by Bella Andre
"I appreciate you telling me that, but you didn't waste a single second of my time. I need to learn this inn from the ground up, and that's what you were showing me. Most people wouldn't have the guts to hand me rubber gloves and a scrubber."
He could easily read the surprise on her face as she flushed and said, "Okay then, let me know if you need anything else today. Otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow. And this time, you have my solemn vow that I won't ask you to get on your knees with a scrub brush."
But as she walked away, Liam found himself having the dangerous thought that it would be more than worth it if she did, if only so he could spend more time with her.
CHAPTER NINE
There shouldn't have been anything exciting about bumping into each other as they made beds and vacuumed floors, but even doing completely mundane tasks with Liam got Christie's heart moving too fast.
Especially since she was still reeling from that one beautiful, heart-stopping smile that he'd given her at the registration desk earlier that morning.
She still couldn't believe how good he'd been about doing whatever she tasked him with. He hadn't once acted too important for cleaning bathrooms or dusting. Even Wesley complained about cleaning rooms on days when they were short-staffed. But Liam had simply gotten to work and done a heck of a job. Maybe even a better job than she, given how distracted she'd been by his nearness.
But the craziest thing of all was not so much that she could feel herself falling under his spell--it was that moment in the guest room when he'd seemed just as captivated by her. As though brushing soap off her cheek had been only an excuse to touch her.
On her way to the front desk, Christie caught sight of herself in a hall mirror. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were flushed, and her hair looked like she'd been driving in a convertible with the top down all afternoon.
She must be crazy to think Liam was attracted to her, she thought as she pulled out her hair band and tried to quickly finger-comb her hair. She didn't have to see pictures of the women he dated to guess his type. Polished. Highly educated. Perfect.
Not that it mattered, she reminded herself. Because even if he was attracted to her, and even if Wesley's disappearance hadn't been hanging awkwardly between them, she still wouldn't allow herself to go near him with a ten-foot pole.
Once upon a time, Liam's mysteriousness, and the hints of pain in his eyes, would have had her giving herself over to him, like a modern-day beauty to the beast, turning herself inside out to save him--and win his love. Only, all the while, she'd inevitably end up losing herself more and more. Until the day he decided he was done with her.
Christie knew all about losing, about trying to rebuild herself into something whole again. A look back into her relationship file told a clear-cut story. One handsome, dangerously mysterious man after another. Wesley had been the only deviation in the pattern, but that was only because she'd been trying to swing as far as she could in the opposite direction.
She absolutely refused to fall into the old trap again, couldn't repeat the same cycle she knew by heart. Especially not when one Kane brother had already left her in the lurch.
For once in her life, she was going to be strong and smart rather than letting her contrary heart lead the way. She was going to save her emotions for a man who was capable of returning them.
"Sorry I've been gone all day, Alice," she said as she approached the desk.
"Don't worry about it," Alice said, and then, "Hey, did you do something to your hair? Or are you wearing different makeup?"
"No. Why?"
Alice studied her a little more closely. "Maybe it's just that your cheeks are flushed from cleaning rooms. It's practically a workout the way you do it."
Oh God, she hoped Alice wouldn't put two and two together and realize what--who--was actually responsible for her flushed cheeks. She could only imagine the gossip in town if people thought she was already drooling over her ex-fiance's older brother...
"You know what?" Christie said as she grabbed her down coat. "We're pretty low on fire logs. If you don't need me at the front desk, I'll head out and bring some in before you go for the day."
"It's really cold out there," Alice said, "and we probably have enough logs to last the next couple of days."
But Christie had already shoved her feet into her snow boots and was heading outside. The crisp, cold air shocked the breath out of her for a moment. But instead of turning around and heading back into the warmth of the inn, she was glad for the way the cold woke her up.
Because she couldn't daydream about impossible happily-ever-afters--or the most beautiful smile she'd ever seen--in this kind of weather.
*
Liam was surprised to find his father at home, lifting a heavy sander out of his truck instead of off working one of his construction jobs around the lake. "I've got the other side, Dad."
Neither of them said anything more until they'd carried the sander into the house and up the stairs to his parents' bedroom. Most of the furniture had been taken out. Only the bed frame and mattresses were propped against the wall.
After they put down the sander, his father said, "I could use an extra hand with the bed too, if you don't mind."
When Liam was a kid, he and Wesley had played hide-and-seek in the huge king sleigh bed. His father had made the head-and footboards out of a birch tree he'd cut down himself. Growing up, Liam had thought his father was the biggest, strongest man in the world. Taking in his father's gray hair and slightly gnarled knuckles, he wondered when that had changed. He hadn't spent much time with his father since leaving for college. Suddenly, Liam realized it was one of the things he regretted most.
"I'm happy to help," Liam told him.
Moving the heavy frame was a two-man job. No question about it, he thought when his muscles complained at the weight, he had spent too much time behind a computer these past years. As a boy growing up in Summer Lake, he'd always been outside. Boston had plenty of nice spots, but nothing compared to his hometown.
"Couldn't have done that without you," his father said after they'd cleared out the room. "I've been meaning to refinish these floors for a long time. Figured since work is a little slow right now, it would give me a chance to finally get your mother off my back. You know how she's been wanting me to redo these floors since you were in high school."
Liam was about to suggest they head down to the kitchen to discuss Wesley's possible whereabouts when his mother called up the stairs, "Liam? Henry? Are you up there?"
Liam thought he saw his father's shoulders tense and his mouth tighten at the corners. That made two of them.
Susan was standing in front of them before either man could reply. "Oh good, I'm glad you're here, honey," she said to him, and then to his father, "I hope you didn't scratch any of the walls getting that bed frame out."
"We were careful, Susan," Henry replied in a flat voice.
Odd. Liam had never heard his father respond to his mother like that. What was going on here? First, Wesley disappeared. And now, his father was practically standing up to his mother. If Liam added in the way Christie kept getting under his skin, it was starting to feel like the earth was shifting on its axis.
His mother raised her eyebrows at Henry's curt reply before reaching out and putting a hand on Liam's arm. "When I saw your car, I was hoping you were here to tell us that you've heard from Wesley."
Regardless of how he felt about his mother, the hope in her eyes was difficult to see. Especially when he didn't have any good news for her. "He did send me a letter. Similar to the one he left you." He ran a hand through his hair, using the movement as an excuse to shift away from his mother's touch. "Unfortunately, he didn't say where he was going or for how long."
Susan's face fell. "How could he just leave us all? It isn't like Wesley to do something like that."
Without an answer for his clearly distraught mother, Liam could relay only the information he did have. "I've spoken with several of Wesley's friends, and n
one of them have heard from him either."
"I can't help but think that none of this would have happened if Christie hadn't come here. Obviously, things weren't good between them. Perhaps that's why he felt he had to leave."
An instinctive urge to defend Christie rose inside him. But his normally mild-mannered, quiet father beat him to it. "That's ridiculous, Susan. He adored Christie. Just like the rest of us do."
"Ridiculous? Adored?" His mother's color was high. "He was fine before they got engaged. Everything was just fine."
"No," his father countered, "everything was not just fine. And instead of blaming Christie for hurting your son, you need to open your eyes and give her credit for single-handedly holding things together at the inn."
Blinking rapidly in surprise, Susan turned to Liam for support. "Now that you're here, you can take over the inn for a while, can't you, honey?"
"I spent the morning working with her and can tell you firsthand that Christie is an excellent innkeeper. I have no intention of taking over for her or replacing her." Deciding to end the conversation--and this whole poorly thought-out visit--Liam turned toward the stairs. His father followed him, putting a hand on his arm before he could walk away.
"Thanks for the help, son. I'll be by the inn soon to see if you need me to return the favor and to catch up on what you've been up to." In a lower voice, he added, "I know this might sound strange, but unlike your mother, I'm not too worried about Wesley. Sometimes you need some distance to see things more clearly. Perhaps that's all this is for him--a chance to finally see things for what they are."
Too quickly, his mother was there again, following them down the stairs. "Don't go yet, honey. I've barely had a chance to talk to you since you've been back."
Even if Liam had wanted to stay, the workload at the inn was tremendous. "I've got to get back to see where I can pitch in."
Liam was almost all the way out to his car when his father called, "Your mother is sorry about her outburst. Please don't say anything to Christie about it."
*
"How dare you apologize for me!" Susan barely held in her outburst until Liam was gone.
"Someone needed to apologize," Henry shot back. "You were completely out of line talking that way about Christie."
"Why are you speaking to me like this? I'm not the one who hurt Wesley so badly that he felt he had no choice but to leave town."
"Whatever drove him away, it wasn't Christie." Her husband's normally cheerful, relaxed expression had settled firmly into disgust. With her. "Couldn't you see how upset she was when she gave us the news that they'd called off their engagement--and that they never should have made the mistake of getting engaged at all? She has never been anything but honest with us and everyone else in this town. Wesley should have stayed to face the music with her."
How could he possibly talk that way about their son? Susan went back on the attack. "You should be worried about Wesley, not some girl we barely know. What if all along she was seducing him into giving her control of the inn?"
Henry's bark of laughter at the word seduce shocked her. "Seduce him? Are you kidding? There wasn't an ounce of spark between the two of them. You had to see that. If you ask me, not getting married was the best thing they could have done."
God, how she hated his talk of sparks. The sparks used to burn so brightly for her and Henry. Where had those sparks gone? For so long, she'd held out hope that they would come back. But now that Wesley was gone, sniping and fighting had replaced the heavy silences between them.
Leaving her nearly all out of hope.
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning, Christie woke shivering. The heat was on, and she hadn't kicked off the covers, but her bedroom was strangely cold again.
She half expected to see her breath in the air as she reluctantly got out of bed. She'd left the doors open to the living room when she went to sleep, and the heat should have come into her bedroom. Instead, it was as if there was some kind of invisible barrier there keeping the warmth out...and holding the icy cold in.
Over the past nine months, when she'd heard stories about the inn being haunted, she'd discounted them as small-town folklore. The thing was, ever since moving into the newly redone top-floor suite, she'd started to wonder if they might possibly be true.
Of course, once she stepped into the shower and let the water warm her up the rest of the way, she had to laugh at herself. The inn wasn't haunted. She was just tired from staying up and working on details for the festival long after everyone at the inn was asleep. With another big day ahead of her--one in which she needed to be at her best so that she didn't fall any deeper under Liam's spell while she trained him on the inn's day-to-day routine--she forcefully brushed the remaining suspicions from her mind.
The past few weeks had been nuts. Between Sarah and Calvin's wedding and Liam's appearance, she felt like she'd been juggling half a dozen slick and slippery pins while balancing a plate on the tip of her nose.
Today, she vowed, was going to be better.
Not just better, she thought as she got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. Today was going to be great. And the breathtakingly beautiful view out the window proved it. The sun was rising over the snow-dusted lake, yellows and golds and pinks radiating from the sky to the icy treetops on the mountains that surrounded Summer Lake.
For all that she longed to see the seven wonders and smell the salty scent of the ocean as it crashed on coasts all over the world, Summer Lake would always be a haven for her soul, for her dreams.
Liam being here and Wesley being gone didn't change that. This small town, her friends, her career as innkeeper--they were all important parts of her new life. She'd just have to hold out hope that one day she'd find the missing pieces: a husband who loved her as much as she loved him, and children to cuddle and play with and love the way her parents loved her.
Oh yes, it was going to be a fantastic day. She'd make sure of it. Any challenges that came her way, she'd face head on with a smile and courage. No matter what.
*
All morning long, while Liam worked in the small office behind the registration desk, Christie had been moving between the front desk and the dining room to oversee their guests' breakfasts and departures. She was cheerful, but not overly talkative. Interested without being intrusive. All in all, the perfect innkeeper.
He had to hand it to Wesley; his brother had done a great job hiring her to manage the inn. What she might have lacked in experience nine months ago, she'd certainly made up for with raw energy and sheer willingness to learn.
All night, he'd gone over the half-dozen good reasons to keep his distance. Foremost among them was that it was a small town, she was his brother's ex-fiancee, and he didn't mix business and pleasure. But Liam knew better than to think that any of these were strong enough to keep their attraction at bay.
In the end, the only barrier strong enough to do that was the fact that he despised secrets of any kind.
Christie's concern--and love--for his brother shone through so clearly that Liam didn't doubt she was keeping the secret because she loved Wesley and not because it particularly served her. If anything, he could see the way his brother's secret weighed her down. But she'd kept it anyway, even though Liam had told her over and over that he needed to know. And in the end, that was what he couldn't allow himself to forget. Not when secrets had done so much to destroy his past.
"Christie." A man's low voice carried through to the back office. "You don't know how much I've missed seeing your pretty face."
"Mark?" She sounded utterly taken aback. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you, baby. It wasn't easy to find this little town after a snowstorm, but you're worth it."
"How is your wife?" Christie's voice held a sharp edge Liam hadn't heard before. But as she asked, "And your children?" he realized the edge was dulled with pain.
He didn't know yet who the man was to Christie. But the sure knowledge that
he'd hurt her--and the way he'd called her baby--had Liam dropping the file he'd been reading and curling his hands into fists.
"That's what I came here to tell you," the guy said. "My wife and I are getting a divorce. I've been missing you so much, I couldn't wait any longer to come find you."
Liam reeled from the implications. Had Christie been seeing this man while he was married? His entire body tensed at the thought that she'd broken his one utterly unbreakable rule: Never get involved with someone who was married.
"I know you're probably still a little mad at me," the man continued in a cajoling voice. "But the truth is, I didn't realize until you were gone just how good you were for me. No one has ever taken care of me like you do." Liam could barely remain in his seat. Regardless of what Christie's relationship had been with this guy, Liam wanted to rush into the entry and ram his fist through Mark's face as he said, "Tell me how I can win you back."
But before Liam could jump to her defense, she said, "Do you really want to know?"
"I really do, baby."
"Go home. Tell your wife you're sorry you've been such a terrible husband and father and hug your kids. You don't want me. You only want what you can't have."
"Christie, I know you don't mean that."
Liam didn't like the edge that had crept into the man's tone. At last, he left the shadows. "Is there a problem?" He didn't waste much time looking at Mark, besides confirming that he was scum. Polished and well dressed, but scum nonetheless.
Clearly flustered and embarrassed as she realized that he'd overheard everything, she said, "I was just telling Mark that I needed to get back to work. Right away."
Her old lover's eyes moved between the two of them, narrowing before he returned his gaze to her. "When do you get off? I'll wait for you so that we can talk privately."
Before he could think about what he was doing, Liam put a protective hand on the small of her back. Though her warmth instantly permeated his hand, she stiffened at his touch, then shifted to the side so that she was just out of his reach.