Christmas at The Beach House Hotel
CHAPTER ONE
My cell phone rang. Rhonda.
Staring out my kitchen window at the palm fronds rustling in the sea breeze like impatient children wanting to run and play, I picked up the call from my best friend in Sabal, Florida.
“Hey, Mrs. Grayson! How’s it going? Those two little ones driving you crazy?”
Rhonda laughed. “Annie, I swear Willow is teaching Drew every one of her ‘terrible two’ tricks, but she’s so sweet with him, I don’t mind.”
I couldn’t help chuckling. Willow was two and a half, and Drew, thirteen months younger, was fascinated with his big sister and tried to mimic her whenever possible. They were darling together, but a real handful.
“Listen, Annie; we gotta talk. This mess at The Beach House Hotel can’t go on like it is. I just got a call from Stephanie Willis from Connecticut. She was furious because, for the second year in a row, they couldn’t get a reservation for Columbus Day weekend. She and Randolph have always been loyal guests of the hotel. What in the hell is going on?”
I let out a sigh of exasperation. “I’m not surprised a bit by this latest news. Ever since we sold it, The Beach House Hotel has deteriorated from the elegant, discreet, seaside resort we created to a commercial enterprise that is all about dollars, not class.” The sale, almost two years ago, to the investment group of Peabody, Lowell, and Logan had turned out to be a big disappointment to both of us.
“Yeah,” said Rhonda. “All the finer touches we provided our guests, making the hotel a first-class operation, are gone. No complimentary items in the room, no morning newspapers, no treats available to them. And last Christmas was a freakin’ nightmare—cheap decorations, no bonuses for the staff, no community Christmas Party, none of our usual holiday fun. No wonder our return guests no longer feel a part of our family, the wedding bookings have cratered, and the locals are staying away from the restaurant.”
“I’m tired of this kind of thing continuing to happen,” I snapped. “We’ve tried talking to the new owners about our deep concerns, and it’s done absolutely no good. I don’t know what else we can do about it.”
“I do,” growled Rhonda. “We can take back the hotel. We have that contractual right, remember? That hotel was my home; we built it into something unique, and those SOBs are turning it into an ordinary, chain-style hotel where no one gives a damn about our guests.”
“Take it back? Do you mean it?” Excitement surged through me in tantalizing waves. God! I’d missed running the hotel with Rhonda. Though our contract specified that we’d retain a minority interest in the business and would act as consultants, the new owners had scoffed at every suggestion we’d made. They’d even indicated in sometimes not so subtle ways that we should go home and take care of our families.
I felt a huge grin spread across my face. It would feel so good to get rid of them!
“It won’t be easy, but, Annie, we gotta do it! Are you in?”
“Oh, yes,” I said with growing determination. “It’s time to stop this nonsense. Things have gone from bad to worse after Aubrey Lowell took over the management of the hotel.”
“Yeah, what a little punk! Let’s get rid of him and all the others!” Rhonda’s voice changed, became tentative. “Will Vaughn be okay with your doing this? I think Will might fight me on this, but honestly, Annie, after staying at home for two years with the babies and with him thinking he’s the biggest stud around, I’m afraid I’ll get pregnant again. And at my age, it isn’t as easy as it was when I had Angela. I love my babies, but I’m too old to have more.”
I held back a laugh. Rhonda was in her mid-forties and her husband, Will, ten years older. But Will was so taken with the idea of having kids in his fifties that, given a choice, he would have many more.
“So, what about Vaughn?” Rhonda persisted. “Can you convince him it’s the right thing for you to do?”
I hesitated, knowing he wouldn’t be thrilled. Vaughn loved having me spend time with him in New York while he filmed The Sins of the Children, the soap opera he’d starred in for several years. But I missed the hotel’s work environment and interacting with our guests. Fresh resolve rose in me. “Vaughn and I will work it out. The hotel is my baby as much as yours. Let’s do it!”
“All right! Before I chicken out, I’ll call Mike Torson right now.”
“Let me know what we need to do next.” I ended the call hoping Rhonda and I weren’t making a big mistake. Together, we’d made a few.
--o0o--
After I hung up, I couldn’t contain my excitement. Raising my arms in the air, I did a little dance across the kitchen floor.
“Me, too, Mommy!” cried Robbie. He jumped off his chair and grabbed hold of my hands.
Laughing, I twirled in circles with him. As I looked down into his shining brown eyes, my heart surged with love for him. At almost five, he was a darling little boy with dark hair, a sturdy body, and a sweet nature. Liz was still the best sister any little boy could have, but at the time his parents, my ex, Robert, and Kandie, were killed in an automobile accident, she’d been unable to offer Robbie a secure home. Vaughn and I had been so right to adopt him.
As if my thoughts about my daughter had prompted it, my phone rang. Still chuckling from our crazy dance, I picked up the call from Liz.
“Hi, sweetheart! How are you?”
“I’m busy with Chad’s business, but I need to talk to you about my wedding. I’m not sure Chad and I want it at The Beach House Hotel—not with the way things are being handled there. Would your feelings be hurt if we changed our mind and tried to hold it at the Ritz?”
The Ritz? Telling myself not to overreact, I drew a deep breath. “What if I told you Rhonda and I are going to try to take back the hotel?”
“Really? Mom, that would be great! The Beach House Hotel is not the same kind of place it used to be. If you buy it back and make it the way it was when you and Rhonda ran it, I’d be thrilled to have the wedding there.”
“Don’t say a word to anyone else about this. We just made the decision today, and I haven’t even had a chance to discuss it with Vaughn.”
“Oh …” Liz let the word drift into silence.
“I think I can get him to agree on this,” I said, not at all certain I could.
“For what it’s worth, I think it’s important for you and Rhonda to do this on many levels. Vaughn is pretty used to having you around, though.” Liz paused. “Good luck with everything. Here comes a call on the customer line. Gotta go.”
I couldn’t help the frown I felt form as I ended the call. Maybe I was being too optimistic about making our new plan work. I had my family to consider.
My cell rang again. I checked caller ID. Mike Torson.
“Hello, Mike. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks. I just got off the phone with Rhonda. Are you in agreement with her to exercise your right to buy back the hotel?”
“You bet,” I answered, fired up again. “Under the new owners’ direction, the hotel has really gone downhill.”
“Even though it is within your right to do so under the contract you signed with them, you understand there will be resistance, don’t you?”
“Yes, probably because they are more intent on making money than giving the guests an unforgettable experience.” I couldn’t hide the distaste in my voice.
“Well, yes, there’s that. Also, they won’t want anything to mar their reputation, so we have to be very discreet in how we pursue this,” Mike said in his usual calm manner.
“I understand, but Rhonda and I want the chance to make things right. We invested the money from the sale, so we should be able to handle the purchase of it.”
“You have the right to buy the hotel at a fair price, but we’re going to need people on our side to do property inspections and an appraisal. The investors will have valuations done on their own, which will, no doubt, be substantially different from ours.”
My stomach twisted. Peabody, Lowell, and Logan was an investment group from Boston that played hardball. Though Mike Torson was a clever and persistent lawyer, the battle might get nasty.
“I understand,” I repeated, though I was certain there would be unpleasant surprises.
“Shall I begin to prepare?”
“I’ll reconfirm with Rhonda, and we’ll get back to you tomorrow. But, yes, this is what we want.” I didn’t mention that neither Rhonda nor I had discussed it with our spouses.
I hung up from the call and checked my watch. Vaughn was flying in from New York that evening, and I had approximately two hours to prepare my case.
After quickly calling Rhonda to give her an update, I checked on Robbie, who was happily splashing in the pool with Elena Ramos, our young, trusted nanny. I waved to them and then went into the bathroom to take a shower. Might as well look my best.
As warm water sluiced over my body, I felt my shoulders relax and my mind open. Vaughn was a good man, a kind man, who’d been happy to have me at his beck and call these past two years. I’d been more than pleased to do that because, even after two years of marriage, I was still crazy about him. Anticipating the intimate moments ahead with Vaughn, my fingers trailed my body. He was such a good lover—generous and giving.
After rehearsing my approach to Vaughn on the plan Rhonda and I had come up with, I got out of the shower and dressed in a blue blouse that Vaughn had once said matched the color of my eyes. I brushed my straight, dark hair until it lay smoothly inches above my shoulders. Giving myself a critical look in the mirror, I thought maybe I didn’t look too bad. Vaughn sometimes teased me about being a hot babe, but I wasn’t that. I smiled at the memory, though, and slipped diamond earrings into my earlobes. It would be so good to have him home.
When I walked out onto the lanai, Robbie called to me from the pool. “Look, Mommy!” He stood on the edge of the deep end of the pool, made sure I was looking, and then jumped into the water.
“Good job!” I called to him as he bobbed to the surface. At age two and new to the house, he’d almost drowned in the pool. Now, two and a half years later, he swam like a little fish.
“You sure you don’t mind staying with Robbie while I pick up Vaughn at the airport?” I said to Elena.
She stood and faced me. Her dark eyes sparkled, and a smile lit her pretty face, framed by thick, straight hair that she wore in a ponytail most days. Over the last couple of years, she’d become like another daughter to me. And with Elena dating the boy Liz was once infatuated with, it seemed like family when we all got together. I couldn’t imagine not having her around.
“I don’t mind at all,” said Elena. “Troy is due here for Robbie’s swim lesson. Afterwards, Robbie can come with us when we go out for hamburgers.”
“Sounds great. He loves to be with the two of you.” I gave Robbie a quick hug, not minding that I got a little wet, patted the silky head of Trudy, our black and tan dachshund, and headed for the garage.
--o0o--
On the way to the airport in Ft. Myers, my body hummed with anticipation. With Vaughn gone so much of the time, each homecoming seemed special. I still found it amazing that of all the women he could have chosen after his first wife died, he’d married me. With Robert, my ex, pulling the old stunt of leaving me for the younger, voluptuous receptionist in our office, my self-confidence had been destroyed. But the relationship between Vaughn and me had a depth of tenderness and commitment I’d never known. I treasured him. I treasured us together.
As agreed, I waited in the baggage claim area for Vaughn to arrive. Hearing a commotion, I looked up. Vaughn was stepping off the escalator into a small crowd of people who’d recognized him, even with his doing his best to hide beneath a Yankees baseball cap. Some were holding up pieces of paper for him to autograph. He obliged a few and then quickly made his way toward me.
As he neared, I took a moment to study his tall, broad-shouldered form. His black curls and snapping brown eyes, familiar to fans across the country, looked wonderful, especially when a happy grin crossed his face when our eyes met.
I hurried forward to greet him.
People stepped back as he swung me up in his arms, heedless of the curious onlookers. In the past, I might have frozen with embarrassment, but I’d learned to live with the attention he got. I didn’t necessarily like it, but I managed.
“Hi, darling! Glad you’re home!” I murmured into his ear.
He beamed at me as he put me down on my feet. “Not as glad as I am. Where’s Robbie?”
“He and Elena are waiting for Troy to show up for Robbie’s swimming lesson, and then they’re going to take him out to dinner. You’ll get your big greeting from him when we get home.”
I loved that Robbie and Vaughn were so close. With his children from his first marriage grown, married, and starting families of their own, Vaughn was happy to have a second chance at fatherhood.
He took my hand, and we headed for the baggage conveyer belt to pick up his luggage. As soon as he grabbed his suitcase, we hurried out of the airport terminal.
Vaughn slid behind the wheel of my car, and we headed to Sabal, twenty minutes south.
As he drove, the wind ruffled his hair—the dark, soft curls I loved to finger. He turned to me with a smile. “What’s new since we last talked?”
“There’s something I need to discuss with you after you’re settled at home. I thought we could take a walk along the beach at The Beach House Hotel and talk there.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Something serious?”
“Something unexpected, but important to me.”
He narrowed his eyebrows into a V and cast a suspicious look my way. “Something about The Beach House Hotel?”
Willing myself not to blurt out anything, I simply nodded. “As I said, we’ll talk where we can have some privacy away from the house.”
“Hmmm, doesn’t sound good to me, but I’ll play along.”
My nerves did a foxtrot inside me. I was eager to please him, but the hotel had been part of my life before I’d met him, and I’d missed running it. If necessary, I’d fight him for the chance to go back to it.
--o0o--
After playing with Robbie in the pool, Vaughn took a shower and changed into casual clothes.
“Ready to go?” he asked, approaching me in a golf shirt and shorts that nicely showed off his buff body. In his early fifties, Vaughn kept himself trim for the show. “Thought maybe we could have a drink at the hotel before coming home for dinner. What do you say?”
“Sounds good,” I responded. “Robbie will be fine with Elena and Troy.”
“Troy pop the question yet?” Vaughn asked.
I shook my head. “We’re all going to get after him if he doesn’t do it soon. Poor Elena has been waiting for weeks to officially receive the engagement ring they selected together.”
Chuckling, we went out to the pool area to say goodbye to the others, and then we climbed into Vaughn’s silver sports car and headed for the hotel.
As Vaughn drove through the gilded, wrought-iron gates onto the hotel property, I glanced to my right, at the little house I owned and now rented to the hotel. I loved that house. It had been such a source of pride to me to have my own place after Robert had robbed me of my home and my job. Rhonda’s wish … no, demand … that I join her in converting her seaside estate into a small, boutique hotel had been my salvation. It had come with a ton of work, especially on my part, handling the finances and smaller details of setting up the hotel and running it.
I took a moment to study the hotel. Clad in pink stucco and with a red-tiled roof, the building extended along the shoreline like a lazy flamingo. Oversized, carved wooden doors stood guard at the top of wide, marble stairs. Potted palms sat next to the doors, balancing their height, softening their edges. Flowering hibiscus lined the front of the building, their bright blossoms a nice enhancement.
We came to a stop in the front, circular driveway and waited while a young man hurried to help me out of the car.
“It’s still lovely, Ann,” said Vaughn, gazing up at the building.
I remained silent. It was a beautiful place but without the polished look of welcome that Rhonda, our employees, and I had given to it.
“Welcome to The Beach House Hotel,” the valet said in a bored tone of voice, holding the car door open for me.
Tears unexpectedly stung my eyes as I remembered how Rhonda and I used to run down the steps to greet our guests, our arms outstretched. I chided myself for being overly sentimental and got out of the car.
Vaughn handed over the keys and walked around the car to meet me. “Ready?
I took his arm, and we climbed the front steps together.
Pausing in the front entry, I recalled the first time I’d seen it, when Liz and I had visited Rhonda and Angela on a Thanksgiving several years ago. It had seemed so elegant, so open, so welcoming.
“Hello. Can I help you with something?”
I smiled at the young man behind the desk who obviously didn’t know who I was. Tim McFarland, Bernhard Bruner, and Jean-Luc Rodin, our former Front Office Manager, General Manager, and Chef, had either been fired or quit during the past year, leaving poorly trained staff behind who were inconsistent in providing continuing, professional service.
“No, thanks. We’re going to take a walk along the beach before having a cocktail.”
“Enjoy,” the clerk said and picked up a phone that had started to ring.
I led Vaughn out onto the pool deck, doing my best to ignore the loud rock music, the pool packed with kids, and the gossipy tones of the mothers supposedly watching their children. I loved having families at the hotel, but the clientele that now came here to take advantage of hotel package deals were people who wouldn’t tolerate or appreciate anything understated.
We left the pool area and walked onto the beach.
Stepping onto the soft, warm sand, I drew deep breaths in and out, reminding myself that, to convince Vaughn of the need to take over the hotel, I had to remain calm.
Vaughn grabbed hold of my hand, and we walked up to the edge of the water. Waves caressed our toes in gentle, cool laps that kissed the shore and pulled away. We closed our eyes and breathed in unison.
This ritual of allowing ourselves a peaceful moment with the sounds and feel of nature around us had begun shortly after we met and continued to be an act of bonding. We’d even used a scenario like this as part of our wedding ceremony.
Moments later, I opened my eyes and turned to Vaughn, my heart swelling. “I love you.”
He grinned. “Love you more.”
It was a game we liked, and by playing it, we both won.
As we headed down the beach, I splashed in and out of the water’s frothy edge. It lay on the packed sand like spun lace wrapped around seashells both broken and whole, little treasures the Gulf had offered up. Seagulls continued to cry and whirl above us, white and gray bundles of feathers dancing in the air.
We’d gone about a mile when Vaughn stopped walking and turned to me. “Okay, I’m curious. What did you want to talk about, Ann?”
I faced him, my shoulders stiff with determination. “Rhonda and I want to buy back the hotel. Our contract states that we have only a couple more months when we can do that.”
“But things have changed since you sold it,” Vaughn said. “You both have husbands and responsibilities as mothers. And what about the freedom for you to travel with me?”
“We’re distraught at seeing the hotel become … ordinary. It’s our baby, and now they’re making it ugly. Besides, during the past two years, Rhonda and I have learned a lot about running a hotel on a larger scale with more staff, and I’m certain we can set things up in a way that gives us almost as much freedom as we have now.”
“Aw, Ann, I know you want me to say ‘go for it,’ but I can’t. Not yet. Give me some time to think it over. I know it’s your decision, but I want things to be right between us. I want Robbie to have the mother he’s had for the past two and a half years.”
I stared out at the water moving back and forth rhythmically as it had always done, as if telling me that my life should continue in the same steady pattern. Ellen, Vaughn’s first wife, had been a model, stay-at-home mother. But that was over twenty years ago, and times had changed, roles had changed.
“What does Will have to say about this?” Vaughn asked. “I can’t imagine he’d be happy about it. He loves having Rhonda at home with the kids.”
“True,” I said, “but she, like me, is unwilling to let our hotel go to ruin.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s in ruins,” protested Vaughn.
My sigh held back words of frustration. “Let’s go have that drink you talked about. When you look around the hotel, I think you’ll have a better understanding of what Rhonda and I need to do. We’ve already talked to Mike Torson about it.”
Vaughn’s eyebrows rose in an arch. “You have?”
Unwilling to back down, I nodded. “He’ll handle everything for us. It won’t be easy, but I’m willing to fight for it.”
His brow creased with worry, he studied me. “Let’s head back and go inside. We’ll talk later.”
I followed Vaughn into the hotel hoping he realized how serious Rhonda and I were about getting our baby back.
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