Anne arrived at the Eagle's Nest Inn around three thirty that afternoon and dropped her suitcase on the bed of her old room in the family's separate residence, and after she changed into shorts and a tee shirt, she went in search of her mother in the main building. She found her mother in the inn's large kitchen discussing the meal for the upcoming wedding that was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, only six days away. Not wanting to interrupt the meeting by drawing attention to her presence, she waited by the door and watched her mother and their chef, William Becker, discuss the menu details and final head count. It sounded like the wedding would be a smallish affair with about eighty guests. If the menu was anything to go by, the wedding was also going to be an expensive affair.
Anne had learned a few weeks ago from her mother that the inn was fully booked with the wedding party and guests, most of them coming up from Seattle, and that they were taking up the majority of the main building's rooms. Island vacationers took up the remaining rooms and the cottages along the water's edge. The bride, Lily Carlson, chose to have her wedding reception at the Eagle's Nest because she used to come up to the inn as a child, and then, when she returned last summer with her boyfriend, her boyfriend proposed to her. It all sounded romantic. Anne was happy for the couple. She was also happy for her parents who had, over the years, built an inn that drew such loyalty from returning guests.
Anne knew the bride fairly well. Lily was a sweet kid who came from a wealthy Seattle family, the kind with whom Anne's father would have gone out of his way to cultivate a friendship, and Anne remembered her fondly. The Carlson family had been coming to the inn for two weeks every summer since Anne was nine. Being the same age as Anne and Carla, Lily Carlson often hung out with Anne and Carla when they were younger. Her older brother, a cute boy named Ben, often tagged along to keep an eye on them. Years later, Lily began to come alone with her parents after Ben finished college. Anne hadn’t seen her since the summer before she and Carla moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington.
It was even longer since she last saw Ben. The last time she saw him was the summer she turned seventeen and wore braces on her teeth. She remembered that summer well because she had developed the biggest crush on Ben, a soon to be college senior. He came back at other times over the years and stayed at the inn, either with his family or with friends, but Anne wasn’t on the island during those other times. She wondered what he looked like now and what he was doing. He was probably married with children at this point. She also thought about the number of things she did to draw his attention that last summer, then shuttered and hoped that no one else would remember any of it. How embarrassing would that be?
"Anne, you made it. How was traffic, sweetheart?" Her mother broke into Anne's reverie by giving her a hug. Anne jumped slightly at the sudden contact then returned the hug wholeheartedly. The discussion with William was now apparently finished because he had gone back to work preparing the evening specials while his assistants worked at fulfilling the occasional late lunch orders.
"Traffic wasn't too bad once I got away from Seattle. You changed your hair. I like it," Anne commented about her mother's changed look. Her mother, Jane Petrovic, was twenty years older than Anne and had the same light blue eyes and winged eyebrows. From there, however, their similarities ended. Their chins and mouths were different. Anne's chin was stronger and more square-shaped and her mouth was wider with fuller lips. Anne's mother's hair, in contrast to Anne's dark curly locks, was a dark ash blonde shade styled in an attractive layered cut that framed her face.
Today, Anne's mother was dressed in casual chic plum colored business attire that complimented her petite frame. Anne felt like a frumpy Amazon standing next to her dressed in the pair of white shorts, a mint green tee shirt, and canvas sneakers with no socks. Anne also had scrubbed off her makeup leaving nothing on except for a rose-colored lip-gloss. She decided not to cover her lightly tanned skin with anything but sunscreen now that her makeup was off. Her natural curly hair, which had been pulled up in a twist for the interview, was now pulled out and left loose around her shoulders with soft tendrils falling about her face.
"Yes, I did," her mother replied. "I changed it last winter. Are you hungry? Did you eat?" Anne's mother led her out of the kitchen and into the dining room that was almost empty except for a handful of guests and locals. Anne recognized some of the faces that belonged to people who lived in Eastsound and some to returning guests. "You can eat here, or I can have something sent over to the house," she said as she began to fuss a little over Anne.
"Will you be joining me?"
"No, dear. Jim is over at the airport picking up the bride and groom for this weekend’s wedding. They are flying in today, along with some of the wedding party and the bride’s parents. They intend to stay for the week while they get ready for the wedding. So, I'm holding down the fort until your dad gets back. But, if you are hungry, I'll have Karen whip you up a sandwich and send it over to the house if you do not want to eat here."
"No. That's fine, Mom. I ate on the way up. Actually, I was planning on taking a bike ride to town. I can pick up a bite to eat there if I get hungry."
"All right, Anne. How did your interview go this morning?"
Anne filled her mother in briefly on how it went then left the inn's main building when her mother was called away to help at the front desk. Going out of the front French style double doors, Anne stepped onto the wide front veranda that swept along the full length of the building and around both sides. Outdoor wicker furniture was placed strategically along the veranda for guests who wished to sit outside and enjoy the view. The main part of the inn was a large two-story plantation style building covered in white clapboard siding with black shingles and shutters. Large windows faced out the front onto the veranda and lawn. Six thick white square pillars stretched up to the second story roof and supported a second story gallery that ran the full length of the building. A wrought iron railing enclosed the second floor gallery, and additional furniture was placed outside for guests who wished to look out onto the sweeping front lawn lined with large oaks and flowers.
The main building was constructed over a hundred years earlier by a wealthy Seattle shipbuilder who wanted a vacation home on Orcas Island. Originally from New Orleans, he wanted to create a vacation home that could rival any of the great plantation homes found in the South. It was quite a project for its time. The house took five years to build and cost a couple of million back when it was completed in 1897. It was reported that several heads of state and wealthy industrialists had stayed at the home back when the shipbuilder, Thomas Rhodes, owned the place, and because of that, many people wanted to preserve it as part of the island’s heritage. But the house and lands were sold in the 1950s when the direct family line died out and descendants of Mr. Rhodes from California decided that keeping the home was not worth it to them. After the house was sold, several cabins were added along the water's edge, and the place was turned into a vacation and fishing resort.
The place changed owners several times over the years until Jim Petrovic and her mother bought it when Anne was two years old. Jim and Anne's mother were just married a few months before, and using all of their savings and any capital they could scrape together through loans and private investors, they turned around the run down building and cabins into a thriving inn and vacation resort. When Anne was eight, the inn expanded when her parents added the events center, and she and her family moved from their suite in the main building into the remodeled caretaker's house. Over the years, the inn also added a swimming pool, a spa, tennis courts, and an art gallery-gift shop combination that featured the works of local artists.
Now, after rounding the corner of the wrap around veranda, Anne walked back down the trail to the family's house to retrieve some money from her purse.
The inn listed Eastsound as its address, but the inn and resort were actually two miles outside of Eastsound village limits along t
he northwest shore of the island. Anne could see Waldron Island off in the distance with the expanse of the blue waters of President Channel in between. She also saw several kayakers out enjoying the calm water and a fishing boat off to the right. Further down the channel, on the left, she could make out a sightseeing boat on its way north looking for a pod of orca whales for which the island was famous. She could imagine the surprise and awe of the faceless tourists when a pod was spotted. It never stopped thrilling her, and she had seen them countless times.
After grabbing a twenty-dollar bill and stuffing it in her back pocket, she headed back to the main building to check out one of the inn's mountain bikes. She decided to take the back staircase that led up the southern elevation of the veranda instead of walking around the pool area and cutting across the patio to the back entrance into the building because she liked the private path through the trees. As she walked, she became lost in her own thoughts while she recalled every nuance of that morning’s interview. Surely, they would not have given her the tour if they were not seriously looking at hiring her? Research companies tended to guard their research as if their research was precious gold and the company was Fort Knox. To them, their research was more valuable than gold.
Smack.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t watch where she was going and bumped into a man on the veranda who was rounding the corner to head to the back staircase. The force of hitting him would have knocked her down if it had not been for his quick actions to stop her from falling. Immediately after the collision, strong arms enfolded her in a hug before they moved away. She felt strong hands grab her arms to steady her. After the initial hard bump, her fuzzy brain registered warmth, power, and the scents of the great outdoors and a male body. She stepped away from him quickly and put a distance of about a foot between their bodies, surprised by the sudden awareness she felt at being that close to him.
"Whoa, sorry," the man said. He had a deep voice that made Anne’s toes curl and stomach flutter. The best way to describe his voice was that he had a bedroom voice, kind of like that singer, Barry White. What a voice! Her nerve endings came alive just at the sound.
She looked at the line of the man's tanned throat and his brown chest hairs that peeked out from above the open collar of his red polo shirt. Her eyes looked down, and she could see the muscle definition of a powerful chest, lean hips, and long legs encased in faded blue jeans. This man had the body to go with the voice. Then she realized that she was ogling the man’s body, so she quickly looked up into his face and hoped that he would not realize what she had been doing. She almost groaned when she saw his face. He was possibly the most handsome man she had ever seen. He didn’t have the pretty-boy, sophisticated, metro-sexual look that some men cultivated but instead looked like a man’s man. He looked like he took life on and bent it to his will. He had just the look that never failed to appeal to her.
The man’s hair was a thick medium brown color, and his eyes were like milk chocolate. His nose was strong and slightly crooked, and his lips were positively sensuous, looking both hard and soft at the same time. He also looked familiar. With a jolt, she realized that he was Ben, Lily Carlson's brother. She was ogling Ben! She suddenly felt too warm and breathless to continue standing that close to him, so she stepped away even further until he was forced to let go of her arms.
"Anne? Is that you?" He went from looking at her like a man who knew he had just been checked out by a woman to a man who was full of amused surprise. "Well, what do you know? Little Anne Petrovic is all grown up. Nicely too, I might add."
"Hello. Do I know you?"
"Liar," her mind screamed at her. She tried to assume a look of confusion. A line suddenly appeared between his brows, and he looked slightly disappointed that she didn’t remember him. He remembered her. Oh God! Did he remember her crush, too? He called her Anne Petrovic. She was so flustered by his remembering her that she did not correct the use of her name. When he was here, he knew her as Anne Petrovic, the daughter of Jim and Jane Petrovic.
"I used to come here with my family when my sister and I were kids. You remember Lily Carlson, don't you?"
"Of course I remember Lily. She's getting married this weekend."
"Yes, she is." He nodded his head then looked over his shoulder to where Lily stood talking to another man whom Anne assumed correctly was her fiancé.
"Good for her. That would make you Brent."
"Ben," he corrected her. Then he gave her that charming smile that she remembered well. It lit up his eyes with brown fire, and his lips curved up until a small dimple appeared in his left cheek. A slight breeze blew a lock of hair onto his forehead, and Anne became transfixed at the sight. She forgot what she was going to say for several seconds before it came to her that she was trying to pretend that she didn’t remember him.
"Of course! I'm sorry I forgot your name. It has been a long time." Oh, what the hell, she thought, before she dropped the coyness act and gave him a warm smile in return. He continued to stare at her now while a strange intensity suddenly entered his eyes. His gaze disturbed her, and she felt the heat of his desire. More disturbing was that her body began to respond. She felt her face blush, and the heat move down. Needing to break the hold he had on her senses, she moved around him so that he was forced to either follow her to the main entrance or stay where he was. He chose to follow her.
"So, Anne... Do you still live here on Orcas?" He soon caught up to her with his longer strides until he walked beside her through the doors and into the main lobby. She felt her blood pressure return back to normal now that he was no longer staring at her. His voice had also become friendly instead of the molten lava tone that she knew his voice would sometimes take.
"No. I'm just here visiting." She walked behind the front desk to get a key to a bike lock. Ben stood waiting by the counter until she was done before talking again. She looked over to the door that led to the dining room and lounge and saw that her mother was busy talking to Lily, her mother, Mrs. Carlson, and another younger woman about Lily’s age. Anne’s stepdad, Jim, was busy talking to Lily's father and her fiancé over by a seating area on the other side of the main doors next to the entrance to the art gallery-gift shop.
"So, you live in Seattle?" Ben asked her this when she met him where he was standing by the edge of the counter.
"No. I live on the east coast." She missed the look of disappointment that crossed his face at her words when she looked down to sign out a bike in the log. "You live in Seattle?" She finished signing her name then looked back at him.
"Yes, I do. You must be going for a ride. I didn't mean to keep you." A frown marred the line on his face for a second before it was gone, and Anne was not sure if it was merely her own imagination that it was there in the first place. He suddenly stepped out of the way to let her pass. "Have a nice ride. It was nice seeing you again, Anne."
"It was nice seeing you too, Ben." She paused at the end of the counter, reluctant to end the conversation. Suddenly a bike ride didn’t sound like a good idea. She had always liked Ben, even before she developed her teenage crush, and now she found his company rather nice. She was even getting used to the little hum along her nerve endings caused by being around him. He had always had the ability to make her laugh and to put her at ease while at the same time making her almost painfully aware of him.
She wanted to keep talking to him and find out how much he had changed, if any, from the boy he used to be. "You’re the best man in the wedding, right? I suppose that you'll be busy with wedding things all this week. That’s too bad. I remember now that you liked kayaking and mountain biking." That definitely sounded like she was hinting at him joining her. Did she want him to? Yes, she did, she decided.
"I still do. Would..." He was cut off from saying more when his sister came over.
"I don't mean to interrupt, Ben, but I need you for a moment," she said as she touched
his arm to get his attention. Then after she saw Anne, her brown eyes widened and she exclaimed, "Anne! It is so nice to see you again. I didn’t know that you would be visiting your parents this week. I'll bring Ben back in a second. I promise."
"Hello, Lily," Anne said warmly. Lily did not look like she had changed much in the past eleven years except for having gained a mature look about her. She still had that same unaffected way about her that instantly put people at ease. "It has been a long time. Congratulations, by the way."
"Thank you, Anne. I wish I had more time to catch up right now, but I need to steal Ben away." Lily looked at Ben face. He flashed Lily a look of annoyance before he smiled back at the knowing look in her eyes. Anne missed this because she was still looking at Lily.
"No, that's quite all right, Lily. Steal away. I was just heading out anyway." Anne motioned with her hand to the front door then waited politely for Lily and Ben to move away.
"We'll catch up later then." Lily smiled again before she pulled Ben's arm.
"That we will. I promise you." This comment came from Ben who spoke softly in Anne’s ear. His comment was accompanied with a private look that caused her stomach to flutter and her breasts to tighten in awareness. He saw her nipples harden underneath her tee shirt and gave her a knowing grin before he followed in Lily's wake. Anne was shocked by his frank perusal of her breasts and embarrassed by her body’s response to the seductive ogling of her body. She turned her head away to hide the red face she knew she now sported. He didn’t even try to hide his interest in her, and her body responded instantly, physically to that knowledge. She swore under her breath then quickly walked to the front door and out onto the veranda to take the path to the bike shed. Oh my, she thought as she walked down the steps. Ben Carlson was more attractive then he was when they were younger, and it appeared that she was still attracted to him.
Chapter 4