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Smashwords
Category:
Romance
Publisher: Smashwords
Type: Fiction
Pages: 230
Copyright: Feb 8, 2019
ISBN-13: 9780463961353
Price: FREE! (eBook)
Jessica explores the life of Narcissa Whitman by following the Oregon Trail she helped create.
After her husband is killed, Jessica retreats to her resort in Galena, Illinois. While she is deep in mourning, a Hollywood film company comes to the resort and invites her to join them in a film about Narcissa Whitman, the woman who helped create the Oregon Trail. Jessica rebuilds her life, and finds new love on the way to Oregon
Excerpt
Chapter 1
I Get Paris and a Blue Dress
Due to a strange legal technicality, I own eight hotels. Well, seven older city-center hotels and a resort. The resort is in Galena, Illinois. That’s a tourist town along the Mississippi. My resort there is where you go to get married.
Willie came with the hotels. Sort of. He was undercover FBI and showed up at my bar one Sunday afternoon when the Packers were beating the Bears and getting ready for the playoffs – again. I tend bar at a really old place on the northern edge of Wisconsin. I kept pouring beer and watching the Packers while he explained I hadn’t filed any income taxes in ten years. Oops. I owed for that. Also, I was entitled to a reward for recovering over a million dollars in mob money (long story). So, after all my back taxes and fines were deducted, I still got a nice check.
Next. The mob guy I was sleeping with had gifted me with a few shares of stock in his hotel business (really just a front). When all the other stock holders were killed by other mob guys, I owned most of the stock in the company. Surprise. I now owned seven hotels, all heavily mortgaged, and now shut down while people wiped up the blood.
Now what? Willie quit the FBI and went to work for me. He had an MBA. He also knew his way around a bedroom. Our partnership worked well. We sold two hotels to Hyatt and used the money to update the other hotels. We also acquired three other hotels that needed TLC - La Crosse, St. Paul, and Duluth. In all three cases local owners – and the city mayors – came to us. We had a reputation. Or, maybe, they were just desperate. How many companies want to buy old hotels in the central part of town?
What else happened? Willie and I married. Like I said. He knew his way around a bedroom. We married here in Galena. Where else? Our resort does three to five weddings every day, and we do them well. Especially mine. My kids and grandkids were there, and my father even walked me up the aisle (not a small thing. I was forty before I knew he was my father). Oh, and about those grandkids – Britney married Billy, and they had a daughter already. Tiffany and Ben had another son. If you see me smiling, there are lots of reasons.
So here we were, a year later. The Galena resort is a pretty busy place, and we were doing what we do on days when we aren’t driving around to the other hotels. We started the day with office chores and meetings. Sometimes Willie and I were in the same meeting; sometimes we met with different subordinates. Late afternoon I did my usual walkthrough of the resort, and then worked the wedding bar and dining room.
Willie checked all the stages in the resort, and then rehearsed. The Galena Resort has three different music venues, one of which starred Willie. “Willie Sings Willie” actually occurred in our smallest venue, but that’s the way Willie liked it. He sang Willie Nelson songs, couples danced and groped. I usually tended bar in the back of the room, and when he put a tape on for breaks, he and I would dance. And yes, he sang softly in my ear while he held me tight, and managed to get at least one hand on my ass for most of the dance. One more reason to love our time in Galena.
So. Paris? Willie finishes his first set, puts a recording on, holds me close and says, “For our anniversary, I will take you anywhere in the world you…”
“Paris.”
“Sure. If that’s where…”
“Paris.” I squeezed him so hard I thought I might hurt him, then grabbed his belt and pulled him into our suite. I had lots of ways to thank him.
Paris. Why Paris? I had seen Casablanca a dozen times. Ingrid Bergman wore a blue dress and a white hat with a wide brim. She and Rick rode around the Arc de Triomphe in a convertible, drank champagne, and listened to music. Somewhere in there I was certain she had sat with him at a sidewalk cafe. I would do that. I would not leave my man at the train station. We would do Paris.
Our anniversary is in early October. Actually a pretty good time to travel. The vacation rush is over, but the weather is still pretty good. We drove to Chicago, took a nonstop to Paris, seven hours holding hands the whole way. I had my head on Willie’s shoulder, and while I didn’t sleep, I did like having my head on his shoulder, and his arm around me. I think Bogie held Bergman the same way.
What did we do in Paris? We didn’t drive a convertible around the Arc de Triomphe. It turns out a million taxis go around that circle playing chicken with each other. I held my breath, grateful when we got around that circle and to our hotel. It was a nice place, not too far from the Louvre, so we could do all the tourist things.
Maybe a comment here about money. By many standards, we were rich. Each time we bought a hotel, we had to fill in all kinds of financial information, so I know our net worth pretty exactly, and it is north of ten million. But that is the company’s money. It comes from seven hotels plus the resort. Of the three new hotels, La Crosse breaks even, and St. Paul and Duluth are drawing serious cash as we do remodels that are years overdue. So money is coming in but also going out. But we have money. Enough to travel to Paris for a couple weeks, something I would never have dreamed of five years ago. But we flew coach, and we stayed in a four star hotel, not the Ritz. It still cost us several hundred dollars a night. Paris is not cheap. But it was Paris. And I was excited, even as I watched the meter on the taxi roll over one Euro after another.
Our room overlooked a courtyard with a very nice garden. It was beautiful. The day was beautiful – sunny and well into the sixties (or whatever that is in Celsius). We arrived in early afternoon. The day was ours if we wished to rush out to the Louvre or to Notre Dame. But Ingrid didn’t rush to museums, she looked at Rick, and he looked at her. I was wearing a blue dress. I would find a white hat somewhere in Paris. I had my Rick. I stood looking down at the garden and waited. Willie came up behind me. I pulled his arms around me – my man-shawl. And maybe I moved my backside a bit. Paris was the city of love. It would wait while we held each other and did what lovers do.
So, when we weren’t wrestling in bed, what did we do for the next five days? We ate in sidewalk cafes. Two things you don’t see in movies. Sidewalks are alongside streets. Streets have cars. Cars make noise and blow exhaust. Paris has lots of cars, lots of noise, and lots of exhaust. The other thing? In Europe people spend hours over a meal. I knew that from my time in Switzerland. I was fine with it. I could see lots of other American tourists were not. To them, service was slow. So there was some grumbling. By the third day we were eating indoors.
Museums? We had to do the Louvre, and had to see the Mona Lisa. But we ended up seeing a war of wills. A lady guard was by the painting with a sign on a pole – “no flash photography.” It was in English and French, but it might as well have been in Martian. People took pictures – with flash – and she held the sign over the painting for the next five minutes as a kind of punishment. Then she would move the sign, and ten people would take pictures – with flash. Weird. But now we can say we saw the Mona Lisa. I am not sure that will ever come up in conversation, but if it does, we have our answer ready.
What museum did I like? The Musee d’Orsay. It’s an old train station, easy to get to, but no one goes there. It felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. And they have a whole room of Van Goghs. I stood there a very long time. Ask me the one place I would go to first on any return visit? There. Willie stood behind me, and held me, and I felt like I would disappear into Van Gogh’s night sky or his fields.
We did the other stuff people do there. We walked through the Cathedral at Notre Dame (lots of street performers out front), took the elevator up the Eiffel Tower (really nice views), climbed up the hill to the Moulon Rouge (nice movie, but a kind of seedy side of town).
What was most fun? As we came down the hill from the Moulon Rouge, we came to several dress shops -- small places with dresses in the front windows. Willie practically pushed me into the first of the shops. Two ladies came to us. They spoke no English, we spoke no French. But we smiled, and I pointed to a dress I thought looked pretty good. Willie sat down in a small place near the front windows (the shop was pretty crowded), while I was taken to the back, measured, and put in one dress after another. I walked back to the front, spun in front of Willie, popped a hip in his direction, posed, smiled, and enjoyed the look on his face. I already have a larger wardrobe than any other woman in Marinette County, so it’s not like I needed more dresses, but… Well, how often can you buy a dress in Paris, and how often can you make your man look like Willie was looking. I ended up buying five dresses, all about knee length in various colors and fabrics, all nice enough for an evening out and some dancing, all nice enough that when I looked at Willie’s face, I knew he would help me out of them fast enough. I spun on my heel so my skirts practically hit his face. Yes, he would get me out of this dress the instant we were back in our room.
I wore one of the dresses back to our hotel. Willie carried the others over his shoulder, his free hand never leaving my shoulder, back, or ass. I was right about what he would do the instant we were back in our room. And now I had five Paris gowns.
What else did we do? We took long walks holding hands. We walked along the Seine, we walked along the Champs Elysees, we walked through parks. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we just walked, but we always touched. If we rested on a park bench, his arm immediately went around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. The sun shone every day, the temps stayed in the low sixties, and my man, well, Willie was marvelous.
We spent a fair amount of time in our room, the window open, a cool breeze coming in, our bed throwing off a lot of heat. I was all over him – under him, on him, beside him. I loved doing spoons with him. He would wrap his arms around my chest and hold my breasts. I would back my ass into him, pushing into him, feeling him get more and more crazy. Yes, I teased. Hell, I was deep into seduction. I pushed and slid against him, and when I could feel he was about to lose his mind, I rolled onto my back and pulled him in. When we were finished, I wrapped my arms and legs around him as tightly as I could. I wasn’t letting go. He wrapped his arms around me just as tightly. I think that will be my lasting memory of Paris – not the view from the Eiffel Tower, but the feel of his body as we pulled ourselves together. How many times did we kiss? I have no idea. But the number was huge.
So, for us, Paris was museums, walks, cafes, and well, lots and lots of sex. It was our anniversary after all. But we also did some business. Yes, business.
If you own seven hotels, you buy lots of things. People who sell you those things take an interest. The companies that supplied our bars and restaurants heard we were going to Paris. What else is there in France? Wine. Would we like to visit a few wineries? Stay a few nights. Walk the vineyards. All gratis of course. All I know about wine is that some is red and some is white. Put me in a real winery, and I am likely to be embarrassed by my ignorance. But. They said we should take the train down. A train. I had never been on one. I wanted to try it. I balanced my chance at being embarrassed against the opportunity to ride a train, and the train won. We went. Willie? He just smiled and said, “Sure.”
Which winery did we choose? Eight had been in contact with us. All seemed to have the same advertising writer. I saw the words “Classic, authentic, historic,” and “prestigious” in each invitation. Which did I pick? The one in Bordeaux. Because Bordeaux wine is best? How would I know? But I had a map, and I could see Bordeaux would be the longest train ride. So that’s where we went.
Did I like the train ride? How could I not like it? The seats were much bigger than the seats on planes, we could get up and walk around, the dining car served really good food, the ride was smooth, and the train really moved. We saw the countryside flash by – fields, vineyards, hillsides, small villages, wood lots. Willie and I sat close, held hands, and enjoyed France.
So I loved Bordeaux before I ever got there, and once we arrived, I loved it even more. I even knew how to describe it – classic, authentic, historic, and prestigious. I have no idea if it really is prestigious. But it had history in spades. The winery people had a car waiting for us, and the driver took us out of town pretty fast, but what I saw, was historic (old).
The driver was a talker. I guess that was part of the job description. And he spoke English. Before he even had our bags in his car we learned – this part of France was once ruled by the English king, it was now loved by English retirees, we are miles from the ocean, but the (forget the name) estuary brings ocean temps and sea breezes close, thereby creating the best wine growing conditions on Planet Earth, and finally, we would be staying at the finest chateau in France. He drove with one hand, pointed with the other, and never stopped talking. We were a little close on a couple curves, and I wish there had been a guard rail on one hillside, but we got to the chateau in one piece.
And he was right. This was the finest chateau in France, or at least a close cousin. It was certainly the nicest place I had ever stayed in. A circle drive out front, gardens on either side, the Chateau Pomys was three stories, stone for the first two and that funny roof design for the third (Mansard?). And of course the entry way had pillars. It looked like Louis the 14th might have put one of his mistresses here. I was glad I had worn one of my Paris dresses. My heels clicked on the marble floors. I kept my head up and my shoulders back. We were here by invitation. We belonged here. We walked through an enameled entryway to an enameled office area. Philippe (our driver) introduced us to the manager. We shook hands, smiled, signed some forms as the manager carefully explained that all charges would be covered by the winery, he was so glad we would be staying four days, an attendant would be taking our bags, etc.
So okay, I am feeling like royalty and maybe a bit like a fraud. I was raised in a trailer in northern Wisconsin. I still own it. I have a bartender’s license in Wisconsin and Illinois. Yes, now I have some hotels. But chateaus? I smile, keep my hand in Willie’s, tell the manager I enjoyed the train ride, and follow our bags up a phenomenal staircase to a suite with a view that goes on forever. Philippe tells us to enjoy our evening, he will be back for us in the morning. And just like that, this Amberg girl is ensconced in a suite of a French chateau. The minute the door closes I am wrapped around Willie.
“How many train loads of wine did you tell them we would be buying?” I am holding on tight. Maybe this is the equivalent of pinching myself. Is this real?
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