All My Exes Live in Texas

by Aimee Gilchrist

  In the lobby, I spotted Jillian, the head concierge, Finn, the head bellboy, and Eve, the day clerk, along with all of our day staff and a few temps hired for the holiday festivities. Even Si and Ikaika were moving through the crowd, trying hard to be circumspect. Every member of the staff, even the night workers, would be present for the start of the festivities later. Alex was working a crowd of bikini-clad girls barely old enough to be legal. Who wore a bikini on December twenty-third? It was Hawaii, but jeez. Draw the line somewhere. I would have judged him—I kind of wanted to anyway—but I knew girls like that were part of the lifeblood of Aloha Lagoon. Both the resort and the town. If they were happy, the coffers would also be. Alex knew how to work a crowd, and that was exactly what he was doing.

  Who I did not see was Mallory. I wouldn't fire her. She'd been my assistant for three years, and our parents were best friends, though my own relationship with Mallory, who was ten years my junior, was slight. However, this was a serious infraction, and if I found out she'd disappeared with some surfer, I'd have to give her some kind of reprimand. I needed an assistant who could be trusted on one of the most important business days of the year, even if it took a write-up to do that. I didn't make friends with employees. It wasn't appropriate, but it was difficult not to be fond of someone who had worked beside you for years. I didn't want to play the tough guy.

  I radioed Alex, not the slightest bit guilty for scaring the girl who was already hanging off his chest. She'd only met him ten minutes ago! Once again, draw the line somewhere.

  "This is Charlotte Conner. Alex Cho, please identify."

  Alex looked straight at me, even though he hadn't so much as glanced my way since the crowd had started to arrive. How had he even known where I was? "Looking right at you, Charlie," he said, ignoring the proper identification.

  I sighed. He heard it, and his mouth curved up in one of those grins that was likely to be irresistible to every woman in the room, aside from me, of course. And only then because I spent all of my time very focused on ensuring it was not. Very slowly, in his low and openly flirtatious voice, he said, "This is Alex Cho. How can I service you, Boss?"

  It took a minute to control the hot wash of irritation he always seemed to bring up inside of me. If only I could control the emotions he churned up in me as easily as I could control everything else in my life. I took a long, slow breath and carefully asked, "Have you seen Mallory?"

  The expression changed, and he was all business suddenly. I could practically read the process his brain was going through. He was looking for a mental connection to the last time he'd seen her. Realizing it wasn't recently. Starting to wonder if he should be worried. I'd been through all of it already.

  He shook his head, his tinny voice carrying through the wire. "No. I haven't seen her since this morning. When did you see her last?"

  "Right before I spoke to you in my office. I'm a little concerned."

  I watched his chest rise and fall with a harsh breath. "I'm sure it's fine. She's starting to relax a little. Maybe she found someone to hang with instead of working."

  If she had learned to relax quite that much, she was on her way to a formal write-up, but there was no reason to say it. There was no question Alex already knew. He got away with things I'd never allow in another employee, but if he disappeared on the first day of high season, or Christmas, he would be out the door.

  "I'm coming over. We'll look for her."

  Before I could object, he dislodged the little brunette still clinging to his shirt and strode through the crowd, reaching my side so quickly that it made our radio conversation seem kind of ridiculous in retrospect.

  "There are a lot of guests," I objected. "We need to be working."

  He grabbed my arm and directed me to a much-quieter part of the lobby, near the hall to the administration offices. "Where were you guys when you saw her last?"

  I pointed toward the front door. "She took me out to see the big palm. Remember, the lights weren't working? I asked her to have you meet me in my office. That was it. I haven't seen or heard from her since."

  He rubbed his chin, lost in thought. He needed to shave. This was a business. I said nothing though. AL wasn't the type of town where people shaved, even when it was a business.

  "That's the last I heard from her, too."

  The sound of tinkling wind chimes, magnified loudly enough to be heard by the entire crowd, was our cue to return to the lobby. It was time, and Mallory would have to wait. I'd seen videos of the last manager, Phillip, from last Christmas and the six years before. I knew the drill. Because I didn't speak the language, I couldn't be quite as proactive as he was. I also didn't have a wife, so I couldn't lay a kiss on her underneath the mistletoe to commence the festivities. But I had public speaking skills, and I had Alex Cho, who did speak the language. We'd make do.

  We made our way to the ballroom, the crowd we'd been battling filing into the room agitated, like hungry school children headed for lunch. The buzz of excitement in the crowd would have been heady if I wasn't still reeling from my breakup with Christmas. It would have been a few years ago. Before Jared ruined everything, I'd spent every Christmas seeking out the best decorations, the fullest trees, the brightest lights. If Christmas wasn't for everything sparkly and gorgeous, I couldn't imagine what was. My obsessive love of Christmas had been the only shred of whimsy I'd ever possessed, and I'd lost it. Only cold practicality remained. I pasted on a fake smile and followed Alex to the stage.

  The resort was understated elegance in every way, as every Freemont resort was, but the Christmas bug had bitten everyone but me, and decorations made this room festive. Brightly colored lights and boughs of holly were festooned from one pillar to the next all along the room. A huge Christmas tree was set up in the corner, already decorated with silver and blue glass balls. Electricity moved through the small sea of guests, faces all turned my way. I waved to the assembled crowd.

  "Hello. For those who come every Christmas to celebrate with us here at the Aloha Lagoon Resort and Spa, you might not recognize me. Earlier this year, the Aloha Lagoon family was saddened to lose our general manager, Phillip Kealoha. My name is Charlotte Conner, and I'm currently the general manager here. I hope I will start a new tradition of seeing you here every year. Merry Christmas to all of you, and we hope you enjoy the next week of festivities!"

  I smiled, but they were empty words. The faster I could get out of Aloha Lagoon, the resort and the town, the happier I'd be. I could only hope some other poor shmuck from corporate would be standing here, suffering this celebration, by the time next year rolled around.

  Alex took over for me, speaking the same message in Hawaiian. The likelihood that anyone in this crowd could even understand Hawaiian was slim, but they came for the atmosphere, and they loved it when the words were spoken. I couldn't help but be a little impressed, even though I knew he'd been raised in Hawaii. It was a difficult language, spoken by very few people, and there was little of it that I understood beyond aloha and Mele Kalikimaka, of course.

  When he finished, he flashed a much more sincere smile to the crowd, and we started to move off the stage, waiting to give the cue to the band. It started small, the faint noise of someone chanting in the crowd. Within seconds the chorus of "kiss, kiss, kiss" was floating in the air. Really? We weren't Phillip and his wife here, people.

  Alex glanced at me, then up at the mistletoe for a long second. Then he shrugged and pulled me forward. With the amount of force he used pulling me back to his side, I expected him to lay one on me with violence. I was ready for that. One kiss, and we could go away and do something actually useful. Only that wasn't what he did at all. For a second he just stared at me, dark eyes inscrutable. Then he lowered his head and pressed a butterfly-soft kiss to mostly my bottom lip.

  It was barely a touch. My skin prickled. Work. This was for work. For the crowd. It was just a show. Nothing to it. I was just simply not going to think about it. One mindless little kiss. Not a problem. I wou
ld not concentrate on the fact that this was Alex, the man who embodied everything I didn't want to like about Aloha Lagoon. I was definitely not going to concentrate on the way he smelled, like something warm and exotic, or the texture of his threadbare shirt, the heat of his skin radiating from underneath. I was not going to zero in on his firm, warm lips. Not even a little.

  I was also not going to respond to his mouth parting over mine, breathing in my breath, burning me with his heat. There was the smallest hint of a second where the searing sweep of his tongue burned across my bottom lip. I couldn't stop the harsh pull of my breath, struggling to remain removed from this charade.

  There was a suspended second where we stood, lips open, barely touching, barely breathing, barely moving. As if we'd received some kind of silent message from a mysterious source, we sprung away from each other in unison. Trembling, I barely restrained the urge to wipe my hand over my mouth, destroying everything about the show we'd just put on. The applause from the guests was thunderous. All for that stupid kiss.

  I walked calmly across the stage, giving one more wave and signaling for the band. No matter what, I wouldn't share my feelings with guests. That would be, above all, unprofessional. And that was the one thing I would never be.

  I was going to kill Alexander Cho. I was going to go to his cabin, out there on the beach, and I was going to strangle him in his sleep. Then when I was finished, I would kick him a few dozen times, just to get it all out. I didn't like this resort. I didn't like Christmas. And I especially didn't like Alex, with his smug grins, and his lazy glances, and his tousled hair. I hated the sparks still dancing on the end of my tongue, and I hated my traitorous pulse that thumped at my throat.

  The radio at my side sprang to life. "Hey, Boss, we got a problem." The disembodied voice belonged to Ikaika, a squat, middle-aged Polynesian man who refused to follow any of the rules I tried to create, but who could fix anything on the entire Aloha Lagoon property with only his box of tools and a small coterie of assistants.

  I squeezed my fingers together to stop the trembling before picking up the radio. I felt Alex sidle up next to me, but I refused to even look at him. "What is it, Ikaika?"

  "The waterfall is losing flow. I tried to send a guy in, but it's too slick to place the ladder. I need the crane."

  The waterfall was manmade, but it was gorgeous. The focal point of the party area out behind the main hotel, the fifty-foot water feature was a major part of the festivities that would follow dinner. "I'll be right there."

  I wasn't thrilled to encounter a problem of this magnitude, but I was happy to have an excuse to get away from Alex and away from the party. If we couldn't get the waterfall fixed, a good half of the after-dinner show would be ruined. This was no small issue. I cut through the crowd, all heading to their seats, and headed for the back door. To my chagrin, I eventually realized that Alex wasn't staying in the dining room. He also wasn't headed to his office or off into the night to check on the property. He was coming with me.

  I decided to ignore him. It was better for all of us that way. I picked my way across the sand until I reached the large stonework patio where outdoor parties were held. In just two days, we'd be hosting a wedding right here. For the holiday shows, it was one of our most popular features, and there was no way we could go on without fixing it.

  The twenty lights at the base of the waterfall typically made for an elegant light show. But for the moment they were merely distractions, shining on the sadly slimy back wall of the falls. Ikaika was right. Nothing was flowing but a rather pathetic drip of water right down the middle.

  "Stanley, can you please bring the crane?" The question was spoken immediately next to me. Alex. Talking to a man in our vehicle department. Even he didn't follow the radio rules. How could I expect anyone else to?

  It took Stanley, a balding white man who always looked like he was wearing white linen pajamas, approximately four minutes to work his way from the massive airplane hangar, which acted as our garage, across the sand and to the waterfall. He parked next to the falls and lowered the platform. Ikaika lumbered his way on, and to my surprise, Alex joined him. Ikaika slapped the edge of the crane and yelled in Hawaiian. Really, I needed to learn some, but I kept thinking, hoping, I would be gone before it would be helpful.

  I watched the men directing Stanley in how to position the crane and then flinched at the sight of Ikaika scaling the edge of the crane and disappearing into the mouth that would lead to the metal piping that was clearly blocked. "You're breaking OSHA rules," I shouted the reminder. Of course, they paid me no heed. They didn't want my opinions, and we had exactly half an hour in setting darkness to get this thing fixed before people started coming out.

  Momentarily, I heard Ikaika yell. Water pushed him out of the mouth and spewed him off the side. A scream caught in my throat as Alex reached out and grabbed Ikaika, one hand on his arm, one on the hem of his shirt. I was so riveted to the horror of the impending accident that I couldn't even look at the falls finally pouring out again, just as engineering had intended. A combination of Alex's strength and Ikaika's monkey-like climbing abilities meant that Ikaika was back in the crane within seconds, but it felt like hours.

  Letting out a slow breath, I finally moved my attention back to the waterfall, looking for evidence of what had caused the malfunction. There was a large pool at the bottom, a home for the lights, festively blinking red and green in honor of the holiday, and a filtering system to send the water back up the pipes.

  Horror crept up on me as my brain finally connected the pieces of what I was seeing. It was apparent now what had been blocking the waterfall. White dress, pale twisted limbs, fans of brunette curls, sightless staring eyes. Mallory was not making time with a local surfer. She wasn't about to get a reprimand.

  She wasn't even alive.

  MELE KALIKIMAKA MURDER

  available now!