Cowboy in Disguise

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “He doesn’t really know,” Arabella admitted. Even though he’d teased her unmercifully about going to work at the hotel when she’d first broached the subject of moving to Rambling Rose. “I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was hoping for special favors or something.”

  “Trust me,” Grace assured. “I understand that completely.”

  Arabella remembered then that Grace was involved with Wiley Fortune, who was one of those Fortunes. Considering he was one of Arabella’s cousins, she ought to have more than a vague recollection of meeting him at Larkin’s party.

  But the truth was that she’d been far more interested in the server named Jay than she had been with anyone else.

  “Which position are you applying for?”

  Arabella spread her hands. “I’m not picky. I just want a paycheck so I don’t have to keep sponging off my brother.”

  “Well, then.” Grace extended one arm in the direction of the elevators. “I have a meeting on four. I’ll go up with you.”

  “Um—”

  Grace’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Yes, Jason?”

  “One of the elevators is stuck on the second floor,” Arabella provided because the poor guy looked like he was about ready to choke on his bobbing Adam’s apple. “And the other one seems stuck somewhere also.”

  Arabella heard the faint sigh that Grace exhaled. But her expression was calm and still smiling as she looked at Arabella. “Excuse me for just a second while I take care of that.”

  Arabella wasn’t going to argue. Certainly not with the woman who was not only Brady’s boss, but boss of the whole place. She waited until Grace had disappeared through a doorway behind the reception desk and looked toward Jason again. “Make up your mind about that key yet?”

  Jason cast a quick look over his shoulder toward the doorway. “I think she meant for you to wait for her.”

  Arabella actually had that same impression. But she hadn’t been able to resist asking him the question. “How long have you worked here, Jason?” She felt sure he was the nephew Petunia had mentioned.

  He stood rather stiffly behind the reception desk and after her question he straightened his blue tie. “Since they first opened,” he said proudly. “Two weeks ago I got promoted here to the desk.”

  Grace reappeared. “Maintenance is taking care of the elevators and I buzzed Sybil to let her know why you were delayed. Jason, until the elevators are fixed, be sure to direct anyone needing them to the service bay. One of the girls from housekeeping can escort them to their floor.”

  He nodded. “Yes’m. Um. Ma’am.”

  Grace’s smile gentled. “And one more thing, Jason. Relax. You’re doing fine.” Then she turned to Arabella again. “Shall we?” She led the way out of the lobby.

  There was no sign of the broken leg she’d sustained when the balcony had collapsed and following her, Arabella couldn’t help but admire the confidence in Grace’s bearing.

  Maybe someday she’d exude some of that herself.

  They used the same service elevator that Jay had used back in January and in minutes, Arabella found herself sitting in front of Sybil’s desk.

  “Take good care of her.” Grace’s voice was light as she departed for her meeting. “If she’s anything like her brother, we don’t want her getting away.”

  Left alone with Sybil, Arabella smiled a little awkwardly. “I’m nothing like my brother,” she warned.

  “You’re a Fortune,” Sybil said, sliding a blank job application and a pen across the desk toward Arabella. “That’s the only qualification you’ll need.”

  Arabella picked up the pen and hesitated. “There’s nothing magical about my last name.”

  “Says the person who possesses it.” Sybil’s voice wasn’t unkind. But it was matter-of-fact.

  “I don’t expect to be given preference over another applicant just because I’m related to—”

  Sybil cut her off with a wave of her hand. “You won’t be. Right now, we have more open positions than we do applicants. Just fill out the top section. Name, address, social security number. That stuff. Then sign the bottom. We’re running background checks on new hires, so assuming all that checks out, we’ve got positions available in everything from maintenance to housekeeping to front office to accounting. What sort of experience do you have?”

  Arabella quickly filled in the boxes on the application and added her signature at the bottom. “Most recently, I was an administrative assistant at a plastics manufacturer before I moved to Rambling Rose.” It was true, but Arabella had always considered the title a glorified one considering the scope of her clerical duties. She slid the application back across to Sybil. “I’ve also worked back office at a dental practice, had the ubiquitous phone bank job when I was still in school. Retail work—um, a department store as well as a small independent book—” She broke off when Sybil waved her hand again.

  “When can you start?”

  “Immediately.”

  Sybil made a note on the application and slid it into one of her desk drawers. She rose and rounded her desk. “The trainee program was designed with Rambling Rose locals in mind but we’ll start you there for now. Come with me and we’ll get you set up with a name badge and such. I’ll get a copy of your ID while we’re at it. And then I’ll give you the tour.”

  Getting a job couldn’t possibly be this easy. Feeling bemused, Arabella followed the older woman out of her small office. “What about the background check?”

  Sybil cast her a sideways look. “You’re going to pass it, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes.” Unless occasionally skipping to the last page of a book counted, there was nothing remotely scandalous in Arabella’s background. Still, it hardly seemed prudent to just trust a person’s word on that score, even if one’s surname was Fortune.

  “Then there’s no reason why you can’t start tomorrow—provisionally, of course.”

  They stopped in the security office and Sybil made introductions, then went off to get her copies of Arabella’s proof of ID, while she had her photograph taken and a name badge made up right there on the spot.

  “The badge is an access key. Encoded with your security rights. So don’t lose it and don’t let anyone else use it,” she was instructed when she received the badge.

  Then Sybil returned, and feeling like she was pretending to be something she wasn’t, Arabella fastened the badge on her blouse and hurriedly caught up with Sybil’s ground-eating stride as she started off on the tour.

  She introduced Arabella to every department head and supervisor until Arabella’s head felt like it was spinning. The only person they didn’t see was Brady, and that was undoubtedly because Sybil knew he was Arabella’s brother.

  The dizzying tour ended once more in Sybil’s third-floor office. She poured herself a cup of coffee from a communal pot and sat on the edge of her desk again. “Any questions?”

  Tons. Arabella smiled with more confidence than she felt. “Only two. What time do I start tomorrow and who should I be reporting to when I get here?”

  Sybil looked pleased. “Eight sharp and check in at the front desk. I’ll leave further instructions for you there.”

  “Thank you.” Arabella shook the woman’s hand. “I appreciate the opportunity.”

  “Hope you’ll still feel that way after tomorrow,” Sybil said humorously. She moved around her desk to sit once more and taking her cue, Arabella departed.

  Arabella didn’t need to use her new badge to call the service elevator because an older woman with bright blond hair in a big bun on her head was already entering.

  She held the door and smiled as Arabella joined her. “New here?”

  Arabella nodded, fingering the sparkling new badge. “As of an hour ago, actually.”

  “Well, congratulations!” The woman punched the button for the second floor and afte
r a questioning look at Arabella, hit the first floor button, too. “I’m Mariana. I help run Roja here.”

  “Mariana! You run the flea market, too, don’t you?” Arabella pumped the woman’s hand with genuine pleasure when the other woman nodded. “That’s where Jay’s grandmother sells her jams.”

  Mariana looked delighted. “You know Jay Cross? I remember when he was just a skinny little rug rat. He’s sure grown into a handsome man.”

  Arabella flushed. “We’ve met,” she allowed. “Brady talks a lot about you. He says the boys love going out there because of all the food trucks. Yours is the original one, right?”

  Mariana laughed even more merrily as she nodded. “Food trucks have come a long way these days from our humble roach-coach beginnings.” She touched the badge on her own buxom breast. “Some might say the same thing about me.” The elevator lurched slightly and the door opened. “Come by Roja soon and tell me how you’re settling in.” She left the elevator, stepping around the tall ladder just outside of the car. “Hey there, Jet-pack,” she said on her way. “Were your ears burning?”

  When Jay maneuvered the ladder into the elevator, she wanted to disappear through the padded walls. She’d known the chances of running into him around the hotel were good. But she hadn’t really thought it would happen like this.

  He looked equally surprised to see her. “Bella. You’re—”

  “On staff here.” She flicked her name badge and tried not to get drawn in by his emerald eyes as the elevator doors closed yet again.

  “I see that.” He shifted the ladder until it was leaning against the padded wall. “What department?”

  She shrugged. “No idea. I’m starting off in the trainee program tomorrow.”

  “Same as me, then.” He smiled. “Be prepared to try your hand at everything from cleaning toilets to delivering room service.”

  “And hefting ladders, evidently.”

  “I was helping maintenance with the elevators.” He hooked his arm over one of the rungs and his fingers hung loosely on her side of the ladder. If she moved even half a foot, they’d brush against her.

  She pressed her back harder against the padding as if to warn herself not to move toward those callused fingertips. “You’ve been here for how long now? Six months?”

  “Little past that.”

  “Is it common to stay in the trainee program that long?”

  “Is that your way of suggesting I’m doomed to be a perpetual trainee?” His teeth flashed. “When I joined the program, they said it was designed to last about a year. After which, theoretically, the person should be ready to move into one of the junior management positions.”

  “What sort of management—” She broke off when the elevator doors slid open.

  She hadn’t even been aware that the car had stopped moving.

  Still holding the ladder propped against his shoulder, Jay shifted sideways until his back was pressed against the edge of the door. “After you.”

  She detached herself from the padded wall and quickly stepped out of the elevator. It meant passing him even more closely and she only realized she’d been holding her breath when it escaped after she’d put half the width of the corridor between them. Whether or not he’d ignored her for more than a week, walking away without saying some sort of goodbye felt rude.

  “Well.” She pressed her palms together. “Guess I’ll see you around.” She turned to leave only to bump hard against the corner of one of the empty rolling racks stored against the wall. Feeling like an idiot, she steadied the cart as she moved around it.

  “Bella, wait.”

  It was painful the way her nerve endings tingled so swiftly where he was concerned. She took another sidestep, waving her arm. “I can see you’re busy and I need to get going.”

  “Bella—”

  Her neck prickled. “Arabella, actually. Only my family calls me that.”

  His gaze flickered. “I should have called you this week.”

  Something inside her head sort of popped. “Then why didn’t you?” The words flew out. Cheeks on fire, she backed up again and banged into yet another rack. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

  “It’s not you, it’s—”

  Good grief, she was going to cry at this rate. “Yeah, I know. Sorry if I don’t want to hear another it’s not you, it’s me story. No sweat, you know. You don’t have to explain a thing. We don’t even really know each other.”

  I think you should know that...

  She clamped down hard on that thought, cutting it off at the head.

  “Tell your grandmother thanks again from me. The jam she sent me home with is already gone thanks to my brother and his family.” Afraid of what she might do or say if she let him get a word in edgewise, she quickly turned and mercifully avoided running into another one of the racks as she hurried away.

  It was only divine mercy that kept her feet moving in the proper direction, because she honestly wasn’t sure how she ended up back in the lobby. The couple with the luggage was gone now and a curvy girl in a black T-shirt and trousers was dusting the leather chairs they’d occupied.

  Arabella managed a smile as she sailed past her and out the door. She felt a little compunction for not looking in on Brady, but told herself he would have been busy, anyway.

  Clouds had formed overhead while she’d been inside the hotel, and the air felt heavy and humid. Her car provided no relief, either, and she was grateful to get back to Brady’s place.

  The house was empty—a momentary condition, she felt sure—and with Murphy trailing after her every step, she changed out of her skirt and blouse and into cutoffs and a spaghetti tank and went down to the kitchen.

  “And that’s another deep cut called ‘Lonely Only’ from Carr’s first album that was released nearly ten—”

  Arabella snapped off the droning voice on the radio and opened her arms. Murphy nimbly jumped up into them. She rubbed his ears. “Did you behave?”

  He licked her neck, which wasn’t much of an answer, but was pretty delightful, anyway. She gave him a treat and he jumped out of her arms and darted through the dog door.

  Harper and Brady had taken to leaving notes on the refrigerator for each other in an attempt to keep up with the increasing busyness of their lives. Brady’s schedule. Harper’s menu plans for the coming few days. Another note in Harper’s neat handwriting that said simply Love you.

  The sweet, ordinary things of an ordinary life. Arabella sighed as she traced Harper’s little note.

  How nice it would be to have someone with whom to share that sort of ordinariness.

  Predictably, Jay filled her thoughts and she determinedly shrugged him off along with the clouds inside her mind as she pulled open the refrigerator door.

  The least she could do was get dinner started and according to Harper’s note, the menu du jour was hamburgers on the grill and salad.

  She had the salad and burger patties waiting in the fridge and was poking at the fiery coals in the grill in the backyard when she heard the rumble tumble of the twins inside the house behind her. Several minutes passed, though, before Harper came outside, Murphy on her heels. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

  “Look at you,” Harper greeted her delightedly. “When the boys’ checkups at the clinic went later than I expected, I figured I’d be resorting to PB&J for their supper if I wanted to get them to bed at a reasonable hour.”

  “Just waiting for the coals to get hot.” Arabella hung the poker on the side of the kettle-shaped grill and fit the domed lid in place. She eyed the kiddie pool that Harper was manhandling through the doorway. “Need help?”

  “I’ve got it.” Proof was in the pudding. The hard plastic pool popped out of Harper’s hands and rolled on its side off the edge of the patio, flopped down onto the grass. Murphy went nuts, immediately hopping inside it to sniff every b
lue plastic crevice. “Picked it up at the store on the way home. This humidity is killing, isn’t it?” Harper didn’t wait for an answer as she grabbed the end of the coiled garden hose. “Murphy, come.”

  The dog flopped on his belly and woofed.

  Harper shook her head, resigned. “Get wet, then.” She dropped the end of the hose into the pool and turned on the water.

  Predictably, Murphy yelped. He disliked water as much as he disliked being left alone in a silent house. “Coward,” Harper accused when the dog bolted inside, leaving the dog door swinging wildly.

  With the pool filling, she flopped down onto the deck chair beside Arabella. “So, how’s the job hunt?”

  “I start at the hotel tomorrow.”

  Harper’s eyebrows rose. “I knew you were putting applications in everywhere, but Brady didn’t tell me you were applying there, too.”

  “He didn’t know. They put me in the trainee program.”

  “Well, that’s great!” Harper beamed.

  “What’s great?” Brady stepped out onto the patio. He was loosening the tie that Arabella still found hard to believe he wore to work every day.

  She’d never thought her brother was particularly a suit-and-tie sort of guy. But as the hotel concierge, he was living up to the task as well as the look.

  Harper tilted her face for his kiss. “Arabella’s gotten into the trainee program at Hotel Fortune. She starts tomorrow!”

  Brady gave her a sideways look. “Wondered how long it’d take you to get around applying there.”

  She lifted her chin. “Why’s that?”

  “’Cause that’s where your crush works.”

  She stared him down, refusing to react. When it came to her brothers, she had that down to a fine art.

  When it came to Jay Cross?

  Pure and utter failure.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said with just the right amount of boredom. She got up and turned off the hose because the pool was almost overflowing. Then she lifted the lid on the grill to check the coals and the twins and the dog raced out to join them.