list. Don’t let anything else happen. You put that resort on notice and hold it up with your shoulders if you have to.”
Carla sighed. “I’ll threaten the building within an inch of its life. See you soon. Happy you’re back. As in, really happy.”
“Me, too.” She clicked off the call, knelt, and gave her dog a kiss on the brown spot encircling his eye. God, she loved that patch of fur. “What a welcome, huh? I have a feeling you’re going to be asleep within five minutes. I’ll see you soon, okay? We’ll catch up and see what that pesky squeaky bone has to say about things.” Another kiss for Sky before grabbing her bag with an overdramatic sigh.
The sun was down when Becca came up for air next.
She headed out to the parking lot, feeling an ache on the back of her neck and tension binding her muscles up in bunches. It had been a long day of travel and then a killer one to follow at the resort. The hot water was up and running on the sixth floor, and they’d managed to call in the assistant front desk manager to cover things up front. She’d began an investigation of the Rudy / Frank complaint and had looped in their HR manager, Sebastian, who would handle it from there. Becca was on fumes.
“There she is.”
Becca turned, searching for the voice in the parking lot, knowing who it belonged to. Everything in her celebrated. And then there she was. Joey sat on Dusty’s folded down tailgate, one leg beneath her, one dangling down.
“What in the world?” Becca said, grinning and changing course. Joey hopped down and waited, her own smile growing. She pulled Joey into her arms and just held her there, absorbing the feel of her, inhaling her scent, and savoring Joey’s soft hair beneath her cheek.
Joey released her and stepped back, her eyes sparkling. “I’ve missed you.” She went up on her toes and kissed Becca’s lips. “And these,” she said, kissing them again. “These shouldn’t leave again anytime soon.”
Becca laughed. “God, I’ve missed you, too.” She shook her head. “This was harder than I thought it would be. The phone calls were nice, but not the same.”
Joey rocked back on her heels. “Turns out you’re getting attached to me.”
“It’s true.” Becca knew it was easier for Joey to phrase it that way rather than stating that she was getting attached to Becca. They were sinking in further with each other, but she’d noticed that Joey still clung to safety, and that made sense the more Becca learned about her. This Simone had really done a number, and losing both her parents along the way hadn’t helped. She didn’t trust the universe. But Becca could be patient. She longed to be Joey’s safe place to fall. Trust took time, and luckily, Becca had that to give. “Next time, maybe you can come with me. Meet the family.”
“Really?”
Becca nodded. “You’d love my kid brother, Paul. Pauly, as I like to call him. You both have that same earnest sense of humor.”
“I think you might have just called me naive.”
“Never. You just come with a big heart. One of your best features.”
“Oh, that’s much smoother. Let’s go with that characterization for Paul and me. What did you read on the plane?”
Becca laughed. “What did I read? Where did that come from?”
“Yeah”—Joey slid onto her truck bed and Becca joined her, heels and all—“I was imagining you in your seat and realized I had no idea what you’d do on a plane to occupy yourself. How could that be? Plane behavior is huge. It says so much about a person. How can I continue to date someone if I don’t know anything about their plane behavior?” She shrugged. “That was my early morning train of thought, anyway. Your daily glimpse of Joey.”
She’d missed that daily glimpse. Becca stared at her as she spoke, just so happy to be in her presence today. She never got tired of the way Joey’s blue eyes lit up when excitement struck, and now that the topic was Becca, herself, that felt next-level. “Well, allow me to put that curiosity to sleep. On the plane, I did a little listening to music to keep me calm.” She winced. “I don’t love the takeoffs and landings. They make me nervous.”
Joey shook her head. “I never would have guessed that.”
“Next, I read some of the customer service reports to see how we’re doing in our first weeks open and