“Ask a friend?”
He thought about that. “She’s close to her cousin Dani Stone.”
“Dani knows everything that goes on here. But you’ll want to make it special somehow, not just stream the movie onto the TV in her suite.”
When Blake left, Caleb called Dani and explained his dilemma.
“Easy. She loves Cary Grant movies.Arsenic and Old Laceis her favorite. Plus it’s good for a first date because it’s a comedy/romance. Dark comedy, but funny.”
“Comedy is better than a romantic movie?”
“Laughter can make a first date less awkward.”
Dani asked about Miss Dahlia’s emergency, and after Caleb explained the situation, he hung up and gave some thought to Blake’s remark about making their date special.
Then he remembered their meal together during her first night on island.Whenever I eat outside, I feel as if someone gave me a present.
Caleb made some calls, then met with Marcus, the chef, to plan the meal.
Half an hour later, from his office desk, Caleb caught sight of Ariel near the breakfast bar, reaching for a slice of sourdough, her damp hair flowing down the back of her light-yellow dress. Uncle Augo’s dachshund, Lucy, followed, her toenails playing little staccato taps on the wood floors. Poor little dog must be lonely with her master gone.
In need of more coffee, Caleb met Ariel in the lobby. Picked up Lucy, who snuggled her nose in the crook of his elbow.
Ariel’s beautiful smile of encouragement touched his heart. The smile the entire country and much of the world knew and loved. The one that proved her public image true—Ariel Sullivan was the same sweet woman onstage and off, with a crowd or with just one rather ordinary man, in the pew or down on her knees, retrieving the table knife she’d just dropped under the breakfast bar.
At that moment, he knew he’d never find another woman like Ariel. One who could take his breath away with a silly grin as she stood and brushed dust from her knees. One who knew when he was in over his head, somehow sensed his panic from across the room, and grounded and calmed him. One who’d even softened the heart of his cranky, bossy, hard-to-please grandfather.
For all the terror the realization sent to his heart, Caleb knew that if she left before he told her how he felt, he’d regret it the rest of his life. Because he had a feeling that if he let her go, he’d never see her again.
Or maybe in passing, if she came home to see her family or play another concert. But the connection they’d shared since her first day here? He’d never find that back.
He had no intention of that happening. “Pick you up at your suite at eight?”
Her eyes sparkling, Ariel gave a quick nod as her toast popped up. She added her usual peanut butter and butter, then gave him a little finger-wave as she carried her breakfast toward the parlor.
Caleb took a moment and walked around the quiet lobby, imagining the entire hotel filled with great old furniture, guest rooms full, happy customers enjoying the lobby fireplace and the parlor, uplifting songs by Miss Dahlia and Ariel piping through new lobby speakers. Noise and beauty and good music instead of icy silence and dreary surroundings and gloom.
The gloom…
It was more than dark clouds and downturned lips. Gloom stuck to people, sucked the life out. Made them grouchy.
Maybe gloom helped make Granddad grouchy. The gloom of a mostly empty hotel. Of a grandson he didn’t understand.
Of a generations-old legacy slipping through shaky, wrinkled fingers.
Suddenly, Caleb had enough silence and emptiness. He strode into the parlor, where Ariel sat sipping her iced tea at one of the big tables.
“Have any of those CDs you carry around?”
“Five or six.” She opened her purse and pulled out an assortment of their albums. “What would you like?”
“Anything that will chase away the melancholy in this place.”
Ariel selected one and gave it to him.
Caleb returned to the lobby, still carrying the contented dog, and stopped the dreary music someone had put in the player earlier. Inserted Ariel’s disc and turned it up. Her beautiful voice went a long way toward making this place feel more upbeat.
Even though he needed to replace this thirty-year-old, outdated sound system.
