Page 8 of The Cowboy and the Bombshell
“Can you please check again?” I begged, looking at the bored man behind the desk. I had waited almost an hour at the baggage carousel, pacing and drinking too much coffee, but my suitcase never arrived. “It was a direct flight. How could it be missing?”
“Ma’am,” he droned, the apathy in his nasally voice telling me he really didn’t care about my predicament at all. “If you’ll just fill this out, when your bag does show up, we will have it delivered to your location.”
“But everything I own is in that bag!” I exclaimed, raising my voice. I usually tried to be kind to service people, knowing just how hard they work, having worked minimum wage jobs for years myself. But the man, Trip, according to his name tag, was being so callous, I could hardly handle it. Didn’t he realize what a disaster this was? How was I supposed work with only the clothes I had on? There was no way I had the budget to go shopping and replace things. “Can you please check again? Please?” I implored.
Trip let out an exasperated sigh, clicked on his keyboard a few times, then rolled his eyes back up to me. “It’s the same, ma’am.”
“Stop calling me ma’am!” I practically shouted, surprising even myself. I had to get a grip here, or they would have airport security on me soon. Taking a sip of my too hot coffee, my third since I had arrived in Las Vegas, I took the form Trip had offered and wrote down the address Angelique had provided for Mr. Pennington’s house in Summerlin South. Sliding the paper back to Trip, I watched as he took it and quickly set it beside his keyboard, already looking at the person in line behind me, and promptly forgetting about my desperate plight.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed my coffee and my carry-on bag and spun from the desk in a huff, only to smack into someone. Hard.
The hand holding my coffee was trapped between us, crushing the cup and spraying both of us in a shower of scalding caffeine. Dropping my bag and stepped back, trying to hold the hot shirt away from my chest so it would stop burning my skin. I looked up at the person I had crashed in to, prepared to apologize profusely, but the words caught in my throat when I saw him.
He was tall, much taller than I was, and so broad it seemed like he was the only thing I could see. He wore jeans and a dark button-down shirt, tucked in, and a belt with a huge buckle. His dark hair peeked out beneath a black cowboy hat, a days worth of stubble graced his cheeks, and I couldn’t remember when I had ever seen a better looking man. Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to voice my apology, my throat frozen like the air was trapped in my lungs as my whole body began to tingle. Even just looking at him had me feeling like someone had zapped me with a live wire. I had to get a grip.
The gorgeous cowboy didn’t seem to be similarly affected. His scowl was dark as he glared down at me, his hazel eyes burning with anger as he shook his hands to rid them of the spilled beverage. When I continued to remain mute, he curled his lip in disgust and snapped, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Shocked, I raised my eyebrows and asked, “Excuse me?”
“What, are you deaf as well as dumb?”
Seriously? What was this guys problem? “It was an accident,” I tried, shaking my shirt to try to cool the coffee enough to let it touch my skin again.
“Listen, blondie,” he sneered. My eyes widened. Was this guy for real? “Maybe if you were more worried about where you were going and less about your designer clothes, you wouldn’t have crashed into me.”
“Hang on, now,” I started, but he was already walking away, dragging his massive suit case behind him. “Save it. I don’t have time for your bullshit excuses. Just learn to pay attention.” He tossed back over his shoulder, his work-dirty boots thumping on the floor as he passed through the doors and out of sight. I stared after him in shock for a moment, before the cooling mess on my shirt reminded me that not only did I no longer have my precious coffee, but now I had a massive stain on my only freaking shirt.
I flagged down an airport staff member to let them know about the mess on the floor, then I headed into the nearest bathroom to assess the damage.
And damaged I was. The entire right half of my white shirt was soaked in dark brown coffee. I quickly removed it, eying the redness of my chest and neck at the same time. Burnt, but not badly. More like a scald than a burn, with the skin a little sensitive to the touch, but nothing I was really worried about. Standing in the public bathroom in just my bra (which also had a nice coffee stain on the right boob, thank you very much, Mr. Grumpy Cowboy), I proceeded to run the blouse under cold water. I rinsed it several times, and while it was still stained, it was a bit better than it was before. After wringing it out, I held it under the hand dryer for what felt like hours until it was dry enough to wear again.
Putting it back on and looking in the mirror, I realized I was a disaster. Still make up free from my rush this morning, both my cheeks and my eyes were red. My hair was falling out of the bun and the stain on my shirt was still prominent. I wasn’t fooling anyone.
Tucking my shirt back into my still slightly damp skinny jeans, I checked the time on my phone and was shocked to see that I was due at the hotel for the meeting with Mr. Montgomery, my boss here on this project, in less than half an hour.
I didn’t know much about Mr. Montgomery, other than he was regional manager for Pennington Hotels south west. He had a reputation of being difficult to work for, but I had a reputation for being pleasant and mostly agreeable, so I figured we would be just fine.
Dashing out of the bathroom, I ran outside and flagged down a taxi. Having never been to Las Vegas before, or anywhere, for that mater, I couldn’t help but stare around in wonder as my taxi had driven along the busy streets. There were colors and sights and sounds and smells everywhere. I hoped this initial meeting would be over quickly, because I could not wait to take my first wander around.
Twenty-seven minutes after I left the airport, I was pulling up to the doors of the Pennington Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas.
To say it was huge was an understatement. I recalled the details form the fact sheet Angelique emailed me, a short list of items to know about the project before I arrived. The property itself consisted of thirty acres of prime real estate on Las Vegas Boulevard. The buildings were spread across the area, with a huge circular drive way leading up to the main doors. There was no landscaping yet, and the frontage of the building was mostly plain. I knew this was by design in a hope to keep the theme secret until the last possible moment. There were over three thousand guest rooms and suites, with a massive casino covering over one hundred thousand square feet. A multi-purpose business and conference center was built at the back portion of the property, with the pools and recreational areas in between. There were restaurants and theater spaces as well as several bars and two concert venues on site. It was a true testament to human innovation that places like this could be build in the middle of a predominately empty desert.
Paying the driver, I gathered my purse and my carry on, the sum total of my belongings here, and headed for the conference building at the back. According to Angelique’s email, the hotel was not ready but the business center was. This was intentional, as that building housed all the administrative offices and would be where I was based for the duration of the project.
My heels clacked against the marble floor as I entered the building. I was immediately approached by a woman who was probably ten years older than me. She looked focused and a bit annoyed, but was dressed professionally and moved with purpose.
“Miss Lund?” she asked briskly. I nodded, and she motioned to the elevator at the back of the lobby. “This way please. Mr. Montgomery is waiting. The meeting was due to start thirty minutes ago.”
“What? No,” I gasped, my heart rate increasing. “The email from Angelique said two o’clock. It’s just two now.” We hurried into the elevator and she pressed the button for the third floor.
“There was an addendum sent out an hour ago, moving the meeting up. Mr. Montgomery wanted to leave early to attend other business.”
“I have just come from the airport. I haven’t checked my emails since I landed.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me, one eyebrow raised, as if to ask how any of this was her problem. The elevator moved upwards, my anxiety climbing with it. This was not good. No way to make a good impression by being half an hour late on the first day. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I listened to her give me details.
“My name is Moira, and I will be the liaison on this project between you and Mr. Pennington in New York. If you have any concerns that Mr. Montgomery can’t help you with, any requests, or any ideas that need to address, you are to bring them to me first. Is that clear?”
