Chapter Two
Kripa didn't notice how lovely the little town was until she'd driven halfway through it. The four-hour drive down to the resort had been filled with thoughts of dread, panic, and the fancy clothes Aaliyah had talked her into buying as inspiration. She was still trying to decide to whether the best plan was to do a dignified sulk for the next two week or to wear fancy clothes and develop a better attitude, when she realized how charming everything around her was.
The shady old streets were lined with thick-trunked trees and the antique storefronts were painted in faded roses and blues and yellows with a gold-edged lettering in the windows. Stores with family names that had probably been there for generations. The whole town smelled of dust and honey-suckle, and Kripa drove through it all and thought of shoes and ice-cream cones and football games and all the things she'd read about but never known.
This would have been a lovely place to grow up, she thought. This would have felt like a home. Maybe my life would have been different if I'd started out in a place like this—a place full of dusty and sunlight and trees and possibilities.
And then she shook her head. Pull yourself together, Kripa, she told herself. You have a goal and a plan. Concentrate.
She turned right at a low slung while building that said Khanna's Place in pink neon over the double wood doors and slowed to look at it. It had to be a bar or a restaurant—the parking lot was the biggest she's seen in the town so far—but it was the most low-key bar she's ever seen, no signs for beer or ads for Wet-T-shirt Wednesdays, just an ancient handpainted "Welcome" sign in white on the knotty-pine doors. Even the bars in this town were clean and cute. She's landed in Disneyland Kentucky.
Past Khanna's Place, the road began to wind into the woods. The subtle light felt cool, almost sensuous as she drove slowly under the trees, savoring the woodsy smell. The woods were dim and secret, and when she shivered, it wasn't just from the chill of leaving the sun. There's something…exciting about the woods, she thought. Maybe something will happen here. Maybe I'll fall in love. Maybe everything will work out here. Aali said all I have to do is choose. Well, I choose to be happy and successful and…and unafraid. I'll be like Aali. Absolutely fearless. I'll even get up early tomorrow and find the lake, and I'll go skinny-dipping. I really will.
Then she rounded the last turn, and thought, Oh, maybe not.
The resort stood before her looking like a log cabin with a thyroid problem. Much larger than it had seemed in the brochure, it rose up in ranks of clustered cabins, carefully stacked like children's blocks at slight angles to one another, each with a private natural-wood deck.
Oh, no, Kripa thought. It's too big.
Even worse, there seemed to be at least a thousand people milling around. If she went skinny-dipping in the morning, she's probably turn up in vacation slides all over the Midwest—" And here's a shot of that crazy woman who used to go skinny-dipping every morning."
She sighed and pulled up next to the hotel entrance.
I hate this! Kripa thought. She steeled herself and walked through the big carved double doors into the lobby, looking cool and efficient in her silk suit, detached from everyone around her. One of the generic distinguished—looking men Aaliyah had promised her held the door for her as she went in, but she was concentrating so hard on maintaining her image that she noticed him as a possibility only in passing. Later. One thing at a time. Where had all these people come from?
The desk manager smiled at her as she signed the register card. "Welcome to The Cabins, Miss Shama."
"Sharma."
"Of course, Sharma. I'm Josh Khanna. We're really glad you're here."
Kripa repressed the impulse to ask why. Josh Khanna was tall, dark, and ruggedly handsome, and he was glad to see her. It would take a woman with an extremely bad attitude to assume that what this man was truly glad to see was her Visa card.
"You'll want to see my Visa card," Kripa said.
"No, no, that was all taken care of when you reserved by phone. You're in cabin 9A. Up past the tennis court there and beyond the croquet lawn. You can park your car right behind the cabin."
The croquet lawn. Well, it could be worse. They'd have to stop knocking balls around when the sun went down. And at least she wasn't staying in that rabbit warren of a hotel with God-knows-who….
From behind her, a lilting soprano bubbled, "Was that cabin 9A, you said?"
The manager said, "I certainly did, Miss Saxena," and Kripa turned.
Miss Saxena, young, brunette, and built like a Barbie doll, had eyes of cornflower brown, a tilted-up nose, and a genuinely sweet smile on her lovely full lips. She looked about twenty-five or twenty-four.
Great, Kripa thought. My competition. I bet nothing on her droops. I bet she doesn't even need fancy clothing.
"I'm Anjali Saxena," the Barbie doll said, holding out her hand to Kripa. "I'll be right next door in 9B."
"Oh, good," Kripa said.
"And I was wondering, if you'd mind, could you possibly give me a lift to the cabin? With my luggage? The bellboys here are real busy…"
"No problem," Kripa said. "I'd be happy to." She took her key from Josh and tried hard to ignore him when he called after them. "Don't you ladies forget the luau tonight?"
"Oh, we sure won't," Anjali squealed back.
Luggage said a lot about a person. Kripa realized as she walked Anjali to the car. She herself had one charcoal-gray suitcase and a briefcase. Anjali had three pieces of pink luggage. Guess which one of us has more fun, Kripa thought as she helped Anjali load her bags into the car. Then she began to drive to the cabin, going slowly to avoid all the people who dodged in front of her on the way, evidently having such a good time that they wanted to die where they stood.
Kripa glared at one of them. "This place had too many people."
"Oh, no." Anjali waved to someone. "I love people."
"I sensed that."
Anjali smiled at her. "They say it's a lot quieter near the cabins."
Kripa looked at her curiously. "I'd think you'd prefer the hotel."
"No." Anjali waved to someone else. "I'm planning on seeing all the guys I can while I'm here, and you know how nosy people in hotels are."
"What do you mean, 'seeing'?"
"Oh, you know—dance, talk, laugh… Have as much fun as possible," Anjali said cheerfully. "I'm getting married next month. This is my last chance."
"Oh," Kripa said after a pause. "Well, good luck."
"Thank you." Anjali turned and looked at her. "Why did you come here?"
Good question. She was going to strangle Aaliyah. "Oh, you know—to dance, talk, and laugh." Kripa glared at all the people swarming around her car. "Maybe go skinny-dipping in the pool."
"Are you allowed to do that?"
Kripa closed her eyes. Anjali really was as dumb as a rock. "If you get up very early," she said.
"Oh. I thought maybe you were writing a travel article or something."
"A travel article? Why?"
"Well, why else would somebody all businesslike like you be up here?"
"To meet men?" Kripa suggested.
"Oh, sure," Anjali said and giggled.
Cabin 9, when they found it after two wrong turns, was several yards from the croquet field, and Kripa cheered up when she saw how private it was. She was even happier when she took her briefcase inside. The bedroom, paneled in knotty pine, was compact but cozy, and Kripa dropped her briefcase on the patchwork—covered double bed with a sigh of relief. This was going to be fine. She needed a rest, and this was lovely. Even if she didn't meet anyone…
She stopped. Of course, she was going to meet someone. She had a plan. She squared her shoulders and went outside to unload the luggage.
Kripa was putting the last of Anjali's suitcases on the ground when a man strolled down the path with his hands in his pockets.
"Need any help?" he asked lazily as he came near her, and she was forced to turn and look at him. He was big, broad, and slow-moving, dressed in plaid flannel and denim. His hair was thick, dark and untrimmed, his black-brown eyes were lazy, and his nose had definitely been broken at least once in the past; it lurched slightly to the left over his full, neat curved lips. But the finishing touch for Kripa was his generous, cream-colored hat.
Unbelievable.
Then he smiled at her—a friendly, no-come-on smile—and she almost smiled back before she caught herself. Absolutely not, she told herself. You are not going to gall for some dumb, macho, good-looking good old boy. You have a plan. He is not part of your plan. Besides, he looks like good-for-nothing, and you're not interested in those types. Especially not this far north of the Rio Grande.
"I think I can manage." She turned to pull her suitcase out of the car. "Thank you."
"Well, hello." They both turned at the sound of Anjali's voice to see her standing at the top of the porch steps, slender and lovely, vibrating with pleasure at seeing a man.
"Anjali, this is…?" Kripa faced him.
"Angad." He touched his hat to Anjali.
"Angad, this is Anjali," Kripa said. "Angad has offered to help with the luggage."
"Well, you sweet thing, you," Anjali cooed. "I'd adore your help. Mine's the pink stuff down there."
"Coming right up," Angad said, and he bent to pick up all of Anjali's remaining pieces of luggage.
"You must be so strong." Anjali beamed at him.
"Nope. Just too lazy to make two trips." He ambled up the steps to the porch.
Well, there's the start of a beautiful relationship, Kripa thought, and took her suitcase into the cabin.
Cricket
