CHAPTER Five
According to Miss May, Katelyn and Monica left the hotel with enough baggage to last a month. Dean ascertained that information after leaving two messages on Katelyn’s home answering machine. Messages he wouldn’t have bothered with if Katie had left her usual response on her machine. It wasn’t unlike her to leave Texas for weeks on end for extended trips abroad. This time, however, she didn’t leave the typical explanation…“I’m drinking wine in Italy. Call you when I fly home.”
No. This time Katelyn left no such message on her personal line and Dean thought the worst. He knew something wasn’t right. He didn’t relax until Miss May revealed that, although Katie left rather abruptly, she at least disappeared with a friend.
Dean talked with some of Katie’s friends, none had recently given birth, or even knew anyone who was expecting. So who did Savannah belong to? And why was Katelyn so determined to keep the baby’s identity from him?
On a hunch, he called The Morrison in Ontario and asked if Katie had checked in. Sure enough, the staff had seen her and expected an extended stay.
“Can you leave a message for Miss Morrison, please?”
“Of course, Mr. Prescott.”
“Inform her that she’s not to step foot on the site until I arrive in town.” If her only business in Ontario was to help Jack with his hotel, she would ignore his demand…if she were keeping something from him, she would avoid confrontation. At least he thought she’d react that way.
“Excuse me?” The receptionist had heard him. Chances were she didn’t want to relay his words.
“Not one foot. I’ll be there Monday afternoon. Have her call me.”
“Does she have your number?”
He hadn’t forgotten hers. “Yes.”
The receptionist disconnected the call and Dean stared at the phone in his hand. What put the fire under Katie’s butt and made her run?
He made a quick call to the airline and moved his flight up a full day. Even then, she had two full days in California before he arrived.
Jack always had a sixth sense about his sister’s well-being and Dean was determined to keep an eye on her. From what he’d seen so far, he agreed with Jack. Something wasn’t quite right about her.
“Is that so?” Katelyn tapped the edge of her sunglasses against the reception desk.
“Those were the very words Mr. Prescott left for us to deliver.” The young woman behind the desk lifted her brown eyes and appeared to fade before Katelyn’s.
“Not one foot?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
If there were two things Katie couldn’t stand, it was someone telling her what she couldn’t do, and the other was to be called ma’am.
She glanced at the woman’s name tag. “I’m going to need a favor, Naomi.”
Naomi’s eyes grew wide. “I’m told the hotel is at your disposal.”
“Right.” It was…but it also needed to be her ally. “I’ll need a rental car while in town. My preferences are in my file. I’d like the lunch special delivered to my room in thirty minutes and I need you to deliver a message for Mr. Prescott if he calls again.”
Naomi poised a pen over a hotel pad of paper and waited.
“Let Mr. Prescott know that I take orders from no one.” She turned and strode to the bank of elevators. Her stiff disposition fled once the elevator doors shut.
She was exhausted. Leaving Savannah in the care of Mrs. Hoyt while Monica left for work had to be the hardest thing she had ever done. Staying with Monica wouldn’t be within her character and red flags would be flying with the likes of Dean if she didn’t pretend to be staying at the hotel.
Once inside the family suite, she stashed her suitcase deep in the closet, removed several outfits, and hung them up. She selected what she considered a typical Katelyn Morrison skirt that reached a full hand span above her knees and hugged her hips like a second skin. The cream color brought out the bronze of her skin, kissed by the Texan sun. After slipping into a silk shirt and applying a dab of lip gloss, she called housekeeping and asked them to press the outfits that hung in her closet while she was out.
She slipped on her high heels as room service arrived. She thanked the waiter she recognized from the last time she’d stayed with her brother in Ontario. “Thank you, Mario. You can return in an hour to retrieve the dishes.”
“Shall I put in your order for dinner?”
Katelyn lifted her chin and offered a smile. “That won’t be necessary. I have a…companion in town and probably won’t be back in until late. But thank you.”
Mario had been with the hotel staff long enough to understand the undertone of what Katie had told him.
Companion meant lover…later meant in the morning if at all.
Katie had told many a staff member these things in the past and had never been questioned. There was no reason to believe anyone would start to now.
Mario tilted his head to the side and let himself out. Twenty minutes later, she pulled out of the hotel valet in a red convertible and let the top down.
Don’t step one foot on the property until he arrives, my ass.
Dean must have forgotten who he was talking to.
She might be tired for lack of sleep, but she wasn’t catatonic…not yet anyway.
Dean knew the moment he spotted the red sporty convertible with a rental car sticker on it, that Katelyn had ignored his request. In a strange way, he was pleased. Maybe all his worries about her were for nothing. Jack’s worries, he corrected himself. It was Jack who thought something wasn’t right with his sister.
Dean swung out of his truck, reached into the backseat of his extended cab, and grabbed a hard hat before plopping it on his head.
Under his feet the dirt mixed with weeds as he made his way to the construction trailer on the site. He assumed Katelyn would be in the air-conditioned office since there wasn’t much for her to do inside the hard shell of Jack’s hotel. The rough framing had been done with exterior walls added for support. The plumbers and electricians were scheduled to start work within the week on the interior building. Already miles of pipes crisscrossed the grounds delivering electricity to the exterior lighting. Everything about the job site was a well-orchestrated symphony of work. Organized chaos he often called it. It calmed him, in a strange way. He enjoyed watching a project come together like an artist enjoys the last stroke of the brush to a canvas. Working with Jack had been a dream so far. They both talked about the project and had a clear picture of how the hotel would work and run after it was completed.
Jack wanted a posh hotel for families. He wanted something most could afford or, at the very least, save to splurge on. The hotel would host many of the amenities of his father’s fancier establishments. There would be hotel cars, with car seats, and minivans. Each room was a suite complete with a door between the rooms so parents could close off sleeping children, or children could close off noisy parents. Child safety was paramount but that didn’t mean every corner and edge of the hotel had to be rounded. It simply needed to be constructed with safety and families in mind.
Dean was the oldest of four kids. His baby sister was already married and on her second pregnancy. He loved his nephew, Robert, and couldn’t wait for the birth of his niece. Syrie, his sister, already knew the gender of the baby but still had a few months left before the birth. She and Dean had had a couple of conversations about three-year-old Robert and how fast he could escape her childproof home. Some of her suggestions for safety had been implemented in the plans for the hotel.
Dean kicked his steel-toed boots onto the straw mat at the door leading into the trailer and braced himself to see Katie.
Jo, his on-site receptionist, sat at her desk right inside the door. She glanced up when he walked in. “Morning, Mr. Prescott.”
“Hey, Jo,” he said, glancing around the room. The door to his office was closed, the one to the center of the small building was wide open. Plans were spread out all over the desk, which wasn’t abnormal, but no one hovered above them as he expected.
Where was Katelyn?
As he removed his hat, Jo stood and gathered a bunch of papers in her hands. “I placed the messages that could wait on your desk. Mr. Simpson called this morning to schedule the next inspection. I told him you’d call him later today. Faltworth came in this morning to tell me that half of the roofing materials that arrived over the weekend were the wrong color. He has already called the manufacturer and scheduled a truck to take the materials back.” Jo took a deep breath and smiled. “How was the wedding? I’ll bet Jessie was just beautiful. Did everything go without a hitch?” Jo was the best damn secretary Dean had ever had. He swore she had caffeine in her bloodstream and a firecracker under her ass.
“Jessie was the blushing bride. Jack’s a lucky man.” And because he knew Jo would ask he added, “Everyone arrived on time, and nothing happened that wasn’t expected. It’s almost like you’d planned it.”
Jo was five foot four on a good day. She wore blue jeans and boots much like the men on the job site, and kept her hair in a simple ponytail. Dean had hired her right out of college without any secretarial experience at all. She’d responded to the employment ad he’d placed when he landed a strip mall contract outside Moreno Valley. The economy had already turned and Dean had to bid the job at a lower rate than he’d wanted to. The secretary in his main office had left unexpectedly, met a guy and ran off or some such thing, and Dean had been left without help. Jo showed up and explained, in detail, just how efficient she was at running damn near everything. In years past, his secretaries would run their end of the business from a central office. Jo didn’t understand running his office from anywhere but a job site. She had no problem traveling to wherever his latest and biggest project was being built. For a little thing, she wasn’t intimidated by men twice her size. She reminded Dean of his other sister, Ella. Jo turned a head or two, but didn’t seem to notice.
“Have you met Jack’s sister, Miss Morrison?”
Jo’s eyes grew wide as she nodded. “I told her that she needed sensible shoes and to wear a hard hat. She politely ignored me, took some plans, and headed toward the main lobby. I didn’t think we’d see her until the drywall was up.”
“I didn’t either,” he said while placing his hat on his head again and then turning toward the door. “How long has she been here?”
“About an hour.” Jo removed a second hat from a hook and handed it to him.
Dean could only imagine what shoes Katie had on and how her waltzing through the construction zone was affecting the workers. He pictured her infamous tight skirts, the ones that screamed to every man with a pulse to stare and weep with want, clinging to her skin. The first time he’d seen her wearing one was at a barbeque at the Morrison ranch. He and Jack were deep into the summer before their senior year of high school. Katelyn was a couple of years behind them but that didn’t stop her from sticking close to her brother and his small posse made up of Dean, Jack, Tom, and Mike.
She’d stepped from the massive oak doors of her father’s ranch home wearing a thin layer of black leather over her ass that curved so tightly there was no possible way she wore panties. Her father, Gaylord, spotted her from across the expansive yard and fell on her like flies on raw steak. Although Gaylord wasn’t a pushover, he didn’t know how to diplomatically make Katie change her clothes. It didn’t help that her friends wore virtually the same outfit, though a tad longer and not nearly as inviting, as Dean recalled.
Katie loved the spotlight, reveled in the attention of the media and all members of the opposite sex. There was no reason to believe she wasn’t traipsing around his job site in a tight little number that would grind work to a halt.
The sound of pneumatic hammers slamming nails into wood grew as he breached the outside walls of the main lobby. A couple of construction workers with slack jaws and wide eyes stared toward the east side of the building.
Dean followed the pattern of awestruck men until he found her.
Bent over a railing on what would be one of the many ground floor suites, Katie’s short, cream-colored skirt rode midthigh. The sight of her slammed his breath from his lungs. Her long legs appeared to ride for miles and the four-inch heels extended them even farther.
Her butt flexed as she straightened and looked up to the ceiling. She reached above her head as if measuring the height of the room.
The memory of her stretching in bed, naked, after they’d made love swam in his mind.
Get a grip, Dean, he chided himself. Drowning in those memories would only lead to heartache. And he’d had his share of that, enough to last a lifetime.
“You need to wear a hat,” he all but yelled in her direction.
Katie jumped and swiveled in his direction. “Dammit, Dean, you scared me.” She brought a hand to her chest as if calming her heart from the shock of him being there.
“If an inspector were here, he’d shut me down if he caught you without a hard hat.”
He took two purposeful strides in her direction and thrust the hat in front of him. He avoided her personal space but couldn’t keep her floral scent from reaching his nose.
She always smelled like spring.
Dean wiggled the hat in his hand.
She sneered at it as if it were a snake. “Who else has worn that thing?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’m not touching it.”
He rolled his eyes and let his arm fall. “You wear a hat, or get off my job site.”
Her mouth dropped. “You can’t fire me.”
“I’m not firing you, I’m telling you the rules. And those shoes have to go, too.”
She stuck out a hip and rested a hand on it. “Will an inspector shut you down for my shoes?”
He wanted to tell her yes, but he’d be lying. “The ground is uneven and there are nails everywhere. Twisting an ankle and contracting tetanus are the most likely by-product of stilettos on the site.”
Katie lifted a leg and examined her own shoe. Her skirt slid farther up her thighs.
Dean groaned.
“I’ve run from half a dozen paparazzi on the cobblestoned streets of Italy in heels like these. I’ll take my chances.”
He thrust the hat in her direction a second time and dismissed the footwear argument. “They’re your feet. The hat isn’t optional.”
After sniffing the air and finding it unsavory, Katie glanced at the top of his head. He read her thought before she managed to voice it.
“Has anyone else worn your hat?”
It had his name on it. No one would consider putting it atop his or her head. “No.”
A slow Southern smile met her lips. Avoiding a forgotten two-by-four, she shortened the space between them and stared at his hat.
This was not a fight he was going to win. He could insist she wear the hat in his hand, but knew he’d end up tossing her over his shoulder and removing her from the site because she wouldn’t wear it. It wasn’t that she was a snob, just particular about what touched her skin.
No matter how the hat ordeal played out, the men on his crew would be talking by the end of the day. Carrying her off the site or letting her wear his hat for the day…those were his options.
He mumbled under his breath and removed his hat before plunking it down on her stubborn head.
She stood a little taller and wore a satisfied smile.
“How do I look?”
Good enough to eat, he thought but didn’t say. The hard hat should have looked ridiculous on her. It didn’t. A completely unwanted sense of pride sparked his ego when he glanced down at his name atop her head. The hat claimed her as his in a completely high school way.
He shook the thoughts from his confused mind and quickly said, “Fine.”
She tilted her head to the side and considered him for a moment before turning back to whatever it was she was looking at when he had first walked in behind her.
“Is this the standard size of all the rooms?” she asked.
“All but the two and three bedroom bungalows that are outside of this building. Those have small kitchens.”
She nodded and crossed the room to her purse and removed a pen. After writing something down, she tapped the pen against her bottom lip. “Is there a penthouse?”
“Not in the traditional sense. Jack wanted individual single dwellings, the bungalows, for patrons with deeper pockets and space needs. There is one suite on the top floor, but it’s only half the size of the largest single standing suite structure. The rest of the top floor is dedicated to dining, a bar, and a teen club hangout.”
“Teen club?”
Dean smiled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Family first. That’s what Jack wants. This is a destination experience. Something for everyone in the family to enjoy.” Unlike any other project Dean had been a part of building, this hotel felt more like building a fantasy. Fancy hotels catered to the rich and adult. There wasn’t a place for the kids to go and be kids.
“How soon before I can get up there and get a feel for the space?”
“Once all the exterior walls are up.”
“How long will that be?”
“A couple of weeks, give or take.”
She jotted down a few more notes and narrowed her eyes. Katie sounded so professional and ready to take on the project, Dean had to remind himself who he was talking to.
“The hotel isn’t anywhere near needing your hand. I’m surprised you flew out as quickly as you did.”
“I’m anxious to get started,” she said before turning her back on him.
“Why?” He’d asked himself why she wanted a job ever since Jack told her that she’d been hired. It wasn’t like she needed money. In fact, she wasn’t getting paid.
She ignored his question and asked one of her own. “How many square feet are the rooms?”
He told her and asked her again, “Why?”
She continued to scribble notes as she spoke. “I know you don’t want me here.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So you do want me here?”
“I didn’t say that. I asked why you want to do this. Why put out all the effort when you could be flying to France or dodging photographers in Italy?”
Blue eyes met his and held. “If I were a man, you wouldn’t ask me why I was doing this. No one asks Jack why he wants to build his own hotels when he has Daddy’s to fall back on.”
“You’d be hard-pressed to pull the women libbers’ card wearing that skirt, darlin’. I’ve never known a female more proud to be a woman in my life.” It was one of the many things he admired about her. She wore womanhood like a thick fur and dared anyone to say a thing about it.
Her eyes softened. “Maybe I’m bored with France.”
Ah, now they were getting somewhere. “People are going to depend upon you here. This isn’t something you can get bored with and move on.”
“Have I ever walked away from my obligations?”
You walked away from me. From us.
Hurt swelled in his chest and he needed to remove himself from her side before he revealed any of his undesired thoughts. “Return those plans to my desk before you leave.”