Identity

She settled back, sipped again. “Profit margins in restaurants are wafer thin. You make the money at the bar. For strictly cynical reasons, I took a bartending class and I liked it. I liked it a lot. So when I hit twenty-one, I quit waitressing and started bartending, and I liked it even more.”

Feeling easy, she closed her eyes a moment. “The idea was to save up enough, get enough experience and save enough to open my own place. Nice little neighborhood bar. I had about three years to go, by my careful calculations. And then…”

She shrugged, sipped a little more.

“Yours is easy to figure,” she continued. “Third-generation hotelier, oldest male sibling in gen three. Ever think about doing something else?”

“Sure.”

“Like what?”

“Indiana Jones. My version of Indiana Jones, the lone adventurer/anthropologist.”

“Every kid who’s watched those movies wanted to be Indy.”

“This was last year.”

She laughed, shook her head. “You’d need the hat. Nobody could pull it off without the hat. But did you want this”—she gestured to encompass the resort—“and all the work that goes with it? Because your family puts in a lot of work.”

“Nothing else I thought about wanting stuck. Yeah, I wanted this. We put in a lot of work because we all want this.”

“It comes across. People who work here like the work and the conditions, so they’re good at it. That comes down from the top. My day job before was a family business. Smaller scale, sure, but it comes to the same. And the bar where I worked last, good management. The one where I worked my last year of college, I can’t say the same. But I learned, and that’s what counts.”

She set down her empty glass. “I’ll pour you another if you want, but I have to get home.”

“No, one does it.”

She took the glasses into the kitchen. In the bar, she took a last look around before she shut off the lights.

“Nick’s a serious asset.”

“We know it.”

“His sister’s also a serious asset. She’s the she-devil from hell, but an asset.”

“They don’t call her the Destroyer for nothing. No jacket?”

“I’ve got one in the car if I need it.” She stepped outside into the cool and fragrant. “Don’t need it. Speaking of assets, your grounds crew.”

They crossed to the lot, circling the island where flowers bloomed in winding rivers of reds and whites and delicate pinks.

At the car, she checked the back seat before she unlocked it.

“Thanks for the drink and the escort.”

“No problem.”

She got in, checked the gauges. Of course he stood and watched her drive away.

And as she drove away she thought, in a weird way, they’d just had sort of a kind of date.

She didn’t know what to think about that, and decided he probably didn’t think of it that way at all. But if he did consider it a weird sort of date, she found she didn’t mind.





Chapter Fourteen



She slept in on Saturday, and when she finally wandered down for coffee, she saw her grandmother sitting on the patio with a glass of iced tea.

Morgan grabbed a muffin—someone had made muffins—took it and her coffee out.

“Oh, feel that air! Perfect. Not hot, not cold.” Loving it, Morgan sat, bit into the muffin. “Where’s Mom?”

“She ran into the shop for a couple hours. One of our artists is bringing in a new jewelry line, and she wanted to get it priced and on display. I told her to go ahead, but I was going to sit out and enjoy the fruits of my granddaughter’s labors.”

“You and Mom put in some time. I love those wind chimes.”

“How did it go last night?”

“I’ve never been to such a fancy wedding. We could use every flower we planted, and every perennial you planted before, double it, and still not have as many flowers as they had in that ballroom. Honestly, it was breathtaking. All of it. All those men in black tie, and the women in evening gowns. But the bride’s dress—that was the showstopper.”

“As it should be.”

“She looked radiant, fairy princess radiant. And after driving Drea and Nell crazy for months, also looked happy and relaxed. God, it was so romantic. Flowers, music, candlelight. You have to give her credit for knowing exactly what she wanted, and the Jamesons for making sure she got it.”

“And her father, I assume, for footing the bill.”

“Had to be a whopper. I made over three thousand in tips.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

With a laugh, Morgan lifted her arms to the sky. “Three thousand, two hundred and sixty-six dollars in personal tips. I’ve worked weddings before, and you can take home a nice chunk, but never anything like this.”

“Maybe I went into the wrong business.”

“It’s almost like getting paid for going to a party. Not quite, because those people kept us busy. Worth it. Completely worth it.”

“Obviously, you did an exceptional job.”

“I like to think so. Open bars can go either way. Some people tend to tip generously because free drink, other people think free drink and don’t bother to tip. In this case, generosity won the night.”

She nibbled more muffin. “Toward the end, Miles came in. I guess he’s my car walker on Friday nights.” She shifted. “You’ve known him a long time. Have you ever noticed he doesn’t really wear suits, but he does?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well, like … Like Superman wears his suit under his clothes—which is ridiculous—but he wears his Superman suit under his civilian clothes so nobody sees it. With Miles, it’s the opposite. It’s like he wears this invisible business suit over his regular clothes. Like the power thing, Gram. Superman wears it under so you don’t see. Miles wears it over, but it’s invisible. It’s still power.”

“I can’t say I’ve noticed.”

“I can’t quite figure him out.”

And, she admitted, since he’d first sat at the end of the bar, she’d wanted to.

“I think I have the rest of them, but I can’t quite figure him. Last night, after the event, I wanted to just check Après. Nick’s not used to closing, and on a Friday night.”

“My responsible girl.”

“I am responsible. So we go in, and I’m doing my mental checklist. He gets a bottle of wine, asks if I want a drink. I think why not, so we sit down, have a glass of wine and an actual conversation. Then when I’m driving home, I think it sort of—weirdly—felt like a kind of date. Do you think it was?”

“It’s hard to say, since I wasn’t there.” Obviously intrigued, Olivia angled her chair a little closer. “Were there advances?”

“No. No. Nothing like that. It was just a drink and conversation. But, like I said, an actual conversation, which isn’t his usual mode. Why bartending, and from me, did you ever want anything but the family business? You know, that exploratory sort of conversation you have on a first date.”

“It’s been a few decades since I had a first date, but I do remember.”

“There was a vibe, even though it was just casual after-work conversation.”

“He’s a very attractive young man.”

“Sure. They’re all attractive.”