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Her father shook his head slowly, as if disappointed. “Ty will go through the list with you, and you, young lady, will be nice to him. I don’t want anyone getting suspicious. I want them to think we’ve known Ty for years.”
She pinched her lips together to keep from asking why. It had been years since her father had reprimanded her, but now it left her seeing red. It hurt, too, although she wouldn’t admit that, not even to herself.
“And Rosie,” her father said, already making his way toward Dave’s cabin, “put on a pair of gloves. Your hands look terrible.”
Fuming, Norma Rose marched back to the resort’s main building, where she ventured upstairs to her room to retrieve a new pair of gloves, all the while trying not to become overwhelmed by the emotions bubbling inside her. The resort consumed her life, it had for years, and right now she was questioning why. If a stranger could magically appear and her father instantly let him in, pushing her and all her hard work aside, why did she let it?
Because it was her life.
With renewed determination burning, she pulled open a dresser drawer. Her dress was black with white sequins, so she chose black gloves this time and changed her white shoes to black ones.
That all completed, she headed back downstairs toward her office, still madder than she remembered being for some time. She’d go through the lists as requested, but not with Ty Bradshaw hanging over her shoulder. Many of the partygoers for Palooka George’s bash had already made reservations, and she personally had set up the accommodations. Names were ticking through her head and not one raised a red flag.
Concentrating hard, she barely noticed her surroundings until she arrived at her office door, which was open. The sight inside made her nostrils flare.
Ty Bradshaw stood in front of her desk, next to the window that overlooked the parking lot, where she often watched the coming and going of guests. He turned around as she entered.
“I had Moe make us breakfast, as well,” he said, gesturing toward the table under the window. “He assured me you haven’t eaten yet, either.”
Norma Rose tried to tell herself her heart was beating so hard and fast because she was mad. Furious in fact. That was also the reason her palms had chosen to break out in a sweat. It truly had nothing to do with the single wild rose sticking out of the narrow vase in the center of the table, and it had absolutely nothing to do with how gallant Ty Bradshaw looked as he pulled back one of the two chairs and indicated she should take a seat. Without his suit jacket, his rolled-up shirt sleeves revealed thick and well-muscled arms, and the black suspenders clipped to his pants framed an impressively flat stomach and narrow hips.
She’d never doubted that with the right clothes, even a rat could look good. That’s what he was, and she’d expose his hairy tail before the day was out. He might have pulled the wool over her father’s eyes for the time being, but not hers. This man was trouble. And she’d find a way to prove it.
Then again, most rats, due to their greed, eventually exposed themselves. All she had to do was give him the opportunity.
“Moe said you like poached eggs,” he said, once again nodding toward the chair he held.
He was sly, already befriending Moe and goodness knows who else. Rats could have silver tongues, too. Her father had told her to be nice to him, and she would be. In public. In private, she’d let him know just how she felt about him and his lies.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, making a direct line toward her desk.
He rounded the table and sat in the other chair. “I am.” Lifting the silver lid off his plate, he added, “And this smells wonderful.”
Her stomach chose that moment to growl, loudly. Ignoring it and the wide grin on Ty’s face as he cut his sausage into bite-size pieces, she sat and pulled open the desk drawer that held several leatherbound books.
“No one,” she said pointedly, “enters my office without my permission. Remember that.”
“Note taken,” he said.
The glimmer in his brown eyes said he didn’t take her seriously. A mistake he’d soon regret.
“Next weekend we have Al and Emma Imhoff’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” she said. “Big Al, as all the locals know him, owns the car dealership in White Bear Lake and most of the guests, other than a few family members coming from out of town, are local folks.”
“Any luck with coming up with a musician for that night?” he asked, taking a bite of toast.
Her stomach growled again, and twisted at his smugness. The fact that her father had told Ty twice as much as he’d told her burned.
“No,” she said. “Therefore, the sooner we get through the guest lists, the sooner I can get back to work that needs to be done.”
He touched his lips with his napkin and laid it down before saying, “You say that as if you believe going through the lists will be a waste of time.”
She didn’t want to notice such things—the way he used his napkin, how he’d held the chair. Manners like that couldn’t be taught overnight, they were instilled from childhood, a fact that made her curious. She wasn’t overly impressed by her curiosity. “It is a waste of time, Mr. Bradshaw.”
He poured coffee out of the silver warming pot into his cup. “So, you’ve lived here, at the resort, your entire life?”
“That,” she said, leaning back to cross her arms, “is none of your business. Furthermore, there is no need for small talk. I have a lot of work to do today.”
“I know,” he said, sipping from his cup. “Finding a replacement for Brock Ness.”
Irritated she didn’t have some small tidbit of information about him to toss back, she leaned forward and flipped open her registration book. “Among other things.”
He set his cup down. “The Plantation pulls in some good performers, maybe they’d—”
“I don’t need any help from the Plantation,” she snapped. Forrest Reynolds was right next to Ty Bradshaw on her list of people she’d never ask assistance from.
“All right,” he said, pushing away from the table. In less than five steps, he’d rounded her desk, where he carefully moved aside her phone and sat on the corner. His long legs, angled to the floor, completely blocked her in. “Let me see the ledger then.”
His closeness disrupted her breathing, and the air that did manage to enter her nose was full of his aftershave. A woodsy, novel scent she wished was far more offensive. Norma Rose hadn’t got over all that, or come up with a response, when Moe walked in the door she’d left open.
“How was breakfast?” the cook asked. “You liked it, no?”
“Yes,” Ty answered. “It was very good, Moe. Just as you said it would be.”
The cook, having already put Ty’s empty plate on the silver tray he carried, lifted the lid off Norma Rose’s plate and shook his head. “Rosie, you didn’t eat your eggs.”
“I—”
“She’s been busy,” Ty answered. He lifted the ledger off her desk. “Set it here, Moe, she can eat it now.”
Moe set her plate before her and laid out silverware on a napkin while she glared at Ty for interrupting her. He, of course, was smiling.
“Eat before it gets cold,” Moe said. “Can’t have any wasted food.”
A growl rolled around in Norma Rose’s throat. She was a stickler for not wasting food, not wasting anything, and the cook knew it. Ty’s grin said he knew it, too.
She grabbed her fork, and almost choked on her first bite when Ty said, “Close the door, would you please, Moe?”
The cook had already complied by the time she’d swallowed and Ty was flipping through pages. Head down, he swiftly ran a finger down the page of names she’d painstakingly written out on each line.
Glancing her way without lifting his head, he said, “Don’t mind me. I’ll read the lists while you eat.”
She minded, all right—minded every little detail about him, but she ate, washing down the cold poached eggs and soggy toast with gulps of orange juice.
As she set down her empty glass, he asked, “How many employees do you have?”
The change of subject didn’t surprise her and she suspected he already knew. He’d obviously taken the time to learn everything there was to know. “You tell me,” she said, pushing her plate to the far edge of her desk.
“Counting you and your three sisters, fifty-two, and most of them live within a few miles of the resort.”
Brushing crumbs off her gloves—which she normally removed while eating—she said, “You seem to have gathered a lot of information from my father in a very short time.”
He flipped another page. “You forget I had lunch with Dave yesterday.”
That didn’t bother her nearly as much as it had last night. Whatever Dave may have told him couldn’t compare to the way her father had already taken Ty into his confidence. She took the book from his hand and laid it on her desk. “I don’t forget anything. Ever.” Meeting his gaze, she added, “And I know you are not a lawyer.”
“You’re right,” he said, twisting to rest a hand on her desk so he could continue to scan the names listed in the book. “I’m not.”
