Book 6: Sweet Breeze Resort (Getaway Bay® Resort Romance)

Gina Jackson whistled while she worked in the corner of the suite, her measuring tape making a metallic crinkling sound as she tried to get it all the way against the wall.

She and Owen Church, the general manager here at Sweet Breeze, had talked about taking these boring, blah closets into something spectacular for the longer-stay guests at the premier hotel and resort in Getaway Bay.

Gina Jackson could still taste the dill cream cheese she’d eaten on her bagel over an hour ago. She really needed a mint—and for her blasted tape measure to stop acting all wonky.

The metallic crinkling sound grated against her nerves as she shook the end of it into the corner. The closets at Sweet Breeze Resort and Hotel were nothing like any she’d worked on before. They were almost like rooms of their own, and while Gina had taken closet organization into a billion-dollar business, her nerves squirmed at the thought of messing up this job.

Thus, her bagel breakfast with the boss over this project at Sweet Breeze, Owen Church. Boss ran through her mind. She and Owen were definitely working together, though he wasn’t really her boss. He was the general manager at the hotel, and his opinion was all that mattered. Gina had noticed that the owner of the hotel—Fisher DuPont—didn’t call nearly as many shots as Owen did.

She’d marveled at that for a while, as she finished a couple of other jobs on the island and contemplated not returning to the mainland at all.

She’d seen Owen and Fisher together, felt their energy, and envied the complete trust between them. She used to have a partner like that, but the lure of money and power had been too great, and the betrayal coursing through Gina definitely still stung.

The tape measure simply wouldn’t cooperate today, and she wasn’t sure the ideas she’d discussed with Owen while he smeared strawberry cream cheese over a cinnamon raisin bagel would even work.

She’d never understand his weird food combinations, and they’d been sharing a lot of meals together lately. Most in his office, or here at the hotel after their morning run. 

Gina couldn’t seem to get Owen out of her mind, not even long enough to measure a simple space, something she could normally do with just the naked eye. 

She sighed, determined not to let the handsome man distract her from the job, and not to let the job—a huge, multi-million dollar job that could establish her in the hotel industry— consume her very existence.

With her foot, she stomped the end of the measuring device into the carpet and finally pulled the tape taut. “Seventeen feet, two inches,” she muttered to herself. And that was just the depth of this closet. The width had to be easily twice that.

Fisher had designed the hotel to be the best of its kind, but he hadn’t truly thought of those who might want a long-term stay. As more and more businessmen and women came to Getaway Bay, he’d realized a need for such a suite. 

Well, Gina suspected it was Owen who’d noticed the need, run it all by Fisher, and then started remodeling their nicer suites into long-term stay apartments.

Gina had been contracted to take some of the existing space and make it into a closet. With the smell of fresh paint from the new kitchen area just around the corner, she once again pushed against the anxiety that she couldn’t do this job. That it was too big for her. That her normal master bedroom closet in a single-family home in Dallas simply hadn’t provided her the experience she needed for a job of this magnitude, on this scale.

Sure, she’d done the five rooms at the bed and breakfast down the beach. The owner had been thrilled, but they were basically bedrooms with normal sized closets Gina had simply taken up a notch. 

But Fisher’s wife had been so complimentary that this job at Sweet Breeze had basically fallen into Gina’s lap. She couldn’t say no, even if she felt leagues out of her, well, league.

She took a few more measurements and consulted her catalog for systems that might fit. It would be ultra-expensive to have a custom-built organization system, but she couldn’t find anything that seemed like it would work. Everything in her catalog was too small for a space like this.

Sighing, she left the bedroom and went into the main living area, which was in a state of construction. “Maybe the closet doesn’t need to be that big,” she said to the drop cloth protecting the tile floor in the kitchen area. The appliances still had plastic on them, and she had to be out of the room in an hour so the painters could finish.

Then it was just loading the room with the furniture, the new linens, drapes, accessories—oh, and her closeting system.

Desperation pushed against her tongue, but she swallowed it back. She would not panic. She could do it.

“You can do this,” she said aloud and went back into the bedroom. This suite sat in the corner on the fifth floor. Owen wanted two dozen long-term stay apartments, some one-bedroom suites like the one where Gina stood now, and some  with two bedrooms. She’d been through those, but she hadn’t been able to take measurements or spend much time in the room, as it had been in the middle of the demolition process to turn the suite into an apartment.

“Maybe the closet is just too big,” she said to the stark room, something Owen had said that morning. They’d gone over a few designs, and he’d liked them all. She’d expressed her concerns over the size, the measurements, and making sure it looked high-end like he wanted, but remained functional—her trademark.

Everyone should have a closet that works for them. That was her company motto, one she’d written herself for Classy Closets, and that she stuck to on every job she took. 

After all, it made no sense to hire a professional organizer and licensed interior designer to get something that wasn’t even usable. 

She stepped around the scaffolding in the room the painters used and shook out her measuring tape again. “There could be a separate dressing area here,” she said, thinking out loud. “It would shave off a few feet, and give me access to the twelve-foot systems.” 

Gina turned in a slow circle, imagining the shelving, the hanging racks, the spot the iron would go—with a fold-out board that disappeared seamlessly into the wall. She saw the island in the middle, an easy spot for travelers to put their bags and unpack for their stay. Extra towels, robes, and linens could go in the cupboards on the island so guests wouldn’t have to call and wait—or bother housekeeping—for basic needs.

She envisioned a shoe rack down the wall, as well as a high hanging rack for suits and formal dresses. Then, through the door, the dressing area, with full-length mirrors on two walls.

“That’s it,” she said. “That’s what we need in here.” Excitement coursed through her that she’d solved this problem. Now, she just needed to talk to Owen, because this wasn’t an easy fix for him. She was proposing more construction, more expenses with another door, mirrors, and that extra rack.

Still, she could see the closet in her mind, and it was exactly what this suite needed. She wasn’t the best salesperson on the planet, but she’d draw the blueprint for him and see what he said.

Owen loved blueprints, and Gina grinned to herself as she twisted to go find him. She’d gotten turned around in the room as the closet came to life inside her mind, and she stubbed her toe against the scaffolding.  

“How’s it going?”

Gina yelped, first in pain, and then fright at the deep male voice. She hopped on her good foot, but that didn’t help her keep her balance. 

She knew she was going down—and right in front of those dark, deep, dreamy eyes of Owen’s—before she did. She frantically reached for the scaffolding—anything to anchor herself—though her brain screamed at her that it was a bad idea. The last thing she needed was to pull the metal structure down on top of her.

She missed anyway, blast her poor coordination. The beautiful closet disappeared from her mind as she flopped backward, Owen’s voice somewhere beyond her going, “Gina.”

Everything happened so fast, and while Gina didn’t consider herself old by any means, her thirty-six-year-old body protested at the hardness of the floor against her tailbone, shoulders, and head.

Owen appeared in her vision. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to startle you.” He wore a look of pure panic, sorrow, and compassion.

All Gina could do was stare into those eyes that followed her into her dreams and shake her head.

“You’re not okay?” His gaze sharpened and he pulled out his phone. One tap. Two swipes, and he said, “Jillian, it’s Owen. I need medical on the fifth floor, suite 512.”

Gina kept shaking her head. “I’m okay.”

Owen looked very doubtful and kept his phone at his ear. “Gina Jackson fell.” He reached out with his free hand and swept his fingers across her face, letting them linger in her hair.

She couldn’t read his expression at all, but he jolted away from her as if he’d been shocked and sat back on his heels. “She’s talking…five minutes. Thank you, Jillian.”

He hung up and hovered over her again. “Someone is coming, Gina. Five minutes.”

As if she hadn’t heard him already. “I’m fine,” she said again, this time pushing herself into a seated position. At least all her running and beach yoga had made it possible for her to do such a thing. She’d taken up exercise after Ian, the partner who’d betrayed her, had left Classy Closets, taking so much of Gina and her company with him that she hardly recognized herself anymore. 

He certainly wouldn’t recognize her now, not fifty pounds lighter, with the dark hair she got from a bottle, and more success than she’d achieved previously, simply by doing everything herself. No partners. 

Owen touched her face again, drawing Gina back to this embarrassing moment. “Did you hit your head?”

Gina reached up and touched the back of her head, where a lump was forming. “Yeah. Right here.”

Owen’s fingers probed through her hair gently, sending sparks down her spine and fire through her blood. “Ah, yes. It’s not too big though.”

Maybe if she said her back hurt, he’d rub it. Gina gazed at him, wondering at the powerful current between them. She’d always found him handsome. Kind. Dedicated. Loyal. And he was probably the only person on the planet who worked more than she did. 

“I just came to see how things were going,” he said, letting his fingers linger in her hair.

She leaned into his touch, her eyes drifting halfway closed. Could he feel this energy between them? What if she was the only one who felt like she was falling toward an unknown source of gravity, with no way to catch herself? “I had an idea.”

“I have one too.” His voice rumbled through Gina, and she barely had time to open her eyes before his lips touched hers.

A gasp pulled through her whole body, and suddenly nothing hurt anymore.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “The storyline in this book makes a person sit up and think..just reading about someone who has the same hangups as I do lets me know that I'm not alone in trying to deal with my problems and fears. Elana Johnson got right to the heart of the matter and as always, it makes me happy that problems can be dealt with as long as we lean on each other.” ~BDOT

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I love the stories in this series. They are clean and sweet, but deals with large problems and issues that don’t just go away without time and work. The relationships between the characters are fully developed and I feel like I’m visiting with friends when I read these books.” ~Barbara W.