That was it. He was gone, and I felt some strange draw to this man who was sexy, yet all business, which made absolutely no sense. By lunchtime, I’d forced myself to put the guy way out of my mind.
I was leaving for the day when my supervisor, Maddie, called me into her office. Tripping over my own feet, I stepped over the threshold, but didn’t sit down. “Is everything okay, Maddie?” I asked as I stood behind the enormous dark green club chair opposite her desk.
“Everything is fine, Bess,” Maddie said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Never any problems with you, honey. But today I had a visit from a gentleman staying at the hotel with a very strange request. He wants you to join him for dinner tomorrow. In fact, he extended his stay by one night to make time for you.”
I felt my brow furrow in confusion. “I don’t understand. I didn’t even talk to anyone today. Who would want to have dinner with me?”
Maddie motioned for me to sit and leaned forward. “His name is Lane Wrigley. Apparently he’s some hotel industry big shot here on official business. Do you know who he is? Did you ever meet him before? Hear of him?”
Sliding into the seat, I shook my head. “No. I’ve never heard of him before. Ever. I’ve been living here in this small town since I left college—you know that. How would I know some hotel biz guy?”
Maddie narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t think you did, but I went to upper management with his request, and they want you to go. They want to know what the man wants. Maybe he’s looking into the inside of operations here.”
I blew out a breath and said, “I don’t even know who you’re talking about, Maddie. You know I keep to myself. This is nuts. I’m a waitress, and now the boss guys want me to play corporate espionage?”
Completely ignoring my protests, Maggie rattled off, “Tall guy, black hair, blue eyes, wearing a suit. He ate with us today. Maybe you saw him in the restaurant?”
Surprised, I sat up straighter and said, “Oh, him. Yeah, he was all spooky. At first he stared at me, then he just ignored me. I don’t think so, Maddie.” I stood up, prepared to leave for the day, but Maddie pulled out all the stops.
My supervisor stood up and walked around the desk toward me with wide eyes. “Listen, Bess, just go and see what he wants. It will reflect well on me, with my bosses. The top brass apparently want to hire him, they feel like they need him.” Her tone turned pleading as she added, “I’ll even give you a paid day off the next day.”
I rose out of the chair. “I don’t want a paid day off. I don’t like being off, you know that. But fine, I’ll do it, but it has to be early. Like five o’clock tomorrow, because I will be at work the day after.”
As I walked out of her office, I heard Maddie yelling, “Swing by tomorrow and I’ll confirm the details. Thank you, Bess.”
I didn’t even bother to change as I was leaving. Instead, I went straight home, let Brooks out, ate a lonely dinner for one, and did something I hadn’t done in a long while.
Later that night, I pulled into the mostly vacant church parking lot and sat in the driver’s seat with the car idling. I was early, eager to get somewhere I never wanted to go, and I was sweating. A cold, nervous chill overtook me, sending fine tremors over my entire body. Beads of perspiration dripped down my sides, lined the nape of my neck under my long and heavy hair, and slid uncomfortably down my back and into my ass crack as I watched other cars pull in alongside mine.
Allowing everyone else to exit their cars first, I waited. I wanted to slip into the basement meeting room unobtrusively, to be invisible; I wanted my long absence from the meetings to go unnoticed.
I pulled a ball cap over my hair, tugging the bill of it low, and glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror before I finally opened the door of my SUV. Then I forced myself to turn and threw my jeans-clad legs out of the vehicle, planted both my feet on the ground, and willed them to walk toward my destination.
Move, Bess.
I did. Slowly at first, before eating up the concrete in my comfy, reassuring Nikes, hurrying to do what I needed to do before I chickened out.
When I tugged the door open, it creaked and clanged loudly, drawing unwanted attention to me as I stood hesitantly in the doorway. My eyes stung and I started to turn back around before I felt a large hand on my arm.
“Stay, Bess. It’s okay. You’ll be okay. No hard feelings,” said a gravelly voice, raspy from cigarettes, warm from coffee, and soothing like a blanket in front of a fire on a cold night.
I nodded my head, unable to form the words, and finally sputtered, “Thanks, AJ.”
My sponsor wrapped his arm around me and guided me to a seat next to him. Big and strong, with his shirt and jeans smelling of the outdoors and his latest construction job, AJ’s comforting presence quieted my jangling nerves.
Sitting on my hands, squelching my need to fidget or pick at my dark red nail polish, I listened intently to the others’ stories of perseverance and strength while wrapped tight in the soft embrace of my sweater.
I didn’t share or talk, only absorbed the stories of others’ struggles, finding some inspiration in their strength. And then I went home to my cabin, crawled into bed still wearing my clothes, and held my dog.
Lane
On my second night at the resort, I took the front desk girl up on her unspoken offer to have a drink together. Clearly I was having some sort of existential breakdown after changing my flight, asking a waitress to dinner, and basically rescheduling twenty-four hours of my busy life for an absolute nobody.
Well, not really a nobody if I were honest with myself. Which I rarely was anymore.
She was the woman—the girl—I dreamed about nightly, along with the tattoo of a crying eye. That image lurked in the back of my mind, judging me when my own two eyes closed at night.
Still, these weren’t risks I took on a day-to-day basis. Or ever, for that matter.
My outer shell formed the day I became an orphan. It hardened as I matured until it became impermeable, and my professional persona as a businessman was locked into place. I was smart—the one widely known fact was I turned down Vanderbilt, the Harvard of the South, choosing instead to enroll in an “accelerated program” at the University of Pittsburgh. At least, that was what my bio read.
I didn’t wheel and deal or make concessions. I was stubborn and formidable, determined and tough as nails.
Don’t let my wild hair and trendy appearance fool you.
The women who were in and out of my bedroom weren’t needy; they knew the score. Sex, dinner, companionship, and that was it. I traveled, worked, and fucked. I didn’t take phone calls, and I didn’t respond to texts when pets died or friends fought or there was a sad movie on TV.
In an effort to appear as though I interacted with employees low on the totem pole at all the establishments I did business with, I met Cara, the bubbly, all-too-cheerful, and way-too-willing blond receptionist for a nightcap.
Of course, I didn’t mean to take her to bed. But I did.
Ever since I’d screwed Lexie’s brains out, sex had become nothing more than another challenge to me, a presumed competition to be the best lover, a man who knew his way around every inch of flesh on a woman. I wanted to be a gentleman in a suit by day, a lion in the bedroom by night.
After a few beverages in a dark corner of the bar, I stood to escort Cara to the elevator, my hand drifting to the small of her back as she stood from her chair.
She leaned in and whispered close to my ear, “Let’s be discreet. You go up first and I’ll follow behind. I know your room number.”
Ignoring what she said, since it was ridiculous, I never let go of her back.
Once we were upstairs, she slowly stripped for me, revealing black thigh-highs and ample breasts. I spent some time licking and sucking those tits, not allowing my mouth to wander up to her lips.
That was not something I did with regularity. Mouth on mouth reeked of feelings and intimacy. Something else I didn’t do.
Sh
e kept making these awful fake moans. “Ooh, Lane, or should I call you sir? Ooh, ah, ooh. You are a naughty CEO.” She sounded like a dying cat, and I could almost see her counting my money in her head.
I knew that look well from the ladies back home. The women who never got a call back—they also made those money-hungry faces masked as lust.
My hand slipped between her thighs and the wide-eyed, bushy-tailed small-town girl was sopping wet for me.
“Ooh-ooh—ooh.”
I kept thinking, Please shut up. I’m going to lose my hard-on.
Too bad. Not all of the lionesses could meet my prowess, and Cara was a poor match for me. The woman might be competent working behind a desk, but she truly lacked dick-sucking skills, not to mention the ridiculous noises she made.
A brand spanking new fantasy rolled through my head—visions of a lonely, yet seductive waitress dressed in navy slacks and a little matching vest, her long hair spread down around her neck—and I came silently.
Is she in the building?
With nothing else to do with my newly found day off, I stayed confined to my suite, ordering both breakfast and lunch from room service. I’d already made up my mind to do business with the WildFlower. They were a legitimate resort despite being in a rural cesspool, and I could make a good bit of cash from their contract, so I had absolutely no reason to stay other than my dinner date.
I wasted my day alternating between banging on my laptop, doing push-ups and sit-ups, and contemplating what I would say to Bess. My mind ran through a million and one scenarios including lies and half truths, but the whole truth was the only one that sat well with me.
Except somehow, I knew I wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t even sure if I knew the truth anymore.
Yeah, I’d made myself into some type of ice-cold, unfeeling, all-business machine over the years, but when it came to this girl, I had a little soft spot that grew wider by the minute. Over the years, I’d contemplated what she’d been doing, and if she’d even survived. If she had, I wondered if her friend ever told her about the random guy who semi-helped and yet semi-ditched her.
After I’d taken Lexie to bed that ill-fated evening, I’d sneaked into the bathroom and called the emergency room, pretending to be a cousin when I asked after someone I had no business inquiring about. “I’m calling about a young woman, Bess, brought in after almost overdosing?”
They’d only said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we really can’t give you any information.”
And I’d begged, “Please, I just need to know she’s alive, that’s all.” I’d added, “Our family is so worried, we haven’t heard anything yet and we just need to know that she’s still . . . with us.”
I’d known nothing about the young woman or her family, but I’d been desperate to know she survived. “Please,” I’d said again, this time my voice raspy.
“I shouldn’t say anything,” the woman finally said in a low voice, “but she is alive. She was discharged with her father an hour or so ago. Hope she makes it.” Then the line had gone dead. With a quick click, that had been the last I’d heard or known about Bess.
And here she was—waiting tables in a fine resort in the middle of absolutely nowhere, working for what happened to be a potential client of mine.
Not able to dwell anymore, I grabbed the phone and dialed the spa.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wrigley. How can I assist you today?”
“I would like a massage in my room. Can you accommodate me on such short notice?”
“Certainly. Let’s see, how is half past two? I can send someone up then.”
“Good. That works. A female, please.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Wrigley.”
“Thanks,” I said before slipping the handset back into the cradle.
With only twenty-two minutes left to waste before my brief respite arrived, I texted my brother.
ME: Hey, what’s up? I’m in PA. Saw Grandma and Grandpa’s graves before heading to the mountains for a meeting. You good?
It took about five minutes before my phone beeped with a response.
JAKE: Hey there, you responsible little fuck. Good for you, you visited. I don’t do fucking cemeteries. They don’t know you visited. You could have seen me instead.
ME: Yeah, I know. My bad. Listen, I’ll call you from home and we’ll set something up. OK?
JAKE: OK, fuckface.
On that endnote, I powered the phone down and waited for the masseuse to arrive with her table and, hopefully, her magic hands. Hands that would help me stop obsessing over the past and the unknown future for at least an hour.
Which they somewhat did—until it was time for me to jump in the shower and clean up for dinner.
I was a man obsessed, a completely new brand of Lane Wrigley. All because a girl I had never formally met, whose name I only knew from hearing her friend screaming it, had broken through my shell and touched my soul. In my head, I knew it was all wrong, and that I should get in my rental and leave the state of Pennsylvania faster than I came, but I couldn’t.
In a pair of jeans and a freshly pressed designer long-sleeved T-shirt, I made my way to the quiet tavern for dinner at a quarter after five. Management had insisted dinner be early, and I didn’t want to argue. But it did feel a bit strange to eat hours before I normally even finished working.
None of it mattered because there she sat, hands in her lap, semi-watching the television behind the bar, her hair down, drifting around her shoulders, hiding her long lashes and profile. I took a moment to watch, trying to convince myself to turn and walk away. To run, like I originally had to Florida. I should just hurry back home to the beach and my lonely diet of work and women—women who needed nothing from me.
Bess. The girl I’d harbored an ongoing fascination for since the night we met, and since then had carried a borderline mental obsession with the exact episode that led to meeting her.
The girl who so obviously was a mess and needed help, the young woman I left in the care of a belligerent EMT who was annoyed to be called out on a Friday night to help a strung-out, presumably spoiled college girl. While I went home and screwed my brother’s flavor of the week.
Bess, the girl I had abandoned, was my one chance at redeeming myself. No longer a girl, she was now a grown-up woman who clearly had no recollection of ever meeting me, now waited tables in Pennsylvania for a living, and had just lifted her head and caught me staring at her.
I moved toward her with purpose and authority; after all, I’d called this business dinner. Approaching the table with my hand out, offering to shake hers, I said, “Hi, I’m Lane Wrigley.”
Clearly apprehensive, she stood and warily brought her small palm to meet mine, and shook my hand while saying, “Bess. Bess Williams.”
A small tingle ran between her hand and mine. Not love at first sight or any of that crap, not a burning desire that ran straight to my dick. It was more an electric current, a familiar one—at least for me. I remembered checking her for a pulse with her girlfriend screaming in my ear, her small palm limp and lifeless in my hand.
Now her hand was warm and once again tucked inside my own. Irrationally, I felt as if she held my heart within her hand, the heart that beat life into my body, and that I might arrest if I let her hand go.
I should have been telling her, No, please, don’t stand. Have a seat. But I was so transfixed with our fingers touching, with her natural scent—neither stale nor perfumed, but fresh—affecting me. So I stood there for a heartbeat too long, simply holding her hand as I enjoyed the moment.
Her head tilted a bit to the side as she studied me, silently asking with her eyes why she was here. She was obviously not entertained or the slightest bit excited by my dinner request, let alone with my inability to release her hand.
When I finally let go, her arm dropped back to her side, and she gazed down at the tiny pulse beating in her wrist. Perhaps she felt it too? Then she sat back down.
Sitting down across from the woman of my obsessions, I
leaned in and spoke. “Bess, it’s so nice to meet you. I’m sure you’re curious as to why I invited you here.”
This was where I meant to tell her the truth. At the very least, the part that related to her. Not everything; not even the most well-equipped, overly trained shrink was prepared to handle that news.
I should know. I had one of those back home.
After finally being in the obviously confused girl’s presence for a few moments, I gathered she’d become a private, self-contained person. No longer the wild coed reeking of booze and all-night partying, this was a young lady who would not appreciate me bringing up the sordid details of the past.
Clearing my throat, I continued. “Well, Bess, I run a fairly large hotel management company. We provide software that monitors and graphs all functions of the hotel from occupancy to profit to soaps used, and then my staff interprets that information in a million different ways for management. The WildFlower would like to do business with me, and I want to really get to know their operations and staff first.”
“Oh.” She relaxed slightly, sitting back more comfortably in her chair as she out let a sigh of what appeared to be relief. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Wrigley,” she said, her hands still clasped in her lap.
I leaned forward in my chair, keeping eye contact as I added, “Lane, please. I hope it’s okay I call you Bess?”
“Yes. That’s fine. So, what can I tell you about the WildFlower?”
My pulse rate ramped up at the idea of her wanting to get right down to business and hurry up with our dinner. Wanting to slow things down a bit, I changed tactics.
“How about we order a drink?” I suggested. “Something to eat? And then we can get to the nitty-gritty? Sound good?”
She nodded her head but made no move to pick up a menu. I waved for the server, who rushed over and gave Bess a big smile and quick greeting before asking what he could bring us.
The Crossroads Duet Page 3
