Honeymoon Hotel

by Bretton, Barbara

  Her uncle lowered his well-tailored frame into a huge wicker club chair and poured himself some lemonade from the pitcher on the side table.

  "Ah, yes!" He looked out at the expanse of lawn that sloped gently down to a garden of late summer flowers as a crackling noise mingled with the chirp of crickets. "The romantic sound of a family of mosquitoes meeting their Maker. How can the New York Philharmonic ever compete?"

  "If you lived here year-round, you'd know the sound of a good bug zapper is better than Mozart."

  "A wealth of culture," he said, arching a brow in her direction. "How have I survived so long without it?"

  "You old snob." Maggie's voice was filled with affection."Where's your pioneering spirit?"

  "I'm English. We leave pioneering to you upstart Colonials."

  "Look at that sunset. You don't find sunsets like that in Manhattan."

  "And you don't find Les Miserables in East Point."

  "Give us give or ten years," she said, laughing. "I'm sure the road company will find us."

  He glanced around at The White Elephant with its peeling paint and overgrown lawn. "Or one of your competitors."

  "Speaking of my competitors, how did you manage to tear yourself away from the pleasure palace long enough to visit us simple folk?"

  "Holland is performing one of those eminently secret rituals understood only by the female of the species, and it occurred to me this was the perfect time to visit my beloved niece."

  Maggie gave the East Point version of the Bronx cheer. "You'll have to do better than that."

  "I thought that was a fairly accurate assessment of my intentions."

  "You may fool others with that British charm, but I'm immune, Ally," she said goodnaturedly. "I know you too well. You're here for a reason, and it's not The White Elephant's lemonade."

  "You seem rather tense tonight, Maggie."

  She sighed and rested her empty glass on the porch railing. "I'm overtired and overworked."

  "What you need is a vacation.,"

  "That's what Rachel and George keep telling me." Her in-laws had been engaged in a long-standing campaign to get Maggie rested and remarried. "They want me to spend a month with them in Scandinavia this fall."

  "You've seen Scandinavia many times."

  "This has nothing to do with sight-seeing, uncle mine."

  "Matchmaking again?"

  "What else? They probably figure they can pass an international smorgasbord under my nose, and I'll have to pick at least one appetizer."

  Alistair lit a Gauloise and inhaled deeply. "The third week of September seems a perfect time for a getaway."

  The tip of his cigarette glowed orange in the gathering darkness, and apprehension suddenly coiled inside Maggie's stomach.

  "What are you driving at?"

  "You have the third week of September empty."

  "Oh, no, you don't. I'm retired, Alistair. Can't you leave PAX back in the real world? I don't want it here."

  He leaned forward, and even in the gathering twilight, the look in his eyes was unmistakable.

  "I have a proposition for you, Magdalena."

  She leaned back and took a deep breath before answering. "I'm not interested."

  "PAX needs your help."

  Her heart slammed against her rib cage as a decade of memories rushed in. "I'm definitely not interested."

  "At least hear me out before you decline."

  She swung her feet down from the porch railing and stood up. "I'm not going back in, Alistair. I gave up that life a long time ago, and I don't –" She stopped and stared at him. "Would you mind telling me why in hell you're laughing?"

  "I don't recall asking you to rejoin the organization."

  She towered over him, hands planted on her hips. The body-language battle was one she intended to win. "What is it you want from me?"

  "Take a seat?"

  "And give you the advantage?" She shook her head. "I'll stand, thank you."

  "As you wish." He lit another cigarette.

  "Go ahead and make your pitch, Alistair, if that's what will make you happy, but I'm telling you in advance you won't change my mind." If it hadn't been Rick Douglass, it would have been something else. The nomadic life of an operative had never been the life for her.

  "Dear girl, once more you're jumping to conclusions."

  "You don't need me for some special assignment?" She still carried one of the highest security clearances granted to civilians, tribute to the McBride gift that had manifested itself in her almost preternatural talent for cryptography. For five years, she had worked side by side with some of the most talented people in the Western world, her Aunt Sarah included.

  "Sorry to disappoint you, but no special assignment."

  To hell with body language. Maggie sank down onto the edge of her chair. "I don't get it."

  "We want The White Elephant, and we're willing to compensate you handsomely for the privilege."

  Privilege used in the same sentence as The White Elephant? She must be going crazy.

  "You want the inn?"

  He nodded.

  "The inn and not me?"

  "You can take my boat out. Charles has it ready in Bermuda. Just say the word, and the vacation is on the organization."

  "And I suppose you can suggest just when I should take this vacation?"

  "September nineteenth through September twenty-fifth."

  "Forget it," she said. "I'm expecting heavy traffic in September."

  "As of this moment, that week is still unscheduled."

  Her face flamed, and she thanked God for twilight. "It's only a matter of time. My ad just ran in Modern Bride and I know it will –"

  "It won't."

  "Of course it will. It's a four-color, full-page ad, Alistair. If that doesn't bring in business, I'll eat my –"

  "Your ad didn't run, dear girl."

  "I have a copy in my office." She headed toward the door. "I'll show you."

  She stormed through the cool foyer, with Alistair following behind. She didn't even notice the shimmering parquet floor she'd hocked her Rolex for, or the antique registration desk that had once been a classic Mustang V-8. A shoulder-high stack of boxes partially blocked the opening to her office, and she neatly vaulted over them.

  "What is all this?" Alistair sidestepped the obstruction. "The deluge of reservations you were expecting?"

  "Cocktail napkins," she said, rummaging through the accumulation of mail on her desk. "A year's supply – ah hah! Here it is!" She waved a shiny magazine page aloft. "Read it and weep, Ally. My full-age ad, Modern Bride, July issue."

  He scanned it briefly, then handed it back to her. "Joanna did a wonderful job, didn't she?"

  "Joanna?"

  "Ryder's wife. You do remember Ryder O'Neal, don't you?"

  "Of course I remember Ryder." Ryder, one of the best operatives the organization had ever known, was the son Alistair and Sarah never had, and Maggie had been lucky enough to share a number of fascinating cases with him during her years at PAX. "His wife works for Modern Bride?"

  Alistair's laugh filled the room. "Joanna works for us, dear girl. That ad you're clutching is her handiwork."

  "Are you telling me I've been set up?"

  "Such an ugly phrase."

  Maggie sagged against the edge of her desk. "The ad didn't run," she murmured. "September will be worse than August."

  At least Alistair had the grace to look sympathetic.

  "There's still my offer to consider, Maggie. You stand to be handsomely rewarded."

  He named a figure that would easily pull The White Elephant into the middle of next year, with cash to spare.

  "Why The White Elephant? Is it our high ceilings? Our sprawling grounds? Our fine cuisine?" The secret passageways Tyler was so curious about? What could be better for a group of spies looking for a place to hide?

  Alistair seemed uncomfortable. "I can see there is to be no easy way to break this to you. We want The White Elephant because nob
ody knows it exists."

  "Whatever happened to cushioning a blow?"

  "You asked for honesty."

  "Honesty, yes. Brutality, no." She took another look at the ad copy that had totally fooled her. "I was in the business. I shouldn't have been taken in like this."

  He laughed. "Joanna is a wizard, isn't she? Expensive, but worth every shilling."

  Alistair repeated his dollar offer.

  "You're going to take over no matter what I say, aren't you?" she asked.

  He didn't deny it. "Should you say no, that should compensate you for any inconvenience."

  Compensate her? It was more than she'd made in the past two years combined."

  "And what if I say yes? You'll be putting me out of business for a full week and you expect me to take one for the team?" How she ever managed to get that out with a straight face was beyond her.

  How Alistair managed not to laugh out loud was equally beyond comprehension. His next figure was double the one before and Maggie began to salivate.

  "What's the catch?" There had to be one. Not even the almighty PAX made offers this good without a catch.

  "How suspicious you are, my girl. All you need do is go off and enjoy yourself for a few days, and when you come back, The White Elephant will be on the front page of every newspaper in the world."

  "I'm waiting. What's the story?"

  "I'm not at liberty to discuss the details until we have come to an accord."

  "Does it involve bloodshed?"

  He said nothing.

  "Murder?"

  Still nothing.

  "An exchange of identities?"

  "You should know better, Maggie. I'll tell you nothing until we have an agreement."

  "And I won't agree until you tell me something."

  "Then we appear to be at an impasse."

  They stared at each other for a full minute, two old warriors in friendly competition.

  Alistair, to Maggie's intense surprise, was the first to blink.

  "I'll go up another twenty percent, but that's it, Magdalena. Any more than that, and I'll take my business to Hideaway Haven."

  "I thought you were taking The White Elephant no matter what."

  "There are always options. Your attitude might prove problematic. We might be better served elsewhere."

  "You really know how to hurt a person, don't you, Ally?"

  "Take it or leave it, my girl. This is my last offer."

  It was already late August. Very late August.

  There was no way on earth any other hotel, motel or inn could possibly accommodate the organization with so little notice.

  There was also no way on earth she could turn away from money like her uncle was offering.

  "You drive a hard bargain," she said, fingering the ledger resting atop her desk. "My old loyalties to PAX run deep."

  He stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Careful, dear girl, your greed is showing."

  "I wish you wouldn't be so blunt, Ally. Where's your finesse?"

  "Finesse? We've been through too much over the years for finesse."

  She repeated the last figure plus an additional five percent. "Agreed?"

  His eyebrow arched. He cut it by two and a half. "Agreed?"

  "You drive a hard bargain, uncle mine." She extended her right hand. "You've got a deal."

  She poured them each a sherry from the decanter on the credenza by the window.

  "To PAX," said Alistair, raising his glass.

  "To a new central heating unit and a ski lift," said Maggie, taking a sip. "I can't wait to tell Rachel about the windfall."

  Alistair put down his glass. "That brings me to the one unpleasant detail."

  She groaned, "I knew this was too good to be true."

  "A minor details. I want you to keep an extremely low profile until after the Summit Meeting."

  Maggie's jaw came unhinged. "Summit Meeting!" A sudden absurd image of the president and the Russian secretary shaking hands on the Kissing Bridge sprang to life. "At The White Elephant?"

  Her uncle grinned at her. "Incredible, isn't it?" He quickly outlined the Summit Meeting of the reigning superpowers, aimed at taking another step toward nuclear disarmament. "Your inn will be world famous one month from now."

  Another absurd image, this time of the First Lady dining off mismatched china, loomed ahead. "I don't have enough dinner plates."

  "The president's staff will supply everything."

  "The carpets," Maggie sputtered. "The cracks in the driveway, the way the roof –"

  "It will all be corrected."

  She felt as if she were Dorothy in the tornado spinning her way to Oz. "All that and money, too?" She glanced behind her. "Are you sure Mephistopheles isn't lurking somewhere?"

  "Accept your good fortune gracefully, Magdalena. It's long overdue."

  She tossed a paper clip at him. "And all I have to do is keep my mouth shut until I leave for a week in Bermuda?"

  "Simply keep your name out of the newspapers, beware of strangers bearing gifts, and accept no new business until it's over."

  "Don't worry," she said confidently. "Short of running naked through East Point, there's nothing I could do to end up in the papers."

  Chapter Five

  Maybe it was indicative of the foolishness of old age, but Alistair Chambers didn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed as he steered the Rolls up the heart-shaped driveway leading to Love Cottage Number 9 after leaving Maggie that night.

  He'd hobnobbed with kings and queens in marble-and-gilt drawing rooms.

  He'd dined with sheikhs and concubines in palaces of barbaric splendor.

  He'd seen the Taj Mahal by moonlight and Paris at dusk, but he'd never seen anything more beautiful than this.

  The electric candle in the window twinkled in the dark Pennsylvania night, and for a moment it called to mind other nights in other places when the woman waiting for him had been a part of the setting, but not part of his heart.

  He couldn't even pinpoint when it had happened, the exact moment when Holland Masters stopped being delightful company and became something more.

  The empty aching void Sarah's death had left inside his soul hurt less with each day. Sunsets were more beautiful, music more poignant, each hour more filled with promise than the hour before.

  The sweetness of life flowed over him, bathing him in honey, urging him forward, toward a place he though never to see again.

  Love.

  He was in love.

  Alistair Chambers loved Holland Masters with a passion and fervor and intensity that breathed optimism and youth into his tired, jaded heart.

  He'd watched it happen to his young protégé, Ryder O'Neal, and he'd rejoiced when Ryder and Joanna married in a blaze of romantic glory. They'd managed to combine forces and share a very difficult way of life much the same as he and Sarah had managed to combine their marriage with their commitment to PAX.

  A man couldn't be twice blessed.

  And therein lay the problem.

  Holland was at the top of her profession. Twenty years of hard work had finally paid off, and she was enjoying the success that had long eluded her. Her life was filled with excitement and glamour, and the uncompromising glare of the spotlight – the one thing he'd avoided all his adult life.

  Alistair was running out of excuses.

  He'd managed to be out of town when the daytime Emmys were given out.

  He'd been away on business when the cast of Destiny held its Christmas party.

  A rash of oddly-timed bouts with the flu had kept him from dinner parties and weddings and weekends on Long Island with her friends.

  Except for occasional dinners with Ryder and Joanna in out-of-the-way restaurants, their entire courtship had been conducted in private.

  He pulled the Rolls into the parking lot in front of their cottage and turned off the engine. The persistent buzz of crickets was broken only by the angry crackle of a hungry bug zapper somewhere in the distan
ce.

  Looking up at the sky, his eyes automatically sought Polaris, the North Star. How many times in how many places had Polaris been the one constant guiding him home?

  Polaris couldn't help him this time, though. The brightest star on his horizon now was Holland Masters.

  Even here, tucked away in the heart of the Pocono Mountains, there'd been the shy looks of recognition, the requests for autographs, the current of excitement that seemed to follow her every move.

  "Damn it to bloody hell!" he threw into the darkness.

  She needed more.

  She needed a man who could stand beside her and share in her happiness.

  What she didn't need was an aging warrior who lingered in the shadows because it had been so long since he'd faced the daylight.

  Three years ago he had laughed at Ryder and the younger man's yearning to break free of PAX and build a life of his own. He'd done everything in his power to keep Ryder tied in with the organization, certain that duty and happiness were indivisible, that fulfillment lay in serving a higher cause.

  Fate had been kinder to Ryder than Alistair, and had brought him a woman who could share the adventure.

  Fate hadn't been as kind to Alistair and Holland.

  The signs had been there for a long time, but he'd been too much in love to see. Selfishly he'd turned a blind eye to everything but his need for her. She'd become a part of his life so quickly, so completely, that now he wondered how he would ever live without her.

  Inside Love Cottage Number 9, Holland slept by the light of the dying fire, her black negligee soft as a whisper against her skin.

  He knew that if he truly loved her, he would have to let her go.

  But as he lay down next to her and drew her into his arms, he knew that leaving would break his heart.

  #

  Maggie was just beginning the madhouse known as the breakfast rush the next morning when her mother-in-law, Rachel Douglass, burst into the kitchen of The White Elephant waving a copy of the Pocono Bugle overhead like a banner.

  "Page one, column one!" Rachael crowed triumphantly while Maggie stopped four eggs from crashing to the tiled floor. "Free publicity, and you're a hero to boot." She gave Maggie an exuberant hug. "Honey, this kind of coverage is worth its weight in gold bullion."