Gabby had stopped chewing and begun talking, her Southern accent as thick as pluff mud, keeping Charleston always before her. “But now we have to fly to get to you. Used to, you could just drive.”
Riley placed her hand on Gabby’s exposed knee that stuck out from her shorts. “But Mommy can get to you at any time if I need to. So you just know that. Mommy’s not going anywhere. Got it? Not ever again. You can get to me anytime and I can get to you anytime.”
Gabby’s voice was solemn. “Anytime?”
Riley gave her a reassuring smile and wished for a six-year-old instead of a thirty-year-old. “Anytime. Now eat up. You and Ted have a busy day.”
Gabby jammed her fork into a piece of pancake and stuck it in her mouth. Her muffled tones came through anyway. “Ted’s going to be a hit!”
“A surefire hit.”
* * *
When Gabby’s form disappeared through the front door of St. Andrew’s School, the International School of the Bahamas, Riley could finally deal with the heaviness that Gabby’s words had blanketed over her heart. She had spent the last few years climbing out of heavy moments that were as boggy and stinky as Charleston’s marshes. Thankfully, she handled them much differently now than she had in the past. Now she plowed through them when they swept over her. She didn’t avoid them. Nor did she stay in them. She simply put her head down and didn’t look up until she got to the other side.
The second prayer of the day was made on the way to the hotel. And by the time she got there, one more moment had been experienced, grieved, and left. She was through existing. Even if living meant fording through pain, that was a journey worth taking. To her, living meant no longer hiding. Hiding had robbed her of years with Gabby, of her marriage, and almost of herself. No, there would be no more hiding.
Riley parked her car in the employee parking lot and headed toward The Cove, one of the exclusive properties on the Atlantis complex. This place took her breath away. She couldn’t imagine a day that it wouldn’t.
Towering palm trees swayed slowly with the subtle breeze of the tropical morning as she stepped into the porte cochere that welcomed guests at The Cove.
She passed a young valet. “Hey, Bart.” They had become friends on her first day.
“Hello, Miss Riley. You and Gabby enjoying your weekend?”
She smiled. “So far, so good.”
“So is this our week?” he said with his thick Bahamian accent, an accent that could move with such a quick cadence, she sometimes had to make him repeat himself.
“I’m thinking Friday would be great.”
His huge white smile took over his black face. “Well, that’s what I was thinking.” The pitch of his voice rose. “I’ll meet you at the end of the aisle.”
“Don’t be late,” she chided at their little joke. Then laughed from deep inside. He had been proposing marriage since she’d arrived, even though he was probably twenty years younger than she was. But now he no longer proposed marriage, only the wedding date.
She headed into the Nave, the open-air lobby of The Cove, with its thirty-five-foot teak ceiling and magnificent sculptured lines. This six-hundred-suite tower was her responsibility. Her small heels clicked on the stone flooring as she walked through the expansive walkway, then softened when they met the deep wood that encased the stone. She walked into the glassed-in guest services offices directly across the hall from guest registration.
“Hello, Mia,” she said to the newest staff member and her top assistant. Mia had arrived two weeks ago from Australia. The staff was as much a melting pot as were the guests who stayed in their rooms.
“Hello, Riley.” Her face lit up as Riley walked by. “Busy week, I hear.”
“Yes. A few special guests this week.”
Mia’s long blonde locks fell across her shoulder as she pulled a leather portfolio from her black Chanel bag. With the straw market at the port in Nassau where the cruise ships came in, Riley knew that fake designer handbags ruled in most of the Bahamas. But not so much here. Fake handbags were as scorned in this luxurious environment as husbands with laptops, but both sneaked in every now and then.
She followed behind as Riley walked into her office. Mia’s long, lean legs bridged the chasm quickly. “So who are our VIPs this week?”
Riley looked down at the large desktop calendar to the names written in red ink. Three women arrived today. Three women whose arrivals had been preceded by slightly panicked phone calls: one from a detailed agent, one from a concerned parent, and one conference call from three loving and determined children.
“Let’s see here; our primary focus will be Laine Fulton, the author. She’s coming here to research for her new book.”
Mia scribbled in her notebook like a diligent student. “I hear she’s demanding,” she said in her slightly frantic way.
Riley’s ears piqued at her statement. In the two weeks Mia had been here, Riley had been slightly disarmed by her moments of childishness quickly diffused by an action of maturity. She couldn’t figure Mia out. Her outward beauty was obvious. Her reactions not so much. “You have? How so?”
“Oh, I have a friend who hosted her at a property in Dubai. She used that as the setting of her last book. She said there are as many layers to Laine Fulton as there are characters in her novels.”
“I prefer to think she’s a woman who knows what she wants. And she happens to want things a specific way. I spoke with her agent this morning and—”
“Mitchell?” Mia interrupted.
Riley cocked her head. “Yes, Mitchell.”
“That’s her ex-husband. And I heard he wasn’t her agent anymore,” Mia responded matter-of-factly.
“Yes, well . . . okay.” Riley shook her head. “Let’s stay on our toes with her this week and make sure everything runs smoothly. Her specific room requests should have been taken care of, and
