Please welcome a guest post from Amie Denman !!!
My inspiration for The Gull Motel
There is a Gull Motel in the town
where I live. It’s right by the bridge over the river. It has fishing specials
advertised on its aging sign. Cars parked right outside the doors. Neglected
planters. Asphalt. Concrete. Crooked numbers on the doors. It is actually
called The Gull Motel.
God, I love
it.
I drive by it every single day and wonder who stays there and why. It has all
the ambiance and mystique of brown lace-up school shoes, but there is something
about it that wouldn’t let me rest.
Until I wrote its story. Now I feel
much better. I can drive by it and grin, knowing I’ve written The Gull Motel and worked it all out in
my imagination. In my story, a dated but lovable beachside motel strikes a
chord with my heroine Savvy. Sure, it’s a Chevrolet and she has big plans for
putting her hospitality degree to work in a fancy hotel that’s more Mercedes.
But heck, there’s something to be said for cracked patios and sliding glass
doors that have been there since the Eisenhower administration.
Curiosity is a trait responsible for
most of my mistakes, but also my greatest joy: I’m a writer because I’m curious
about other people, things I’ve never tried, places I’ve never been, and what
goes on behind closed doors. One of these days, I’m booking a room at The Gull
Motel. Sure, I’ll check for bed bugs and I won’t go near the shower. But maybe
I’ll find my next story somewhere between the sign out front proudly
advertising Color TV and the aqua-blue polyester bedspreads.
* * * * * *
The Gull Motel
A
Sweet Contemporary Romance
by Amie Denman
Savvy Thorpe needs a
vacation. Finally finished with college, she heads to her favorite shabby motel
on Florida’s Gulf Coast where her aunt and uncle always save her room
twenty-four. She quickly finds out, though, that The Gull Motel is not just her
home away from home. It’s hers to manage while her aunt and uncle take an
extended trip.
Skip McComber, The Gull’s former maintenance man, has been
working on Savvy’s nuts and bolts for years. Now the new owner of the bar next
door, his mission is to renovate a pirate bar while being a walking temptation
for the girl he can’t get off his mind.
For Savvy, keeping her cool running a motel in Florida heat
is one thing, but navigating the steamy waters of a former fling takes a whole
other kind of savvy. In addition to the motel and the man next door, Savvy
stumbles on a plot to swindle land from the residents of Barefoot Key. Devalued
properties tumble like dominoes until Savvy musters her colorful crew from The
Gull Motel to make the pillagers walk the plank.
Buy
Links:
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | SMASHWORDS
First
chapter:
Chapter One
Vacation. Despite my brainy
reputation, this was one of the smartest things I’d done in a long time. When
my middle school math teacher shortened my name from Savannah to Savvy, I took
on a persona that drove me all the way through college at the top of my class.
But now, I planned to put my brain on ice and my butt in the hot sand at my
aunt and uncle’s lovably shabby beachside Florida motel. It was the most savvy
thing I could do while I played an endless waiting game with the job market.
It was a hot September morning when
I rolled into the steaming lot at the Gull Motel. Everything about it said Old
Florida. A miniature palm tree grew in a concrete planter in front of the Office sign. The few cars nosed up to
numbered doors looked hot enough to combust. It wasn’t a hotel, it didn’t have
the cachet. But it looked like a four-diamond resort to me as my burly Uncle
Mike swung open the frosted glass office door and grinned at me like Santa had
just landed on his roof.
“Your aunt’s got the margarita
machine going already,” he said, crushing me in a massive hug. The musty smell
of hotel air conditioning permeated his aqua blue polo shirt. The whole range
of my vision was aqua—the signature color of The Gull Motel. Its roof had aqua
trim, the windows were edged in the same paint, and the sign squatting on top
of a twenty foot pole in the parking lot boasted a white seagull outlined
against an aqua sky.
“Before lunch?” I questioned, the vacationer
in me at war with my responsible side.
Uncle Mike opened the back hatch
and manhandled my suitcase. He nodded toward his beloved motel. “You’re a
special occasion,” he said. “Vacation is important. Trust me. I’ve built a
business on it.”
For the long drive from
Michigan—where autumn had started to show its colors—I wore old comfortable
knee-length shorts and a t-shirt, but I was overdressed now. The clientele here
was more short-shorts and spaghetti straps than college dorm casual. I could
adjust. This was not my first trip to the Gulf Coast.
I followed Uncle Mike through the
office—dingy but familiar—and paused as he deposited my suitcase behind the
desk. Rita, the receptionist, had a phone hooked between her ear and shoulder
as she simultaneously checked in a guest. Somehow she managed to wave to me and
give me a raised eyebrow smile. An experienced multi-tasker, Rita could
probably smoke a cigarette, do her nails, and handle three guest complaints at
the same time. She pointed toward the patio.
Movement—blurred by
condensation—grabbed my attention. When my uncle slid the door open, a blonde
tornado hit me. I’d been coming to The Gull several times a year all my life.
One fact I could still count on was that Aunt Carol got smaller with age but
her hair got bigger. Compensation comes in many forms.
She pulled me into a tight hug.
“You need a nice cold drink.”
Carol hauled me over to a concrete
table surrounded by old metal chairs. The patio was large enough for several
tables and chairs, all shaded by aqua umbrellas. The cracked concrete floor
surrounded by a knee-high concrete wall didn’t necessarily invite guests to
linger, but the view did.
The wide white Florida beach ending
in a sparkling blue Gulf of Mexico said resort
even if the stacked two story building with parking right outside the rooms
said 1950s beach motel.
Carol raised the pitcher—also
filled with aqua liquid continuing the theme of The Gull—and started to fill
three glasses. She didn’t get to the third before Rita shoved the glass door
open and leaned out with the cordless phone.
“Better take this one, Carol,” she
said, holding out the phone.
Mike parked himself across from me
while his wife went inside. “Your aunt’s all excited to have you down here for
a few weeks. I think she wants to pick your brain about making a few updates
around here, figuring you got some great ideas with your degree.”
Fresh from college and an
internship to polish off my hotel and hospitality management degree, I wouldn’t
be bragging to say I had some ideas. But telling my aunt and uncle they’d have
to spiff up The Gull for a new generation that didn’t remember the moon landing
was going to be a tough sell. They loved the old place just as it was. Truth
is, so did I. I also loved my ancient slippers, but I wouldn’t wear them on a
date.
“I think she wants someone to go
shopping with, too,” he said, his broad smile highlighting deep wrinkles around
his eyes and stretching out his age spots.
“I could shop,” I agreed. “My
college clothes won’t work if I can land a spot in the management trainee
program I applied to.”
“The Grand Chicago. Heck of a fancy
place,” Uncle Mike said, raising his glass and clinking mine. “I’ll drink to
that.”
Thinking about the gleaming floors,
modern luxury, and five-star everything at the place where I hoped to start in
January gave me a little feeling of disloyalty. I would always love The Gull.
So what that it was a used Chevy and the Grand Chicago was a Rolls Royce? I’d
put in a lot of miles in a Chevrolet.
Carol left the sliding door gaping
behind her, striding quickly to our sunny table on the patio.
“My mother got arrested again,” she
said, picking up one of the margarita glasses and slamming half of it.
Mike pulled Carol onto his lap and
shook his head sympathetically. “What was it this time?”
“Trespassing again. One of her card
buddies bailed her out, but the police chief thinks she needs a babysitter.
That was him on the phone.”
“He’s a nice enough guy. But we’re
starting to know him better than we should,” Mike said. “Does this mean
someone’s headed for Michigan?”
Carol’s mother, Aunt Gwen to me,
was pushing eighty and still did water aerobics, played cards, and hosted
wine-making classes at her lakeside cabin. Located next to a vineyard, the
owners used to look the other way when Aunt Gwen gathered grapes near her
property line for her little hobby. I’d heard she sent them a bottle every Christmas
as a neighborly gesture. However, the vineyard changed hands a few years ago
and the new owners see her actions as more theft than eccentricity.
“Maybe just for a week until we can
talk some sense into her or build a big enough fence,” Carol said. “Too bad she
refuses to move down here. Says Florida is for old people.”
“Sounds like you’ll need
reinforcements this time.” Uncle Mike blew out a long breath. “We haven’t had a
vacation in a long time, and Michigan’s nice in the fall. Guess we’ll figure
out someone to watch over the place while we’re gone.”
They exchanged a glance and turned
a laser-beam look on me, making me feel like the one guy who knew the
combination in a bank that was being robbed. They glanced away quickly like a
search light moving on to its next target.
The loyal niece in me wanted to say
sure, coach, send me in. I have a degree
in hotel management, am nice to children and animals, and always flush the
toilet.
The vacationer in me wanted to
say…uh…I’m on vacation.
Carol sucked both lips into her
mouth and watched a seagull fly over. Mike scratched the short whiskers on his
chin and toed a chip in the concrete.
I tried drinking for distraction
and effect. Not that I could sustain that tactic for long. I can’t hold my
booze and I tend to crack under pressure faster than chapped lips in a Michigan
winter.
“Maybe I could—”
Yelling and barking exploded next
door and a half-naked man chased a huge yellow dog out of Harvey’s Pirate
Emporium and toward The Gull.
I jumped up. “Tulip!” Tulip was a
three-year-old yellow Lab who did not know she wasn’t a puppy anymore. She
stole things, slept in inappropriate locations, ate stray cigarette butts, and
was probably going to come home with a tattoo one of these days.
“Not again,” Carol said.
Tulip skidded to a stop, dropped
something shapeless and slobbery on the patio at my feet, and put her front
paws on my shoulders. I sat down hard in my metal chair, off balance and
getting licked like a tootsie pop. I was afraid she’d actually find out how many
licks it took to get to my center.
The man sweating and breathing hard
as he finished the race behind the dog already knew how many licks it took to
get to my center. Skip McComber had circled me for years, a bonus temptation
every time I visited my aunt and uncle’s motel where he’d been the maintenance
man since we were both sixteen. Last spring, the circle tightened considerably,
aided by a reckless spring break attitude and fueled by tequila.
I stood up and tried to compose myself
discretely. He looked as tempting as always. Tall, shirtless, eyes and hair the
color of caramel splashed with sunshine. In contrast, I looked like a refugee
from a pajama party. Shorts twisted, t-shirt violated, ponytail askew. Given
the heat burning my cheeks, it was safe to assume I was flushed like an
eighty-year-old jogger.
“This must be yours,” I said,
picking up the leather toolbelt Tulip had dropped at my feet. Covered in dog
slime and violated with teethmarks in several places, it was the dog’s latest
indiscretion. I could sympathize. Skip was my most recent fling, too.
He took the toolbelt and made a
slow show of slinging it around his hips. He kept eye contact with me the whole
time, like he was daring me to watch his seductive buckling up. I only let my
eyes slide south once. I was on
vacation. And he looked that good.
“Sorry about that,” my aunt said.
“Tulip thinks it’s a chew toy. At least your tools are still in it this time
and not scattered all over the sand. Most of them anyway.”
He broke his focus on me and smiled
at my aunt. “It’s my fault for encouraging her to visit me.” He dug a treat out
of his pocket and flipped it to the dog. She caught it in midair and tossed him
a look of slutty affection.
“Savvy just rolled in a few minutes
ago,” Carol said.
“I can see that,” Skip said.
“She was supposed to be enjoying a
vacation after all her hard work in college,” Mike added, “but something has
come up back home in Michigan with Carol’s mother.”
“Hope Aunt Gwen’s okay,” Skip said.
“She’s a hoot.”
Carol rolled her eyes. “She’s a
crazy old lady. Arrested again for liberating grapes from the neighboring
vineyard.”
“Probably only stole what she was
going to eat.”
“Or make into wine,” Mike said. “We
were just talking to Savvy here about taking care of The Gull for us while we
make a quick trip North.”
Mike, Carol, Skip, and even Tulip
stood in a line, looking at me like I had a stash of free tickets to Disney
World. Except Tulip maybe. She probably hoped I had bacon in my pockets.
“I believe I was just about to say
yes,” I said with as much cheerful enthusiasm as possible. Of course I wanted
to help my aunt and uncle. Hospitality is my business. And how hard could it be
to manage a twenty-four room beach motel with an established clientele and a
dedicated staff?
“Forgot to tell you we lost our
maintenance man last month,” Mike said, nodding at Skip. “He bought the bar
next door and he’s fixing it up.”
“Harvey’s Pirate Emporium?” I
asked.
“Yep,” Skip said. “But I got rid of
Harvey already.”
Harvey was a larger-than-life pirate
statue who stood, shading his eyes like a tobacco store Indian, outside the bar
entrance. After a few drinks, he looked either friendlier or more sinister,
depending on the drunk.
“Gave me the willies,” Skip said,
shrugging one shoulder. “Got him in cold storage in an old walk-in freezer.”
“Won’t be the same without him,” I
said. What I was really thinking was that The Gull wouldn’t be the same without
Skip and his extraordinary ability with his hands. “Who’s our new maintenance
man?”
“Don’t have one. Muddling through
for now, calling Skip over for emergencies,” Uncle Mike said.
“I can change light bulbs, but I
draw the line at using a plunger.”
“That’ll work,” Carol said.
“Any other surprises I should know
about?” I asked.
I thought a trace of tension
transmitted from Carol to Mike to Skip, but Tulip didn’t seem to notice and I
thought I was just seeing mirages in the heat.
“Gotta go,” Skip said. He ruffled
Tulip’s ears, flicked me a look, and strode across the ten yards of sand
separating his bar from my—temporary—motel. I had extension cords longer than
the space between our buildings, and it was going to be one tough job keeping
my focus on The Gull while my aunt and uncle were away.
********
Amie Denman: Where
Falling in Love is Fun!
Her Lucky Prize
Will Work for Love
He’s on Her Trail
a Rafflecopter giveaway
On Twitter @amiedenman
Giveaway
Amie
Denman is giving away a paperback copy of The Gull Motel (US only)
