Just This Once

by K. G. MacGregor

  “Have you ever talked with them about it?”

  “Yeah, I’ve talked with my mom a little. She just says that she wants me to be happy. She wishes I could find a person to give my attention to, instead of the Weller Regent.”

  “Yeah, I guess parents are like that. I think they all want us to be happy, once they get over deciding what should make us that way.”

  Paula clinked her beer mug with that of her companion. “I’ll drink to that. What was it like with your family?”

  Wynne chuckled. “Well, it’s kind of a funny story now, but it sure wasn’t at the time.”

  “Something tells me this is going to be good.”

  “It was when I was in college at the University of Maryland. I was living at home, but I met this woman who lived near campus, and I started staying nights at her place. Mom went on and on about what a nice friend Judith was.” Wynne stopped her story to take a drink.

  “But then they started getting suspicious, right?”

  The brunette shook her head. “Oh, no. It was much more melodramatic than that. You see, in college, your professors don’t happen to care if you go by your middle name. They always call you by your first name, and mine is Katharine. But Judith didn’t know that it was also my mom’s name, and during summer vacation when she was home in Connecticut, she sent me this card with a picture of two naked women, and just as a joke, she addressed it to Katharine W. Connelly. Mom opened it and nearly had a heart attack, and of course she showed it to my dad. Then at dinner, she tossed it in front of me and Janelle grabbed it and started laughing her ass off. Mom was just glaring at me with her arms folded across her chest, and Dad was like ‘pass me the potatoes.’”

  “Oh, that’s hilarious.”

  “As I said, it’s funnier now than it was then. Mom stayed on my case for the next three years or so. Every woman I mentioned, she’d ask if that was my girlfriend. Finally when I told her yes once, she dropped it. But I have to give the woman credit — she’s come around.”

  “Yeah, I give my mom and dad credit too. They’re okay, and I’m pretty comfortable with them.”

  The waiter dropped off the check, and this time Paula insisted that it was her turn.

  “I should probably get back to the hotel. It’s almost midnight, and I have a breakfast meeting at 7:30.”

  Paula offered her arm as an escort and the two women walked slowly back to the parking lot. When they reached the car, they stopped, Paula guiding the tall woman to sit on the rear fender. “You know, there’s one real big drawback to me having to drop you in front of a busy hotel.”

  She’s going to kiss me.

  Indeed, Paula stepped closer and placed a hand lightly on Wynne’s shoulder. “Is this okay?” she whispered as she slowly lowered her head.

  Wynne raised her hand and cupped the blonde head, pulling the lips toward her own. She had tuned out that voice telling her she couldn’t have something as nice as this. Their kiss was coy at first, but soon, both women were breathing hard, open-mouthed as their tongues danced with a tentative passion. As her free hand made its way to Paula’s hip and beyond, a pair of passing headlights stopped them short.

  Stepping back, Paula looked into the dazzling blue eyes and smiled. “I really liked that, Wynne.”

  “Yeah, I could tell,” the dark-haired woman said huskily. “So did I.”

  The women gazed for a few more moments into one another’s eyes, both sensing a deep satisfaction at what they had just shared.

  “I guess I should get you home.”

  “Then I suppose one of us should move.”

  “Oh, that would be me,” Paula answered, stepping back to allow Wynne to stand. She unlocked the passenger door and held it while the tall woman slipped in.

  Too bad about that manual transmission, Paula thought. She wanted to hold Wynne’s hand again, but she needed both hands to drive in this downtown traffic. The hotel was only a few blocks away.

  “So…are you coming back in two weeks?”

  “That’s still the schedule.”

  “The next launch is the last weekend in April. If you have a chance to check your calendar, let me know if you think you can be here and I’ll get an extra pass to the press site.”

  “I forgot to look, but I will,” Wynne promised. That was almost six weeks away, but she doubted she could swing it. There were just too many variables.

  Paula wheeled the Mazda into the curved driveway. “Have a nice day at work tomorrow and a safe trip home. I had a really good time with you tonight.”

  The valet opened the passenger door. “Thank you. Me too.”

  ———

  I’m in such trouble here.

  Wynne readied for bed, her head swimming with the memory of Paula’s mouth on hers.

  If that kiss was indicative of what else they might offer one another, it wasn’t going to be easy to say no. But she couldn’t do this, no matter how much she wanted to. This was getting too complicated.

  Chapter 7

  “Wow, where’d you get all this energy?” Val had been watching her friend for the last half hour, roaring through her circuit like a woman possessed. Paula was taking her time with all her reps so she’d get the maximum benefit, but as soon as she’d finish, she’d moved quickly to the next machine without a break.

  “I don’t know. I just feel…invigorated.” In truth, Paula was still savoring her night out with Wynne last week, and was full of nervous energy in anticipation of the woman’s return.

  “You’re in love,” Val pronounced.

  “I am not! We barely know each other.”

  “That may be true, but you’ve been in a great mood since last week, and you’ve talked about the woman almost nonstop.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m in love. But I do like her a lot.” Paula mounted the ab cruncher and started her pulls. “And I think…she likes me…too,” she puffed.

  “Well, what’s not to like about you? You remember Kevin, the guy I was dating for a while?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He wanted to fix you up with one of his buddies and I told him I didn’t think you’d be interested. He said, ‘Aw, that’s too bad. She’s hot!’”

  “Just…what I need…not!”

  “So what do you think will happen with you two? I mean, the woman lives in Baltimore, right?”

  “Yeah…but she’s still…got about…four more trips here.” It was hard to talk and crunch at the same time, but Paula couldn’t be still. And besides, she didn’t want to think about what would happen when Wynne’s work in Orlando was through.

  “And then what happens?”

  “Don’t know…we’ll have to…cross that bridge…when we come to it.”

  “Slow down! You’re making me sore,” Val barked. “Are we going to run?”

  “Ready when you are.” Paula slid off the cruncher and grabbed her bottle of water.

  “The way you are today, you’ll probably run off and leave me in the dust.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Paula yelled over her shoulder as she took off out the door in the direction of the jogging trail that ran between the condo property and the neighboring golf course. If they cut out to the sidewalk by the main roadway, they could loop around to the other side of the course, a two-mile circuit which they would run twice.

  “By the way, I really like your hair that way,” Val huffed as they settled into their pace.

  “Thanks.” And because all conversations had to eventually come back to the woman from Baltimore, Paula added, “Wynne likes it this way too.”

  ———

  “So you write down all of the outstanding checks here and add them up,” Wynne explained. “Then subtract that from what the statement says, along with the service charges, and add any deposits you’ve made that aren’t on here…and this number should match the checkbook.”

  Wynne and her mother compared the two numbers.

  “Great, and what do we do if they’re different?” Kitty asked. />
  The brunette sighed in exasperation. “Well, that means that you probably either forgot to write down a check, or that your math is wrong.”

  Together they pored over the account until the mistake was found, finally bringing the checkbook into balance. Despite her frustration, Wynne was pleased that her mom was working so hard to learn this.

  “Mom, you have to do this as soon as the statement comes in. If you don’t, you’ll lose track of what you spend and before you know it, you’re overdrawn.” Again.

  “Okay, I’ll do my best.” Kitty hated being so dependent on her daughter, but her husband had always taken care of these things. “What are we going to do about the car?”

  The tall woman sighed. Her mother had been reluctant to get rid of the Park Avenue, as it was the last vehicle her husband had purchased. But she had never thought to put oil in it, and it finally threw a rod and bit the dust. She called Wynne from a payphone, and her daughter picked her up and arranged to have the car towed.

  “It’s a goner. You’re going to need a new car.”

  “What am I going to do? I don’t know the first thing about buying a car.”

  “I’ll go with you on Saturday. We’ll find something nice, something Dad would have liked.” Wynne threw in that last bit for encouragement.

  “Thank you, honey. I honestly don’t know how I’d manage without all the things you do.”

  Neither do I, Mom.

  ———

  “Did you see this letter from Starquest?” Rusty tossed the paper onto Paula’s desk.

  “They’re thanking us for handling their meeting, and they mention you by name.”

  The blonde woman chortled. “That’s because I happened to be walking down the hallway when their chairman was locked out of his room in his underwear.”

  “Boxers or briefs?”

  “Boxers, and they had ‘Wednesday’ stamped on the leg. But it was Friday.”

  “People would never believe the things we see in hotels,” Rusty shook his head in amazement. “Remember that other guy who got locked out in his underwear?”

  “You mean her underwear,” Paula laughed. “Or the woman who…”

  The phone on her desk interrupted their reminiscence, its caller ID flashing Front Desk.

  “This is Paula…yeah….” She twirled around in her seat and grabbed the remote for the video camera display. “Okay, I see them…we’ll be right down.” Hanging up the phone, she turned to her boss. “Two busloads just pulled up with that country music band. You want to work the front desk or the bellmen.”

  Rusty groaned. “Bellmen.” They would be here half the night again finishing up paperwork.

  ———

  Wynne sat solemnly in the back seat of the cab, accustomed now to the route from the airport and no longer taking in the sights.

  I should have just booked at the Hyatt, she thought. No, the problem wasn’t the hotel.

  The problem wasn’t even that Paula McKenzie had kissed her, but that she had kissed back.

  For the past two weeks, Wynne had berated herself for letting that happen, knowing that her own flirtations had helped to bring it about. She had nothing to offer Paula and it was wrong to lead her on. Even if she could keep her emotional distance — and that was a big “if” — it was wrong too to give in to that temptation, because Paula was worth more than just a sexual fling.

  “Oh, great,” she muttered, eyeing the buses in the circle. The line at check-in would be an hour long. Wynne paid the cabbie and exited when the valet opened her door.

  “Would you like me to take your bag inside?” he asked.

  “No, I’ll take it myself. Thank you.” No way was she going to turn her bag over to the bellman. She wouldn’t see it again until midnight.

  As expected, the check-in line held more than 30 waiting guests, all of whom seemed to know each other. Right away, Wynne’s eyes went to the petite blonde who worked efficiently behind the counter, and her breath caught with surprise at how nice it was to see her. Keeping this desire in check was probably going to be harder than she thought.

  “Excuse me, Miss Connelly?”

  “Yes?” Wynne turned to see a tall red-haired gentleman, more sharply dressed than most of the other staff, but an employee just the same.

  “Could I ask you step to over here, please?” He reached over and lifted her bag, extracting a small folder from inside his jacket. “I’m Rusty Wilburn, the Senior Shift Manager. Miss McKenzie took the liberty of checking you in already on the Concierge floor. Here is your room key. If you would kindly stop by in the morning and allow us to swipe your credit card, we can spare you this bedlam tonight.”

  “You are my hero, Mr. Wilburn,” she gushed, recognizing the name as the boss Paula often talked about. “Thank you very much.”

  “No, I’m just the delivery boy. Paula says welcome.”

  Wynne turned again to glimpse the blonde behind the busy counter. “Please tell her I said thank you.”

  ———

  “You know, we’ve made pretty good work of this, Wynne.” Cheryl Williams sat in the floor of her office, surrounded by index cards that mapped the process of their proposed marketing plan. “I’d like to have this drawn up in a slide presentation…are you any good with that? I never had the patience to learn that program.”

  “I can do that. Shall I set up my laptop and lay it out?”

  “Sure, why not? And then next time you come, I want to play with a few scenarios. Would that be hard to do? You know, different slides for each scenario? We’re going to have to put this in front of Ken and Wendell, and it would be easier for both of them if we had it all laid out in a slide show.” Wendell Martin was the vice president for investor relations. Ken, Wendell, and Cheryl would present their plan to the analysts in New York at the end of April, hoping that the cost-trimming and forward thinking would boost their stock value.

  “It shouldn’t be a problem, but it will take me a couple of hours,” Wynne said.

  “A couple of hours? You’ve got to be kidding! It would take Denise a couple of days,”

  Cheryl exclaimed, the latter a reference to her administrative assistant. At once, her hand flew to her mouth as she realized that the woman whose desk sat just outside the door had probably heard her.

  Wynne sniggered at Cheryl’s gaffe, and at the sight of the impeccably dressed woman sitting cross-legged on the floor, her tailored skirt hiked up well above her knees. Their rapport had gotten a shot in the arm when Doug was dropped from the team. They chatted more while they worked, and even had lunch together a couple of times.

  “Have you seen much of Orlando since you started coming down?”

  “Not a lot. I did get out to dinner at a place called Buck’s, and last week I saw a movie downtown.”

  “That’s hardly what I call getting out. Tell you what,” she said, pushing her nimble body off the floor and padding in her stocking feet to her desk drawer. “I have a gift certificate for Jack Elam’s. Do you know that place?”

  Wynne shook her head.

  “It’s the best seafood restaurant in Orlando. I won this in a raffle at the Chamber of Commerce, but my husband’s allergic to seafood. Why don’t you take it and ask someone to go?”

  Wynne immediately thought of Paula. Though the woman had speeded her through check-in, they hadn’t had a chance to connect last night. “Thank you, Cheryl.”

  “Do you know someone to invite? You want me to see if I can find someone to keep you company?”

  “No, that’s alright. I have a friend here in town that I can ask. But thank you. This is very generous.”

  “It’s no big deal. Like I said, Jim won’t eat there and I hate to see it go to waste.” Cheryl slipped her shoes back on. “Listen, I have a meeting with Ken in about five minutes. Why don’t I let you start working on those slides? Come on over to my desk and make yourself comfortable.”

  Wynne settled in as the woman left, at once feeling at home in the corner office. T
his was definitely the kind of career she wanted.

  ———

  Paula was irked at the report left by the two previous shifts on the behavior of their country western guests since check-in. Apparently, many had stayed awake until the wee hours of the morning, prompting several complaints about shouting in the hallways and loud music. And today, the first shift housekeepers were unable to rouse them to clean their rooms, leaving three times the usual workload for the skeleton staff on Paula’s shift.

  It was almost 10 o’clock when she got her first chance to visit the Concierge lounge. But as she feared, her friend wasn’t there. Paula had hoped they would have a chance to get together again tomorrow on her day off, but as they hadn’t yet set anything up, she was afraid that she’d lost the opportunity.

  Checking to see that a light was on in room 2314, Paula contemplated her options. She could knock on the door, but Wynne might not welcome such an invasion of her privacy.

  Besides, if one of her staff saw her and reported it, it could potentially get her fired. The better option was to call.

  Rather than use the house phone, Paula decided to return to her office and was thrilled to find that Wynne had already left a message for her.

  “Hi, Paula. This is Wynne. It’s about 9:15, and I was calling to see if you might be free for dinner tomorrow night. My boss gave me a gift certificate for a place called Jack Elam’s, and I hope you can be my guest…my driving guest, that is. Anyway, please give me a call in…2314. I’ll probably be up another couple of hours. Oh, and sorry about the short notice, but I just got this today. Talk to you soon, I hope. Goodbye.”

  Quickly, Paula dialed the number, hoping to finish her call before Rusty returned to their office.

  “Wynne? It’s Paula…I was just coming back to my office to call you…I’d love to go! Why don’t I pick you up at seven out front?” She paged through the organizer on her desk for the number of the restaurant. “If you want, I’ll call and get us a reservation…it’s kind of dressy, but not formal. A skirt or a nice pantsuit will do just fine…Can’t wait. See you tomorrow at seven.”

  Paula smiled and sighed as she plopped into her chair. She had another date with Wynne Connelly.