Mr. Imperfect(4)

"A phone call from you will get it," Don said dryly.

"Tell Kez I'll need a bed at the hotel. Ask her to courier me the books so I can start formulating strategies."

Don looked doubtful. "I can't promise anything. She hasn't exactly warmed to the idea of you coming back."

"Then here's the carrot. Tell her I've set myself a deadline. I'll turn the hotel around in a month."

"You don't know how bad things are … ."

"A month," said Christian grimly. "If it kills me."



KEZIA RACKED HER BRAIN FOR another way to tell Christian no. Spats of  rain against the pane heralded a summer squall. But the storm building  indoors was of more concern than racing to bring in the white  tablecloths snapping on the line in the easterly below.

"Probably not," she ventured.

They sat on spindle-legged antique chairs in the private sitting room on  the hotel's first floor. Much of the threadbare blue carpet was covered  by piles of paper, as neat and precisely spaced as soldiers at  attention, testament to Kezia's methodical sifting over the previous  week.

Christian had roared back into town thirty minutes earlier in old jeans  and a new Enzo Ferrari he called Consolation. If asked, Kezia would  recall it as red and showy. And-like its charismatic, self-indulgent  owner-not to her mature taste.

"You mean no." Christian began pacing while Kezia watched her tidy piles  of paper anxiously. "I thought we agreed to cooperate-get me out of  here as quickly as possible."

"It's not that I think your ideas lack merit." Kezia had spent the  intervening days practicing her responses to this intrusion and had  resolved on diplomacy, civility and detachment. She frowned as his foot  knocked a pile askew. "I just think we need to quantify the problem to  qualify the solution."                       
       
           



       

Christian grabbed an invoice from the top of one stack and her eyes  followed the tug of taut muscle under tightened denim. "'Nineteen  twenty-six. Two bags of chicken mash and five pounds of head cheese.'"

"That's not indicative of what I'm sorting," Kezia said stiffly. Okay,  maybe she had become a little distracted by cutesy historical data,  mainly because she could sleep after reading it, unlike some of the more  recent accounts she'd uncovered.

"I know you want to do this properly." Christian forced a smile and  Kezia's mood lightened. She, at least, had relaxed her jaw. "But we  don't have the luxury of time."

For once she couldn't disagree with him. The bank had abruptly withdrawn  its forbearance when the manager discovered wealthy Christian Kelly  couldn't act as a guarantor. Kezia had won a further ten days' grace  based solely on her own banking history. "But cutting staff … " she  protested.

"Short term. Ultimately the plan will generate jobs."

"But my people depend on those jobs now. In a rural community, employment is hard to come by."

"Even harder if the hotel closes down," Christian said bluntly. "And what's this complicated system with a dozen part-timers?"

"I work the roster to suit mothers' hours."

"Get full-time staff. The taxes and health insurances for all these people adds ten percent to your costs."

"The benefits offset that," argued Kezia. "My workforce is highly  motivated because they're so delighted to be out of the house for a few  hours. By definition mothers are skilled multitaskers, and adept at  handling troublemakers."

"They have to go, Kez."

"No, Christian, they don't. We'll save money elsewhere." One thing Kezia  had resolved after a week of receiving his brusque e-mails-Send this.  Find that. What the hell does this mean?-was to clarify who was boss.

"Listen." She squared her shoulders. "I'm happy to consider any ideas you have with an open mind, but-"

"Starting when? You've knocked down every suggestion I've made."

"You've been here half an hour!" Kezia paused to drag her tone back to  civility. "You haven't seen your room yet, let alone toured the property  and met staff. Do you really think I'll take your recommendations  seriously until you do?"

"No, which is the underlying problem. This hotel is in such dire straits  because Muriel let emotion overrule good business practice."

Kezia saw red. "Don't you dare attack Nana's judgment. Never criticize her, do you hear me?"

"I'm sorry," he said simply.

She realized she was standing and sat again, too shaken to censor her  words. "I think I would cope with my grief better if I wasn't so angry  with her."

He nodded, neither in pity nor judgment, and Kezia felt strangely  absolved. All week she'd vacillated between tears and guilt-stricken  fury. For the first time it seemed forgivable. "You've had time to  assess the mess. How do you rate our chances of success?"

"If we keep emotion out of it?" Their shared past flickered like a ghost between them. "Fifty/fifty."

"Better than the odds I came up with." She hesitated. "As long as you understand that I'm John Wayne in this picture."

"You're going to need his balls," he replied dryly.

The door swung open before Kezia could think of a suitable retort. A  trolley appeared first, lurched left across the doorway, then right,  then surged into the room and rode roughshod over one of Kezia's neat  piles.

"Your horse needs breaking in," remarked Christian.

The small woman pushing it raised her head. Marion Morgan looked like a  benign witch, mainly because of her wild blond hair-closer to mist than  curls-but also because of the perpetual myopic bewilderment in her big  blue eyes.

A bewilderment that had intensified since her alcoholic husband had  abandoned his family three months earlier. Kezia saw with relief that  Marion's preschooler was nowhere in sight.

Christian was the one who needed breaking in.

He hated being here already, she could tell by his inability to sit  still. It reassured Kezia that the ties that meant everything to her  were binds on him; he wouldn't outstay his welcome. There was also a  curious relief in having the decision she'd made all those years ago  reinforced as the right one. Restless and mercurial, he would never have  stuck by her.

"Well, this is a surprise." Christian crossed the room to give Marion a  hand. The trolley rattled to a rest, slopped coffee shivering to  stillness in the saucers.                       
       
           



       

Marion flung her arms around him and kissed him. "You're a lifesaver for rescuing us like this."

Over her head Christian stared unnerved at Kezia who shrugged, half  exasperated, half amused. The man was only here because of some IOU he  refused to explain, but bless Marion, she always suspected the best in  people. Especially bad boys.

Christian changed the subject. "You work here?"

Marion released him to search through her jeans for a handkerchief.  "Most evenings. The job's a godsend as well as my little bit of sanity."  She dabbed at her eyes. "I guess Kezia has told you of my troubles."

"All we've done so far is argue," said Kezia, hoping to deflect her. One litany of woes at a time.

"About the past, I expect." Marion recovered enough to hand out cups of  coffee, and Kezia wished she'd kept her mouth shut. The things her  youthful self had once done and said to Christian's boy-man had haunted  her all week.

"No. About the hotel."

"It must be so awkward," said Marion sympathetically, "deciding what to  talk about, what not to talk about." Kezia frowned at her; they'd  already had this chat.

"We're opting for the not," replied Christian. "Is that shortbread?"

Marion offered him a slice. "Very wise," she approved. "First loves are  so embarrassing years later. All that overwrought intensity, the passion  and the promises. You haven't learned it's safer to hold something  back."

"Marion!" Kezia caught her friend's eye, sent a desperate message. "We're not talking about any of it."

"And I'll make sure everyone knows that," Marion soothed.

"Still scared of spiders, Muffet?" Christian used Marion's old nickname with relish.

She paused. "We're not talking about it."

A smile, unguarded and complicit, flickered between Christian and Kezia.  Maybe we can forgive each other, after all, she thought.

"So-" Marion reached for her coffee "-did you ever settle down, Christian?"

His grin hardened with cynicism and Kezia looked away, feeling foolish.

"Marry, beget 2.5 kids and get talked into a pet hamster?" His mouth quirked. "No, I didn't."