“Nice to meet you, Sabrina.” He put all his charm into his most welcoming smile, the one that got him bumped up a restaurant’s wait list or into a property before it was officially listed on the market.
The ice clinked as it settled around her nose, hiding most of her face as she spoke to him. The obstacle would make it more difficult for him to guess what she was thinking, especially since her eyes avoided his.
“I agree.” She closed her eyes after she said it.
I agree? Ray clamped his lips together to keep from smiling. He understood now. He made her nervous. That was something he knew how to handle. Putting people at ease, making them comfortable enough to trust him, that was his bread, butter, and celebratory champagne.
“I moved here last fall from New York,” Ray said, glossing over Sabrina’s taciturn answers. “I haven’t had a chance to meet many people outside of work.”
Sabrina blinked at him from behind her ice.
When she didn’t speak, he continued. “Maybe someone who likes to go out to dinner?” Ray tilted his head down, then looked up at her, putting a see-how-harmless-I-am sparkle in his eyes.
Eyes like maple syrup blinked back at him. Was it surprise? Shock? Horror? He regretted bringing her the ice since it blocked so much of her very expressive face.
“I . . . work a lot,” Sabrina said.
Those eyes shifted past his shoulder and twitched into a blink-and-you’d-miss-it glare. He checked behind him, but no one stood there.
“Oh.” He paused, thrown by her unexpected answer. “I get that. How about a drink? I work at The Otter Club. Did you know Wisconsin consumes forty percent of the brandy produced? Come out sometime and I’ll make you the best brandy old-fashioned you’ve ever had.”
Why did he have to spout such a stupid thing? Now he was getting nervous, too. He never got nervous. She didn’t care about random Wisconsin facts. She moved the ice off her face with trembling hands. The skin had started to turn purple. She’d have two huge shiners by morning. It had to hurt. His face had been used as a punching bag before, so he knew what it felt like.
She switched the hand that held the ice to her face and fidgeted with her phone between glances at her charges. Like a trapped rabbit, she was trying to determine the best way to escape while keeping her distance from the big, bad predator—him. He was flipping through his mental file of interesting small-talk questions when she finally spoke.
“I’m not interested in an old-fashioned. My last old-fashioned left me for a craft mocktail.”
As soon as she finished the sentence, her eyes closed and she shook her head, a clear sign that she’d said more than she meant to. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Are we still talking about drinks?” Ray asked.
“I’m moving in the fall.” Her hand gripped her phone tighter. Her thumb flicked over the screen, but she didn’t look at it. “Drinks aren’t in my schedule.”
Point taken. She wasn’t interested.
“What do you do?”
“Journalist. Between jobs.” He barely heard the words over the noise of the waterpark.
Sabrina stared at the tables. “I should get going.”
She set down her phone and folded a colorful towel before dropping it into a large bag, then did the same to a second one. Hoping it would buy him another minute or two, he handed her a pile of small clothes that were out of her reach. She took the clothes from his hands and shoved them into the tote.
“What brings you to flyover country?” she asked, the words tumbling out in a clump.
“My uncle—well, great-great-uncle, but that seems like a mouthful—he fell ill a few months ago, and I moved here to help.” There was more to it, but he could keep his secrets, too. He took a deep breath and looked around him, gathering his next thoughts. “I fell in love. With the area, I mean. The river. I don’t know exactly what it is.”
At last, her eyes brightened and she nodded.
“It happens to the best of us. The river caught your soul and won’t let go.”
Ray couldn’t have explained it better.
“That’s exactly right.”
The Wisconsin River wound its way through the city, so a person was never that far from its dramatic shores, with its narrowing sandstone alleys and towering pines of the Upper Dells, the dam downtown where the river’s power thundered, or the meandering Lower Dells, where The Otter Club overlooked the water.
She set the ice on the table and grabbed another clean towel.
“That’s what I miss most when I’m away,” Sabrina said.
It was a starting point.
“That’s what drew me to The Otter.” She looked confused, so he explained, “The Otter Club. It used to be the River Lodge, but I changed the name when I took it over.” She nodded that she followed. She must have grown up here if she recognized the older name. “I look at the Wisconsin River every day. I’d do it for free. Well, almost. A man’s got to eat.”
Never mind that he had enough saved from his years in real estate; he was here for a fresh start, to pursue the kind of life he wanted, his parents’ wishes be damned. Uncle Harry had even helped him buy The Otter Club, investing as a silent partner so he’d have enough funds to make the updates the supper club needed.
Sabrina rubbed the clean towel through her hair and across her skin to remove any of the remaining slush that hadn’t dried. She waved at her charges to get their attention. His time was almost up.
“We need to go,” Sabrina said. She grabbed a plastic container full of cookies off the table and shoved it at his chest. “Thank you for your help. They’re homemade.”
Ray nodded and took that as his cue to return to his own table as the kids joined her. With shaking hands, she shoved the rest of her items into a bag, wrapped each child in a dry towel, and led them out in a procession. New guests snagged her table before she was ten steps away, but he still kept staring.
“I know that look.” His sister had arrived. Lucy set her gin and tonic on their table and carefully covered a chair in a plush beach towel. Beneath an expensive sheer black cover-up, she wore an equally expensive bikini. He peeled the lid off the container. Inside were neat rows of thin, round cookies that had been rolled in rainbow-colored sprinkles along their edges.
“What look is that?”
“It’s the same look you get when you find a property you have to have.” Ray couldn’t help but smile. It felt similar, too. Lucy continued. “Remember, a romance is so much more than a property.”
“Yes, Luce, I’m aware that women are not property.”