Page 7 of Colton On Guard

“I doubt it.” After this clear dismissal, she turned to head into her small office.

“Wait,” he said then softened his voice. “Please.”

She turned slowly. “What’s up?”

Slightly nervous, he cleared his throat. “Back when we, uh, got together. A year ago. I said I’d call you, but didn’t. I wanted to explain why.”

“Oh, there’s no need—” she began.

“But there is,” he interrupted. “I lost your number. Then, when I went to ask my sister for it, she told me you were married. Since I didn’t want any part of being the other person inan affair, I didn’t even try to call you. It was only when you came back to town that Lakin realized she’d been wrong.”

“I was going through a pretty nasty divorce,” she said. “But it’s been a year and you shouldn’t even give that a second thought. I wasn’t upset that I didn’t hear from you. Not at all. You were exactly what I needed at the moment—a good time. Nothing more.” She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I haven’t.”

Then she turned and disappeared inside her little office in back, leaving Parker staring after her, his ego bruised. No, more than bruised. Battered.

If she hadn’t hung up on him when he’d first called to offer her the job, he might have believed her. He’d explained why he hadn’t contacted her. That’s all that should have mattered. What had he expected anyway?

Despite the fact that he hadn’t ever stopped thinking about her, he knew he should figure out how to put her out of his mind.

Maybe working side by side with her, day after day, would help. Though, when Spence had first come up with idea, Parker had felt it would be almost a kind of torture.

He’d have to get over that. And pronto. Because, like it or not, she worked for RTA now. And he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. The family business had to come first.

Alone in the small manager’s office, Genna tried to focus on getting used to everything. Lakin had always been organized; so, mostly, Genna needed to familiarize herself with the system. The detailed notes in the binder would definitely help with that.

The reservations were all online, as were the schedule of the tours. As she scrolled through the upcoming groups, she saw that Parker’s assessment had been right. RTA appeared to be booked solid. Most days had back-to-back tours.

Good for them. Might as well get as much done before the snow started falling.

Scrolling ahead to the month of December, she saw Lakin hadn’t been kidding. While the types of outings had changed, each weekend was marked “Full.” During the week, things slowed quite a bit, but Genna imagined the employees were glad to have a bit of a break from the nonstop bookings.

She remembered from working here before that the summer was the busiest season. Tourists flooded the area in good weather; families on vacation and work groups needing a bonding activity. Since school wasn’t in session, RTA made sure to have child-friendly activities such as whale watching and wildlife tours.

She heard the bell tinkle over the door and realized Parker must have unlocked it. The sound of voices told her the next bunch of clients must have arrived.

Putting down the binder, she hurried out to greet them.

By the end of the day, exhaustion had Genna dead on her feet. She’d met four of the ten RTA guides, not including Parker and Spence, whom she already knew. When Spence had arrived for his group and had walked into the building to see her working, he’d grabbed her up into a laughing bear hug. After twirling her around, he set her back on her sneakers. “You’re here!” he exclaimed. “Thank you so much.”

His enthusiastic greeting made her grin. “It’s been busy. Luckily for me, Lakin made detailed notes. I remembered quite a bit from when I worked here, but she made it easy for me to look things up and double check to make sure I was doing everything correctly.”

The front door opened then. A large group that appeared to be several families, including six teens, came inside. They were all talking at once, the teens roughhousing, and Genna simplywaited at the front counter for them to choose one person to speak to her.

“You’ve got your hands full,” she muttered to Spence.

He smiled. “Just the way I like things.”

Once she’d checked the group in, she watched as Spence herded them off to a bus to ride out to where RTA docked their boats. Since the days were still long this time of year, RTA took full advantage of the sunlight. This group would be doing some fishing, which ought to be interesting with so many rowdy teens.

Taking a final glance at the schedule to make sure that was the last group, Genna dropped into a chair and sighed.

The bell above the front door tinkled again, making her look up. Parker strode in, glancing back over his shoulder and shaking his head. Once again, she caught herself melting at the sight of him.

“Spence should have a time with that group,” he said, smiling.

Her stomach clenched.

Pretending that his smile didn’t affect her, she nodded.