her planner, noting an early breakfast meeting with the spa manager.
Then she thought of her dad, alone in that big rambling house.
“I’ll be there at seven,” she promised. “I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
“About?”
“Um, I sort of ran into someone from the past and thought you’d like to hear about him.”
“Him?”
She hated it when he did that. Single-word questions, then silence that made her feel as if she had to spill tons of details to fill the empty space.
“Mitch Carter,” she said. Then she cringed and waited.
But not for long.
“That cheating sonofabitch? I thought he’d run back to the East Coast where he belongs.”
Belle winced. “Dad, I told you, Mitch didn’t cheat.”
“Harrumph.”
“He didn’t. Really. He just sort of misled me. I’m sure he thinks I did much worse, leaving him at the altar like that.”
“He was a lucky man and he blew it.”
Belle pressed her lips together. She had to get her dad to quit hating Mitch or there was no point in pushing Mitch to help him. Leave it to her to be stuck between two stubborn men.
“Let’s talk about it over dinner, okay?”
“Let’s not. I don’t want to discuss the cheater or that debacle that was your wedding. Especially not when it’s thanks to him that I invested in that damned property. His connections and contracting license were supposed to get us past the stupid zoning regulations. Thanks to his duplicity, I’m stuck. Can’t build, can’t sell.”
Her father continued to mutter. Belle’s stomach twisted. She’d told her father the day after the wedding that Mitch hadn’t been with any other women, that she hadn’t meant to imply anything like that. But her father had blown up at her, ranting about the humiliation and misplaced trust. Too horrified to ask if he meant his trust in Mitch or his trust in her, she’d gulped down her explanation and run from the room.
Her father’s attitude didn’t bode well for her little save-Forsham-Hotels plan. But she’d worry about convincing him later. For now, she needed to focus on getting Mitch to listen to her. That was enough of a challenge.
With that in mind, she bade her father an absentminded goodbye, promising to see him that evening. As soon as she hung up, she grabbed the cottage phone and dialed star-seven.
“Diana? Hey, I need to postpone the tour until tomorrow, okay?”
“Is there a problem?” Mitch’s assistant asked in her hesitant tone.
“Not at all. I just have to run home for the evening. An offer came up that I couldn’t refuse.”
“Business?”
“No, dinner...” With her father? No, just in case Diana shared the excuse with Mitch, she didn’t want to bring her father into the mix until she’d had time to butter them both up. “A dinner date.”
* * *
“WHAT IN THE HELL DO you mean, the program crashed?”
The hotel manager winced, then he gave a helpless shrug. Tall, skinny and blond, Larry looked like a morose scarecrow. Mitch had handpicked him to run the resort because he handled the staff like a gifted choreographer and knew hotels inside out. And, theoretically, hotel computers. “We don’t understand what happened. I’ve spent the morning on the phone with tech support—they’re baffled, too.”
The computerized reservation program was supposed to be bug-free, idiot-proof and have both on- and off-site backups. “You recovered the lost data, right?”
“We’re working on it. The system has a backup, but somehow, well, the battery went dead.”
Mitch closed his eyes and shook his head. Continual construction delays. The pipes had burst in the pool room, there was a gopher infestation on the golf course, and now this? Seriously, who had his voodoo doll and why the hell were they jabbing it so hard?
The only person he’d recently pissed off was Belle. And he couldn’t see her going the voodoo route. She was too direct for that. She’d rather see him on his knees begging. Or maybe just on his knees.
“Get it fixed,” he instructed tiredly. As soon as the manager left, Mitch lifted his phone and punched a button.
“Do you believe jobs can be cursed?” he asked as soon as Reece answered.
“Nah, that’s the kind of thing suits like you come up with as an excuse for falling on their ass.”
“Well, my ass is definitely getting bruised,” Mitch acknowledged. “I’m starting to think it’s more than a learning curve.”
“You don’t really believe that curse crap, do you? You want me to fly you out a witch doctor?”
“If I thought it’d make a difference, I’d have you hand-deliver one.”
Reece laughed, although Mitch was