Free A Holiday Romance by Carrie Alexander Page B

tweaked him for it. Rightfully.
    So that didn’t completely explain his inability to sleep. He’d been out of sorts even before he’d discovered Alice in the lobby with that goofy purple-goateed chef. And while pumping iron at one in the morning wasn’t his usual practice, it wasn’t unheard of, either. The staff shouldn’t have had that much to comment on.
    Then why was Lani watching him with such a calculating expression? She didn’t think he was losing it over one somewhat pesky but otherwise unremarkable woman, did she? A guest?
    Hell, no. Not him.
    Kyle put the coffee aside and pulled over the stack of departmental year-to-date reports. “Are we ready for the nine-o’clock meeting?” He’d called for every manager to attend with their annual reports fully updated. There’d be no surprises when the executives arrived next week. No surprises at all.
    Lani clucked her tongue. “You could use a yoga class or two. It’d really loosen you up.”
    “Not necessary. I can touch my toes.”
    “I wasn’t thinking of that kind of flexible.”
    Acing the performance review would end his anxiety. He might even feel so relieved that he’d sleep for twelve hours straight.
    Kyle pulled at the constricting knot of his tie. Admitting anxiety, even to himself, was not getting him anywhere.
    Lani handed him a couple of sheets of stapled paper.“Today’s agenda, hot from the printer.” She added a brightly colored card. “And here’s your invitation to your mother’s birthday party.”
    That he brushed aside. Open the door an inch and the entire tribe would bust through. He couldn’t risk distractions, not now.
    Lani made another clucking sound, but he ignored her.
    “Thanks. That’ll be all for now.” He took up the agenda, relishing the crisp paper, the scent of fresh ink, the neat printing and perfectly aligned row of bullet points. The schedule sliced into ten-minute increments.
    He had order, action, dedication to one goal. That was plenty.
     
    H UEVOS RANCHEROS sounded exotic, but the dish turned out to be a fancy name for scrambled eggs and fixings plopped on top of a tortilla. Nothing new and different there, until Alice bit unexpectedly into the tomato sauce, which was hot with chile. She cooled her tongue with a gulp of guava juice, then sampled some green stuff that turned out to be guacamole.
    The chorizo sausages were somewhat familiar, bringing her back to winter mornings on the island when she was a child. Ocean wind rattling the windowpanes. The house chilly. But the kitchen was always warm, with her mother at the stove making breakfast and Alice at the table with Jay. They were usually teasing each other, squabbling back and forth until the food arrived. Stacks of blueberry pancakes, real maple syrup warmed in a battered saucepan, piles of hot, spicy sausage cakes.
    Alice looked out across the golf course. The emerald-green grass was cut here and there with sand traps, which curved into question marks. A border of toweringpalms with upthrust fronds looked like the frazzled paintbrushes her students had used in the classroom.
    Four years after Alice had moved back to the island, so did Jay. He’d given up lobstering after his divorce to become a sort of nouveau hippie vegan potter, claiming his surname was Destiny. His ten-year-old daughter and three-year-old twin boys spent part of their summers on Osprey in happy squalor at Jay’s bachelor digs.
    As their mother’s disease had spread, he’d spelled Alice during the worst periods, giving her some relief from the strain. That had been a help, along with having the children near their grandmother. Alice was the loving aunt, the one who stopped by with new storybooks and took the kids on picnics and babysat whenever Jay needed her. She’d enjoyed it, except for the uncomfortable feeling that she’d settled too easily into spinsterhood.
    “Well, well, look what I found. Miss Alice Potter, sitting here all by herself.”
    “But, oh, you look so