McCormick's Creek Sweet Romance

by Jen Peters

  “You can pick me up at eight.” She smiled and slipped through the door.

  Mitch shook her perfume out of his head and went back to his client’s work for an hour, then couldn’t take anymore. “I’ll be upstairs,” he told his secretary.

  In the penthouse, he devoured a hearty roast beef sandwich while his grandfather only picked at his bread. Granddad perked up while Mitch talked about the happenings at McCormick’s Creek and gave a great belly laugh when Mitch related Ree’s determination to get the manager’s position. And then the chessboard came out.

  “I’ll warn you,” Granddad smirked, “I’m at the top of my game today.”

  “Hah!” Mitch retorted. “You just try.” He had been playing chess with his grandfather since his parents dropped him off when he was seven so they could go traveling. The old man had taught him well, figuring rightly that the advance strategy necessary for chess would go a long way toward training a young mind for the law.

  Granddad made his opening move and Mitch countered.

  “I can win even without my lucky queen, you know,” Mitch said. The queen his grandfather had awarded him when he was ten and had finally won his first match.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it,” Granddad said and moved another piece.

  Ten minutes later, Mitch tipped his king in acknowledgement of his grandfather’s win.

  “Where’s your mind, boy? That was far too easy.”

  Mitch shook his head ruefully. “I don’t know. Caught between work and McCormick’s Creek, I suppose.”

  “And a woman?”

  Mitch reset the board. “Not really. Not unless you count Melanie Xanthe.”

  His grandfather looked up sharply. “You watch out for her, son. She’s a brilliant attorney, but she’s had motives behind motives ever since she started here.”

  “Don’t I know it." Mitch rolled his lucky queen between his fingers. “We’re going out tonight—Primavera’s a favorite—but I learned a few months ago to keep her at arm’s length.”

  Granddad narrowed his eyes. “Just you be careful." He motioned for Mitch to take the first move. “Now, can you concentrate a little better this time?”

  Mitch helped Melanie into the Porsche precisely at eight that evening. He didn’t understand how a woman could be so graceful in such a low slung car, especially wearing a dress slit up to her hip.

  At the restaurant, the maitre d’ welcomed them personally and escorted them to a secluded, candlelit table. Mitch hadn’t realized that her cancelled date was to have been so romantic.

  The food was exquisite, the setting was rich, and their conversation ranged from casework to politics to literature. And Melanie wasn’t even trying to play footsie under the table, despite his grandfather’s warning. So why wasn’t Mitch enjoying it?

  Perhaps the monkfish and prosciutto reminded him that he still needed a chef for the inn. Perhaps it was worrying how, in a firm filled with ambitious attorneys, he could hold his head up if anyone found out how much he disliked it? Perhaps it was concern for his grandfather’s health.

  Or perhaps it was the memory of a shining face and long black curls and an eagerness for life he hadn’t experienced for a while? Ree would love this place, and would be memorizing all the details with an eye to what she could do with them at the McCormick Inn.

  He gave himself a mental shake and turned back to Melanie’s words. “It was a great little indie film, with incredible acting,” she said.

  Mitch had no idea which film she was talking about, but it didn’t really matter. “Did you happen to see Under the Clock?” he asked.

  “No, but…” Melanie paused, her eyes wide and dark. She hesitated, pursing her lips, then said, “The Isola di Roma is coming up. It would make a great getaway. We could explore Rome together. And maybe take the corporate jet?”

  Mitch chilled inside. This was what his gut had been telling him the last few months. Exactly what his grandfather had warned him about. He fixed a smile on his face. “Sorry, no. The inn is taking up my whole summer.”

  Something flickered across Melanie’s face. Disappointment? Frustration? But it was gone as quickly as Mitch could sense it, replaced by a smooth facade.

  “I understand,” she said, taking a sip of wine. “But you will have to show me this inn someday, you know.”

  He chuckled inwardly, trying to picture her there, then nodded. “Be glad to, when you have some free time. It’s a totally different world from here.”

  Different pace, different people.

  A place he couldn’t wait to get back to. And a certain person he was going to get to know better.

  Chapter 8

  Ree tried to keep her face neutral when Mitch showed up in the doorway of the inn dining room after lunch Tuesday. He was sure there a lot for having a high-powered legal job in Portland. Didn’t he have any other clients? Or maybe he just didn’t trust her?

  Between her instinctive reaction to his looks and charisma, and the need to show him she was competent, her hello came out a confused grumble.

  “Do you need a break?” he asked casually, leaning against the door jamb.

  That was not what she expected him to say. She looked at her notes and shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

  They walked along the creek, starting in the mansion’s back yard and heading out of town. The sun glinted through the trees, and squirrels scampered through a couple of maples overhead.

  They stopped where the creek widened, and Mitch pitched a rock or two.

  “Tell me something about you I don’t know,” he said.

  Ree watched the water tumble over the rocks as she thought. She didn’t think she ought to share her dreams of travel—he’d just hired her, after all, and she should want to stick around. It would be too intimate to tell him about old boyfriends, especially finding the last one in bed with somebody else. Too deep to tell him about her father? Probably.

  Then Ree smiled, still watching the creek run. Running away to somewhere else. “I set the deck on fire my senior year of high school.”

  “You what?”

  She turned to him. “Mom was meeting someone at the flower shop, to design a centerpiece or something. So I started the grill up.”

  “Charcoal and lighter fluid?”

  She play-slapped his shoulder. “We do have gas grills here in podunk-ville, I’ll have you know. Anyway, the chicken was going great, but smoking like chicken does. I kept an eye on it, but I was doing other things too. I took the chicken off when mom came home, turned the grill off, and we went inside to eat.”

  “Yes?”

  “So I looked up later, and the grill was still smoking. Like half an hour later. So we went out and it wasn’t the grill, it was the deck railing behind it!”

  He snorted.

  Ree elbowed him. ‘Don’t laugh, I could have burned the house down!”

  “Flames and fire department?” he asked through his chuckles.

  “No flames, just smoldering and sending up billows of smoke. And yes, the fire department came because someone else had seen it, but we had already doused it with water.”

  “Hmm, should I watch out for you when you light fires? Or when you get distracted?” he teased. “Or just when you have two things in close proximity?”

  Mitch was in pretty close proximity himself. Close enough she could stretch up and kiss him. No! She wasn’t going to jeopardize the best job she’d ever had. She made a face to hide her thoughts. She knew she was flushed, but it was hot this afternoon, right?

  “Hey, look.” He nudged her and pointed. A hawk dived toward a pasture from where it had been circling high above.

  “Yup,” she said. “Probably a red-tail.”

  “Oh, like you know all the hawks in the area?”

  “My best friend knows all the animals,” Ree said. “I know some of the human ones." Why did she say that? She snuck a glance at him. “Your turn. Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a la
wyer, I’m from Portland. Not much else about me.”

  His walls weren’t going to come down easily. She suddenly felt like taking the challenge on, but she’d have to go about it carefully. “Tell me what high school was like. Were you a book nerd?”

  He smiled. “No. Well, probably. I mean, I studied hard because I wanted into a top law school on my own merits, not because my grandfather got me in. But I did a few other things.”

  Mitch was silent, watching the hawk that was now back up in the sky.

  “What other things,” Ree prodded.

  After a long moment, he finally answered. “I tried out for the basketball team. I used to do free throws in the gym when I needed to work a problem out in my head.”

  “You were a jock?”

  “Not really. But when it rains three-quarters of the year… well, inside is nice. Anyway, I was pretty good at them. I knew I couldn’t keep up with the others in endurance, but I figured I could shoot baskets with the best of them.”

  “And?”

  He smiled ruefully. “And on tryouts, I only got about 1 in 10 in the hoop. Worse than dismal.”

  Ree was surprised. Mitch seemed like he would succeed at whatever he started. That his concentration and will would drive the resolution. “That’s awful,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “What happened?" His warmth came through his shirt, and her hand tingled.

  He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “Never did figure out why. I finally decided it just wasn’t meant to be, that I was meant to be spending my time doing something else.”

  “What did your grandfather say?”

  “Not much. His bark is worse than his bite. He helped me sort through a few things, but let me run my life the way I wanted, as long as I was headed in the right direction." Mitch turned to her. He took her hand from where it still lay on his shoulder and twined his fingers into it. The touch made her tingle down to her toes.

  He rubbed his thumb gently over her knuckles. “Want to walk a bit farther?”

  The sensation of his hand enclosing hers sent tingles up her arm and down her spine, and her voice trembled. “Sure. We can head down Oak Hill Road and see if we can get closer to the hawk.”

  Was he as attracted to her as she was to him? He was her boss—shouldn’t they be avoiding this?

  * * *

  Ree’s hand was soft in his as they left the creek, and Mitch felt more relaxed than he had in years. Far more relaxed than on that “date” with Melanie, anyway. They said hello to Mrs. Murphy sitting on her front rocker, watched a cat saunter across the street. Justin drove past in his red pick-up and waved. Ree waved at a girl driving the other way, a dog in the front seat of her car.

  “Who’s that?” Mitch asked.

  “Robin Cooper, my best friend from school. Actually our whole lives—I think our mothers had us in strollers at the park together.”

  “Any relation to Justin Cooper?”

  “His little sister." She started to say more, but he watched her mouth clamp shut. He wondered what she wasn’t saying.

  “Right, her mom is Nora, of Nora’s Place? And she was my waitress the other day?"

  Ree nodded.

  “I gather times are tough around here,” Mitch said. What could he say that would let him get behind her public facade?

  She gave him a sideways look. “They’re tough everywhere even if you’re middle class, not rich. Obviously times aren’t tough for people with plenty of money.”

  Mitch raised one eyebrow. “People like me, you mean.”

  Ree kept her eyes on her sandals. “Well, no offense, but you aren’t exactly struggling to make ends meet.”

  “No, but I work hard for my money." Blasted hard, he thought, not to mention the toll it took on his conscience. He wasn’t sure there was a high enough salary to make up for that.

  “I’m sure you do,” Ree said. “But some people work just as hard and don’t have near the rewards you do. I don’t know if it’s what you’re born with or the opportunities you have or what happens along the way. Or maybe it’s just your talent and drive to succeed. I just know some people have the same drive and no matter what they do, they can’t make life work the way they want.”

  “You sound like you know that from experience.”

  She looked away. After a moment of silence, he changed tack. “And what do you want, Ree Swanson?"

  “To get out of here, of course.”

  “It’s a nice town.” Mitch protested.

  Ree snorted, a totally unladylike snort. “Everything I’ve done from the time I was 15 was to go somewhere else, to get away from McCormick’s Creek and travel the world. I majored in Hospitality and Tourism, not just because it’s interesting, but because it could take me to other countries. And because it would be impossible to run a hotel and stay here." She looked at him. “And then you went and bought the old mansion.”

  “Mr. McCormick bought it."

  “Maybe legally, but it’s practically yours. You don’t think about anything else while you’re here, and you’re here more than any big-shot lawyer ought to be.”

  Mitch shrugged and didn’t answer.

  “Well, you might like small town living, but I’ll do what it takes to get out of here. Whatever it takes.”

  Mitch looked sideways at her. There was a hint of ruthlessness in her voice. Just how far would she go to make her dreams come true? “You could always rob the bank,” he said with a smile.

  Ree shouldered him good-naturedly, then stumbled herself. “That was actually one of my teenage schemes,” she laughed, recovering her balance. “That, or marry a millionaire. I dropped the idea of bank robbery pretty quickly, but I can’t tell you how many scenarios I dreamed up of some rich prince coming to town and me convincing him to carry me away.”

  Mitch raised an eyebrow, but inwardly he was cursing. Another woman after a guy with money. Did that early desperation carry over to now? If so, she sure came at it differently than Melanie Xanth and her tenacious talons.

  But the way his breath caught when he saw her was more than he’d ever felt for Melanie. There was more here than just avoiding another gold-digger. If he could handle Melanie, he could handle Ree’s small-town version.

  Besides, how could she know how wealthy he was? Nobody here knew he was a McCormick. Nobody here knew he would inherit his grandfather’s millions as well as the controlling interest in the law firm.

  Mitch was determined to keep it that way. He liked being an unknown go-between.

  But he truly hoped Ree was as innocent as she first seemed.

  * * *

  “I cannot believe I said that to him!” Ree lamented later that night. She sprawled across the lawn in Robin’s backyard and covered her face with her hands. “I don’t think I can show my face the next time he’s in town.”

  “Too bad you can’t suck words back like you can chug Diet Coke,” Robin said. She reached over and pulled Ree’s hands down. “Come on, it’s not like you want to date him or anything, is it?”

  “Yes. No! I mean, he’s awfully good looking, isn’t he? But he’s way out of my league.”

  Robin spewed soda onto the grass. “He’s way out of your league? Girlfriend, have you looked in the mirror lately?”

  Ree just shook her head. She knew what she looked like. Other than her hair, which she had to admit was glorious, her appearance was rather plain. Or maybe not plain, but not beautiful. She didn’t have thick, dark eyelashes, her nose was too straight, her mouth a bit too wide. And she certainly wasn’t a lovely size six. Just average, which she often felt described her whole being.

  She looked up into the night sky. The moon was high, but the stars were still strong. She could pick out the W of Cassiopeia easily, and the Big Dipper hovered above the trees, but she still had to put her hand up and measure to find the North Star. And that was about all she remembered from her high school astronomy class.

  She wondered if Mitch knew anything about astronomy. Was he looking out over the sa
me sky right now?

  She sat up suddenly. Why in the world was she wondering about that? Mitch was her boss. She was NOT interested in him.

  Was she?

  She glanced over at Robin, stroking a puppy in her lap and idly plucking grass stems with the other hand. There was one way to clarify her feelings—her old standby left from high school. The idea was to see how you felt when you gave up something, or someone, you weren’t sure you wanted.

  Ree opened her mouth, suddenly nervous. “Hey Robin?” she finally said. “Would you like to date Mitchell Blake?"

  There. So how did she feel when she offered him to her friend?

  “Me?” Robin grunted. “You’ve got to be crazy. He wouldn’t look twice at me. In fact, he hasn’t looked twice, and he’s been around the restaurant enough.”

  But it didn’t matter what Robin thought—Ree’s stomach was tense just from asking. She obviously did care what Mitch thought of her. Cared enough to be jealous just posing the question. She thought back to their walk that afternoon, the way his hand felt when he took hers.

  Yes, she had caught her breath. Yes, it sent a tingle through her. And if she admitted it, she looked for him first thing every time she went to the inn, even when she knew he wouldn’t be there.

  So now what? There was no way he’d even think about her that way—they were too different. But how was she supposed to work when she had a crush on her boss?

  Ignore it, that was how.

  This was business. The McCormick Inn was simply experience to help her get out of town and into the wider world. Anything extra needed to be set aside as a distraction.

  Chapter 9

  Distractions, Ree thought repeatedly over the next couple days. Her life was nothing but distractions. They had to find a way to pull customers up to McCormick’s Creek, and she was sure she could do better than the list of advertisements the PR firm had set up. They could certainly do weddings at the inn—could they turn it into a destination wedding spot? And she had told Mitch there were special things about the town that outsiders wouldn’t know—how could they capitalize on that? Hikers and mountain bikers weren’t particularly their target audience.