Honeymoon Hotel

by Bretton, Barbara

  "Last month," Maggie shot back to Holland's applause. "Craig Watson. Three hours trapped in a bowling alley with a man whose idea of a good time is a seven-ten split." In the four years since her husband Rick's death, Maggie was certain she'd suffered through more blind dates than Helen Keller.

  "So Mr. Watson was an unmitigated boor," said Alistair. "Surely you've had some good dates recently."

  "That was a good date." She turned to Holland. "Tell him there's nothing wrong with being single, please!"

  "Not I," said Holland with a short laugh, "That's a definite conflict of interests."

  In retaliation Maggie swiped a piece of Holland's unguarded strawberry tart. "I like where I live. I like how I live. I like with whom I live." No one dared dangle a preposition around Alistair Chambers.

  "You live with a foul-tempered parrot." Alistair brushed away breadcrumbs scattered by a bird-brained waiter. "Yours is hardly the usual housemate."

  She thought of The White Elephant with its spires and turrets and occasional newlyweds."Mine is hardly the usual house."

  "You're a difficult woman, Magdalena," said Alistair. "I'm only thinking of your happiness."

  Maggie groaned. "Alistair, so help me, if you say one more word about my social life, I'm leaving you with the bill."

  "Listen to her, darling," said Holland with a grin. "We ordered champagne and caviar."

  Maggie couldn't help laughing, but a sharp edge of truth poked through. "Besides," she said, "you're asking for the impossible. Single men in the Poconos are rare as truffles."

  Holland gestured toward the man across the room. "How about that gorgeous specimen? He's been watching you ever since he sat down."

  So she hadn't imagined his interest.

  Maggie glanced in his direction. "He's probably a bubble bath salesman with a wife and eight kids waiting for him at home."

  "So you did notice him!" Holland patted Alistair's forearm. "See? There's hope for her yet."

  "This has to be the most ridiculous conversation I've ever had." Which was saying a great deal, since water beds and mirrored ceilings had been the featured topics earlier in the luncheon. "Just because I refuse to paper the guest rooms with scenes from the Kama Sutra doesn't mean I'm ready for a rocking chair yet."

  "Then prove it, darling," said Holland. "Go over there and strike up a conversation with your admirer."

  Maggie took a long look at him as he demolished a piece of Chicken Kiev.

  "Forget it," she said. "He's not my type."

  Holland's coffee cup clattered against its saucer. "Not your type? You have something against tall, dark and handsome hunks?"

  "Yes," Maggie replied cheerfully. "They're usually stupid."

  Alistair cleared his throat. "I, for one, am feeling inordinately uncomfortable at this moment."

  "So am I," said Maggie. "I suggest we leave the subject of my social life alone."

  Alistair recovered his composure in record time. "I have but a few more things to say on that subject, and then we can –"

  "Remember what I said before," Maggie warned, with a wicked gleam in her eye.

  "—move on to other items. You're too young to resign yourself to a –"

  "Alistair! I'm warning you . . . "

  " – life of loneliness and –"

  Maggie pushed back her chair and stood up. "Thank you," she said, flashing a triumphant smile. "Lunch is on you."

  #

  Damn it to hell!

  The woman in the white dress was leaving.

  Not ten feet away from him she was making her way through the crowded dining room and heading straight for the door.

  For the last thirty minutes he'd toyed with the idea of sending her a bottle of Moet or a note inviting her out to dinner. He'd even considered sauntering over to her table and introducing himself.

  But, in the end, he sat there drinking Bud under Claude's disapproving eye, and wondering why some things got harder to do as you got older.

  It didn't seem fair.

  In a logical world, age and experience would make this sort of thing easier.

  Hell.

  Ten years ago he wouldn't have hesitated.

  Ten years ago he would have walked right up to her and stated his intentions, and he wouldn't have given her the chance to say no.

  But he was thirty-five now and as far removed from The Animal as Santa Claus was from Satan. He'd learned the hard way that you don't always get what you want – and that what you get isn't always what you need.

  He cut into his chicken and took a long ahrd look at the fancy butter and herbs running all over his plate.

  Who ate Chicken Kiev anyway?

  He was getting soft, that's what it was.

  Old and soft.

  The hard edge that saw him through the low spots had vanished along with money problems and touring and the rush of excitement he'd felt each time he took the stage.

  The kamikaze waiter raced past with a tray of sizzling steaks, and he just missed bumping into the woman in white who was stopped near the door, chatting with a tall skinny guy who'd interviewed John for the Pocono Bugle.

  John cut another piece of chicken and watched her. The reporter said something, and she threw her head back and laughed, a low, slightly husky sound that was everything he'd imagined her laugh would be.

  What the hell was he waiting for anyway?

  In another second she'd turn and walk out of the restaurant and out of his life.

  Say something, you idiot! Don't let her get away!

  He pushed back from the table before he'd even finished chewing his last piece of chicken.

  He didn't see the doomsday waiter racing back toward the kitchen until it was too late.

  "I'm s-sorry, sir," the waiter stammered. "I didn't see you – sir?" The waiter's eyes bugged out as he stared at John. "Sir? Say something, sir!"

  I can't say anything, you jackass! I can't even breathe!

  What a way to go: choked to death by a piece of Chicken Kiev at the Bronze Penguin in East Point, Pennsylvania.

  If asphyxiation didn't kill him, he was damned sure embarrassment would.

  It was going to make one hell of an obituary.

  Too bad he wouldn't be around to enjoy it.

  He dropped to his knees as everything around him swirled white, then red, then finally faded to black.

  Chapter Two

  This wasn't exactly the grand exit Maggie had planned when she left Alistair and Holland with the bill. She'd wanted to at least make it out to the parking lot before the two of them did.

  As it was, she didn't even make it to the door before Frank Kraemer from the Pocono Bugle flagged her down and managed to involve her in a five-way discussion on the hotel owners' meeting coming up in two weeks.

  "We want to tie it in with the magazine Arnie Sandler is putting together," Frank said as she refused his third offer to have a quick drink with them. "What would you say about sitting down for an in-depth interview with me next week?"

  "Terrific," she said as she watched Alistair dig into his pocket for his platinum American Express card. "Call me at the office, and I'll see how my schedule is."

  Everyone at the table laughed. Maggie's lack of visitors at The White Elephant was a running joke.

  She turned to make her escape when, from across the restaurant, a woman's scream bounced off the high-beamed ceiling and filled the room. Claude, minus his legendary sophistication, was staring, horrified, as a knot of people gathered near the French doors.

  "Call 911!" the imperious maitre d' shouted, his voice shrill. "We have a heart attack in progress!"

  The restaurant fell silent.

  No hysteria.

  No commotion.

  Nobody racing to the phones to get help.

  Suddenly it all came back to her.

  "Make the call from your cellular phone," she shouted to Alistair. "Have them send an ambulance."

  "You remember CPR?"

  Memories of Rick washed over
her, and she waited a moment while the pain flared, then flickered away. "I remember."

  Her uncle hurried from the restaurant with Holland close behind.

  Maggie made her way toward the crowd of people near the French doors. What was the matter with everybody?

  Some poor old man or woman was going into cardiac seizure and these fools were watching as if it were the cliff-hanger episode on Dallas.

  Lying on the floor in front of the best table in the Bronze Penguin was the magnificent man in the dark suit who had been the object of her lunchtime fantasies.

  His silk tie had been loosened, and one end drifted across his handsome face. His shirt had been ripped open, exposing a tanned chest that was everything she'd imagined it would be.

  And only the most incredible female swine would notice any of those things with the man dying at her feet.

  "He just keeled over," said a woman in a green cotton shirtwaist. She pointed toward the clumsy waiter who'd made much of lunch an adventure. "Right after that clumsy fool bumped into his chair."

  "Hey, wait a minute!" The clumsy-fool waiter stumbled into the center of the crowd. "Don't go blaming a heart attack on me! All I did was bump into him with a tray of baked potato shells. You can't go laying this one on me!"

  "Nobody said it was your fault," the woman shot back. "I'm just relating the facts."

  "The facts!" Claude broke in. "I'll give you the facts. What we have here is –"

  "Shut up!" Maggie's words split the air the way the woman's scream had a few moments ago. "I don't give a damn who did what to whom. Does he have a pulse?"

  Claude nodded.

  Maggie knelt down next to the man. He seemed to be unconscious. His face was pale and suspiciously blue tinged. One of his large hands rested near his throat.

  She ripped open his shirt the rest of the way, and placed her ear against his mouth.

  Nothing.

  Sweat broke out on the back of her neck and she – thank God! A pulse still hammered in his carotid artery.

  Wait a minute. Something didn't make sense. The pulse was too strong for a heart attack, and the way his hand seemed to be clutching his throat –

  She zeroed in on Claude. "Quick! Tell me exactly what happened." She pulled off the man's tie and began to position his head for resuscitation.

  "Martin bumped into him. The man looked around then suddenly jumped up." The upended chair near the table was testament to just how quickly the man had jumped.

  "Did he clutch his chest or grab his shoulder?"

  Claude shook his head. "He didn't do anything. He just stood up, then fell over."

  Martin, the clumsy waiter, stepped forward, his face as pale as the face of the man on the floor. "He did do something," he said, looking at Maggie. "He grabbed his neck like this."

  "This isn't a heart attack," Maggie said, praying her intuition was right. "He's choking to death."

  "He's unconscious." Claude stepped back as if he wanted to disappear into the throng gathered around them. "There's nothing you can do. Wait for the emergency crew to get here."

  "He'll be dead by then." Maggie thanked God for full skirts as she hiked her hem up over her thighs and straddled the man's hips. Placing her hands one atop the other, she positioned the heel of the bottom hand just above his navel and, whispering a silent prayer, she hoped Dr. Heimlich and his famous maneuver would come to the rescue just one more time.

  #

  He was dead.

  That had to be it.

  He was dead, and this was heaven, or at least one of the stops along the way to the pearly gates.

  He'd been drifting somewhere far away, his mind a whirl of color and sound, when suddenly he found himself staring at a red-haired angel who looked a hell of a lot like the woman he'd been admiring at the Bronze Penguin just before he died.

  But wait a minute!

  He wasn't an expert on theology, and he had no idea how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, but he was pretty sure no self-respecting angel would be caught in this position.

  "Chicken Kiev." Her voice was definitely heaven-sent.

  They said hearing was the last to go. Maybe she would be his last glimpse of the mortal world.

  He blinked once.

  Twice.

  The scent of Shalimar teased his nostrils. The wildly exotic creature with the long coppery blond hair was still there, with one leg pressed against each of his thighs.

  "What?" His voice sounded as rough and raw as his throat felt.

  "Chicken Kiev," she repeated, smiling down at him. Her eyes were a pure cornflower blue. "It's a killer."

  Was he supposed to know what she was talking about? "I don't --" He stopped as it all came back to him in humiliating detail.

  She laughed, still astride him, and that incredible mane of hair danced around her shoulders. "Remember now?"

  "I was choking to death."

  "Quite effectively, I might add," she said, beginning to button his shirt. "You gave everyone a scare."

  He grabbed her wrists, and she met his eyes. "You saved my life?"

  She shrugged, slender wrists still captured in his grasp. "It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it."

  Some nervous laughter behind him made John realize they had an audience.

  "Get serious," he snapped, embarrassment getting the better of him. His body had recovered quicker than his brain and was taking full advantage of the situation. "You saved my life, right?"

  She yanked her hands away from him and tossed his tie in his direction. It landed on his right shoulder.

  "Yes," she said, "but don't let it go to your head."

  "I can't believe it."

  "You're breathing, aren't you?" She sounded as if she was having second thoughts on the matter. "That should be proof enough."

  "How did you know what to do?"

  She snapped her fingers. "Nothing any ex-Girl Scout couldn't do."

  The un-Girl Scout-like position she was in must have suddenly dawned on her because she scrambled to her feet, but not before he had a glimpse of her silky, tanned legs.

  In fact, with her standing over him, his vantage point from the floor of the Bronze Penguin wasn't half-bad.

  Unfortunately, she was smart as well as beautiful, and she held out her hand to him.

  "Come on," she said, a smile dancing around the corners of her mouth "You're enjoying this too much."

  He grasped her hand and hoisted himself to his feet. She'd seemed like an Amazon warrior when he opened his eyes and saw her looming over him – all beautiful, womanly concern. Face-to-face she was even more overwhelming.

  "Doesn't a dying man have any rights?" he asked as the crowd dispersed went back to their lunches now that the excitement was over.

  She blushed beneath her tan. He couldn't remember the last time he saw a woman blush.

  "I didn't jump on you," she said, smoothing down her skirts. "I performed a lifesaving maneuver."

  "So you admit you saved my life."

  "I admit nothing. I did what needed to be done."

  "You're a hero," he said, ignoring Frank Kraemer from the Pocono Bugle as the man tried to move into picture-taking position. "If you hadn't climbed on top of me, they'd be writing my obituary right now."

  "If you don't stop saying things like that, they will be writing your obituary."

  "I love it," said Frank. "She saves the life of her number-one competitor. This is front-page copy."

  They both wheeled and faced him. "What?" they asked in unison.

  "You two know each other, don't you?"

  Once again, in unison, they shook their heads.

  Frank seemed to be getting an unholy kick out of the situation. "John," he said, "I'd like you to meet Maggie Douglass, owner of The White Elephant at the foot of Mount Snow."

  "The White Elephant? You don't mean that old –"

  "Watch it!" Maggie snapped. "That old place happens to mean a lot to me."

  "I know," said John, shaking he
r hand under Frank's gleeful eye. "I tried to buy it from you last year."

  "Oh, no," she groaned. "Don't tell me you're –"

  "John Adams Tyler."

  "Not the same Tyler who owns Hideaway Haven and those damned Love Cottages."

  "One and the same."

  "I can't believe you two haven't met before now," said Frank as he snapped a picture of them shaking hands. "I thought all you owners knew one another."

  "So did I," said Maggie, fixing him with her baby-blue stare. "It seems Mr. Tyler doesn't like to bother with the rest of us. After all, I've never seen you at any of our meetings."

  "An oversight that I've already taken steps to correct," John said. "I joined the hotel owners' association and intend to be present at the next meeting."

  "To promote the proliferation of heart-shaped bathtubs, I'm sure."

  He laughed at the serious expression on her beautiful face. "This is the Poconos," he said. "Heart-shaped bathtubs are expected of us."

  "I refuse to believe there isn't a market for a classier establishment up here."

  "We're running at one hundred percent capacity," he said. "How about you?"

  Her jaw clenched. "That's an unfair question."

  "Eighty percent?"

  She said nothing.

  "Sixty percent?"

  "Forty-eight percent, not that it's any of your business."

  "You've dropped since March," he observed. "You're in the red zone."

  "Thank you, Mr. Tyler, but I don't recall asking for an analysis of my hotel management skills."

  "You just need to update and get in step with the market."

  "You just need to mind your own business." She turned to say something to Frank, then suddenly wheeled back to glare at John. "If I'm doing such lousy business, why were you so interested in buying me out."

  "Location." Honesty was one of his best qualities – and the one least appreciated at times like this. "Fifteen prime acres complete with a lake. All those secret passageways beneath your main house fascinate the hell out of me." He grinned," We could do wonders with it."