Just This Once by K.G. MacGregor Page B

she turned to her boss. “Two busloads just pulled up with that country music band. You want to work the front desk or the bellmen.”
    Rusty groaned. “Bellmen.” They would be here half the night again finishing up paperwork.
    ———
    Wynne sat solemnly in the back seat of the cab, accustomed now to the route from the airport and no longer taking in the sights.
    I should have just booked at the Hyatt , she thought. No, the problem wasn’t the hotel.
    The problem wasn’t even that Paula McKenzie had kissed her, but that she had kissed back.
    For the past two weeks, Wynne had berated herself for letting that happen, knowing that her own flirtations had helped to bring it about. She had nothing to offer Paula and it was wrong to lead her on. Even if she could keep her emotional distance — and that was a big “if” — it was wrong too to give in to that temptation, because Paula was worth more than just a sexual fling.
    “Oh, great,” she muttered, eyeing the buses in the circle. The line at check-in would be an hour long. Wynne paid the cabbie and exited when the valet opened her door.
    “Would you like me to take your bag inside?” he asked.
    “No, I’ll take it myself. Thank you.” No way was she going to turn her bag over to the bellman. She wouldn’t see it again until midnight.
    As expected, the check-in line held more than 30 waiting guests, all of whom seemed to know each other. Right away, Wynne’s eyes went to the petite blonde who worked efficiently behind the counter, and her breath caught with surprise at how nice it was to see her. Keeping this desire in check was probably going to be harder than she thought.
    “Excuse me, Miss Connelly?”
    “Yes?” Wynne turned to see a tall red-haired gentleman, more sharply dressed than most of the other staff, but an employee just the same.
    “Could I ask you step to over here, please?” He reached over and lifted her bag, extracting a small folder from inside his jacket. “I’m Rusty Wilburn, the Senior Shift Manager. Miss McKenzie took the liberty of checking you in already on the Concierge floor. Here is your room key. If you would kindly stop by in the morning and allow us to swipe your credit card, we can spare you this bedlam tonight.”
    “You are my hero, Mr. Wilburn,” she gushed, recognizing the name as the boss Paula often talked about. “Thank you very much.”
    “No, I’m just the delivery boy. Paula says welcome.”
    Wynne turned again to glimpse the blonde behind the busy counter. “Please tell her I said thank you.”
    ———
    “You know, we’ve made pretty good work of this, Wynne.” Cheryl Williams sat in the floor of her office, surrounded by index cards that mapped the process of their proposed marketing plan. “I’d like to have this drawn up in a slide presentation…are you any good with that? I never had the patience to learn that program.”
    “I can do that. Shall I set up my laptop and lay it out?”
    “Sure, why not? And then next time you come, I want to play with a few scenarios. Would that be hard to do? You know, different slides for each scenario? We’re going to have to put this in front of Ken and Wendell, and it would be easier for both of them if we had it all laid out in a slide show.” Wendell Martin was the vice president for investor relations. Ken, Wendell, and Cheryl would present their plan to the analysts in New York at the end of April, hoping that the cost-trimming and forward thinking would boost their stock value.
    “It shouldn’t be a problem, but it will take me a couple of hours,” Wynne said.
    “A couple of hours? You’ve got to be kidding! It would take Denise a couple of days,”
    Cheryl exclaimed, the latter a reference to her administrative assistant. At once, her hand flew to her mouth as she realized that the woman whose desk sat just outside the door had probably heard her.
    Wynne sniggered at Cheryl’s gaffe, and at the sight of the impeccably dressed woman sitting