She clearly had no idea who she was dealing with. She thought I workedforthe resort? Hysterical.
But … her idea wasn’t actually ridiculous. In fact, it seemed pretty solid, and I wanted to kick myself for not thinking of it. I was in the business of delighting people, present company excluded, and Mrs. Barclay had been staying with us since before her husband passed. They’d had one relatively well-mannered dog together, and she’d added the other two to fill the void in her life after losing him. The dogs were her reason to get up every day.
I didn’t want to get into it with her. “What’s with the turtle?”
She frowned. “Excuseme?”
“On your lockscreen. The turtle with the flowers.”
“An old friend. Don’t worry about it.”
We stood in the parking lot in a silent stalemate, not sure how to end our unpleasant run-in. I had plenty I needed to deal with back at the resort, yet …
“What?” she demanded.
I must’ve been staring. “Nothing. Do you need anything else, or are we good?”
“I’mgood. Not so sure about you, though. You might want to look into some anger management training. Or maybe puppy exposure therapy, so you can actually recognize when they’re being playful instead of assuming the worst.”
I fought not to bristle. I wasn’t used to being taken to task like this…but more than that, I wasn’t used toneedingit. Usually, I had a much better grip on my temper. She’d caught me in a rare off-kilter moment. But now, my temper had cooled, and I was able to see things clearly again. Mrs. Barclay was likely still grieving her husband and using her dogs to fill the void. I understood firsthand how losing a loved one could alter the brain chemistry.
I pushed the thought out of my head, because this wasn’t the time to stir up memories of my mother.
No, I needed to stay focused on the distractingly gorgeous woman in front of me. One of us needed to walk away. We were done with each other, hopefully for forever, but I felt like my feet were cemented inplace. It was the way she was looking up at me. She didn’t like me one bit, that much was obvious, but the way her eyes lingered on me feltalmostlike appreciation.
It was mutual. Between her perfect chestnut ringlets and porcelain skin, she looked like she’d stepped out of a painting. And the way she kept biting her full bottom lip? Ridiculously adorable. I dared to let my eyes dip to her tantalizing breasts for just a split second and heard her make an exasperated noise.
“That’s it, I’m out,” she said. “Have a nice life, and be kind to animals from now on.”
I tried to come up with a snappy comeback as she stomped back to her car but I was left uncharacteristically speechless.
Didn’t matter. Our paths would never cross again.
3
EMILIA
“What are we in the mood for tonight? Red? White?”
I was on the phone with my bestie Nora as I prowled the liquor store. I felt like I needed to fill a shopping cart after the day I’d just endured.
“You tell me,” Nora chuckled. “You’re the one who sounded the WNN alarm.”
Wine Night Needed. Yeah, I’d texted those three letters to her to let her know that I was going through it, and the only way to get past my shit day was a couple of glasses ofsomethingand a good gossip session.
“How about one of each,” I said as I tucked a chardonnay and a pinot under each arm, then two more for good measure. “And, prosecco!”
“Damn, my girl is stocking up,” she laughed. “I can’t wait for the full download, but can you at least give me the highlights now?”
“Of course,” I replied as I juggled the bottles. “In a nutshell, my first client was an hour late, which meant that the rest of them had to berearranged because of her, which was made exponentially more difficult because I’d gotten tripped by a trio of doxies in the Ashford Luxe lobby.”
I huffed out a breath and continued, “Then I fell and landed flat on my back, dropped my phone, and then accidentally had it swapped out with the phone belonging to the world’s biggest asshole. So then I had to meet up with him to trade them back, further screwing up my day. And Brittany is being beyond high maintenance.” I sighed. “So yeah, I’m cooked now.”
“What’s with the ahole? What did he do?”
“Ugh,” I made a face. “He works at the resort and he looked like he wanted to strangle the poor dogs that accidentally tripped us, along with their owner—Mrs. Barclay, Amanda’s grandmother. I had to intervene and plead her case.”
“Ha,” Nora answered. “I was going to say something about you out for theliteralunderdog, but that word doesn’t really apply totheMrs. Barclay, does it?”
