It was brutal, grueling labor, but a year later, Cain’s efforts paid off. Instead of gold, he discovered a huge deposit of molybdenum, enough to make him rich. Barrett Enterprises was a Fortune 500 company, and the impoverished high school dropout from the nowhere town of Jerome was now a wealthy, respected businessman.
Jenny thought of the painful-looking scars on Cain’s hands. Mining was a dangerous game. After reading the articles, she felt a growing respect for the man she had come to the Grandview to meet.
He turned and saw her, then smiled, and Jenny’s stomach did a little dip. She smiled back, but quelled the attraction she was determined not to feel.
Cain checked the stainless watch on his thick wrist. “Right on time. I figured you would be.”
“You did?”
“Your place runs smoothly. You can’t make that happen unless you’re organized and efficient. Ready for a tour?”
“I am.” She glanced around the entry. It had clearly been rebuilt, but the look of the old place shined through—the dark wood paneling, the beautiful tin ceilings, the polished hardwood floors.
The steady rhythm of hammering sounded in the distance as Jenny followed Cain into the bar. Canvas tarps covered the floors, and men on ladders were working to clean the beamed ceilings. The view across the desert to the distant mountains was spectacular.
Cain showed her the nearly completed bar and the equipment installed to run the place: ice-makers, dishwashers, sinks, glass racks.
“It looks like you’ve spent a lot of time thinking this through,” Jenny said.
“The bones of the place were good when I bought it. We’ve redesigned the building and replaced all the old equipment. I could use some input on the supplies we’ll need, whatever it might take to increase efficiency.”
Jenny just nodded, taking mental inventory as they walked along.
The restaurant was near completion, but not quite finished yet. A wall of windows created a view as spectacular as the one in the bar.
“I need the same kind of input here,” Cain said. “How much of everything we need, right down to the salt and pepper shakers.”
It was a big job full of unknowns. She didn’t really have that kind of expertise, and yet the excitement of a fresh challenge was rushing through her veins.
“I can give you my best estimate.”
He cast her a sideways glance. “I’ll need a little more than that.”
He was pressing her, upping the challenge. “If I take the job, I can handle it,” she said.
Amusement touched his lips, exactly where she shouldn’t have been looking.You’re only human, she told herself, and it had been years since she’d felt the slightest attraction to a man. Her mind strayed to Richard, but she blocked the thought. She refused to let bad memories control her future.
“I’ll show you the meeting rooms. They’re just down the hall.” Past the restaurant, a set of double doors led into a big empty chamber.GRAND VISTA SALON, the sign read.
“All the walls are movable,” Cain said. “One big room or a bunch of smaller ones. Whatever we need.”
There were windows that looked over the valley below and the mountains in the distance. The walls were dark wood that continued the theme of the bar and restaurant.
“Be nice to have meeting rooms available. It’s always been a problem for groups in the area.”
“Problem solved,” Cain said. “Ready to go upstairs?”
“Looking forward to it. What you’ve done up here is nothing short of incredible. It’s all new, and yet it looks as if it were built in the 1920s, which, originally, it was.” Everyone who lived and worked in Jerome knew about the old hotel that had once been a hospital.
She didn’t want to think about the people who had died there or the chilling ghost stories that came from guests who had stayed in the older version of the hotel.
They went up the grand staircase instead of taking the elevator, and Cain gave her a tour of the second floor. The rooms had all been redone, the process nearly completed, and there was a gym at one end. One look at Cain, and it was clear he used the facility.
They walked past the rooms along the hall.
“We want to preserve the feeling of the times,” Cain said. “We’re furnishing each room with antiques or antique reproductions.”
“It’s going to be beautiful.”
