A Holiday Romance. Carrie Alexander

peered more closely at Alice. “Hmm. I can usually tell just by looking what type of activities a guest will prefer. But with you, I’m not sure. Are you the spa type? Hot stone, shiatsu, mud bath, herbal wrap? Let me know. Appointments have to be booked early, even in the off-season. Spa treatments are popular with our female guests.”

      Alice shook her head. She didn’t want massages and facials, fussing and catering.

      She wanted adventure.

      Excitement.

       Maybe romance.

      Everything she’d been lacking for the past six years. No, even longer than that, if she was honest. Her life before becoming her mother’s caregiver hadn’t been the most eventful, either. But she’d been satisfied at the time, working as a grade-school teacher in Bangor, Maine, engaged to Stewart McKinney, a wonderful guy who’d been completely understanding when she’d had to move back to Osprey Island because of her mother’s diagnosis. He’d promised to wait for Alice. They’d have the rest of their lives together.

      Alice had had total faith in Stewart. Right up till the moment when the proof of his unfaithfulness had been published in the engagement announcements of the Bangor News.

      “No spas,” she said to Chloe. She glanced around the lobby, taking in the gleaming Saltillo tiles, the high beamed ceilings and the large wrought-iron chandeliers, hung three in a row to make a major statement. The guests who strolled past looked tanned, pampered and fit, despite their advanced ages. “I want to be active.”

       Not passive. Never again passive.

      And that was her major statement.

      “Great!” Chloe gave a quick clap. “Do you ride? Golf? I’d be happy to arrange an early-morning tee time.”

      “I don’t golf.” Alice pictured herself on the greens, a fumbling solo among the holiday-happy twosomes and foursomes. This was her opportunity to change. She’d rather not start out as a lonesome onesome. “But I’d love to try horseback riding. Not just a tame follow-the-leader trail ride, either. Real riding.”

      She could begin there and move on to more adventurous activities. Despite her major statement, even an activity as safe and easy as trail riding seemed daunting. She hadn’t been on a four-legged creature since pony rides at the county fair.

      “I want to gallop in the desert,” she blurted. And not take a header between her mount’s ears. “I want to…I want to climb and dive and race and…”

      She stalled out for a moment before plunging on. “I came here to try everything.”

      “With that sense of adventure, you’re certain to have a super stay.” Chloe gave Alice’s arm a small squeeze. “Gosh, you’re my favorite kind of guest. Some of them never want to get up off their biscuits. I spend my time hunting down lost sunglasses and rescheduling pool parties. I’m really going to love planning your days!”

      Alice nodded, feeling like an impostor.

      But she wasn’t. She’d been wanting this for a long time. She just needed to get used to the reality of her brand-new self.

      

       “I F YOU DON’T get out and live a little, you’ll be a fuddy-duddy at forty.” Leilani Blaylock Jimenez Harrison Steen powered down the computer and slid a few stray folders into a file drawer. Then she locked the drawer and dropped the key into the oversize designer handbag sitting open on one corner of the desk.

      “What’s a fuddy-duddy?” teased Kyle Jarreau, who sat on another corner. “Is that something the bobby-soxers used to say?”

      Clearly amused, his full-figured secretary wrinkled her nose. “Pet name for my third husband.”

      “The one who wore tube socks to bed.”

      “Exactamundo.” Lani gave Kyle a measuring look as she ran a comb through her short black curls polished by silver. She pulled a lipstick from her bag. “Bet you I can snare my fifth before you find a first.”

      “No way. Do I look like a sucker?” Kyle shifted. The closest he’d come to marriage was standing up at the recent wedding of his best friend, Gavin. The reformed bachelor had returned from his honeymoon with a deep tan and a gloating satisfaction that turned to something like pity whenever Kyle teased him about rushing home to the ball and chain.

      “No,” Lani said, growing thoughtful. She blotted her bright red lips on a tissue. “You look like a man so thick he doesn’t even realize he’s lonesome.”

      “Thick, huh?” Kyle patted his midsection, kept flat by rigorous workouts in the hotel’s employee gym. He spent too many hours behind his desk not to adhere to a daily exercise regimen.

      Lani sighed dramatically. Ever since he’d broken up his last “relationship” without turning a hair, she’d claimed he was a hopeless case. Yet she refused to give up hope. “The operative word was lonesome. ”

      “I’m alone, not lonesome.”

      “You don’t have to be either. If you’d just accept the birthday party invita—”

      “I’m surrounded by people all day, every day,” Kyle countered, even if that proved his thickness. He’d rather play obtuse than get into the same old debate with Lani, including her pushing him to make amends with his family. His secretary thought he needed to get a life. Kyle believed his job was his life.

      Lani stood and hefted her bag by its shoulder strap. “If we’re done for the day, I’m outta here, boss. Prospect Number Five is meeting me for drinks in the Manzanita Lounge.” She paused in the office doorway, looking like a puffed-up pigeon teetering forward from her precarious perch on a pair of steep sandals. “You wouldn’t care to join us? Sit and talk to real people face-to-face for a change? You know, the nonemployee kind?”

      “No thanks,” Kyle declined without regret. “You’re done for the day. I’m not.”

      She clucked. “Ain’t that the truth?” She pointed a plump finger at him. “I’m warning you—fuddy-duddy. Before you’re forty.”

      He waved her away, then returned to what Lani forbiddingly termed the inner sanctum, an expansive office that was his home away from home since his promotion to resort manager. In that time he’d overseen the completion of the multimillion-dollar water park, brought in Gavin as one of his assistant managers, set up a new reservations system that would soon be implemented nationwide and seen the resort’s profit margin increase substantially.

      True, his personal life had suffered for all the work, including his love life. Everyone had said that Jenna, his last on-again, off-again girlfriend, was perfect for him. Everyone but the two of them, which was why ending it had been so easy.

      Kyle sat behind his desk. This was where he belonged. The lack of personal relationships didn’t bother him, despite his secretary’s concern. Especially now that his extreme dedication for the past three years was about to pay off.

      Big-time.

      For months, the prospect of the impending performance review had been a spur in his side, propelling him forward with single-minded devotion. It was the homestretch now. He couldn’t afford to slow up for a single stride.

      He removed his suit jacket and cuff links. He loosened his tie. He took his cell phone out of his pants pocket and switched over to voice mail before tossing it aside. The device skidded across the surface and glanced off the single framed photograph on the desk.

      Automatically, he reached out to right the photograph of his family—a group of ne’er-do-wells if ever there was one. Its presence on his desk was Lani’s doing, a replacement for Jenna’s head shot. Also an irritating distraction. Abruptly he thrust the photo away, facedown.

      A tap of the mouse brought his computer out of sleep mode. He sat and rolled his chair closer to the desk. Time for serious work.

      After forty-five minutes