Norma Rose flinched. She honestly hadn’t thought Dave was that ill last night, and regret that she’d been so callous at the police station made her stomach flip. “Goodness” was all she could say.
“Rosie, I normally don’t involve you in this side of the business, but in this instance, I need your help.”
It had been a long time since she had seen this kind of worry on her father’s face. Although that concerned her, it didn’t affect her answer. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him and the resort. “Of course,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”
“You can start by going through the guest lists for the parties for the next two weekends,” he said. “I have a gut feeling one of them has something to do with this. So does Ty.”
Unable to control the flare of anger that erupted inside her, Norma Rose huffed out a breath. Her father cast an uncompromising look her way and she kept her opinion to herself. She didn’t give a hoot what Ty thought. “I’ll start going through the list immediately and let you know what I find.”
“Not me—Ty. He’ll fill me in.”
She had to comment on how that grated her nerves. “I don’t believe we should be involving someone else in this. Especially a stranger.”
Not one to have his decisions questioned, Roger’s lips tightened. “Do you think I’d have him here if I didn’t trust him?”
Norma Rose squared her shoulders, prepared to explain that before last night none of them had known Ty existed, but she didn’t get a chance to open her mouth.
“I spent half the night checking out his background. I can tell you what time that young man was born and what he’s done every moment of every day since.”
Still not impressed, Norma Rose stood by her guns. “He’s not a lawyer.”
“I never said he was.”
“He did,” she snapped. “He showed up at the police station like he’d—”
“And that’s exactly what we’re going to let others believe,” her father said, interrupting her. “That he’s one of our lawyers.”
“Why?”
“Don’t question me on this, Rosie, just do as I tell you. That’s all the information you need to know.” He hooked his thumbs on the straps of his suspenders and stretched, as he always did to signal the conversation at hand was over. Over in his eyes anyway.
To Norma Rose, the conversation was far from over. Though her father liked to believe she didn’t know about all of the businesses he was involved in, she did, and she was also smart enough to understand that now wasn’t the time to admit that, or to insist he tell her more. “Your breakfast is getting cold,” she said. “I’ll go through the list and let Mr. Bradshaw know if I discover anything.”
Her father shook his head slowly, as if disappointed. “Ty will go through the list with you, and you, young lady, will be nice to him. I don’t want anyone getting suspicious. I want them to think we’ve known Ty for years.”
She pinched her lips together to keep from asking why. It had been years since her father had reprimanded her, but now it left her seeing red. It hurt, too, although she wouldn’t admit that, not even to herself.
“And Rosie,” her father said, already making his way toward Dave’s cabin, “put on a pair of gloves. Your hands look terrible.”
Fuming, Norma Rose marched back to the resort’s main building, where she ventured upstairs to her room to retrieve a new pair of gloves, all the while trying not to become overwhelmed by the emotions bubbling inside her. The resort consumed her life, it had for years, and right now she was questioning why. If a stranger could magically appear and her father instantly let him in, pushing her and all her hard work aside, why did she let it?
Because it was her life.
With renewed determination burning, she pulled open a dresser drawer. Her dress was black with white sequins, so she chose black gloves this time and changed her white shoes to black ones.
That all completed, she headed back downstairs toward her office, still madder than she remembered being for some time. She’d go through the lists as requested, but not with Ty Bradshaw hanging over her shoulder. Many of the partygoers for Palooka George’s bash had already made reservations, and she personally had set up the accommodations. Names were ticking through her head and not one raised a red flag.
Concentrating hard, she barely noticed her surroundings until she arrived at her office door, which was open. The sight inside made her nostrils flare.
Ty Bradshaw stood in front of her desk, next to the window that overlooked the parking lot, where she often watched the coming and going of guests. He turned around as she entered.
“I had Moe make us breakfast, as well,” he said, gesturing toward the table under the window. “He assured me you haven’t eaten yet, either.”
Norma Rose tried to tell herself her heart was beating so hard and fast because she was mad. Furious in fact. That was also the reason her palms had chosen to break out in a sweat. It truly had nothing to do with the single wild rose sticking out of the narrow vase in the center of the table, and it had absolutely nothing to do with how gallant Ty Bradshaw looked as he pulled back one of the two chairs and indicated she should take a seat. Without his suit jacket, his rolled-up shirt sleeves revealed thick and well-muscled arms, and the black suspenders clipped to his pants framed an impressively flat stomach and narrow hips.
She’d never doubted that with the right clothes, even a rat could look good. That’s what he was, and she’d expose his hairy tail before the day was out. He might have pulled the wool over her father’s eyes for the time being, but not hers. This man was trouble. And she’d find a way to prove it.
Then again, most rats, due to their greed, eventually exposed themselves. All she had to do was give him the opportunity.
“Moe said you like poached eggs,” he said, once again nodding toward the chair he held.
He was sly, already befriending Moe and goodness knows who else. Rats could have silver tongues, too. Her father had told her to be nice to him, and she would be. In public. In private, she’d let him know just how she felt about him and his lies.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, making a direct line toward her desk.
He rounded the table and sat in the other chair. “I am.” Lifting the silver lid off his plate, he added, “And this smells wonderful.”
Her stomach chose that moment to growl, loudly. Ignoring it and the wide grin on Ty’s face as he cut his sausage into bite-size pieces, she sat and pulled open the desk drawer that held several leatherbound books.
“No one,” she said pointedly, “enters my office without my permission. Remember that.”
“Note taken,” he said.
The glimmer in his brown eyes said he didn’t take her seriously. A mistake he’d soon regret.
“Next weekend we have Al and Emma Imhoff’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” she said. “Big Al, as all the locals know him, owns the car dealership in White Bear Lake and most of the guests, other than a few family members coming from out of town, are local folks.”
“Any luck with coming up with a musician for that night?” he asked, taking a bite of toast.
Her stomach growled again, and twisted at his smugness. The fact that her father had told Ty twice as much as he’d told her burned.
“No,” she said. “Therefore, the sooner we get through the guest lists, the sooner I can get back to work that needs to be done.”
He