Operation Valentine (Hazel Oaks Resort Book 1)

by Kelsey McKnight

  He stood next to her at the table, folding his arms in front of his chest. “Hello, Terry. Your food smells amazing, as always. Is that an heirloom tomato? Did you pick it yourself?”

  She glanced up at him, her knife frozen mid cut. There was a smile playing on her lips as they entered a familiar scene. “Hello, Hudson.” She dumped the diced tomatoes into a large soup pot.

  “It smells so amazing, in fact, if you had anything extra and it was immediately ready for me to carry out, I would eat it while singing your praises to anyone who can understand me through mouthfuls of your absolutely delightful cooking.”

  “Or, you could just chew with your mouth closed and spare us the pain of hearing you sing. Besides, if you get food on the lobby floor, Nat will be pretty upset with you.”

  “I think I can handle Natalie.”

  Terry barked out a laugh and took another perfect tomato from a bowl at her elbow. “I’d love to see that.”

  “No, seriously, I have to run to a thing. Can I grab something? I don’t think I can make it until dinner, and I will absolutely starve to death if you don’t feed me.”

  She shook her head and wiped her hands on the front of the apron tied around her pristine white coat. “Yeah, there are some leftover turkey sandwiches in the fridge from the Kids’ Club lunch. I’ll grab you a few.”

  “Thank you, Terry.”

  She got him two and he thanked her again before leaving through the storage room. He could go all the way through the hotel out the actual employee exit but leaving through the loading bay doors was a much easier way to get to the parking lot. It also gave him ample opportunities to ask Terry to feed him every time he came in or out of work. She always put on a bit of a show that she was annoyed with his endless appetite, often calling him a bottomless pit, but the smile whenever she gave him a second helping of something made it clear she loved it.

  He hurried to his Jeep, turning on the heat as soon as he had the door shut behind him. He felt bad about bailing on one of his appointments, but he didn’t have a choice. The Spartan Gym he went to was having a big event for some of the people competing in the Special Olympics. Originally, one of the full-time coaches was going to handle it, but he was rushed to the hospital earlier with a broken ankle, leaving his friend Ben down a trainer. Hudson didn’t want to let the athletes down, so he went to fill in. He’d debated telling Nat the real reason why he’d bailed so early, but the last time he’d tried to tell her he had a scheduling conflict and the reason why, she just said his personal life was none of her business. If she didn’t want to know, no skin off his nose. He’d still take care of his responsibilities.

  The gym was about half an hour away, but he figured he’d use the drive to start thinking about the Kents and what he could do to help. It was winter, so that meant there were an awful lot of beautiful, outdoor activities. It’d be cold, and the couple, if they were Sutton’s age, were probably about sixty. They could still be pretty spry, but maybe not quite ready for a three-mile hike in difficult terrain in winter. Maybe he could plan an easier one, then he could set a firepit for them, bring a portable speaker. Maybe he could call up Sutton and ask for a few song recommendations so they could dance under the stars to their wedding playlist. That sounded good right? The question was, would Natalie go for it?

  Natalie, the perfect concierge. Everything was just so in her life, right down to the pamphlets he’d watched her arrange for the better part of ten minutes that morning. He wanted to move them so badly, maybe flip one backward just to see if her head would actually explode. She was always so put together. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Maybe because he wasn’t sure where he had a pen, or if he even owned one that he hadn’t taken from one of the desks in the lobby. Then again, when he riled her up, there was this fire in her eyes that he liked seeing. She’d certainly keep him on his toes.

  *

  Hudson rolled into the lobby after his hike with the Johnsons the next morning feeling pretty good. They were so in love it was insane. They held gloved hands throughout the hike, and they missed most of the sunrise because they were too busy staring into each other’s eyes over the thermos of coffee they shared. Hudson did his best to keep quiet and act as a silent GPS instead of an instructive guide. They’d even insisted on setting up the picnic breakfast themselves. If he were to ever consider settling down, he wanted to be like them. Well, maybe not as cheesy as them and maybe it’d involve some kind of extreme sport like skiing to a picnic on top of a mountain and then skiing down a black diamond together, but yeah, like them, so in love you don’t notice anyone else…or some crap like that.

  But the hike had been good for him too. He’d sat on a log a distance away from the Johnsons during their breakfast and went through the photos he’d taken on his phone from the Special Olympics’s event. It had been a challenge to adapt the different courses for each competitor’s need. It hadn’t been an actual Special Olympics event, just a bonding exercise for the participants. The organizers had said they watched all the obstacle course races on television and were interested in participating in some of the events at the gym. They’d shown up exactly on time in matching yellow shirts, ready to take on adjusted obstacle courses. Watching them dominate the monkey bars and tire flipping was pretty cool and was yet another reminder of how much he loved physical activities. They had the power to bring people together.

  He picked the best shots he had and sent them to Ben so he could forward them to the families. Hudson loved being a part of the Spartan community. He’d been training since leaving high school and competing for nearly five years. He’d made friends all over the country but had yet to make it to California.

  California was where his family was, the family he’d rarely seen since leaving the military boarding school he’d attended in Colorado. They didn’t understand why he didn’t join the family tech company, and move back to the land of sun and surf to start a nine-to-five career. He loved his parents and his kid sister, who was no longer much of a kid since going to college and getting some intense robotics degree. She was the golden child. She’d loved boarding school, accepting the family tradition of attending and learning structure, while Hudson rebelled, running as far away from that structure as he could. It’s why he loved traveling so much. It brought the unexpected. Still, he couldn’t deny it would be nice to see them. True, they weren’t the only reason he wanted to move back there, but it was definitely a perk.

  Two of the friends he’d met while training for his first Spartan race in Texas were opening a gym right outside of Del Mar, nearly within walking distance of one of Sutton’s hotels. If he could snag a position there, he would have the best of both worlds: be able to make a solid living while helping out some of his oldest friends. And the Kents were his ticket to Cali. First though, he had to get through Natalie and show her he could pull his weight in the romance department.

  He went into the kitchen and poured himself a hot cup of coffee, hoping to thaw his body before his meeting with Nat. He was prepared though. He’d made a list of ideas for the Kents after he’d gotten home late the night before, and he thought they were pretty great. She’d probably smile at him, the way she did when it didn’t reach her eyes, the customer service robot taking over her body, and then tell him all of his ideas were garbage. But he’d keep trying. It was a challenge to him, and he never backed down from a challenge. Hudson would find an idea to crack her robotic exterior. It seemed harder to get her seal of approval than Mr. Sutton’s.

  After he finished his coffee, he got a fresh cup for Natalie, winked at Terry on his way out, then headed over to Natalie’s office. Not that he stalked her or anything; he just noticed she usually arrived at eight thirty sharp every morning. She’d walk through the main doors, survey the lobby, and then head to her office. She was so militant. It was eight twenty-five, so he’d wait for her, look all efficient and timely in the lobby. That’d definitely set a good impression. Maybe she’d even warm to him. Who was he kidding?
The woman was made of stone.

  As he expected, she appeared just on time. There she was, her navy suit without a wrinkle, not a hair out of place with her fancy hair twist, her red heels clicking on the floor. She was staring down at her phone, but he knew she saw him, unless there was something else that made her stand up straighter all of a sudden.

  “Oh, hello, Hudson. I didn’t realize you were waiting for me,” she said, putting her phone back in her overly large purse. Her red lips weren’t smiling, not even the fake kind he’d grown to associate with her.

  “I thought we had a meeting after the Johnson’s hike.”

  “We do. I just didn’t realize you were already here.”

  “As opposed to where?”

  “I don’t know, maybe wherever you were yesterday,” she said, one perfect arched brow rising. Was she teasing him? That would be a change.

  Hudson shrugged. “I didn’t hear the Johnsons complaining this morning. Did you have a chance to talk to them? If not, I had them complete a survey, just in case you were worried I wouldn’t give them my all.” He pulled the folded survey out of his back pocket and held it out to her. Natalie didn’t take it.

  “Listen, my issue with you yesterday wasn’t that you wouldn’t be an amazing guide; it was the rescheduling, bailing last minute. I need people on my staff that I can count on. That’s why this…this dual project makes me nervous.”

  Hudson shook his head. “Natalie, in the almost two years I’ve been working here, I’ve been sick once and I’ve never missed an appointment before yesterday. You can’t hold that against me as if I’m this giant flake.”

  “Well, then prove that you’re not. I mean, I checked your resume, you haven’t been in one place for longer than two years since you started working. You’ve been here just over a year, about a year and a half and now you’re itching to go to California. What if they offered you the job tomorrow? You’d leave me to handle this all on my own. So, I appreciate the help, and if Mr. Sutton asks, I’ll show him surveys I’ve received from your clients.” Then she reached out and took the survey from him. “I did get an email from the Johnsons on the way in. They said that it was a great morning, so I appreciate you making it up to them. Your idea obviously worked.”

  He grinned. “Hold on, was that a compliment? Are you feeling alright? Should I get a chair for you to gracefully swoon onto?”

  “I am capable of giving you a compliment when you’ve done a good job.”

  “And you’ll have to keep giving them because I haven’t even applied for the job in California. I’d love it, but it’s still in the future, so you don’t have to worry about me leaving in the next two weeks at least.”

  Her hazel eyes flickered to the side, as if she was considering his words, then they turned back to him. “Don’t you let me down, Hudson.”

  “You can trust me, Natalie.” He held out the coffee.

  She raised one brow and took it. “Then let’s go. You have an hour to wow me with your ideas before I need to start my rounds.” She swept past him, leaving the scent of coffee and something sweet, in her wake. Then she said over her shoulder, “And you can call me Nat.”

  *

  Nat

  After sitting in her office with Hudson for an hour, all Nat could think was how much a ticket to California was. She’d very much like to put him on that plane. His ideas, in theory, sounded great, but when you got down to the logistics, they completely fell apart. He didn’t have any of the details worked out. He was the big idea guy who came up with grand schemes, then went to get coffee while the other guys were left to try and make sense of everything.

  “You don’t have to work out every minuscule detail right now, Nat,” he was saying as he leaned back in the chair he dragged in from his office for their meeting. It balanced on the back two legs, forcing Nat to look away. If he tipped too far, he could smack his head, leaving her with a pile of paperwork about his onsite work injury, and a possible missing adventure coordinator. He was such a child sometimes.

  Then he stretched and laced his fingers behind his head, the muscles of his broad chest and shoulders straining against the pale blue fabric of his thermal shirt. Couldn’t he get something in his size? Something that didn’t look like it’d rip at any moment? How big were his biceps? And just like that, she completely missed what he’d said. She shook her head, telling herself not to focus on his looks, but on the job at hand. Unfortunately, the job at hand was giving her a migraine.

  “Nat, are you listening?”

  “No, I’m rehearsing a musical.”

  He rolled his eyes. “What we need is to go over the two weeks broadly and get the idea of what we’d like to do. This organizing every minute of the day, man, that’s so stressful. No one wants that on their vacation.”

  “Okay, first of all, I plan vacations for people on a daily basis, so I think I know what they like.”

  “But this isn’t just a big vacation, Nat. This is a special trip, right? We have to wow them, and I feel like you’re not going big enough. So why are you treating it like any regular vacation? It’s not this paint-by-numbers trip, come on.”

  She slapped her red journal of menus and dessert options shut. “Excuse me, if you think I’m taking this lightly, then I don’t know what to say to you. It’s just a steppingstone for you, but this is my career. It’s what I’ve dedicated my life to.”

  “Nat, I’m sorry,” Hudson said, all mirth gone from his light eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just saying that maybe candlelit dinners aren’t going to cut it.”

  “It’s winter in New York, so we need to be reasonable and keep the weather in mind.”

  “Too bad it’s pretty mild. I had this idea about taking them snowmobiling to get their blood moving, but there’s not enough snow.”

  “Snowmobiles are not romantic anyway.”

  “They are if you know what you’re doing.”

  She knit her brows and slid the journal into its place between the red and yellow ones, then took out the pink, which covered all the activities in the surrounding towns. “That makes no sense.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Why, are you going to pull a quarter out of my ear?”

  “Maybe later. But for right now, just listen to what I’m saying and stay silent. I want to paint you a picture.”

  Nat sighed loudly but did it anyway, placing her hands on the desk in front of her, fingers folded. “Okay, now dazzle me.”

  “Alright, you’re bundled up in this frigid weather, and a man you’re attracted to helps you onto this huge piece of equipment. You settle in behind him and wrap your arms around his middle before you take off across a snowy landscape. You race through the open expanse of white, diamond-tipped trees, making for a pristine backdrop to your adventure.”

  Nat’s pulse picked up as she listened to Hudson’s low voice. She had no idea he was such a poet when it came to explaining things. She could imagine the biting wind and the fingers of her gloved hands holding tightly to a parka as she laughed.

  “Once he stops and helps you off the snowmobile,” he continued in the same tone, “you’re in an amazing clearing, a glen surrounded by pine trees. The gently setting sun is painting everything around you in shades of orange and red. In the center of the clearing is a little firepit which roars to life when he lights the kindling for you. You sit on the logs around the flame and he wraps the two of you in a blanket he brought with him. You sit by the fire, telling each other secrets, lost in the solitude of nature. Then, just as the sun disappears behind the horizon, he looks at you, claiming his view, gazing into your eyes, reminding you that as long as you have each other, you can take on the world. With a gentle kiss, he turns you to face the most beautiful sunset you’ve ever seen. As you ride back to the lodge, your arms around him, you feel loved, safe.”

  “That sounds perfect,” she whispered, not even sure if he could hear it. And then, she felt his hand grip hers, a quick and warm squeeze. She jumped, coming ba
ck to reality, leaving the fantasy behind. The idea of a man, not necessarily the one in front of her, just a faceless man, taking her on that date had made her dizzy with the thrill of it. He was right, and she was completely shocked. But more than that, his hand was still on hers and she hadn’t pulled away.

  Nat opened her eyes and blushed, gently pulling her hands back, placing them in her lap.

  “See, romantic, huh?” he teased, the playful Hudson back.

  “If you’re into that sort of thing.”

  “It looks like you would be.”

  “Then I guess it’s a shame they can’t go snowmobiling.”

  “I guess so.”

  They were both silent for a few moments. Nat wasn’t sure what to say. Where was that kind of idea when they first started the meeting? His other ideas were nowhere near that fanciful, and it seemed like he’d come up with that whole little spiel off the top of his head. Part of her wondered if there was a chance she have inspired him to create his certain brand of natural magic. But then again, why would she?

  Hudson turned one of the frames on her desk around. “This you?”

  Nat knew which one he was talking about. She had been fifteen with braces and gangly limbs. She had a haircut the stylist had promised would make her look like Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama, but made her look ridiculous instead, and the frosted-pink lipstick didn’t help matters. Still, it was one of her favorite pictures. Out of all the places she lived as a kid, Germany had been her favorite, since she lived there the longest.

  “Do you mind?” she asked dryly, reaching for the frame, but missing as he pulled it just out of her reach. “We have other things to focus on.” The connection she’d previously thought she’d made over the idea of snowmobiling was promptly ruined by him being, well, himself.

  “Not at all. Like that lipstick color on you. Very chic.” He grinned and put the frame back. It was crooked and made Nat’s fingers itch. “And that hair? You should go short again.”