LITMIR.BIZ

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right, we can’t afford to lose him as a patron. Larimar needs his money. I’m sorry. Just get it over with and then I’ll make sure to handle the calls for Bungalow 2 from now on if you think that would help.”

      “Forget it,” Lindy muttered with a scowl. “I’ll do it. But I just want to go on record as to say that this sucks and you both suck, too.”

      “Duly noted,” Lora said drily, then gestured. “Go before they start packing.”

      Lindy bit down on the impulse to tell Lora where to stick it and headed toward Bungalow 2. It wasn’t Lora’s fault that Larimar was sinking in financial quicksand. Lindy understood they were all doing what they could to save a beloved sinking ship but Lindy was not above feeling a bit emotionally manipulated into helping when she had her own life to live.

      In Hollywood, it was crucial to be seen. How was anyone going to see her here? Before leaving L.A. she’d been hoping and praying that she’d landed the national commercial gig she’d auditioned for but she’d been sorely vexed, as the St. John locals would say, to discover the part had been awarded to the woman who’d no doubt said yes to the director’s vulgar suggestion that had involved her mouth and his genitals. Disgusting little pig of a man, she thought, remembering with a shudder. Oh, who cared? Who wanted to be in a tampon commercial anyway?

      Lindy trudged through the sand to Bungalow 2 and, drawing a deep breath, knocked on the door and tried channeling a calm and peaceful vibe when in fact, she was still sporting a distinctly uncooperative attitude.

      The little bugger herself opened the door. What luck, Lindy thought drily. Just get it over with, she told herself.

      “Is your dad here?” Lindy asked, forcing a smile that she didn’t feel.

      The girl, Carys, had the look of a child accustomed to getting her way at the expense of others. Lindy knew this look because half the kids in Hollywood wore it well. “What do you want with my dad?” she asked, lounging idly against the door frame. “Gonna tell him more lies about me?”

      Lindy ignored that and bared her teeth in a wretched facsimile of a wider grin. “So, here or not?”

      “Your hotel sucks,” Carys announced, watching for Lindy’s reaction. “We’ve definitely stayed in better, you know. In places with toilets that actually work,” she added with a sly look. The brat was trying to bait her. If Lindy collected a paycheck she would’ve said she didn’t get paid enough to deal with this crap.

      “I take it he’s not here,” Lindy said, cocking her head to the side, openly assessing the kid. “Otherwise you’d be watching your mouth a little more closely. I get your act, kid. You play the sweet innocent girl for your dad but when his back is turned you show your true colors. You’re spoiled, mean, selfish and cruel,” Lindy said, taking pleasure in the way the girl’s face had begun to redden. “Oh, and chances are no one really likes you, which is something you probably know but pretend not to care about because, let’s face it, being a jerk is a lonely life. But let me fill you in on a secret, short stuff, this lonely childhood of yours is only going to get worse because unless you change your attitude, no one is ever going to want to be around you...not even your dad.”

      “Shut up,” Carys said.

      “Hey, kudos, kid, for the lip tremble,” Lindy said, being quite brutal, probably more than what was required but Lindy was still pissed about the toilet. “Pretty convincing. If I wasn’t already wise to your act, I might’ve bought it.”

      At that Carys’s eyes actually welled and Lindy felt a pang of remorse for taking it to that level but the kid had it coming, for sure. Today Lindy was Karma’s handmaiden.

      “I’m telling my dad,” she whispered, her voice cracking a bit. For a split second Lindy actually saw something in the girl’s raw expression that smacked of genuine emotion. A moment of doubt crossed her mind as she thought to soften the harsh words but the moment passed as quickly as a tropical storm and suddenly Carys screamed before slamming the door in Lindy’s face, “My daddy is going to sue you for every penny you own for being so mean to me!”

      “Yeah, well good luck with that!” Lindy shouted back, forgetting her earlier doubt. Then she added, “Brat!” for good measure.

      Well, that hadn’t gone well. But surely Lora had to have known it wouldn’t. Maybe her sister had set her up. Customer service wasn’t her specialty or niche. And curse her own stubbornness. Maybe she ought to have let Lilah handle the situation with Bungalow 2, after all, because clearly Lindy simply wasn’t cut out for this touchy-feely stuff. Damn, damn, damn, Lindy thought grumpily. She had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well for anyone. At this rate, she might’ve single-handedly ruined Larimar’s chances of pulling through this disaster in one day. Good job, Lindy!

      * * *

      “AND THEN...AND then...” Carys’s voice hitched on a hysterical hiccup as Gabe cradled his daughter as she sobbed in his arms. “And then, she called me...she called me...a bad...n-name, Daddy!”

      “What sort of bad name, sweetheart?” he asked, barely holding his temper in check. “Go ahead, you can tell me. I’ll take care of this once and for all if you just tell me what happened.”

      Carys ground the tears from her eyes and then wailed, “She called me a...b-word!”

      The b-word. Hmm...well, the range could land between a whole lot of different insults from mild to harsh. He’d only been gone for an hour and a half, just long enough for Carys to calm down so they could discuss her behavior, but in the space of that time, that woman had apparently returned to the bungalow to call his daughter names. A small niggling doubt worried at his thoughts even as his temper reached a dangerous place. Carys was only eleven; the woman had no right to call his daughter names no matter what she’d allegedly done to the damn toilet. Still, that one percent of doubt countered with grim logic. Carys was...a handful. The b-word was the least of the insults recently hurled at his daughter. In fact, her last nanny...well, he was pretty sure the woman had called her something quite unpleasant in Swedish.

      “Honey, why would she just show up and start calling you names?” he asked, unable to bury that small doubt under his instinct to defend his daughter. “Maybe it was a misunderstanding....”

      “Daddy, you don’t believe me?” Carys’s head popped from his shoulder, her eyes hard and mean.

      “It’s not that I don’t believe you, sweetheart,” he said evenly. “But sometimes there are misunderstandings.”

      “I’m not stupid or deaf. She called me a b-word. How am I supposed to misunderstand that?”

      Ah hell, he’d walked into that one. Carys was much too smart to pull off that kind of deflection. He sighed and shook his head. “Carys...be honest with me.... Why do you think a relative stranger would just start calling you names? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Did you, possibly, say something that might’ve been offensive?”

      “Why are you taking her side?” Carys said, openly wounded and rapidly growing angry. “You’re supposed to be on my side! Not hers. She’s a nobody. I’m your daughter! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

      “Of course it does,” he said sharply, not liking what was happening between them but it seemed to happen more often these days. “I’m just saying—”

      “Don’t you love me, Daddy?” she cut in impatiently, wiping her nose with a quick swipe of the back of her hand.

      “Carys,” he warned, disappointed by her obvious attempt at manipulating him. “Stop it.”

      Her lower lip trembled and she pushed away from him, the action actually skewering him in the heart. “I hate you,” she said quietly. “Mom would’ve believed me. She was the only one who truly loved me.”

      “Damn it, Carys,” he said, growing angry himself, but mostly doubling over inside from the pain of what was happening between them. It was as if Charlotte’s death had taken the light and laughter

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