Tropical Panther's Penance (Shifting Sands Resort 6)

Lydia had given the room a little extra glow with a string of Christmas lights she’d borrowed from the holiday supplies, and found a mosquito netting to drape the little spare cot in. Every spare pillow she could find went in to make the bed more homey, and she’d draped it with one of the fancier cottage quilts; they had plenty of extra bedding, at least. Her own hanging clothing had been mostly put in boxes under the cot, the few garments she knew she’d need were pushed to the back.

“Oooo, can I wear the dresses?” Ally asked.

Lydia hesitated. She didn’t want to say no, but… “Only when I’m here, dear. Some of them are tricky to get on and some are a little fragile.”

“They are PRINCESS dresses!” Ally said, not dismayed by Lydia’s decree. She pulled her little suitcase over and began dumping her clothes—scruffy jeans and t-shirts, mostly—willy nilly into the drawers that Lydia pointed out as hers. “Are you an actress?”

“I run the spa,” Lydia explained. “And I teach dance classes.”

“I was supposed to take ballet,” Ally said wistfully. “Can I take your class?”

“Yes,” Lydia said, then regretfully, “No. No one is supposed to know you are here, of course! But I can give you a special class.”

Ally gave an ear-splitting squeal of delight and threw her short arms around Lydia’s hips. “I’m so EXCITED!” she said.

Lydia shushed her, and Ally clamped a hand over her mouth. “THORRY!” she said, not at all quietly from between her fingers.

“I have to go work in the spa soon,” Lydia said. “I’m afraid I don’t have much here for kids, but we’ve tried to find some things for you that would be fun.” She opened up a drawer and shared the few treasures that the staff had scrounged together: Travis has brought a carpenter’s pencil and a notebook, Tex had supplied a pack of cards. Bastian had supplied a little bag of shells. Even Graham ha

d brought by a wholly unexpected stuffed kitten which looked quite well-loved.

“It’s okay,” Ally said softly, but she said it bravely. She lifted up the notebook and pencil, and sat down on the little bed. “Can I draw in this whole thing?”

Lydia failed her attempt to resist patting Ally on the top of her curly head. “The whole thing,” she assured her.

“Senora!” There was an anxious whisper from the doorway, and Lydia turned to find one of her assistants, Anna, wringing her hands. “It’s Senora Scarlet!”

“She must have heard about the ants! I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Lydia promised Ally in a whisper, and she pulled the closet curtain closed and rushed after Anna.

Sure enough, Scarlet was scowling at the product shelf.

“We’ve got the ants all cleaned up,” Lydia said with a broad smile that she hoped didn’t look too guilty.

A single lost ant, smaller than a fingernail, attempted to make a liar out of her by crawling up a bottle of massage oil.

Scarlet picked it up and let it flee around her finger in little ant terror. “Hmm,” she said, before she flicked it onto the ground out of the open door. “I was actually here to talk about which products you were running low on that were most critical. We’re going to have to airmail them over, so I want to make sure that we’re only ordering what we need for now.”

“Oh, ah, of course.” Lydia felt her cheeks heat. “Well, we’re nearly entirely out of the hair conditioning spray, and there are three key colors of foundation the Mr. Shifter competition ran us out of. We don’t have to restock all of the colors of polish right away, but we do need the clear coat rather desperately.”

Scarlet took careful notes as Lydia showed her each of the nearly empty bottles and cosmetic trays.

“We’ve got another week or two worth of most of the massage oils, we can do without as many choices as usual, and we’ve got the most important unscented oil in case someone has allergies.” Lydia hoped she wasn’t talking too quickly or nervously, and made herself take a deep breath and try to center. “Most everything else will last a few weeks, so we don’t have a lot of buffer, but it should get us through.”

“What did the ants get into?” Scarlet asked, giving Lydia a hard look.

Lydia knew that she was doing a terrible job of looking innocent, and wished desperately that she had a fraction of Wrench’s poker face now. At least she had a story to fall back on.

She sighed. “Someone left the honey facial treatment open. We had some sugar ants this morning, but I got them all cleaned up before the rush started.” They were standing far enough away from the guests being pampered that the sound of the dryer was enough to keep her careful words from carrying.

“Hmm,” Scarlet said, looking over the shelf.

“They do love the sweet things, you know. Just can’t resist it.” Lydia had to stop herself from babbling further.

“Speaking of things you can’t resist…” Scarlet trailed off, giving Lydia a skeptical sideways look.

She knew, Lydia realized. She didn’t know how, but Scarlet knew about Ally.

“I know what goes on in my resort,” Scarlet reminded her mildly, confirming her guess.