Sharing Spaces (20 page)

Wavey's frown turned into a full-fledged pout. She placed her hands on her hips. “I don't think it's fair that you should be sitting there eating while I work,” she said. “I've worked all day long.”

“Wavey, this is a practice run so you'll know how to do everything properly when the guests arrive.”

“I still don't think it's fair. I worked hard today and I'm just as tired as you are.”

“All right, then.” Senna stood with a surge of frustration. “You may leave. I'll do the rest of the serving.”

Wavey hesitated. “Don't I get to eat?”

“No. At least, not with us, and not the good stuff. Go back to your cabin and get some rest. You obviously need it.”

Wavey drifted from the dining room and Senna plopped back into her seat with a moan, dropping her head into her hands. “Honestly, Jack. I don't see how it's going to work.”

Jack tasted the spinach and strawberry salad. “This is great,” he enthused. “Pistachio nuts. Very exotic.” He stood, went to the dry bar, and procured a bottle of merlot and two wineglasses. “Shall I pour for you, poor exhausted young miss?” Senna laughed as he poured two glasses of wine. He set her glass down and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Be patient,” he said. “Wavey'll probably do great around real guests.”

“We can only hope,” Senna said, feeling her heartbeat leap at his touch.

The soup was a Portuguese kale with spicy jalapeno chicken sausage. Jack finished his salad in six huge forkfuls and then inhaled his soup. “Killer,” he pronounced. “Can I request seconds? We should serve this soup every night.”

“Our guests would get sick of it and no you can't have seconds.” Senna cleared the salad and soup dishes and brought out the entrées. “Which would you prefer, the chicken or the beef?”

“I'm a meat-and-potatoes man,” he said. She set the beef in front of him and returned to her seat.

Jack wolfed down his steak and vegetables. His plate was as clean as if a dog had licked it. “Unbelievable,” he said. “I didn't know food could taste that good. Say, wedding planner, wanna full-time job?”

“Got one, thanks.”

“What's for dessert?”

“Sorry. No time to make dessert, and I didn't want to use up one of the frozen pound cakes. They're great in a pinch.”

Jack sat back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. “Two truths. That was the best meal I've ever eaten, and you're the best dinner companion I've ever shared a meal with.”

“It helps that you're starving and lonely,” Senna said, but she glowed at his words. “I'm optimistic that Gordina will be able to manage the simple preparations. Both the chicken and beef were easy entrées to make.”

“Thanks for trying to make me feel better,” he grinned. “More wine?”

Senna shook her head. “I'm so tired I'd fall asleep.” She stood to clear the plates. “Coffee?”

He shook his head. “Hot tub.”

“I'll help Gordina with the dishes and be right out.”

“Gordina can manage without you. Meet me in five minutes.”

“Do you think it's safe to get in a hot tub after a big meal?”

“I think it's mandatory. Besides, that wasn't a big meal. It was a delicious meal, but those portions were scrawny.”

“Those are standard portions,” Senna pointed out. “You're just used to huge lumberjack meals.”

“Damn straight. A man puts in a hard day's work, he needs a lot of food.”

“True, but the guests aren't going to be working like slaves the way you do. Most people don't.”

Jack stood. “Five minutes. And don't be late.”

 

J
ACK MADE TRACKS TO THE
guides' cabin, where he rummaged frantically through his duffel for a pair of swimming trunks. He knew he'd packed them in the hopes of just such a scenario as this, but it seemed to take him at least five minutes to find them. Charlie paid him no heed, lying on his bunk absorbed in one of the admiral's books. Jack could see from the pan on the stove that Charlie had opened a can of beans for supper. “You should've eaten with us up at the lodge,” Jack said. “It was damn good.”

He hurried back to the lodge, flannel shirt unbuttoned, jeans pulled over his swimming trunks, boots unlaced on bare feet. His heart was pounding. He had to find the champagne and have it ready before Senna arrived at the hot tub. Stupid! Should've done this before supper. There wouldn't be enough time to chill it properly. He burst into the kitchen, where Gordina was cleaning up. “Gordina, you brought some of the stuff up from the plane yesterday, didn't you?”

Gordina nodded, lips pursed as though clamping a cigarette.

“A pretty bag with handles, holding a bottle of champagne and some nice cheese. I need it. Where'd you stash it?”

Gordina's expression became guarded. “I don't remember a pretty bag with handles,” she said.

“It was right beside the pilot's seat,” Jack prompted.
“I didn't see it in the plane when I unpacked this morning. You and Wavey brought some things up, where did you put them? There was a green bottle inside the bag with a pink flower painted on it.”

Gordina stared down at the pan she was scrubbing and made no response, but her entire body had gone rigid. Jack felt his own do the same. “Where's the champagne, Gordina?” he asked bluntly.

“We didn't know it was special,” she mumbled, not looking up.

Jack thought that if there were a moment in his life when he was going to go ballistic, this was it. “Tell me you didn't drink my hundred-dollar bottle of champagne.”

Gordina kept her eyes down and made no response.

“I don't believe this!” he roared. “You drank my hundred-dollar bottle of champagne?”

Gordina cringed away as he advanced. “We didn't know.”

“Dammit all!” Jack whirled and kicked the door behind him, sending it crashing back on his hinges. “I don't freaking believe it. That's it.
That's it!
Pack your things, you and Wavey both. Get all your gear together, you're leaving first thing in the morning. You hear me? Where's Wavey?”

Without waiting for an answer Jack burst out of the back door and charged toward Wavey and Gordina's cabin. He entered without knocking, surprising Wavey, who was sitting on the edge of her bunk brushing her hair. She froze when he came into the cabin, but her initial smile of greeting faded instantly as Jack spied the green champagne bottle with the flower painted on it.
He snatched it off the little table and upended it. Not a drop remained.

“Get your things together. I'm flying you and Gordina to Goose Bay first thing tomorrow,” he said, his voice remarkably calm after his initial outburst at Gordina. He turned and walked back up to the lodge, feeling weak and sick to his stomach. He climbed the porch steps one at a time with a weary, defeated tread, and came face to face with Senna. She was wrapped in a robe, bareheaded and barefoot, and looked like an angel descended from heaven in the midst of a holocaust.

“What's wrong?” she said. “What was all that shouting about?”

Jack held up the empty bottle. “Wavey and Gordina drank our bottle of champagne,” he said. “They found it in the plane yesterday, while I was searching for you, and they drank it. Every last drop. Gone.”

Senna reached for the bottle. “My goodness,” she said softly. “You certainly picked out an expensive vintage.”

“It was for a very special occasion, a once-in-a-life-time moment. And for what it's worth, I paid for it myself, I didn't charge it to your account.” He slumped against a porch post and ran his fingers through his hair. “I fired both of them. I'll fly them out of here in the morning.”

Senna's gaze was sympathetic. “Jack, I realize you're upset and I don't blame you, but you can't run this place all by yourself.”

He rallied at her words, pulling himself back together and putting a little swagger back into the moment. What the hell. A faint heart, and all that. “You're absolutely right, but I got you, babe.”

“For another day…”

“You could call your aunt, get an extension. Tell her you got lost in Labrador and can't seem to find your way back to Maine. Two more weeks, Senna. Just give this place two more weeks. I know we can get the lodge up and running, just the two of us, if we have to, and that will give me time to hire more help. Better help.”

She hesitated and he braced himself for the head shake and the negative words. “All right,” she said.

He stared in disbelief. “You mean you'll stay?”

“I can't say that I blame you for firing Gordina and Wavey, and I'm sure in two weeks time we'll be able to find help somewhere, even if it's just some high-school kids looking for an adventurous summer. I'll stay. I owe you that much, Jack. Of course I'll stay.”

 

S
ENNA WAS FLOATING IN A
euphoric daze. It was a delicious sensation to be immersed chin-deep in a tub of hot water, in the middle of a big wilderness, right next to a man who was like no other man she'd ever known. She was sitting so close to him, in fact, that she could reach out and touch the rounded muscle of his shoulder with her fingertips. His skin was smooth, his shoulder as hard as iron. She was amazed at her own temerity, but smiled at the look he gave her. For once he wasn't studying her as if she were a scientific specimen, and for once he was speechless.

“You know something, John William Hanson? I happen to think you're pretty damn wonderful,” she said, dizzy from the wine, the heat of the water, and the cumulative exhaustion of the past two weeks. Everything conspired to make the words flow easily. “I think you're a wonderful man, and that's exactly why my grandfa
ther made you his business partner, but I still don't understand why he left his half of the business to me.”

Jack refilled her glass from the wine he'd fetched to replace the champagne and set the bottle back on the tub's edge. “Because he wanted you to have it.”

It was nearly dark enough that she could almost see the stars, but she wasn't searching for them. She could only look at Jack. She wondered if this was what true love felt like, this strange, scary heart-sick longing, this lonely, empty pang deep down inside that only that one person could ever fill. Was she in love with John Hanson? She'd never felt this way about Tim.

“Tell me about Tim,” Jack said suddenly, as if reading her thoughts.

Senna took another sip of wine and frowned. “He wondered why you called me sweetings.”

“I call all my girls sweetings when I summons them to supper.”

“Liar.”

“He left a message for you at the lake house,” Jack said.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“It didn't seem all that important. He just wanted you to call him when you got a chance. He was worried about you.”

Senna eased her sore muscles in the soothing water, leaned back and closed her eyes.

“Are you in love with him?”

Jack's abrupt question put a damper on Senna's floating euphoria. She opened her eyes, sat up straight, and drew a deep breath. “Tim's a very dear friend. He's only trying to help me settle my grandfather's estate.”

“Who's this buyer he found?”

“You were eavesdropping on my phone conversation?”

“Damn straight.”

“He's found a
potential
buyer,” Senna said. “His name is Earl Hammel and he wants to stay here when he comes to look at the place, so I told Tim our first vacancy wasn't until the beginning of September. If he wants to come sooner, he'll have to stay in Goose Bay.”

“And I'm supposed to ferry him back and forth on your behalf?” Jack prodded.

Senna felt a wild tumble of emotions assail her. “I can't see bumping a paying guest just because someone wants a tour of the property,” she said.

“No, that would hurt occupancy, hurt the numbers, hurt the bottom line.” His voice had become flinty and Senna wished she could steer the conversation away from selling the lodge.

“That's right, and I'm not anxious to do that. If he wants to come when we're fully booked, he'll just have to stay elsewhere. He can hire Thunder Air to fly him back and forth. I'm sorry I volunteered you. Tim says that Mr. Hammel wants to buy the lodge for his own personal use, and I made him aware that you don't want to sell your share of the business.” There, that should calm him.

“And he still wants to come? Does he think he can talk me into selling my half? And by the way, if you don't mind my asking, what's the price you're asking for your grandfather's dream? Or were you planning to withhold that information from me, as well?”

She heard the caustic barb in his words and winced inwardly. “I haven't named a price. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“That's mighty white of you, pard. When were you going to do that?”

Senna sat up so abruptly that water sloshed out of the hot tub and onto the deck. “Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this right away. I know I should have, but I…” Suddenly she felt as if she'd hit a brick wall. She slumped back, overcome by a wave of dizziness so strong she was afraid she was about to pass out. Lights flashed and stars exploded. She felt Jack take the wineglass from her hand. “I started to tell you, but I just…” she began again, trying to gather the threads of what she wanted to say, but the words she wanted so desperately to speak aloud whirled silently inside her head, a mish-mash of scrambled gibberish.

“It doesn't matter,” she heard him say as he rose to his feet. “I was sure you'd fall in the love with the place and change your mind about selling, but I was wrong.”

She wanted to tell him that he wasn't wrong, he was right, that she
had
fallen in love with the place but even more than that, she'd fallen in love with him. She wanted to tell him, but she could only lean helplessly against him as he lifted her out of the tub, wrapped her in the robe she'd worn over her bathing suit and carried her as if she weighed no more than a child. She curled her arms around his neck, rested her head against his chest and heaved a tormented sigh. She was very tired, no doubt moderately drunk, incredibly confused, and oh, so grateful that he was taking care of her.