You Know You Wanna Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

REMINGTON

The Greens was supposed to be the crown jewel of the Smoky Mountains, a fancy, elite resort that was always fully booked and had a constant line around the block of those desperate for the opportunity to stay.

At least, that was how it had been sold to me when the owners had come seeking an investor. So why, exactly, does it feel like Laurene and I are the only people here?

My twelve-year-old daughter looked around the empty lobby, clearly not impressed with what she was seeing. “Uh. Are you sure they’re open?”

“They’re supposed to be.” I frowned, hooking my sunglasses into my shirt collar and wondering if I’d somehow driven to the incorrect address.

If it hadn’t been for the wording, The Greens, emblazoned on the front of the wooden reception desk, I might’ve thought I’d made a rare mistake, but the name of the place was right there. I hadn’t screwed up. This was, in fact, where we were supposed to be.

Laurene heaved out a heavy sigh, crossing her arms and pouting. She glanced up at me. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I told you this trip was a bad idea.”

I sighed. She wasn’t wrong. She had told me that—only about half a dozen times on our drive from New York to Gatlinburg. Two days on the road to get to a place I’d invested a ton of money in and where I’d expected to bask in the fruit of my labors, and here we were, without even a front desk clerk to wait on us.

A door hidden in the paneling behind the reception desk opened up and a man carrying a thermos of coffee emerged. He started when he saw us, then grinned and rushed out from around the desk. “Mr. Ford? You are Remington Ford, right? I’m Andrew, the day manager here at the Greens. Welcome, sir. It’s an honor to have you here.”

Laurene sniffed at my side. “If only he knew.”

I cut her a sharp glance, but this was hardly the time to get into it with my sassy pre-teen. For some godforsaken reason, she was eternally pissed at me. I knew that I worked hard, but we were here now and I’d brought her along so we could finally spend some time together.

You’d think she’d give me a damn break for that.

Ignoring her snide remark, I strode toward Andrew and took another pointed look around. As advertised, the place was stunning. With the mountains as a backdrop on one side and the city on the other, large windows lined the walls and expensive white tiles stretched out beneath our feet.

Heavy, royal blue drapes framed the windows and fireplaces—unlit, since it was summer—sat in each corner of the expansive space. And yet, there are no people. Where the hell are all the patrons I was promised?

“Andrew,” I said as I stopped in front of him. “Are we the only guests here at the moment?”

His dark eyes widened and he shook his head. “Oh, no, sir. The others are enjoying the great outdoors. The resort offers—”

“I’m aware.” I didn’t need him to give me the same sales pitch that had been provided when I’d pumped hundreds of thousands into this place. “What’s the vacancy rate right now?”

The guy did a slow-double take at the directness of my question, but I didn’t have time for games. I never did. He recovered a minute later, blinking too fast and too many times for my liking before he responded. “Off the top of my head, I’d say about thirty percent of our rooms are occupied this week. Give or take.”

I stared at him. “The vacancy rate is seventy percent? Schools are out for the summer and not even a third of the rooms are taken? How is that possible?”

“Well, sir, there’s, uh, there’s another resort in the next town over. Blue Pines just outside of Bluebell Hollow. They’re offering what I’ve heard is an excellent summer program. We’ve had a few cancellations from guests who opted to stay there instead.”

“Blue Pines?” I mused out loud. “Tell me more.”

“Daddy, I’m hungry. Can we just check in already?”

I glanced at my daughter, who didn’t know that this was doubling as a business trip for me, and shook my head. “I’m sorry, honey. We’ll get you something to eat soon. Let me just finish up here.”

As I turned my gaze back to Andrew, he looked a little shaken but he rattled off a few facts about this other resort anyway. “It’s deep in the mountains. Close to a variety of hiking trails, I think. Rustic. Uh, I hear there’s a lovely pool.”

“You have a pool here.”

“Well, yes. We do, sir. Three swimming pools, in fact. But theirs is some kind of indoor/outdoor business that people seem to rave about online.”

“Rustic, huh?” In other words, it was a dump, but I didn’t say so out loud. “How far away is it?”

“Oh, uh, I’d say probably about fifty miles out?”

Are you telling me or asking?  “Very well. You can cancel my reservation. Thank you, Andrew.”

I spun on my heels and inclined my head toward the wide, double front doors. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you something to eat. Then we’ll go check out this Blue Pines Resort. Word is they have a lovely pool.”

“But sir, your reservation is for the entire summer,” Andrew protested behind me. “Are you sure you want to cancel the whole thing?”

“I never say anything I’m not sure of,” I replied without looking back at him.

I slid my hand around Laurene’s shoulders and guided her back to the car. She shook me off—no surprise there—and collapsed into the passenger seat to pout all the way to Bluebell Hollow, a town so small it didn’t even come up on my maps. I had to search the location on the internet.

“Why couldn’t we just stay there? Why are we going to a different place now? We’ve been in the car for two days, Dad. Why are we doing even more driving?”

Because I’m curious to see the resort that’s driving business away from the place I’m a partial owner of. “You heard him. There’s an excellent summer program.”

She groaned, leaning back in her chair and settling in for the drive. My mind was racing as I navigated out of Gatlinburg toward Bluebell Hollow. When I’d been approached to invest in the Greens, I’d sent a guy out here on my behalf. I’d done my due diligence, but something somewhere had clearly gone wrong.

This is why I prefer to do things myself. At the time though, I hadn’t been able to make the trip. In the middle of a nasty divorce, I’d been forced to delegate. And now look where I’ve landed.

“I knew I should’ve gone to Italy with Mom,” Laurene complained softly, and my heart gave a dull pang.

My ex-wife had taken the yacht she’d gotten in the divorce to Europe for the summer without even bothering to check whether I could take our daughter. She also hadn’t invited said daughter, seemingly preferring to blow through the money she’d received in the settlement on her own.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. No rustic summer program could compete with a yacht. “We’ll grab something to eat once we get into town and then you’ll feel better. Tennessee isn’t Europe, but this is going to be fun. I promise.”

“That’s not a promise you can keep.” She sighed, giving me her back to watch the mountainside we were driving along instead.

I couldn’t say I blamed her. I was pretty annoyed with myself right now too, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that some other resort had become the preferred destination for travelers this summer.

In order to fix it and not write my investment off as a bad one, I needed to see the place people were canceling for. I didn’t believe in throwing away money. There had to be a way to salvage my investment.

It didn’t take long to reach tiny, sleepy Bluebell Hollow, and I stopped at a diner on main street, apparently the only restaurant the place had to offer. Laurene and I walked in slowly, already sticking out like sore thumbs in our designer clothing and my flashy Maserati among the denim and flannel we were suddenly surrounded by.

A little bell above the door tinkled and a waitress in a faded uniform that had seen better days looked up at us. “What can I get you folks?”

I eyed the menu mounted on the wall behind the counter and decided Laurene could wait a few more minutes before she ate. “I just need directions to Blue Pines Resort.”

Two women who had been sitting at the table nearest the door stood up, and one of them gave me a friendly smile. “Blue Pines? Oh, that’s great. It’s only another seven miles from here. You’ll be there in a jiffy. Make a left out of the parking lot and follow the road out of town. You’ll see the signage for the resort on your right. Turn up onto the little mountain road just after the sign and you won’t be able to miss it.”

The woman who had spoken was a strikingly beautiful blonde with a Barbie face, curves to die for, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. If the circumstances had been different, I might have done something about the sudden urge to see those curves out of the torn jeans and fitted T-shirt she was wearing, but the divorce had done a number on me.

I had absolutely no desire to date ever again and this woman seemed like the type who’d expect at least dinner and a movie before she let me peel those awful clothes off her.

Shaking off the lust that rumbled through me, I nodded at her. “Thank you. We’ll find it. Come on, baby.”

“Daddy,” Laurene whined. “I’m too hungry. Can’t we just eat here? I’ve never been to a roadside diner before and the burgers look good.”

I glanced at a plate of food that had been sitting on the counter, waiting to be served since we’d arrived, and shook my head at her, lowering my voice a bit in case I started a riot with my next words. “We’ll find someplace better, honey. I’m sure there’s a nice restaurant at the resort.”

Lowered voice or not, it immediately became apparent that I’d been overheard, and we earned quite a few looks from the patrons nearby. The blonde woman and her friend exchanged a glance before she gave me a tight smile, following it up with a wave before they left.

I sighed. “Let’s go, Laurene. We’ll eat something as soon as we get to the resort.” I nodded my apologies to the waitress and led my daughter back to the car, wondering what the blonde woman’s story was as I watched her and her friend climb into a beat-up truck before they drove away.

I slid into my car next to my now supremely irritated daughter while she pouted some more. “Why are we here, Daddy? I don’t understand why we couldn’t just stay at the resort in Gatlinburg.”

Putting the sexy blonde out of my mind, I turned over the engine and looked at Laurene before I got us back on the road. “It’s just business, baby. Nothing to worry about. We’ll be there soon.”

“Business?” Her eyebrows jumped up and she huffed out a breath, the very picture of her mother when she acted like this.

With Jacqueline’s flowing red hair and porcelain skin, it was always difficult to look at my daughter without seeing my ex-wife in her, but when she was having a temper tantrum? She was her mother’s kid through and through.

“Yes, business,” I said, trying to be gentle, but it really didn’t come naturally to me. “I’m not going to be working a lot this summer, but I do need to get some things done, okay?”

She responded with yet another heavy sigh, and I left her to her misery, focusing on the road instead. I didn’t like being bested, and if this resort was so popular, then I was going to have it for myself. Once I did, I could replicate whatever was responsible for its success over at the Greens, and then I’d own the two crown jewels of the Smoky Mountains.

Thirty percent occupancy rate, my ass. I wouldn’t let it stand, and nothing was going to get in my way—not even the promise I’d made myself that this summer was about spending quality time with my daughter.