A Bride For Crimson Falls (4 page)

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Authors: Cindy Gerard

BOOK: A Bride For Crimson Falls
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She decided to downplay the situation. “You don’t really want to hear about a silly old ghost story.”
“But I do. I’m a business man. I appreciate a good business ploy when I hear one. A resident ghost is good for business. That’s a proven fact. There’s not an inn on the East Coast that doesn’t boast a ghost or two to lure the curious or adventuresome. Why not an old hotel in the middle of nowhere? Humor me. Tell me the whole story.”
He wanted the story? Fine. She’d give it to him. She knew she couldn’t make him believe it. Only Belinda could do that, and Scarlett wasn’t going to give her the opportunity.
“The hotel was built back in the 1890s,” she explained as she rinsed the lettuce, then gathered the rest of the makings for a salad. “It accommodated fur traders and loggers in, shall I say, more than overnight lodging and a hot meal?”
He quirked a brow and drew the correct conclusion. “Working girls?”
She nodded. “Lots of men and lots of money traveled through the boundary waters back then. Lots of lonely men. The hotel was the perfect setup for a brothel.
“Belinda,” she continued, tearing the lettuce, then chopping fresh mushrooms and cucumbers, “was one of the professional ladies. When a big Swede wandered in one day, took one look at her and asked her to marry him, she thought her prince had come.”
“But the prince turned out to be a frog?” he suggested, spinning his own twist on the tale.
“So the story goes. When the big day came, he got cold feet. He left her standing at the altar—or in this case, at the bar just off the dining room.”
Though she’d told the story hundreds of times to both the curious and the skeptics, she always felt a sadness when she thought of Belinda. As a woman, she supposed, she even felt a connection.
“And...” he prompted.
She shrugged, forcing herself to snap out of the momentary melancholy. “She walked to the top of the bluffs and threw herself over the falls. Her body was never found.”
“And now she haunts the hotel,” he deduced in a patronizing tone.
She decided to forgive him that attitude, since he really didn’t know any better. “More specifically, the room Casey put you in. It was her business room.”
“And she’s searching for and seeking revenge on men in general for what her bridegroom did to her.”
Scarlett smiled, recognizing the look of a man who felt he’d just been fed a long line of hooey. “That about sums it up.”
“It’s a great story,” he conceded. “But that’s all it is. A great story.”
“Suit yourself,” she said agreeably.
“You mean you actually believe it?”
“Casey believes it.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She shrugged. “Certain events haven’t given me a lot of choice.”
It didn’t take much to translate the look on his face. He thought she was loony. No matter. Scarlett had dealt with nay-sayers before. No doubt she’d deal with them again. If someone could come up with a rational explanation for what happened in that room when a man occupied it, she’d buy it in a heartbeat. In the meantime her money was on Belinda, and she had to get Colin Slater out of there before Belinda started making mischief—even though Scarlett had begun to agree with Casey. It might be fun to let him experience Belinda’s wrath firsthand.
“Regardless,” she countered, when her conscience just wouldn’t allow it, “I think you’d be more comfortable in one of the other guest rooms. After dinner, we’ll move you to the Annabelle. It’s a little larger, and the view of the lake and the falls in the distance is better. It’s also at the end of the hall, so you won’t have to put up with traffic walking by your door.”
“No need.” A spark of challenge danced in his eyes. “The Belinda will do just fine. Besides, I’ve already unpacked.”
“No problem,” she breezed on, trying to ignore both his insistence and the tumbling in her tummy caused by the look in his gray eyes. “We’ll just transfer your things. You really will prefer the Annabelle.”
“I
prefer
the Belinda, thanks just the same. And I don’t believe in ghosts, so it’s no sweat, all right?”
She studied him for a long moment, considering both his stubbornness and her reaction to him. While she’d finally come to terms with it, she still didn’t like that she was attracted to him.
It stirred up her irritation all over again. Not just with herself, but with him. Why did he have to come here and then manage to make her like him? And how, with one grand entrance into her private domain, had he stirred up physical wants and needs she’d packed away with her divorce decree and wedding pictures?
She couldn’t afford the complications this particular attraction could bring. She didn’t have the time or the energy, she told herself pragmatically. She had too much work to do on the hotel. Add the fight she planned on waging against Dreamscape Corporation’s plans to destroy virgin forest and interrupt the solitude with concrete-and-glass getaway condos by the falls, and she already had a full plate.
Frustration surfaced with a vengeance. Unfortunately for him, it looked like he was going to bear the brunt of it. She knew she shouldn’t leave him in Belinda’s room, but suddenly it seemed like a darn fine idea. Why not ruffle those pretty corporate feathers he wore with such confidence? Why not let him feel a little of the discomfort she was feeling? And after all, wouldn’t she actually be doing him a favor? If she left him with Belinda, it was a given that he wouldn’t be “bored.”
In the end she justified her decision by opting to employ the golden rule of business: give the customer what he wants.
“Fine,” she said with a shrug and a “Don’t say I didn’t warn you” look. “Whatever you want.”
“You can go to bed with a clear conscience tonight,” he assured her. “You did your best to dissuade me.”
“It’s not my conscience I’m worried about,” she lied, wondering, now that the die was cast, how long it would be before Belinda made her presence known. “It’s your peace of mind.” And her own.
“Dinner’s in five minutes,” she added, before she had second thoughts. When he just shook his head, obviously amused, he sealed his fate for good. No way was she moving him now. Whatever Belinda had in mind for him, he deserved it.
“Please make yourself at home in the dining room. Casey will take care of everything you need. And if you’d like, I’ll take you on a tour of the grounds and the hotel itself afterward. After all, you do have a vested interest in the property, whether you want to be involved or not.”
And she’d somehow take care of her sophomoric heart palpitations between now and then.
Needless to say, she would also take care of J. D. Hazzard for his part in saddling her with Colin Slater—if he ever had the guts to show his handsome, devious face at Crimson Falls again.
 
From a corner table Colin studied the dining room with a critical eye. He’d made his fortune in the renovation and restoration of buildings deemed unsalvageable by those with less vision and a more-limited knowledge of construction. He’d seen the effects of deep freezes on structures before, but never to the extent of the damage on this hotel. Had it been a prospective project, he’d have passed, marking it off as a poor investment. He was in the business of making money. There was no money to be made here. The renovation costs would far exceed the hotel’s worth, given its inaccessibility, which meant poor revenue-generating potential.
Sadly, it also meant the place would bleed Scarlett Morgan dry of any profit she thought she might eventually make. Not your problem, he reminded himself coldly, and watched the activity in the room.
Though it was summer now, and July was hot in Northern Minnesota, one hundred winters of subzero temperatures and deep, hard frosts had caused the ground beneath the hotel to heave, buckling the floor in several places. To wait on tables required great balance and even better footing in the sixty-by-forty-foot dining room, where the worn blue carpet looked like the waving surface of a wind-chopped lake.
He watched with admiration as Casey, with skill and agility, moved from table to table, filling water glasses, refilling bread baskets, busing tables. She knew the hills and valleys of the floor like a map maker knew the lay of the land. Scarlett was every bit as adroit at traversing the rough terrain.
He had given up trying to convince himself it was his appreciation for Scarlett’s surefootedness that kept his attention on her. The fact was, in spite of his resolve to distance himself, she continued to captivate him.
Skimming his thumb idly over his sweating water glass, he tried to pin down the reason. It wasn’t just that she was a beautiful woman. New York was full of beautiful women. Neither was it exclusively that she was either unaware of her appeal or she discounted it, even though her lack of self-absorption was something he found refreshing.
As he sat there, he finally decided it was the puzzle that fascinated him. Why was she up here by herself? Why wasn’t there a man in her life? What could possibly compel her to isolate herself in no-woman’s land, every day a struggle to keep this relic going? And what drove her to fight against the proposed condominiums that outside investors wanted to build near the hotel?
He’d quizzed J.D. in depth on that issue before he’d bought the raffle ticket. “You’re telling me there’s money behind a project to build condos to attract tourists and she’s against them coming in? Doesn’t she have any head for business? Condos bring people. People bring money. And exposure. It could only help improve her business.”
“She’s more interested in preserving the wilderness as it is,” J.D. had explained. “I’ve got to appreciate her motives. There’s not that much virgin timber or undisturbed forests left in the upper Midwest. This is the Rockies equivalent of the last frontier.”
“From a business point of view, she’s making a mistake,” Colin had contended, but he’d bought the tickets, anyway. If he could help save the whales he could help one woman try to save a little piece of history, no matter that, figuratively speaking, she was cutting her own throat when it came to her finances.
He had no intention of getting involved. As he watched her hustle around the room, though, he couldn’t stall a sharp tug of regret. Her motives might be strong, but her weapons weren’t. The money she’d made from the raffle was inadequate to save the hotel from financial disaster. And pitted against the unstoppable wheels of progress, this one small, but determined, woman did not possess near enough fire power to preserve the land and the traditions she treasured.
Not only that, she lacked the strength. It was apparent that she worked too hard, was more committed to taking care of her guests than herself. For some reason that conclusion nettled him. Someone ought to be seeing to her needs. He was certain she had them—and just looking at her jump-started a few needs of his own.
He shifted, placed one ankle over the other knee and thought about why. It wasn’t that he was gun-shy when it came to women. It wasn’t even that he was soured on monogamy or committed to diversity. He had many friends—J.D. included—who proved that marriage as an institution was alive and well. His parents, happily married forty years last month, cemented the concept. The honest truth was he’d just never met a woman who was as exciting or as compelling as his work. He doubted that he ever would.
Although Scarlett Morgan was a pleasant surprise and had him idly entertaining a close encounter of the passionate, but temporary, kind, he wouldn’t let it happen.
Temporary
was the pivotal word here and it wouldn’t be right. Not with her. The lady had
home
and
harmony
and
forever after
written all over her.
He leaned back in his chair, hooking an arm over its back, and mourned the demise of what could have been a pleasant interlude. Scarlett Morgan was as off limits as a nuclear silo. The fallout potential was in the critical range. She’d never understand that, with him, affairs of the heart had to be fleeting, because business came first, foremost and always.
Business. He looked around the dining room. Business is what had ultimately brought him here: his friends’ and family’s conception that he needed to get away from his; and Scarlett’s need to raffle off part of her business to keep it going.
He took a quick head count. There were all of fifteen people in a dining room that would easily hold sixty. No wonder she was in financial difficulty. It was the height of the tourist season, and less than half of the hotel’s guest rooms were occupied.
He made a slow scan of the room. A table of middle-aged fishermen dug into Scarlett’s simple but delicious meal, laughing and boasting to each other about their fishing experiences of the day. Another table was filled with six women—mid-forties, he’d guess. They were an unlikely group for this backwoods facility that catered to fishermen and family vacationers. But like the group of men, they laughed and chattered, totally absorbed in their meal and their private jokes.
A father and his three teenage sons occupied the final table. He unintentionally overheard scraps of their conversation and gathered they were going to portage over into Canadian waters tomorrow and canoe the wilderness area for a few days, so even they wouldn’t be staying at the hotel after tonight.

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