Susan Mallery Page 0,121

was all good but what came out was, “I can’t stop thinking about Sunshine.”

“The nanny?”

“That’s her.”

“You want to bang the nanny?”

“Hey.” Declan glared at him. “It’s not like that.”

Heath was unimpressed by the glare. “Really? Not even a little?”

Declan returned his attention to the hotel garden. “I don’t want to bang her. That’s wrong.”

“But you would like to have sex with her.”

“Yes, but it’s more than that. It’s... I don’t know. I like her.”

“Oh man, you’re screwed.” Heath slapped him on the back. “You can’t date her because she’s the nanny and you can’t really try to get to know her better without things getting uncomfortable. I mean, how do you have that conversation? You sure as hell can’t sleep with her. If you want to find out where things are going romantically, the obvious solution is to fire her so you can have a relationship but once you fire her, she’s not exactly going to want to date you. Plus she’s going to be gone and who knows where her next job is. And talking about all this with her flirts with the inappropriate and mentioning sex makes you a jerk and possibly the defendant in a lawsuit. Like I said, you’re screwed.”

“Thank you for clarifying,” Declan said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

“I didn’t say anything you didn’t already know.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Just then, their clients breezed into the conference room. Jessica smiled at them.

“What an amazing hotel. There were so many vegan choices for breakfast. Most places don’t offer that.”

They sat at the table in the center of the room. He and Heath joined them.

“Disappointing about the salmon,” James said regretfully.

“Miniature horses are going to be the same problem.” Declan raised a shoulder. “If you still want to go see them, we will, but I don’t see them as the solution.”

“We were talking about that over breakfast.” Jessica sighed. “We should cancel the Idaho leg of our trip. I suppose the rock quarry has possibility.”

“It could if we had something unique,” James mused. “Maybe different textures or colors. Or rocks from different parts of the country. Maybe tell a story of what the continent was like before man first stepped foot on it.”

Declan saw a muscle twitch in Heath’s jaw and nearly laughed out loud. He knew exactly what his partner was thinking—some version of “Kill me now.” Rocks telling a story? In a place like The Huntington maybe, but not in a hotel garden.

“I wonder if we could do anything with fossils,” James asked. “That would be interesting.”

“But not unique.” Jessica pouted. “A lot of places have fossils and even rock gardens. I want something special. Something no one has ever seen before.”

And I want to go home, Declan thought. He wanted to be in his house, or even his yard, listening to Connor go on and on about his new ant farm. The one that—

“Ants,” he said, putting down his coffee mug.

All three of them looked at him with identically blank expressions.

“Ants,” he repeated, and pulled his tablet out of his briefcase. “Ants have been around for millions of years. The weight of the ant population equals the weight of the human population. There are super colonies of ants that stretch thousands of miles, across entire continents.” His son would be so proud, he thought happily.

He typed into the search bar of his laptop, then waited until the photo of an ant farm appeared on the screen. He turned the tablet so everyone else could see the picture.

“Ants,” he said again. “They’re hardworking, familiar and small. They’re low maintenance and no one else has the world’s biggest ant farm at their hotel.”

He pointed to the tubing. “We could make it beautiful, have lighting for evening strolls. There could be different species and signage with facts.” He wasn’t sure if he’d just solved the problem or gotten himself thrown off the job. He supposed if he got fired, at least he could go home.

Jessica and James looked at each other.

“I like it, Jess,” James said. “Ants are ubiquitous and that is perfect. We need to figure out the design, but as Declan pointed out, ants are small. Imagine how the ant farm could twist and turn.”

“No one else has one.” Jessica’s voice was eager. “I love it.” She laughed. “Yes, let’s do ants. What’s the next step?”

Heath cleared his throat. “I guess we find an ant expert and go talk to him.”

“Or her,” Jessica corrected.

“Yes. Or her.” Heath typed on his tablet, then turned to Declan. “Looks like