Undercover in Glimmer Creek

by Julianna Morris

  Still, Gabe noticed that the tour didn’t include anything related to security. He just didn’t know if the omission meant anything. Working in Poppy Gold’s security division would have been his top choice, but naturally they did far more extensive background checks on those employees than ones in grounds maintenance. It was likely that his connection to TIP would have been revealed and questioned.

  “Have you found a place to live?” Tessa asked after they returned to the maintenance center. Though located in a modern building, it had a Victorian-style facade that blended well with Poppy Gold’s ambiance.

  “I’ve rented a furnished studio in town.”

  “You were lucky to find something local—we don’t have many rentals in Glimmer Creek. I don’t see any other employees around. They must all be out working. Did Pop tell you what to do for the rest of the day?”

  “Mow the lawns and edge the walkways around these two houses.” He pointed to a map on the wall. “I understand you primarily use electric equipment to minimize noise.”

  “That’s right. We have riding mowers for the large areas, like the old city center park, but whenever possible, we coordinate using them around the guest schedule. Have you been given a locker assignment?”

  Gabe shook his head.

  Tessa unlocked a cabinet, consulted a ledger and gave him a key. “This is to locker 5A—work gloves and other protective gear should be in there already. I’ll let you get started, but be sure to take your breaks and lunch. If you have any questions, check with the reservations desk and they’ll find me.”

  She left quickly, and Gabe wondered if she was eager to get rid of him. Not that he’d blame her. She managed the conference center and surely had more urgent responsibilities than giving new-employee tours and evicting ornery felines from rooms where they weren’t wanted.

  * * *

  TESSA HURRIED ACROSS Poppy Gold to the Glimmer Creek Train Depot. She tried not to be a micromanager, so she had established her office away from Old City Hall. Since she handled most of the business clients, it was also nice to have the quieter work space.

  “Hey, Jamie,” she called to her eighteen-year-old cousin, who was dressed in period costume and talking to a group of schoolchildren.

  Jamie waved back. Close to half of Poppy Gold’s employees were related to Tessa in one way or another. In Jamie’s case, she was Tessa’s maternal uncle Daniel’s daughter and had started working at Poppy Gold Inns right after graduating from Glimmer Creek High. She was rather young for her age, which was why Uncle Daniel and Aunt Emma hadn’t pushed her to leave for college immediately.

  Tessa’s office was on the second floor, and she gazed out the window for a moment, loving the peaceful scene. The abandoned train track had never been torn out, and it ran like a ribbon through the countryside, much overgrown, leading to the old railroad spur turnaround. Only the section that ran along the edge of Poppy Gold was in good condition. On it sat a steam engine and two passenger cars from the 1870s, sparklingly restored, looking as if they had just arrived at the station. Their visitors loved the train, and in peak seasons, the passenger cars were filled with picnickers.

  Tessa thought about the lunch baskets available at the general store, packed with fried chicken, baked ham on biscuits, fresh-baked bread and other goodies. The baskets were more Hollywood illusion than authentic flavors from the 1800s, but they were popular. And there might be things Poppy Gold could do to simulate a train ride.

  She jotted a note in her “idea” book. It was filled with things to do at Poppy Gold, supplementing the plan she’d made in college. Her parents had begun to implement her concept a few years ago, but there was always more to do. In a way it made her feel even more responsible, knowing that turning the business into a conference center was something she’d urged them to try. She’d helped, coming home weekends and spending vacations there, but a lot had fallen on her mom’s and dad’s shoulders.

  Now it was mostly on her.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach. Suggesting changes as an eager college student was a lot easier than carrying them out herself. Where had all the blind certainty of her youth gone? Maybe the final vestiges had been lost with her mother’s death.

  “Hey,” Jamie said, poking her head through the office doorway. “The school group is gone. Mom made peach pies last night and sent one for you.”

  She came in holding a Tupperware pie-taker. Tupperware containers were ubiquitous in Glimmer Creek thanks to two of Tessa’s maternal great-aunts who’d thrown so many parties to sell the stuff that it was stockpiled in everyone’s basements. Glimmer Creek was filled with relatives on her mom’s side of the family.

  Tessa’s mouth watered. Nobody made pies like Aunt Emma. “My taste buds thank her, but my hips aren’t so sure.”

  “Like you need to worry. Can you believe it? Mom even said to eat it with ice cream because you’re too skinny. She never says that to me.”

  “I’m not skinny,” Tessa denied automatically. Her female relatives kept trying to feed her, claiming she’d lost weight since returning home, but they worried too much.

  If they weren’t trying to fix her up with a guy, they were urging her to eat more.

  “You’re skinnier than me.”

  Jamie tugged at her costume and stuck out her bottom lip in the mock pout she’d perfected as a four-year-old. The same as most Fullerton women, she was a late bloomer and still carried a few childhood pounds she couldn’t seem to lose. Tessa had gone through the same phase herself.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Tessa urged.

  “That’s easy for you to say. My face is so round. I look like a chipmunk that’s stuffed its cheeks with nuts.”

  “Lance doesn’t seem to think so.”

  Jamie’s eyes filled with delight at the mention of her boyfriend. “Isn’t he wonderful?”

  Tessa smiled, though she didn’t know a great deal about the young man her dad had hired several months earlier, other than what Jamie had told her.

  Lance Beckley was one of the Poppy Gold employees who hadn’t grown up in the area. He’d shown up on his motorcycle, wandered around town a couple of days and then applied for a job in the maintenance department. Pop had hired him to clear brush and dig rocks from the area where they hoped to plant two additional orchards. Tessa had been concerned when she heard he was the biker who’d invaded Poppy Gold, roaring up and down the streets, but he hadn’t caused any problems since then.

  When her cousin had gone back to work, Tessa made calls to several clients, booking a destination wedding for a CEO’s daughter, along with three corporate retreats and a class reunion.

  At 1:00 p.m. she got up to do her usual quick walk through Old City Hall and around the grounds. At the Mayfair Mansion she stopped and watched Gabe McKinley working in the garden. The lawn at the nearby Calaveras House was already smartly groomed, so he’d obviously started there first.

  His shirt stretched over his shoulders, his muscles flexing as he lifted a load of clippings onto a cart, and she felt an unwelcome warmth in her abdomen. She didn’t want to be attracted to a guy like Gabe, even in passing.

  He noticed her and bobbed his head without stopping his work. Then she noticed he was about to yank one of the plants from behind the sundial.

  “No, wait,” Tessa cried, dashing over. “That’s supposed to be there.”

  * * *

  GABE STARED AT the plant he’d been about to pull. It was supposed to stay? He hadn’t touched the flowerbeds since Liam Connor had told him to work on the lawns, but this thing had looked too weedy to leave behind. The gardens in general seemed chaotic, with masses of different flowers crowded together. He guessed it was attractive, but it wouldn’t do any harm to impose some order.

  Tessa crouched and patted the ground around the base of the weed he’d grabbed, though she seemed to
avoid touching the plant itself. “Uh...Pop must have forgotten to say you shouldn’t do anything on the flowerbeds until you receive some training.”

  “Oh.” Gabe’s instructions from the elder Connor had been distracted, to say the least; Liam gave the impression that his thoughts were somewhere else entirely. Age-related memory problems were also a possibility, despite him seeming too young for senility. “This isn’t a weed?”

  “No, it’s foxglove. This one has already flowered, but wait until you see it next year. I’m not sure foxglove belongs in a true Victorian garden, but we love it.”

  “Are you a horticulturist, too?”

  “Just an enthusiastic amateur. My mother did the research and designed all our gardens and...er...planted most of the perennials and biennials herself. She liked the natural style of the late-Victorian era. Formal gardens wouldn’t suit Poppy Gold nearly as well.”

  Liked. Past tense.

  That must mean Liam was a widower. While it was information, it wouldn’t have much bearing on his investigation. Gabe shifted restlessly. He preferred direct action to covert activity, but this was something he had to do for Rob. A part of him still felt guilty for escaping to the navy and leaving his younger brother alone with their parents.

  “So, what did you study in college?” Gabe asked, trying to make the question sound casual. Apparently he didn’t succeed, because Tessa became guarded again.

  “Business. It looks as if you’re almost done here. Since it’s your first day, I’m sure Pop won’t mind if you take the rest of the afternoon off. Just return the equipment to Maintenance.”

  “I can’t quit early. You know what they say—a day’s work for a day’s pay. I’ll find something to keep me occupied.” Gabe was elated. With Liam gone, he would have an ideal chance to poke around and get a better lay of the land.

  Her lips tightened. “All right, but don’t do anything to the garden beds. I need to get back to my office.”

  Gabe was almost amused. The only thing he’d learned for certain was that Tessa Connor was protective of the plants her mother had put in the ground. He couldn’t imagine being sentimental that way himself, but it was Tessa’s business. Of course, his own mother had been pickled with alcohol for most of his childhood, so he was unlikely to get maudlin about her mementos.

  The truth was, he knew too much about the dark side of human nature, yet he still found most people incomprehensible.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TESSA RETURNED TO her office, still not sure what to make of Gabe McKinley. He obviously worked hard—the lawns around the two houses had been cut and trimmed with military precision, without a blade of grass or speck of dirt out of place. Yet she also had the feeling he didn’t know anything about the kind of work he’d been hired to do.

  There was nothing unusual about having an inexperienced employee, particularly in grounds maintenance, but normally Pop was fierce about warning new staff not to touch his wife’s Victorian flowerbeds until they’d been properly trained.

  Tessa’s stomach rolled.

  Fifteen months ago her father had called to say the business was falling apart and he was considering selling Poppy Gold. Though he hadn’t asked her to come back, she’d immediately gone to her grandfather’s office and resigned. She still didn’t know if it had been the right decision... There were so many memories that haunted Liam at Poppy Gold. But she’d been certain he would regret selling the place where he’d fallen in love and spent so many years restoring.

  It had also been a little selfish. Tessa couldn’t bear the thought of losing Poppy Gold; she missed her mother terribly, and the place was a connection both to Meredith Connor and her own childhood.

  The rest of the afternoon passed slowly, and by four o’clock Tessa was on edge, wondering if her father was back from Stockton, and if he was, why he hadn’t called. He got depressed, and this time of year was a tough one for him—her parents’ thirty-second wedding anniversary was rapidly approaching.

  It wasn’t fair.

  People weren’t supposed to die of pneumonia. With modern medicine and all the antibiotics available, it shouldn’t have happened. Meredith Connor should still be here, making everyone happy, especially her husband.

  Tessa rubbed her aching forehead. She’d always hoped to fall in love like her parents and have children, but after watching her father’s agony, she was wary about feeling that much. Not that it mattered—at the moment she was far too busy for romance. She couldn’t take the chance that Poppy Gold might fail; too many people depended on them.

  Not that she had anything against romance. She’d dated in college and occasionally in San Francisco, though never to the point of genuinely committing her heart. One of her old boyfriends had complained she was rushing too fast toward her future to think about the present, but she didn’t agree. There was so much to do, and she didn’t see any harm in graduating high school and college early.

  A short time later her father walked in, looking more tired than usual. He sat down with a groan. “Sorry about being late. I got a flat tire. I would have called but my phone was dead.”

  “That’s okay, Pop. Sorry about the tire.”

  Tessa made a mental note to check the charge on his cell phone when he was taking a day trip out of town, especially if he was taking the 1928 AA truck. He never used to be absentminded, but a lot had changed in the past eighteen months. It was even possible that he’d spent part of the time down in Stockton just staring into space. The occasions she found him zoned out completely were less frequent now, but they still happened.

  “It’s just one of those things. How did it go with Gabe?”

  “Fine, as far as I know. I showed him around and left him at Maintenance. Later I saw him working on the lawns around the Mayfair Mansion and Calaveras House. Everything was spotless.”

  Tessa decided not to mention Gabe’s attempt to uproot a foxglove plant; her father didn’t need anything else to upset him.

  “Good. He seems nice.”

  Nice?

  Maybe she’d missed something.

  Tessa knew that two of her worst faults were a quick temper...and a bad habit of making snap decisions about people. Sometimes she was right, sometimes she wasn’t. But there was no denying that her first impressions of Gabe McKinley weren’t positive.

  “What do you know about him?” Tessa asked.

  “The usual sort of things from his application. Twenty years in the navy, but no job since getting out. He listed his skills as general mechanic, heavy machinery operation, scuba diving and underwater rescue.”

  “Scuba diving and underwater rescue? There’s so much call for that at Poppy Gold,” she muttered wryly. “How about KP or maintenance experience? I thought all servicemen and women had that sort of thing under their belts.”

  Liam waved his hand. “People don’t always like claiming they worked in the mess or scrubbed the officers’ head. Gabe didn’t list any prior duty assignments, but he has a spotless record—not even a speeding ticket. Do you think there’s a problem?”

  “Of course not,” Tessa said hastily. “I’m just curious. He isn’t that personable.”

  “Give him a chance,” Liam urged. “Life is structured in the military. It may take him a while to get accustomed to how we do things.”

  “I know, Pop. It’s just that our guests expect everyone to be friendly and he’s rather...poker-faced.” Grim and forbidding was a better description, but she didn’t want to sound too negative.

  “I’ll remind him to smile more.”

  “Is he one of your referrals from Admiral Webster’s office?” Over time they’d become acquainted with a high-ranking officer in each of the military branches who now made referrals to Poppy Gold. Sometimes it was for a job, sometimes it was a request to provide a few days at Poppy Gold to service members or their fa
milies as a respite from stress or other problems. It had started with one of her father’s old army pals who was now a general.

  “No referral. Gabe just applied. We ended up talking all afternoon last Saturday. Well, I’d better get over to Maintenance. The nursery got the red astrachan apples we wanted. We should have enough ground prepared in a few days to plant them.”

  “Shouldn’t apples be planted in very early spring or late fall?”

  “Yes, but the nursery promised to replace any that don’t thrive. Apparently their supplier has trouble getting organic astrachans. Anyhow, I also got a big load of organic fertilizer. I’ll unload everything and come over after I clean up.”

  “Move the truck into the garage and have one of your guys take care of it tomorrow,” Tessa urged, frowning. She didn’t like her father lifting heavy items by himself. He rarely paid attention to what he was doing—five months ago he’d pulled a hamstring and had suffered minor injuries in other mishaps.

  “I’ll be fine. When do you want me for dinner?”

  “Seven thirty is fine.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  Tessa sat for a minute after he left, then jumped up. She headed for Maintenance, stopping only to change into jeans and leave Aunt Emma’s peach pie at her apartment in the Victorian Cat. Fortunately she had a separate entrance, so she wasn’t delayed by guests wanting to chat.

  “Pop?” she called, walking around the end of the main maintenance building. She froze. His antique heavy-duty truck was parked by one of the storage sheds, but instead of one man, she saw two—her father and Gabe McKinley. They were chatting and even chuckled together at one point.

  Interesting.

  “What are you doing here, Tessajinks?”

  Gabe had just hoisted a bag of fertilizer onto his shoulder, but he paused and looked up. “Tessajinks?”

  Tessa smiled along with her father, though she was surprised that he’d used her childhood nickname in front of a stranger. “It’s from when I was little. You know...jinks, from high jinks.”