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“Okay, sweetheart.” Pat said goodbye, and they hung up.
Lorry quickly returned to the hotel’s foyer, carefully making sure Tom was nowhere in sight as she made a dash for the front desk. Hailey Ingram was the hotel’s concierge, managing the staff while Steph was away. Ross Berkley, currently handling the front desk, was one of their newer hires. He’d been with them for just over a year.
“Hi, Ross,” Lorry greeted him.
“Good morning, Lorry,” Ross greeted her back with his usual friendly smile and far too chirpy for that time of day attitude.
“Will you please let Hailey and anyone else who may be looking for me know that I have to run an important errand.” Lorry looked at her wristwatch. “I shouldn’t be longer than two hours at the most.”
“Of course,” Ross said.
Lorry hurried back toward the parking garage. As she got near the door, she heard the familiar sound her phone made when she got a personal email. She opened up the mail and smiled. It was her pen pal—TJ Bean.
I hope you have a better day than yesterday. Mine started out great when I opened my email to find one from you.
TJ xx
They’d been writing to each other since just after her father died. Lorry had been going through her father’s personal email account when she found a new email from someone named TJ Bean. It was the most heartfelt email she’d ever read. At first, Lorry had been so stunned, and her worst fears about her father having had an affair appeared to be true. The letter was addressed to Robby, a nickname Lorry’s grandmother and sometimes mother had called her father.
While she’d read the letter, Lorry’s shock and disbelief had melted into tears as she’d read the love letter. When she came to the end of the letter, she realized it wasn’t for her father and must’ve been sent to the wrong email as it was signed: You’ll always be my first love, my one big love, and the mother of our daughter - your ex-husband T. J. Bean.
With a mixture of guilt and something else driving her, Lorry had written to T. J., letting him know he’d sent the email to the wrong address. The next day, Lorry had been surprised to find he’d written back, and they’d struck up a friendship. His ex-wife’s name was Robby Scot, and TJ’s ex-wife’s email was RScot, while Lorry’s father was RScott. All it took was one missing letter to bring two people together.
Well, two pen pals together anyway. They had never met in person, talked, or messaged over the phone. Lorry didn’t know TJ’s phone number or his full name, and he didn’t know those details about her either. He thought she was Robby Scott. They’d been emailing each other more than once every day for the past three years since she’d responded to his wrongly sent letter. While they didn’t know those details about each other, they knew much deeper things about each other.
“Lorry!” Tom’s voice snapped her out of her reverie before she could read TJ’s letter.
“What?” Lorry snapped, looking up and realizing she was standing next to his pickup truck in the place her car should’ve been. “Where’s my car?”
She glanced around the garage.
“You loaned it to Nicky last night,” Tom reminded her.
“But I have the…” Lorry held the keys in her hand and realized they were spare keys for the hotel shuttle bus. She looked at where that was usually parked, and it was out. “Shoot!”
“What’s the matter?” Tom asked her.
“I have to fetch my mother from the country club,” Lorry muttered, about to phone Steph and find out if she could borrow her car.
“I can give you a lift,” Tom offered. “My pickup is a double cab.”
Lorry was about to decline his offer, but it would save time.
“Sure, if it’s not too much trouble,” Lorry accepted his offer.
“Not at all,” Tom assured her, pulling open the passenger door. “I was headed out to pick up refreshments for my crew.”
Lorry nodded and climbed into the vehicle.
“I’m sorry the crew started ahead of schedule this morning,” Tom surprised Lorry by saying as he pulled out of the garage and headed toward the club. “They were behind due to the rain these past two days and wanted to make up the work.”
“That’s fine,” Lorry said curtly. A pang of guilt seeped through her about the way she’d replied, as Tom was being friendly by going to pick up her mother and not letting an awkward silence fall between them. “I appreciate their enthusiasm, but we do have guests to consider.”
“I can assure you Barry, the foreman, went door to door last night to inform the guests that they would be starting early,” Tom told her. “They’ll be working late today as well.”
“That should be fine.” Lorry nodded.
She was proud of herself for biting her tongue and not letting Tom know how she felt about the contractors starting early and working late. While Lorry would give anything to be able to kick them out, the quicker they got the work done, the faster they’d be out of the hotel, taking their bosses with them.
