As Sarah pocketed the phone and stepped away from the desk, Caleb reached behind him then produced a large brass key ring with an old brass key and a matching worn, oval fob that read140. “Looking for this?”
“A real key!” She gripped it in her fist, loving its sturdy, heavy feel for reasons she couldn’t decipher, as a long-ago image teased her from a place just beyond her memory. Then, quick as the almost-recollection came, it flitted away. “I haven’t seen an actual hotel key in years. What a nice touch.”
His wide eyes and gentle smile surprised her. Engaged her. Even impressed her, since she had the feeling he and his staff hadn’t received many compliments or kind words today. “I didn’t mean to walk in on your conversation.”
“Social media is both the best advertising and the worst.” Caleb stepped around the desk to her, his smile still intact, genuine. Up close now, he smelled of pine with a hint of leather—the kind of subtle cologne that made you want to lean closer and breathe it in. “The posts Sarah just showed me fall into the ‘worst’ category.”
“How bad?”
“Dillon Hinckley checked out yesterday. This morning, he posted a picture of his room—number 203—then gave us two stars and wrote, ‘Does anybody even care about this place?’”
Ariel mock-scowled in return. “The famous travel blogger. That’s the worst for a hotel, yet you can still smile. Genuinely.”
“The entertainment industry—the hospitality industry too, apparently—teaches us to toughen our hides.”
And to bury the disappointment and pain.
“That’s the hardest thing about living in the public eye,” she said. “Fighting to stay upbeat and yet authentic in private, in public, and in the media.”
“And move on instead of wallowing in the muck.”
“Right.” A long-ago memory suddenly surfaced, and Ariel giggled and laid her hand on his impressive bicep for a moment. “But getting a few bad hotel reviews isn’t as bad as the time last year when that woman ran onstage and proposed to you during a concert.”
A slow smile softened his face, his dark-brown eyes crinkling and—oh, my word, didn’t it just make him even more handsome? “I never did figure out how she got past security and onto the stage. With flowers and everything.”
“I felt a little sorry for her.”
“I didn’t at the time. While security struggled with her, trying to get her offstage, I got smacked in the back of the head with a mic stand and had a goose egg for a week.”
The way he said it, pretending irritation, made her laugh. Caleb smiled and moved a little closer, and she removed her hand from his arm.
“I don’t hear much laughter here.” He lowered his voice. “I’m glad you came to this run-down hotel. Even though it was second choice.”
“I’m glad too.”
“Anything else I can do for you?”
She hesitated, unsure whether to ask for a favor, in light of the day he’d had. “Maybe I should wait.”
“No, tell me. I owe you one.”
“Actually, you don’t, since you did me the first favor the night of the Dove Awards. But…” After a moment’s thought, she jumped right in. “Do you have a moment for a quick question?”
“Yeah, but I’m starving, and you probably are too. Since the check-in rush is over, we can grab a bite at the restaurant.” He gestured toward a door with an 1852 Island Grill sign above it. “Maybe on the patio.”
Oh, he’d touched her sweet spot. “Whenever I eat outside, I feel as if someone gave me a present.”
“I love to give presents.” He offered his arm.
Ariel hesitated, recalling her aunt’s vow to Daddy.
She knew better, but both her father and her aunt would definitely call this romantic.
When the Sweetheart of Nashville had crossed his lobby with the grace of a dancer, her smile tentative and the hem of her long pink dress swaying softly around her cowboy boots, Caleb had braced himself, refusing to let his thoughts stray in the direction they wanted to go. Experience had told him years ago that he couldn’t give a woman the security she needed until he figured out whether he wanted the life of a musician or an innkeeper.
Technically, his former fiancée, Stephanie, had told him. Either way, truth was truth.
After two weeks away from the music, the stage, and the fans, he’d have liked nothing more than to spend a quiet evening with a sweet, pretty woman who still lived the life he’d loved and feared he’d lose. One who knew the close and almost spiritual bond among a band who regularly opened their hearts to each other and an audience as they expressed life, love, heartache, and faith together. Who’d experienced the rush of being a small part of something unexplainable, bigger than mere sound.
