“I’d like a lavender margarita,” Drea decided. “It sounds lovely. What do you think, Nell?”
“Resort-wide, or exclusive to Après?”
“That would be up to you.”
“Yeah, it would. Let’s try the spa coordination. Resort-wide if it takes. You can try it in Après next week.”
“Great. I’ll order what we need.”
“I’ll walk out with you.” Nell rose.
“Welcome aboard, Morgan.” Drea rose as well. “And tell your mother and grandmother I miss them in yoga class.”
“Yoga class?”
“Studio Om, on South Alley off High Street. We try to make the nine o’clock class on Wednesday mornings, but with the new café project and my schedule, we’ve missed class for a month. More like six weeks, for me, I think. Tell them I’m determined to make it this week.”
“I will.”
“She meditates, too,” Nell said when they walked through the outer office with its ringing phones and busy assistants. “Do you meditate?”
“Only when I’m unconscious.”
With a laugh, Nell shook back her hair, left down to skim her shoulders today. A more casual look to go with the gray pants and navy sweater.
“Me, too. I don’t know whether to be fascinated or baffled by the idea of a lavender margarita.”
“Come in next week. I’ll make you one.”
“I just might.” She pulled her buzzing phone from her pocket. “Well, no meditation or margaritas for me. Good luck tonight,” she added, and fast-walked in the opposite direction.
“Busy’s best,” Morgan murmured.
She exchanged waves or nods with some of the staff she’d met as she walked toward the lobby, over the marble floors, and through the archway.
It was, she thought, starting to feel like she’d found her place.
The bar buzzed, as a bar should in her opinion, with people relaxing with a drink before dinner, or settling down for bar food. At a quick scan, she spotted a couple of corporate types, heads together, conversation intense. A trio of women laughing together over glasses of wine.
Then stopped short when she recognized the two men having a beer. More Jamesons, she realized. The patriarch, Michael “Mick” Jameson, the man who, along with his wife, Lydia Miles Jameson, had expanded what had been a handful of cabins and a twenty-room hotel to the Resort at Westridge.
He sat with Nell’s brother Liam, the youngest sibling.
They made a picture, Morgan thought, the generations. The grandfather with his sleek pewter hair topping a craggy face, the younger with a careless mop of brown and a face smooth and unlined.
And yet you wouldn’t mistake them for anything but family as they sat, first generation in a sweatshirt, younger in a hoodie, holding an animated conversation over their evening beer.
Business, pleasure, or both? she wondered as she made her way to the bar and behind it.
“You’re early.” Nick poured another round—Chardonnay, Zinfandel, and a Cab—she identified for the trio of women at table five. “Tabs running, all tables,” he told Morgan.
“Two just sat down on the lobby side as I came in.”
“Lacy’s on it. She’s in the back picking up a cheese plate for that side. Bosses at table eight.”
“Saw that.”
“Heady Toppers,” he said, identifying the beer. “If they go for another round, add the cheese fries even if they don’t order it. Mick loves the cheese fries.”
“Got it. Go home. I’ll log your tips.”
“You’re the boss now.”
“Looks that way.”
A man who looked like he’d just waked from a long nap slid onto a stool.
“Good evening. What can I get you?”
He gave her a dreamy smile. “I just had my first hot stone massage. You ever had one?”
“Not yet.”
“Do yourself a favor. Only time I’ve been more relaxed is never. My wife’s getting one, meeting me here. It’s our first time coming here.”
“And how are you enjoying it?”
“I’m thinking about moving in. My wife’s going to want a glass of champagne. The good stuff. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s gonna. Me, I’ll try that local brew. Marie. That’s my wife’s name.”
Morgan thought Marie was a lucky woman. And decided she’d been right when the lucky woman came in moments later.
Marie all but melted onto a stool. “God, Charlie. Where has that been all my life?”