by Annie Rains
Kaitlyn cringed. As Mitch had already pointed out, the website was slightly behind the times. “The rooms aren’t named after romantic couples but that’s a genius idea.”
“I thought so too, especially since you’re such a romantic-movie buff.”
“You’re a closet buff,” Kaitlyn accused.
“I only watch them with you, and only for the popcorn and soda you provide.”
Kaitlyn laughed, suddenly sad that she and Josie wouldn’t be having any of those girls’ nights in, watching movies and stuffing themselves silly, anytime soon.
“Now go make it happen. I, on the flip side, need to get started on articles for the January issue of Loving Life.”
“Or you could try sleep for a change,” Kaitlyn suggested.
“In broad daylight? You must be crazy.”
After they hung up, Kaitlyn went to retrieve her list from the coffee table. She grabbed a pen and added, “Update website.” She’d loved what Josie had written about the B&B. It made her want to come and visit this place herself. And she couldn’t wait to name the rooms. The interior designer in her already had the wheels spinning. The first room could be named after Anne of Green Gables. Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe were the first fictional characters to ever make her heart skip a beat. The room could be done in a multitude of pasture greens with antique furniture from the early 1900s.
Yes. A smile molded her lips. This was exactly the kind of work that had thrilled her in interior design school. This was going to be amazing. She was going to transform this inn into everything the feature article Josie wrote had promised. In two very long, sleepless weeks.
* * *
Mitch had been plugging away at the list that Kaitlyn had given him over the last few days. There were just a couple of items left to do but those would wait until tomorrow. Right now, he needed to check on his mom, who’d looked exhausted when he’d left her early this morning.
He packed up his toolbox that he kept in the cab of his truck and gave Kaitlyn a wave on the way out, forgoing talking to her because, one, he was tired, and two, he’d been keeping his head down, focusing on his work—or trying to—instead of allowing himself to get distracted by her. She was definitely distracting. The way she walked. The way she twirled her hair around her index finger when she was lost in thought. Her every little mannerism was driving him insane. How the heck was he supposed to work with her for two months?
Climbing in his truck, he drove to the stop sign at the end of Mistletoe Lane, turned the corner, and pulled into his mom’s driveway, letting out a deep sigh of relief when he cut the engine. His mother drove him crazy too but in a completely different way. No doubt she was inside preparing dinner just like she’d done every night since he’d arrived, even though he’d insisted she didn’t need to.
He climbed out of his truck and headed up the porch steps. “Mom?” he called as he stepped inside.
The TV was blaring as he entered. He was doubly accosted by a thin veil of smoke in the air. “Mom?” he said, adrenaline firing through his veins. Like a hound dog on a scent, he followed the smoke to the kitchen just as the alarm started shrieking on the wall overhead. There were two items on the stove top, one of which was bubbling over and spilling onto the hot surface with a sharp sizzle. He grabbed the handle to remove it and then jerked back as the heated metal stung his palm. “Mom?”
The smoke detector continued to wail in his ear. Where the hell is she? He grabbed a dishtowel and pushed the overrunning pot to the back of the stove. Then he turned the stove’s dials off on the back panel. Finally, the alarm silenced.
As he walked briskly back through the empty living room, he scanned the surroundings for his mom. He followed the hallway down to her room and paused at the sight of her lying across the bed. “Mom!”
She wasn’t moving. Not at first. She began to stir as he grabbed one of her shoulders and gave an urgent shake. The smoke detector must have been loud enough to alert the neighbors. How had she napped through it?
Her eyes fluttered open. “Oh, Mitch, you’re home,” she said groggily.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, giving her an assessing once-over.
She grimaced and scratched the side of her cheek. “Nothing. I guess I dozed off. I was just—” Her eyes widened. “The stove! I have food cooking on the st—”
“Already turned it off,” he said, concern tightening his chest. “Mom, the smoke detector was going off, and you didn’t wake up.”
Her brows pinched above red, tired eyes. “Really?” She sat up, moving slowly for a woman who never slowed down.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine.” She laughed softly as if to think otherwise was silly. “It was just a long day between the two houses I cleaned. I only intended to rest for a minute.”
Mitch didn’t like what he was hearing. He remembered being so tired when he was in boot camp that he would practically pass out as soon as his head hit the pillow. A grenade could’ve gone off and he wouldn’t have woken, as tired as he was. He didn’t like to think that this was how his mom was living these days. He knew she was serious when she cleaned houses. She scrubbed the floors and cabinets by hand, vacuumed, dusted. It was the reason everyone in Sweetwater Springs wanted to hire her. “The house could’ve caught fire,” he said.
“Oh, I would’ve woken up eventually.” She patted his knee as he sat beside her on the bed. “Don’t worry about me. Are you hungry?” she asked, flipping the subject.
“Do you ever stop?”
She shook her head. “It’s not often that my only son comes home to visit. I love cooking for you.”
“Not tonight.” He got up, walked over to the headboard of her bed, and propped up several pillows. Then he pointed. “You’re sitting right here and having dinner in bed tonight.”
Her mouth fell open to protest.
“No arguing. I’m serving you here, and I’ll eat beside you.”
She chuckled softly. “Okay. That sounds nice.”
“Good.” He watched her climb under the covers and sit up against the pillows. Then he went back to the kitchen and got to work finishing their meal. But he wasn’t hungry anymore. Instead, worry sat heavily in his stomach. His mom was one of the strongest people he knew. She was always caring for others and evidently neglecting herself in the process. While he was here, he’d change all that, he promised himself. At least that was one good thing to come out of this situation with the bed and breakfast. If he and Kaitlyn really could revive the place and she did buy out his half, then perhaps he could pay off his mom’s mortgage. He’d continue to send her money too, of course, and her days of working to the point of exhaustion would be over.
“Here we go,” Mitch said, carrying their dinner plates into the bedroom a few minutes later.
“You really are the best son a mom could have.” She secured her plate of baked chicken, brown rice, and green beans on her lap.
He took the spot next to her.
“It’s burnt,” she commented as she stabbed her fork into the dry chicken breast. “My fault.”
“I like it burnt.”
She snorted. “Liar. But I love you for it. You’ve been here a few days already. How long are you staying this time?”
He swallowed the bite of chicken he was chewing. It tasted more like cardboard than actual food. It struggled to go down almost as much as his next words struggled to come up. “I’ll be staying longer than expected.”
“How long?” she probed.
“Two months.”
His mom whipped her head to the side. “You’ll be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas!”
Not by choice. “I have some things to take care of.”
Her smile engulfed her face. “Well, this is reason to celebrate. Maybe we should open the bottle of champagne I keep in the refrigerator.”
Mitch laughed unexpectedly. It felt good in comparison to the stress he’d been shouldering just being in Sweetwater Springs. “No. After din
ner, you’re going to sleep while I clean up the kitchen.” He popped another bite of extra-crispy chicken into his mouth and chewed.
She was quiet for a moment. “Well, if you’re staying for any amount of time, you should know that Brian Everson is—”
Mitch held up a hand, every muscle in his body suddenly tense. “Stop right there.” He had a rule. He didn’t talk about the Everson family. He kept his distance out of respect and a promise he’d made when he was eighteen years old. Shutting the door on any information about the Everson family was for his own sanity. He was a fixer but no matter how hard he tried, he’d never be able to fix what had happened to Brian in the accident.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kaitlyn lay across the couch and yawned. She wasn’t ready to head to bed just yet. Not when there was so much to do. She pulled her sketchbook toward her and stared down at the basic layout of the house. It was two stories with the main entrance opening into a formal living room. To the right was the sitting room, where she was now, and to the left was a dining area. The B&B had five guest rooms upstairs and living quarters for the host on the first floor.
Most curious was the first-floor ballroom. What had her grandparents done with a ballroom? She never remembered seeing it when she’d come to visit as a child but those were very brief trips hallmarked by smiley face pancakes, piggyback rides, and Grandpa Henry reading her books by the fireplace.
Kaitlyn drew a question mark in the box on the inn’s layout that represented the ballroom. She’d keep that room closed off for now. Any guests that came to visit didn’t need to go there. All they needed were their own rooms, which she’d already started preparing. The rooms didn’t feel quite as romantic as she wanted them to yet. Grandma Mable had made them cozy enough but Kaitlyn wanted to make each one unique and unforgettable. She envisioned guests wanting to come again to experience a different room.
With another yawn, she traded her sketchbook for her laptop and settled it over her thighs. Then she opened a browser and searched for romantic interior designs on Pinterest. She’d always gained inspiration from what others had done before her. “Why reinvent the wheel?” one of her professors had liked to ask in college. “Just redecorate it.” Kaitlyn liked that philosophy. She’d loved everything about interior design school. Being there had only solidified her desire to create beauty in her environment.
Scrolling down the Pinterest search page, she looked for something that would catch her eye and then froze when she came across a design she’d done for Bradley Foster. With her design firm, she’d worked for lots of important people in New York—mayors, athletes, newscasters, business executives. But Bradley was her first celebrity job. Designing a room for him had been a dream come true. A step in the right direction for her career, or so she’d thought.
A sick feeling slithered through her stomach as she stared at his image. Being an action movie hero, he didn’t lack for muscles. He had dark hair and eyes that could intimidate any bad guy on-screen and make any female with one good eye swoon. Heck, his good looks aside, the man’s voice had enough appeal to attract the opposite sex from one end of the world to the other.
Below his photograph was a picture of a majestic-looking living room that Kaitlyn had helped design. Most clients didn’t get involved with the details of the work but Bradley had. He was always there, and at first, it was exciting. Then there was a moment when she’d thought Bradley might try to kiss her while working on that front room pictured on the computer screen, but she’d diverted his attention. She wasn’t romantically interested in Bradley Foster, world-famous movie star or not. For one, he was married with kids. He was just getting carried away from being in such close quarters, she’d reasoned, making excuses for him and putting it out of her mind. But his advances had only escalated after that. He’d hired her for another job, and she’d agreed because it was the opportunity of a lifetime. How could she possibly say no to Bradley Foster?
Kaitlyn closed her laptop with a huff. She was done with this walk down memory lane. She needed every bit of her energy—physical, mental, and emotional—to get the Sweetwater Bed and Breakfast up to par on a nickel-and-dime budget. And that meant not letting herself get sidetracked by thinking about her ex-client.
Or by drooling over Mitch.
* * *
Christmas music floated through the overhead speakers at the local hardware store as Mitch headed inside. Really? It was barely November. Plus, there was no need to put shoppers in a gift-buying frame of mind here. All he needed was a chimney brush and some pipe extensions to check off yet another item on Kaitlyn’s to-do list.
On his way through the aisles, he also grabbed a couple of large tarps to cover the living room, a pair of goggles, and a face mask to keep him from inhaling any smut or ash.
As he was heading to the checkout, he heard someone call his name.
“Last-Ditch Mitch!”
A groan settled deep in his throat. He hated that nickname. Turning, he saw Tucker Locklear grinning at him. Looking at his longtime friend, Mitch wouldn’t know that the last couple of years had been rough on him, losing his wife Renee. The only clue was the dark telltale shadows under Tuck’s eyes that even his Cherokee Indian complexion couldn’t hide.
“Hey, man. I thought the lighting in here was playing tricks on me,” Tuck said as he approached.
Mitch shook his head and then Tuck’s hand. “No, I’m home for a while.”
“Yeah? How long?” Tuck was a physical therapist now, which was fitting because, as an adrenaline junkie, Tuck knew injuries and how to treat them. He’d likely strained or broken every muscle and bone in his body over the years.
“I’m helping the Russos’ granddaughter fix up the B and B for business.”
Tuck’s brow lowered. “Really? I thought that place was closed now that Mable has passed. I’m sorry about that, by the way. I know you thought a lot of her.”
“Thanks.” Mitch folded his arms at his chest, applying pressure to the ache there. He did miss Mable, more than he wanted to let on. Henry too. That old couple had been as good as family to him. “I actually inherited half the business,” Mitch confided. He hadn’t even told his own mother yet. If he wasn’t careful, she’d find out from someone in town before he got to tell her himself. That wouldn’t be ideal for either of them.
“Wow. That’s great, man. So you’re going to run a bed and breakfast now that you’re out of the corps? Is that the plan?”
“Not a chance,” Mitch said without hesitation. “Can you see me baking cookies and playing nice with difficult guests?”
“I don’t know.” Tuck shrugged a shoulder. “Your muscles are a tad oversized and maybe a little intimidating but you’re nothing but a big bear, in my opinion. I think you’d be good at it.”
Mitch narrowed his eyes. “Not happening.”
Tuck grinned wide. “So, at least a couple weeks, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Great. I’ll call Alex and set up a night for us all to catch up. Maybe a case of beer over at the bluffs for old times’ sake.”
“That’s still illegal,” Mitch pointed out.
“True. And since you and Alex are both law enforcement now, I guess we’ll just knock a few back at the Tipsy Tavern.”
Mitch nodded. He and Alex had always wanted to be police officers growing up. They’d both been junior cadets in high school and had planned to attend police academy together. After the accident though, Mitch had needed the quick ticket out of Sweetwater Springs that the military recruiter had offered him. He’d achieved his dream of working in law enforcement by becoming a military police officer while Alex had stayed local.
“Did you hear that Skip runs the tavern these days? His Uncle Jake retired and handed over the reins,” Tuck continued, oblivious to Mitch’s mental sidetrack.
“Skip Mazer runs a bar?” Mitch asked, blinking his old friend back into focus. One Christmas tune in the background switched out for another as Tuck slapped a hand on
his back.
“See what happens when you stay away too long? Everything changes.”
Not everything.
“I’ll bring you up to speed when we go out.” Tuck started to walk away and then jabbed a finger in Mitch’s direction. “I have your number, and you better answer. I can get Alex to put out an APB on you if you don’t.”
“Hanging out sounds good. I’ll answer,” Mitch promised, offering a wave and continuing toward the checkout again. A night of drinks with his old friends would be fun, he told himself. Catching up on the goings-on in Sweetwater Springs would also be good. There was never a risk of running into one of the Eversons at the tavern. Most of them were too good to hang out with the locals. At least that was Mitch’s perception. Except for his former classmate Brian Everson, who’d always been a nice guy.
Mitch got in line and shifted back and forth on his feet, trying not to let the guilt settle in around him like it usually did when he thought about Brian. The sweet holiday music compounded his agitation and chipped away at his patience as he waited in line. Bah humbug.
After finally purchasing his items, he climbed into his truck and drove to the B&B, where Kaitlyn was on a ladder leaning against the large wraparound front porch. She was at least ten feet off the ground.
Cursing under his breath, he pushed open the driver’s side door and headed over. “What do you think you’re doing?” he barked.
She whipped her head around to face him and squeaked as she momentarily lost her balance. Her body swayed in the air.
Mitch’s reflexes were primed. He took off running toward her and anchored the ladder as it shifted.
“You scared me to death!” she accused, white-knuckling the ladder’s rungs.
“Well, you shouldn’t be up there. Especially when there’s no one here to help if you get in trouble.”
“I was doing just fine until you shouted at me, thank you very much.”
He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. One hardheaded female wasn’t enough in his life, apparently. Now he had both his mom and Kaitlyn Russo to deal with. “Please come down,” he said, tempering his frustration.