Welcome Silver Cliff Eagles!
India Foster glanced at the banner stretched across the Silver Palace Hotel's teeming lobby, then groaned. Talk about leaping from the frying pan and into the fire . . . .
After the solitude of her two-day drive from Columbus, Ohio to Silver Cliff--a small, Colorado mountain town--the contrast of now finding herself drowning in a crowd felt surreal. Still, as the hotel's newly hired conference and event coordinator, India knew wrangling mobs like this were a large part of her job description. She just hadn't expected to jump in quite so soon. And wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for her sister, Lyndsay, flaking out on her.
Upon India's arrival at the apartment they'd planned to share, the complex manager had handed her a note. Off to LA. Long story. Happy B-Day!
Right. Too bad birthdays couldn't be postponed.
Better yet, in her case, altogether canceled.
The pot-bellied guy had further brightened her day by explaining that the entire county had been invaded by Silver Cliff High graduates in town for a reunion to celebrate and mourn the end of an era in that the old high school was being turned into luxury condos. Apparently, the new school was state-of-the-art, but many older graduates were taking the closing hard. Having herself graduated in Pershing, Ohio--Class of 2000--she'd been more choked up about not having a place to stay than the school closing.
Seeing how it was the Fourth of July, any nearby hotels and motels not overwhelmed with graduates was also booked with tourists. She'd hoped to find a temporary home here at the Silver Palace, but now that she'd planted herself and her rock-heavy overnight bag at the end of a long, snaking line crawling to the front desk, the pit in her stomach told her she might end up sleeping in her car.
"Pardon," someone tapped India's shoulder.
"Yes?" India turned to face a middle-aged woman wearing a disastrous red and black-striped dress. She carried a clipboard in the crook of one arm. In the other, a basket threatening to overflow with numbered pins.
"Didn't you read a word of your registration packet? You can't get in this line without first visiting mine." As if she were teacher scolding an unruly child, the woman shook her head and clucked her tongue. "Jill Benson, I thought I'd taught you better than that. Always, always read and follow directions."
"Sorry, but you must have me mistaken for--"
"Here you go," the woman said, snatching an '04 button from her basket, then fastening it to India's pink chambray shirt. "Can't have you running around naked--so to speak."
"But, I'm not--"
"Tommy Underwood, if I've told you once, I . . ." Before India got a word in edgewise, the woman was off, accosting another victim. India started to remove the button, but figured what was the point? She'd probably just get nailed anew. This way, she'd at least blend with the crowd.
Shifting her overnight bag from one hand to the other, she moved up in line, vowing that for putting her through this, her sister would pay.
Scowling, it occurred to India that out of a string of awful birthdays, this one was the last straw. No cake, no presents, no breaking out in song she could handle, but this crushing sense of yet again being alone in a crowd hurt.
Which was why she'd moved halfway across the country. To finally fill gnawing hunger that came from never belonging. In the two years Lyndsay had lived in Silver Cliff, she'd described the town as being as sweet and welcoming as a scoop of hot fudge-drenched ice cream. Her sister had repeatedly urged India to pack up and move in with her, but Lyndsay being Lyndsay, she hadn't put much stock in India finishing her degree. However, now that India was armed with her diploma and this amazing new job, she felt certain only good things were next to come. Surely, fate wouldn't be so cruel as to put her through the stress of the past couple months, only to land her in fresh trouble now?
Stealing her shoulders, raising her chin, scooting further up in line, India vowed not to think of this latest development as trouble, but adventure.
Thirty minutes later, finally taking her turn at the sumptuous hotel's ivory-toned marble registration counter, that adventure India had convinced herself she was seeking? It was firmly back to being trouble!
"But I'm supposed to start work Monday," India said to the front manager whose nametag read, Vicki. "I've already tried every other conceivable place in town. Please, I'll sleep in my new office, I just really need a place to stay."
"I understand," Vicki said in a warm tone. "Your new boss is one of my dearest friends, and if it weren't for the fact that my husband's sister and what feels like her fourteen kids are staying with me, I'd offer you my own guest room, but--"
"I don't mean to interrupt," said a grinning brunette who'd been complaining to a clerk about one of her roommates having canceled, and therefore, no longer being on the bill. Unless she was a fellow imposter graduate, her button proudly proclaimed her to be from the class of '02. "But seeing how my sisters and I just lost a roommate, and you're needing a room, would you consider staying with us?"
With her housing crisis temporarily tackled thanks to an incredibly kind set of triplets who'd become fast friends, India was thankful that at least one portion of her birthday angst had been resolved. Now, she figured her best course of action would be launching an apartment hunt.
Trouble was, as was becoming more and more usual, she was starving and in need of a bathroom.
But seeing how the lobby still thronged with graduates, India figured her best course of action would be filling both needs elsewhere. She'd hefted her overnight bag to the room, so, after fishing her keys from her purse, she charted a course through the human sea for the hotel's revolving brass door.
She'd just about made it, too, but then a funny thing happened. She looked up only to be stunned by a guy. Not just any guy, but the kind of movie star chiseled perfection she'd bought in poster form, then used to decorate her teen bedroom. Not that posters were funny--or the guy--but the fact that just as she'd been determined to escape the masses, he seemed equally determined to barrel right through. Only not to the nearest exit--but her!
Still at a polite distance, he said, "If you've ever been hurt by a member of the opposite sex, then I hope you'll forgive me."
"For what?"
He grinned, then hauled off and kissed her!
Kissed her!
Wonderfully, wickedly kissed her till she was weak-kneed and dizzy and rethinking her earlier plan to cancel her birthday. How could she, when this bad boy stranger with spiky dark hair, a hint of stubble and a rock hard, six-foot body encased in faded jeans and a black Burton Snowboard Tee had just given her a dizzying gift.
"Sorry," the guy said over a recently set-up string quartet and still more chattering graduates. "Emergency."
Hands to flaming cheeks, willing her pulse to slow, India stammered, "E-emergency kissing?"
"Hey, what can I say?" Stepping closer to avoid being trampled by two blue-haired women wearing oversized '19 buttons on their lapels, he graced her with a white-toothed grin as sinfully delicious as his kiss! "You're hot, and that woman over there?" He pointed across the crowd. "The tall brunette on the hulk's arm? She's not. Hot, that is."
"She looks pretty to me." The woman wearing a '96 badge that matched the kissing bandit's had inky dark hair and a flawless, honeyed complexion that leant her an exotic glow. Her black linen pantsuit fit like a dream and her matching purse and shoes looked as if they'd cost more than a month of India's salary. The muscled, Nordic-blond guy she was with also wore black, but in men's suit form. "He's not bad, either--assuming you go for the Neanderthal type."
"Bite your tongue. The guy's a germ."
"Steal your girl?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"So then far from you kissing me due to love at first sight, it was more about having her see you having a great time with a younger woman?"
"Damn." He reddened, ducked his head. "Here, I don't even know your name, yet already you see right through me."
She smiled and thrust out her hand. "India Foster, full-time event planner, part-time love doctor."
The ruggedly handsome stranger fit his palm to hers, shocking her with tingly awareness. Was it normal for her to already crave another kiss after knowing the guy barely two minutes? "Graydon Johnson, snowboard coach and patient apparently very much in need of your services."
India couldn't help but laugh at his antics, although the pain hiding just beneath the surface of his slow, sexy grin was palpable.
"So? Class of 2004, huh?" He nodded toward the big button the overzealous organizer had pinned on her chest. "You are a young thing."
"Well, actually--"
"Graydon." The brunette who'd been pretty across the room? Up close and personal--like in Graydon's face--was ravishing. "I'd hoped to bump into you. Did Jake take his allergy medicine to camp?"
"Yes."
"Wonderful. You know how I worry." She sashayed off to greet a fellow brunette with a polished squeal, hulk in tow.
"Grrr . . ." Graydon shook his head, eyeing his ex. "That woman couldn't melt ice cubes on her--"
"Graydon!" A trio of grinning women in red, silver and black cheerleader uniforms wearing '94 buttons bounced, jumped and jiggled their way over. In the case of a freckle-faced redhead, India had doubts as to whether the uniform's decade-old seams would hold. After a round of hugs and flurried small talk, during which India gleaned the intel that the man she'd kissed wasn't merely a coach, but a recently retired pro-snowboarder who now managed both pros and future Olympians, she was starting to feel very much out of her league.
Having been born on the wrong side of the tracks to a flower-child mother who'd one day when India was four and her sister two, vanished with the wind, India had never felt part of the whole school establishment. While other kids had had moms and dads who'd volunteered, India's dad had sometimes had a job, and most of the time, drank.
Having worked her way through college was one of India's proudest achievements. It might've taken six years, but she'd done it. And now, bright and early Monday morning, she'd launch a new phase of her life as the Sliver Palace Conference and Event Coordinator. Armed with a hotel management degree and blazingly bright future, India knew in her head she had nothing to feel inferior about. The past was gone.
Fighting the knot in her throat, She raised her chin, forcing a smile. Whether her sister cared to join her or not, dammit, she was officially launching a new life, and old ghosts weren't welcome.
"Good lord," Graydon said, words warm in her left ear once the cheerleaders had giggled their way to someone new. "I've gotta get out of here. How about I buy you a drink?"
"I, um, don't. Drink, that is."
"O-okay. Do you eat?"
Laughing, India said, "That, is a skill at which I'm most adept."
"Excellent," he said with a broad smile. "It appears we have something in common--besides, of course, having graduated from the same high school and kissing."
"Yes, well--"
"Graydon!" A twenty-something, long-haired guy with glasses and a neon pink T-shirt wondered up to shake Graydon's hand. Four more men in equally obnoxious clothes followed.
India had been about to explain how she wasn't a fellow Silver Cliff graduate, but found herself yet again cut off at the proverbial pass. Still hungry and needing a ladies room in the worst way, India waved at her new friend, then said, "Looks like you're busy. I'm going to go."
Cutting off one of the guys, he asked, "Will you be at tonight's picnic and fireworks?"
"Depends," she said, truly not knowing if she'd have time or energy. "If I do make it, maybe I'll see you there."
"Yeah. Maybe." Her eyes locked with his for a heart-stopping moment, and then, as abruptly as he'd entered her life, Graydon Johnson was gone.
