I clarify.
When the elevator stops, we are quiet again. I push the cart to room three twenty-eight—hurray, the suite right across from mine. I knock on the door and call out, “Room service!”
“I didn’t order room service,” comes the quick reply.
“Tell him you have chopsticks,” Tara says.
I have no idea what that means, but as soon as I say it, the door opens wide. Romaine Choate orders, “Come in.” Once I push the cart into his suite, he asks, “Where’s Tara?”
My mom lifts the tablecloth and Tara scoots out from under the cart. “Romaine,” she says, sounding a little too mournful for my taste.
The rock star reaches out and pulls her into his arms. He’s practically crushing her, which makes me want to crush him. “Babe, what are you doing here?”
“She’s not your babe,” I tell him in no uncertain terms.
“Who are you?” Romaine asks me.
“I’m her …”
Before I can say boyfriend, Tara pulls out of his grasp and says, “James is my friend.” Then she motions toward my mom and adds, “This is Ruby, she’s James’s mom. She owns the lodge.”
Romaine Choate is one shiny, good-looking guy. He must get facials because he has this polished look about him that I find downright irritating. Real people do not look that good with or without a ton of makeup.
We’re about the same height but he’s got this lanky rock star thing going on. He ignores me and reaches his hand out to my mom. “It’s a pleasure to officially meet you, Ruby,” he says. Is that a clear coat of nail polish on his nails?
“Mr. Choate,” my mom shakes his hand. “I hope you’re enjoying your stay.”
“So far, so good,” he says. “I’d like to talk to Tara though. Would you mind giving us a few minutes in private?” he asks while staring right at me.
There’s no way I’m leaving Tara in here alone with Mr. Perfect. I’m about to say as much, when she turns to me. “I’ll call when I’m ready to have you pick me up.”
“You want me to leave you here with him?” Instead of answering me, she pushes me out the door.
Chapter Forty-Five
Gwen
“I knew from the time Tara was a little girl, she’d have a big life,” Gwen tells Billy while they eat their paella on the couch in front of the roaring fire.
“How’s that?”
“She always had a thing for Paris. Long before she’d ever been there, she used to ask the mall Santa for two tickets to Paris for Christmas.”
Billy lets out a laugh. “She must have been disappointed on Christmas mornings.”
“There were always plenty of other things to distract her,” Gwen tells him before asking, “Do you ever regret not having children?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that.” After several moments of silence, he tells her, “When I was a kid I thought I’d get married and have a family someday, but that was before Vietnam. Once I got back stateside, I guess I didn’t think deserved one. I felt like I had to pay penance.”
“You didn’t declare the war, Billy. You just followed orders.”
“I didn’t really follow orders,” he confesses. “I just pretended to be doing what I was ordered to do. But I didn’t stop anyone else.”
Gwen puts her bowl down on the coffee table. Then she takes his hands in hers. “How could you have stopped them?”
“I’m not a religious person, Gwen, but I am spiritual. I have this theory that everyone, despite political or religious beliefs, together, makes up God. To harm any of them is to harm God.”
“In the Bible,” Gwen says, “Jesus said, ‘That which you do to the least of my people, you do unto me.' That certainly lends credence to your beliefs.”
“Jesus was a cool dude. I think he probably would have sat down with Buddha and Muhammed and any other religious leader and he would have called them his brothers. I’ve spent a lot of years out here in the woods communing with God and I’m a different person now than I was when I came here.”
“I think you’re a wonderful person,” Gwen tells him. “And I’m really glad to have you in my life.”
Tara
“So, you and Cash, huh?” I say to Romaine once we’re alone in his suite.
He shrugs his shoulders before answering, “We were just friends for a couple of months before anything happened. I was hoping you’d come back the whole time.”
“But Cash? You know how I feel about her,” I accuse him like he got involved with her for the