CHAPTER 11
That night when Riley got home from work, Olivia called her. “How did the first day with Lucas go?”
Riley set her purse down on the coffee table and slumped onto the couch. “Well, I may have broken the law three times, but I didn’t break Lucas’s determination. He hasn’t turned in his resignation yet. I haven’t decided whether that’s a win or not.”
“What did you do to him?” Olivia asked, her voice horrified and accusing.
“I didn’t do anything,” Riley said. “I mean, at least not on purpose. How was I supposed to know a person needed a permit to own a wallaby? Since when am I the marsupial police?” And then Riley had to recount the whole day, including Mrs. Lewis’s angry departure from the inn and promised bad online review because Lucas had told her she had to register Tippyroo with the Montana Fish and Game department.
“I can’t say I was sorry to see them go,” Riley said. “You wouldn’t believe how much mess one wallaby can make in a hallway when being pursued by a bunch of adrenalin-hyped middle-aged men. And really, they ought to have known better than to take off their towels and try to use them as nets to catchthe poor thing. All the shouting and noise not only freaked out the animal, it made the other guests open their doors to see what was happening.”
Riley let her head fall back against the couch. “The church choir people barely paused to gather their things before they checked out, and Mrs. Bachinger, well, all I can say is that if she didn’t want a wallaby bounding around her suite and trampling her toiletries, she should’ve checked the room’s phone messages and kept her door shut. Is it my fault no one pays attention to the blinking light on the room phones? But you know, that’s not how she’s going to tell the story to every single person she knows in Lark Springs.”
Mrs. Bachinger was definitely going to spread the story around, despite Lucas’s charm and assurances that he would replace any of her damaged toiletries. Even the Clark charm couldn’t beat a good story.
Riley rubbed her eyes. “With the extra cleaning and all the early check-outs, I think the inn actually lost money today. I feel sorry for the owner.”
“Do you?” Olivia asked.
“Not really.”
There was a pause. Riley knew that Olivia still felt guilty that her fiancé had bought The Riverside. She’d been the one who insisted that Carson give Riley a raise. Olivia had also tried to put a positive spin on the purchase, telling Riley that Carson would want to sell the inn someday, and when he did, Riley would be in a better position to buy it.
Wishful thinking. Carson knew a good deal when he saw it. The Riverside Inn was a historic building in a prime location.
“How did Lucas react to all of it?” Olivia ventured. “Besides evicting the wallaby?”
“The Polar Club men got a stern lecture about public indecency laws. The housekeepers got overtime. The choir gotcoupons for free dinner and assurances that the wallaby hadn’t been anywhere near the food—little good that will do. I saw the looks on their faces. We’re not going to be able to tempt them back to our den of iniquity with free chili and cinnamon rolls.”
“What about you?” Olivia asked. “Did Lucas yell at you?”
Only with his eyes. He’d given her a tight-lipped expression like she’d engineered everything just to make his life harder, but when it was all over, he’d only said, “I knew working with you wouldn’t be dull. Seems I was right.”
Riley still wasn’t sure whether that was an insult or just a pronouncement of doom. “Lucas didn’t yell, he just gave me a lecture about why locking people inside the inn is a possible death trap during a fire.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
She didn’t reply. It hadn’t beentoobad. Mr. Ross would have snapped at the guests, been apoplectic with the staff, and blamed Riley for everything. He would’ve stormed off to his office and left her to deal with the aftermath, but Lucas had stepped in and handled things.
She had to admit he had a calm, authoritative manner that was naturally reassuring. Perhaps after being shot as a policeman, this sort of thing couldn’t faze him.
Riley kicked her feet up on the coffee table. “On the bright side, the remaining guests will have plenty to discuss over dinner. They were positively chatty with one another when I left, hanging around the lobby and sitting room like they expected an encore.”
“The Riverside Inn is where memories are made,” Olivia said.
Yep, that had been the ad copy she’d used.
Olivia’s voice turned serious. “So today wasn’t great. You still need to give Lucas a chance. The job doesn’t have to be a battlefield. Even though things didn’t work out romanticallybetween you two, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good business relationship.”
A good business relationship? Her ex-boyfriend always got to tell her what to do. That wasn’t really the best power dynamic. Riley didn’t point this out. It sounded petty to complain about work when Olivia had gotten Riley a raise. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
She would just do what she could to deal with Lucas.
Given the bad start,the rest of the week went fairly well. The polar men checked out. The only time the writer emerged from her room was to eat dinner. And the trio of homeless men mostly kept to their room, watching TV, probably trying to avoid any more run-ins with the ex-cop turned manager.
Lucas treated Riley politely, aloofly, and if his blue eyes occasionally lingered on her, well, it didn’t mean anything. Her gaze wandered to him more often than she’d ever looked at Mr. Ross, but that was only because the two of them had a history. Memories. They had reasons to be wary of each other. And, at least in her case, lingering chemistry to overcome.
Having him around, yeah, that was kicking up the old attractions. His smile, square jaw, and the sweep of his blond hair drew her eyes. How could she not notice his broad shoulders or the way his lean chest tapered down into a perfect waist? Women were programmed to respond to that sort of thing. And his clear blue eyes, they just naturally brought to mind the brilliant days of summer and cloudless skies. How could her heart not ache a little when she saw him? Every day. Multiple times a day.