, Christopher, the outcome of the meeting this morning rendered further conversations unnecessary,” Kat shot back. “And before I forget, Robert is expecting a check-in from you regarding this morning’s meeting. You should probably do that soon.”
“Oh, um . . .” Topher looked from Kat to Cal and back, and Cal had the irrational desire to put his hand on Kat’s shoulder. If he didn’t think she’d snap his wrist and put some sort of kung fu move on him, he’d have done it, but he’d already pushed his luck once. “Yeah, uh, I’ll catch up with you later, Ki—Kat.” Topher turned to Cal and nodded, then he spun on his heel.