Page 48 of Sunset Tides
Was that how Rob’s life had ended up here? Preying on the beloved hotel of a woman who had never known happiness?
No, that wasn’t what Lucy had said. Claire wasn’t unhappy. The hotel had given Claire purpose, as it was the only thing she’d ever done for herself, because she was a saint with no flaws.
Rob sat up. He was spiraling. There is no use trying to force his eyes to stay closed. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he might as well get some work done.
He got up from bed, went to his desk, and logged onto his computer.
Four twenty-nine. He’d been awake for three hours. Giving up was the right decision.
His inbox had a decent pile of emails, and Rob got to work answering them. There was a long email chain his boss had forwarded to him with the concerning subject, “We’re losing them.”
Rob clicked through and skimmed the back and forth. It was between Rick and the guys at Grippy. It seemed the owners of Grippy were getting antsy – they wanted to announce the new development on Orcas at the shareholder’s meeting. Rick had responded, telling them not to lose their heads and not to rush things.
Rick wasn’t happy, clearly, but Rob was confident he could calm things down at Grippy. He’d been working tirelessly – when he wasn’t joking around with Lucy – to find a new location for the Grippy build. He’d also outlined arguments against Orcas Island so they wouldn’t feel the sting of what they’d lost.
He talked about how getting to and from the island was inconvenient, and how a large influx of people might be more than the infrastructure could handle. Also, the fact that the county was hostile to developers took the choice out of their hands.
He’d put it all together in a presentation. It wasn’t quite done, but it seemed a good time to send it to Rick.
Rob attached it to a new email and hit send. His phone rang six minutes later.
Rick. That guy never slept.
“Morning.”
“Glad to see you’ve got a plan,” Rick said.
Rob smiled. “Always.”
“Let’s get you out to San Francisco. You can present this tomorrow, maybe the day after.”
Shoot. He and Lucy had planned to go horseback riding tomorrow. It was Lucy’s idea, of course, but it would have to wait. “Sure. No problem.”
“I’ll have Cherry book your flight. Just get this thing ready. I’ll meet you there.”
As disappointed as Lucy would be that he’d need a raincheck on the horseback riding, one day he might be able to tell her how close Claire had come to losing the hotel, and maybe she’d forgive him.
But probably not without a lot of yelling.
He could handle it, though. Maybe she’d touch his arm again.
Rob smiled to himself and got up to pack a bag.
Chapter Twenty-two
Try as she might, Lillian was having a hard time hiding that her phone calls with Mason were becoming both more frequent and more heated. Two days ago, Lucy had overheard them arguing about Lillian’s return to Texas.
Mason started with his usual arguments. “It stinks. I’m just here waiting around for you to come back and I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” she said. “But you do realize that’s how it is for me when you travel all the time, right?”
He scoffed. “No. This is completely different.”
“It really isn’t. I wait around for you, and sometimes when you’re only back for a week you barely have time to – ”
Mason cut her off. “When I travel, it’s for work, not for fun. I’m doing it for our future.”
“Family is more important than work,” Lillian countered. “I hardly ever get to see my mom, and if you came – ”
