Just This Once (9 page)

“You’re in love,” Val pronounced.

“I am not! We barely know each other.”

“That may be true, but you’ve been in a great mood since last week, and you’ve talked about the woman almost nonstop.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m in love. But I do like her a lot.” Paula mounted the ab cruncher and started her pulls. “And I think…she likes me…too,” she puffed.

“Well, what’s not to like about you? You remember Kevin, the guy I was dating for a while?”

“Yeah.”

“He wanted to fix you up with one of his buddies and I told him I didn’t think you’d be interested. He said, ‘Aw, that’s too bad. She’s hot!’”

“Just…what I need…not!”

“So what do you think will happen with you two? I mean, the woman lives in Baltimore, right?”

“Yeah…but she’s still…got about…four more trips here.” It was hard to talk and crunch at the same time, but Paula couldn’t be still. And besides, she didn’t want to think about what would happen when Wynne’s work in Orlando was through.

“And then what happens?”

“Don’t know…we’ll have to…cross that bridge…when we come to it.”

“Slow down! You’re making me sore,” Val barked. “Are we going to run?”

“Ready when you are.” Paula slid off the cruncher and grabbed her bottle of water.

“The way you are today, you’ll probably run off and leave me in the dust.”

“Only one way to find out,” Paula yelled over her shoulder as she took off out the door in the direction of the jogging trail that ran between the condo property and the neighboring golf course. If they cut out to the sidewalk by the main roadway, they could loop around to the other side of the course, a two-mile circuit which they would run twice.

“By the way, I really like your hair that way,” Val huffed as they settled into their pace.

“Thanks.” And because all conversations had to eventually come back to the woman from Baltimore, Paula added, “Wynne likes it this way too.”

———

“So you write down all of the outstanding checks here and add them up,” Wynne explained. “Then subtract that from what the statement says, along with the service charges, and add any deposits you’ve made that aren’t on here…and this number should match the checkbook.”

Wynne and her mother compared the two numbers.

“Great, and what do we do if they’re different?” Kitty asked.

The brunette sighed in exasperation. “Well, that means that you probably either forgot to write down a check, or that your math is wrong.”

Together they pored over the account until the mistake was found, finally bringing the checkbook into balance. Despite her frustration, Wynne was pleased that her mom was working so hard to learn this.

“Mom, you have to do this as soon as the statement comes in. If you don’t, you’ll lose track of what you spend and before you know it, you’re overdrawn.”
Again
.

“Okay, I’ll do my best.” Kitty hated being so dependent on her daughter, but her husband had always taken care of these things. “What are we going to do about the car?”

The tall woman sighed. Her mother had been reluctant to get rid of the Park Avenue, as it was the last vehicle her husband had purchased. But she had
never
thought to put oil in it, and it finally threw a rod and bit the dust. She called Wynne from a payphone, and her daughter picked her up and arranged to have the car towed.

“It’s a goner. You’re going to need a new car.”

“What am I going to do? I don’t know the first thing about buying a car.”

“I’ll go with you on Saturday. We’ll find something nice, something Dad would have liked.” Wynne threw in that last bit for encouragement.

“Thank you, honey. I honestly don’t know how I’d manage without all the things you do.”

Neither do I, Mom
.

———

“Did you see this letter from Starquest?” Rusty tossed the paper onto Paula’s desk.

“They’re thanking us for handling their meeting, and they mention you by name.”

The blonde woman chortled. “That’s because I happened to be walking down the hallway when their chairman was locked out of his room in his underwear.”

“Boxers or briefs?”

“Boxers, and they had ‘Wednesday’ stamped on the leg. But it was Friday.”

“People would never believe the things we see in hotels,” Rusty shook his head in amazement. “Remember that other guy who got locked out in his underwear?”

“You mean
her
underwear,” Paula laughed. “Or the woman who…”

The phone on her desk interrupted their reminiscence, its caller ID flashing Front Desk.

“This is Paula…yeah….” She twirled around in her seat and grabbed the remote for the video camera display. “Okay, I see them…we’ll be right down.” Hanging up the phone, she turned to her boss. “Two busloads just pulled up with that country music band. You want to work the front desk or the bellmen.”

Rusty groaned. “Bellmen.” They would be here half the night again finishing up paperwork.

———

Wynne sat solemnly in the back seat of the cab, accustomed now to the route from the airport and no longer taking in the sights.

I should have just booked at the Hyatt
, she thought. No, the problem wasn’t the hotel.

The problem wasn’t even that Paula McKenzie had kissed her, but that she had kissed back.

For the past two weeks, Wynne had berated herself for letting that happen, knowing that her own flirtations had helped to bring it about. She had nothing to offer Paula and it was wrong to lead her on. Even if she could keep her emotional distance — and that was a big “if” — it was wrong too to give in to that temptation, because Paula was worth more than just a sexual fling.

“Oh, great,” she muttered, eyeing the buses in the circle. The line at check-in would be an hour long. Wynne paid the cabbie and exited when the valet opened her door.

“Would you like me to take your bag inside?” he asked.

“No, I’ll take it myself. Thank you.” No way was she going to turn her bag over to the bellman. She wouldn’t see it again until midnight.

As expected, the check-in line held more than 30 waiting guests, all of whom seemed to know each other. Right away, Wynne’s eyes went to the petite blonde who worked efficiently behind the counter, and her breath caught with surprise at how nice it was to see her. Keeping this desire in check was probably going to be harder than she thought.

“Excuse me, Miss Connelly?”

“Yes?” Wynne turned to see a tall red-haired gentleman, more sharply dressed than most of the other staff, but an employee just the same.

“Could I ask you step to over here, please?” He reached over and lifted her bag, extracting a small folder from inside his jacket. “I’m Rusty Wilburn, the Senior Shift Manager. Miss McKenzie took the liberty of checking you in already on the Concierge floor. Here is your room key. If you would kindly stop by in the morning and allow us to swipe your credit card, we can spare you this bedlam tonight.”

“You are my hero, Mr. Wilburn,” she gushed, recognizing the name as the boss Paula often talked about. “Thank you very much.”

“No, I’m just the delivery boy. Paula says welcome.”

Wynne turned again to glimpse the blonde behind the busy counter. “Please tell her I said thank you.”

———

“You know, we’ve made pretty good work of this, Wynne.” Cheryl Williams sat in the floor of her office, surrounded by index cards that mapped the process of their proposed marketing plan. “I’d like to have this drawn up in a slide presentation…are you any good with that? I never had the patience to learn that program.”

“I can do that. Shall I set up my laptop and lay it out?”

“Sure, why not? And then next time you come, I want to play with a few scenarios. Would that be hard to do? You know, different slides for each scenario? We’re going to have to put this in front of Ken and Wendell, and it would be easier for both of them if we had it all laid out in a slide show.” Wendell Martin was the vice president for investor relations. Ken, Wendell, and Cheryl would present their plan to the analysts in New York at the end of April, hoping that the cost-trimming and forward thinking would boost their stock value.

“It shouldn’t be a problem, but it will take me a couple of hours,” Wynne said.

“A couple of hours? You’ve got to be kidding! It would take Denise a couple of days,”

Cheryl exclaimed, the latter a reference to her administrative assistant. At once, her hand flew to her mouth as she realized that the woman whose desk sat just outside the door had probably heard her.

Wynne sniggered at Cheryl’s gaffe, and at the sight of the impeccably dressed woman sitting cross-legged on the floor, her tailored skirt hiked up well above her knees. Their rapport had gotten a shot in the arm when Doug was dropped from the team. They chatted more while they worked, and even had lunch together a couple of times.

“Have you seen much of Orlando since you started coming down?”

“Not a lot. I did get out to dinner at a place called Buck’s, and last week I saw a movie downtown.”

“That’s hardly what I call getting out. Tell you what,” she said, pushing her nimble body off the floor and padding in her stocking feet to her desk drawer. “I have a gift certificate for Jack Elam’s. Do you know that place?”

Wynne shook her head.

“It’s the best seafood restaurant in Orlando. I won this in a raffle at the Chamber of Commerce, but my husband’s allergic to seafood. Why don’t you take it and ask someone to go?”

Wynne immediately thought of Paula. Though the woman had speeded her through check-in, they hadn’t had a chance to connect last night. “Thank you, Cheryl.”

“Do you know someone to invite? You want me to see if I can find someone to keep you company?”

“No, that’s alright. I have a friend here in town that I can ask. But thank you. This is very generous.”

“It’s no big deal. Like I said, Jim won’t eat there and I hate to see it go to waste.” Cheryl slipped her shoes back on. “Listen, I have a meeting with Ken in about five minutes. Why don’t I let you start working on those slides? Come on over to my desk and make yourself comfortable.”

Wynne settled in as the woman left, at once feeling at home in the corner office. This was definitely the kind of career she wanted.

———

Paula was irked at the report left by the two previous shifts on the behavior of their country western guests since check-in. Apparently, many had stayed awake until the wee hours of the morning, prompting several complaints about shouting in the hallways and loud music. And today, the first shift housekeepers were unable to rouse them to clean their rooms, leaving three times the usual workload for the skeleton staff on Paula’s shift.

It was almost 10 o’clock when she got her first chance to visit the Concierge lounge. But as she feared, her friend wasn’t there. Paula had hoped they would have a chance to get together again tomorrow on her day off, but as they hadn’t yet set anything up, she was afraid that she’d lost the opportunity.

Checking to see that a light was on in room 2314, Paula contemplated her options. She could knock on the door, but Wynne might not welcome such an invasion of her privacy.

Besides, if one of her staff saw her and reported it, it could potentially get her fired. The better option was to call.

Rather than use the house phone, Paula decided to return to her office and was thrilled to find that Wynne had already left a message for her.

“Hi, Paula. This is Wynne. It’s about 9:15, and I was calling to see if you might be free for dinner tomorrow night. My boss gave me a gift certificate for a place called Jack Elam’s, and I hope you can be my guest…my driving guest, that is. Anyway, please give me a call in…2314.
I’ll probably be up another couple of hours. Oh, and sorry about the short notice, but I just got this today. Talk to you soon, I hope. Goodbye.”

Quickly, Paula dialed the number, hoping to finish her call before Rusty returned to their office.

“Wynne? It’s Paula…I was just coming back to my office to call you…I’d love to go! Why don’t I pick you up at seven out front?” She paged through the organizer on her desk for the number of the restaurant. “If you want, I’ll call and get us a reservation…it’s kind of dressy, but not formal. A skirt or a nice pantsuit will do just fine…Can’t wait. See you tomorrow at seven.”

Paula smiled and sighed as she plopped into her chair. She had another date with Wynne Connelly.

———

At seven sharp, Paula wheeled the Miata into the circle, her breath hitching as she eyed the long-legged brunette in the black suit, the skirt well above the knee, but professionallooking nonetheless. Wynne Connelly was one beautiful woman.

Paula had chosen an olive green silk pantsuit for herself, with a pale yellow top. Most of her dresses — purchased for weddings or parties — were too dressy for a simple date, especially since she figured that Wynne had packed nothing of the sort. This pantsuit was one of her favorites, and a welcome departure from the skirt and blazer she wore five days a week.

The two women made casual conversation during the short drive to the restaurant, Paula running down her list of problems with the country western group, Wynne recounting how she’d impressed her boss with the first draft of their slide presentation. The brunette folded her hands in her lap, resisting the urge to take the smaller hand as it rested in invitation on the console.

Paula sensed a distance, but it wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable. It was as though they had to re-establish the familiarity they’d enjoyed two weeks ago, when their flirtations and admissions had eventually led to that kiss.

The hostess seated them at a small table for two that bordered the main passageway to the front door.

“Have you ever noticed that two women in a restaurant tend to get the worst tables?”

Paula asked. “Look around. There are tables with two men, and with men and women, and they’re all in the center of the room. But all three of the tables by the wall have two women.”

“I’m not surprised. I’ve noticed that when the planes are full, women end up in the center seats. And let me tell you, I do not like center seats,” Wynne scoffed.