by Kyra Jacobs
Kayla took those words to heart and began to devour her breakfast. After the night she’d had, it was no wonder she was starving. Had bacon and eggs ever tasted so good? She glanced up in Ruby’s direction when she paused to take a drink of her coffee, and was surprised to see the older woman frowning down at the clipboard before her.
“Everything all right, Ruby?” Kayla asked.
“Oh, yes. Just so much left to do before we open for the season. I’m usually further along in our preparations by now, but we’ve had some issues come up unexpectedly that set us back a bit.” She waved off the list and came over to refill Kayla’s coffee mug. “Nothing we can’t handle, I’m sure.”
“Does it take a lot of people to run a place like this?”
“Not really. For the longest time it was just John and me. Our children had grown and moved off.” Ruby looked across the dining room toward the sun streaming in through the nearest window and smiled. “John always said he bought me the inn because he knew I needed something to take care of. I would have settled for a puppy in those days, but he joked that we wouldn’t have to housebreak an inn. Though there have been times when the inn nearly broke us.”
Her smile dimmed momentarily then brightened once more. “Business really picked up in the nineties, though, so we brought on a groundskeeper. Then a cleaning gal. When Miles finished college, he volunteered to oversee my finances. Truthfully, I think he’s after his inheritance.” Ruby leaned in close with a devilish grin on her face and winked. “Too bad I’m planning on spending every last cent myself.”
Kayla couldn’t help but laugh.
“These past few years he’s done a fine job of spending it for me, though,” Ruby continued. “New beds. New dishes. New paint. New landscaping. The boy’s run me ragged. And then he comes up with this cockamamie idea to bring in a chef—a chef! Whatever was wrong with my cooking, I asked.”
“What did he say?”
“That I work too hard.” Ruby scowled. “And that bringing in someone with the title of ‘chef’ would boost our occupancy rates. Bah! Titles and rates are for number crunchers, not innkeepers. Let me cook my own darned food.”
“Well, I, for one, think your cooking is amazing.”
“Thank you, dear.” Ruby sighed. “To be honest, though, Maddie is much better than I ever was when it comes to presentation. She has a way with all those artsy-fartsy sauce decorations. I suppose if that’s what people want—”
“Then that’s what we’ll give them,” said Miles, strolling in from the lobby. “We aim to please. Speaking of which, Kayla, your tow truck just arrived.”
“Oh.”
She met Ruby’s gaze and watched as the spark in the innkeeper’s eyes dimmed. Or more likely, Kayla imagined it did. Ruby had hundreds, if not thousands, of guests, and she was just the latest one. And now, whether Kayla wanted it to be or not, playtime was over. Ruby had an inn to run. Kayla had a career to salvage, rent to pay, and a man who’d gifted her one amazing night to try and forget.
“Great, thank you.” She slid out of her seat and forced a smile onto her face. “I’ll go and get my things.”
Brent lowered the arm of his miter saw and watched another sliver float to the ground from a tricky piece of crown molding. God, he loved his DeWalt. Two years old and this baby still cut like a hot knife through butter.
“You can come out now,” Miles called from the doorway. “It’s safe again.”
Brent pushed his safety glasses up off his face and threw an annoyed look at his cousin. “Safe to do what?”
“Leave the barn. Tow truck just left, she’s gone now.”
Brent worked to keep his face neutral. He’d prepared himself all morning, knew it was for the best that she go. So why did he feel like someone had just knocked the wind out of him?
Nice job, you idiot. You stood back and let your one bright spot in an otherwise dreary existence walk right out the door.
He crossed the room and selected another piece of crown molding from the uncut stack. “Good. So now that you no longer have to worry about keeping up appearances, you ready to start helping me?”
“I’ll have you know I was working inside, not socializing. Just because mine takes place behind a computer screen doesn’t mean it’s not work.”
“If you say so.” Brent leveled a grin at his cousin.
“Oh, great. You go and get laid for the first time in decades and now I get to suffer through your good mood?”
“And that’s any worse than suffering through my bad moods?”
“Good point. By the way, I swung by your house on my way back from town, fed your pooch.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, you owe me now.” Miles picked up a can of primer. “She still insisting on white?”
She?
Oh. Ruby. Brent ran a hand over the back of his neck. Best to hurry up and get the other “she” out of his head before he went and said something stupid in front of Miles.
“Yeah. And as much as I hate to admit, it’s gonna look sharp against those pale lilac walls. Will be a bitch to keep clean, though.”
“As long as neither of us has to clean it, I don’t really care.”
“Then you’d better hope the cleaning woman Ruby lined up doesn’t quit on her, too. Oh, and you might want to bump up Maddie’s grocery allowance.”
Miles pried the primer’s lid open and threw Brent a quizzical look. “What does our chef’s budget have to do with housekeeping?”
“Everything. If you want to fill this place, you need to give people a reason to come here. Maddie’s one hell of a cook—we need to talk her up, advertise her menus or something. She could really put the Checkerberry back on the map.”
Miles just shrugged, his gaze intent on the paint he was stirring. It wasn’t like him to back off from an argument, no matter how small or irrelevant. And when he changed the topic to baseball, Brent knew something was up. Because Miles never instigated a conversation about baseball the day after his Yanks lost.
Great. As if trying to get Kayla off his mind wasn’t worry enough.
Chapter Eight
Kayla lay on the tattered, hand-me-down couch wedged into a corner of the tiny mezzanine at Smithson Motors, staring up at the auto repair shop’s ceiling joists. She hated that she’d had to call her father with the news she wouldn’t be by to see him today. After spending so much of her energy trying to take stress off of him, the last thing she wanted to do was add to it. Which is why she was in the midst of telling one doozy of a lie.
But hey, what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Right?
“So you went up to see Tommy on Friday, without checking the weather first?” he asked, doubt clear in his voice. Understandable, since she had made a habit of giving him the five-day forecast every time they spoke. And the one for the weekend. And maybe the extended forecast, too.
“Yeah, I guess I was just so surprised to be”—punished—“granted some time off that I didn’t bother to check. Heck, it’s been so long since I took a vacation I guess I forgot how to do it.” She laughed, and hoped like mad her father couldn’t hear the hollowness in the sound as well as she could.
“Well, I’m relieved to hear you didn’t have to drive in that freezing rain. It was all over the news Friday, accidents everywhere. Roads can turn slick without a moment’s notice in freak storms like that.”
Tell me about it. “No worries, I’m safe and sound here with Tommy. We’re just kicking back, hanging out, like the old days.”
Her gaze shifted to the shop’s dark office. Oh, how she wished Tommy was here to keep her company. He and Pixie Cut had yet to return from their trip to Windsor, and she’d been lonely as all get out with them gone. Of course, she’d had no intention of remaining in Mount Pleasant once the tow truck picked her up yesterday. But Jimmy had taken one look at her Impala’s front end after hoisting it out of the ditch and deemed her baby undrivable. Neither of them had been able to reach Tommy, so Jimmy made the executive de
cision to bring both Kayla and her car back to Smithson Motors—the shop her brother co-owned with Rex Smithson.
With her car out of commission, she’d spent the last twenty-four hours rotating between moping and brainstorming ways to get back in her boss’s good graces. But without a decent wifi connection, her progress had been rather limited. Sure, she could have checked in to a nearby chain hotel, but God-only-knew how much she was looking at in car repairs, and money was already tight. And while she knew from the placard in her room at the Checkerberry that they had wifi there, no way was Kayla going to go back and ask Ruby to grant her another free night’s stay.
No, to do that would only make things worse. She’d managed to make a clean break from the inn with its kindly owner and her surprisingly agile and eager to please handyman grandson. And as much as being away from them for only a few hours had bothered her, she had a feeling it’d be a heck of a lot harder to walk away from the Mastersons and their cozy Checkerberry a second time.
“I’m so thankful that you and your brother have stayed close over the years, sweetheart. After your mother passed, well, I worried everyone would go their separate ways. She was always the glue that held our family together.”
The sincerity in his voice nearly drove her to tears. “We’re not going anywhere, Dad,” she promised quietly.
“You might not be, but Tommy’s as good as a Michigander now that he’s co-owner of that shop. I’m so damned proud of that boy.”
“Me, too.” Pride swelled in her heart as well. But unfortunately, her father was right. With Tommy out of state, that left Kayla to keep watch over their father. It didn’t matter that he was only in his early fifties, she planned to watch him like a hawk. After all, cancer had stolen her mother at an even younger age.
Her phone beeped in her ear. “Hang on, I’m getting another call.”
A quick glance showed it was the call she’d been waiting for all weekend. She checked the time: quarter to eleven. About darned time, little brother.
“Sorry, Dad, I need to take this. It’s Tommy.”
“Tommy? I thought you said you were there with him?”
Kayla froze, wide-eyed. Oh, God. She stank at lying, always had. And her father was the king of sniffing out lies.
“I am,” she said, digging the hole deeper. “But he stepped out a few minutes ago to grab us some breakfast from a place down the street. Must have forgotten what I asked for.”
“Breakfast? At almost eleven?”
“Love you, Daddy. Remember to take your cholesterol medicine, and I’ll call tomorrow, okay?”
“All right. I will. Love you, too, sweetheart. Tell your brother the same.”
“Will do.” She clicked to switch calls and took a deep breath. “Tommy?”
“Morning, Sis. Saw I’d missed a few of your calls—sorry about that. Did Jimmy get you all taken care of?”
“Not exactly.”
Her gaze panned out across the auto repair shop’s main floor. Rex Smithson had been looking for an apprentice to train and eventually be his successor. Tommy had been Rex’s perfect diamond in the rough, and not only helped bring in a steady stream of business from his college buddies but also helped to fix the place up. Still, it was a far cry from her suite at the Checkerberry Inn.
“What do you mean, not exactly?” Tommy asked.
“Well, he couldn’t get there until yesterday.”
“Aw nuts, really? I’m sorry, Kay. He usually makes good on his promises.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t his fault. The roads were awful, and he had other jobs in front of mine. Guess it was good Brent found me, since his grandmother owns a bed-and-breakfast and all.”
A scene involving tangled sheets and soft moonlight entered her thoughts. Kayla couldn’t help but grin as she remembered worrying when he first pulled alongside her on the road that he might try to take advantage of her.
“God, I hope that place didn’t cost you an arm and a leg. I’ve driven by there before, looks pretty fancy. Or at least, like it used to.”
“Actually, it didn’t cost me a dime. The innkeeper felt so bad for me, she wouldn’t let me pay.”
“Sweet. You didn’t have to wait too long for Jimmy to show up on Saturday, did you?”
“No, not too long.”
“Awesome. I worried about you all night Friday. Heather kept telling me you’d be fine, but I had this feeling something wasn’t right. Probably why I lost my shirt on Let It Ride. Oh, well, it was just good to get away for a few days, you know?”
Kayla smirked. “Yeah, I do.”
“So, was Jacober camped out on your doorstep, waiting for you to come home so he could beg you to come back?”
“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been there yet.”
There was a short pause. “What?”
“I never made it home, all right? When Jimmy and I got to the Impala, he said no way could I drive it. Something about front subframe damage. All I saw was a slightly crumpled bumper.” She scowled out across the shop floor at her battered car. Stupid ice storm.
“So what’d he do?”
“Towed the car to the only shop in town that wasn’t jam-packed with wrecks from the night before.”
“Which one was that?”
“Yours.”
Tommy chuckled. “Well, at least you know you’ll get a fair price. I’ll take a look at it as soon as I’m back. In fact, I can swing by and pick you up on my way. You did find someplace to stay last night, didn’t you?”
“Sure did. Though, I gotta tell ya—this couch you and Rex picked up? Yeah, not as comfy as it looks.”
“Please tell me you’re joking, Kay.”
“What? It’s not so bad, once you get used to the smell of oil and stuff.”
He cursed under his breath. “You’re nuts, you know that? Staying there with the heat turned down. Hell, I think Rex even said something about a mouse last week.”
“Oh yeah, definitely one running around. Mickey and I got acquainted last night.” A little too well, actually. The shop’s tiny bathroom definitely wasn’t big enough for the two of them. Made it harder to fall asleep, too, not knowing where the furry little beast had scurried off to after her introductory shrieks. “But hey, I survived. And when it got chilly in here I bumped up the thermostat a tad. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? No, what I mind is that my sister was stuck sleeping on our shitty couch last night. Why didn’t you just go back to the Check—?”
“The couch was fine,” she lied. “But if you feel that bad about it, you can make it up to me by getting back and fixing my car so I can be on my way. Honestly, I like Mount Pleasant and all, but the thought of being home and in my own bed has never sounded better.”
Even if Brent isn’t in it waiting for me. Though that would make it a whole lot more fun to come home to…
Kayla gave herself another mental slap.
“We’re about an hour out yet, but I’ll drop Heather off at her place and then head straight to the shop. But, Kay, I can’t promise anything without seeing the Impala.”
Panic seeped into Kayla’s chest. She couldn’t stay in Mount Pleasant another day. There was cleaning to do at home. Shopping to be done, redemption to be gained. “No promises? But you’re the world’s best mechanic.”
“Yeah, well, the world’s best mechanic doesn’t exactly have spare Impala subframe parts laying around his shop.”
She swallowed hard. “Can’t you just…buy them from one of the other shops in town?”
“No idea if anyone else has them, or has them and hasn’t already committed them to their own jobs. Look, sit tight and we’ll get something figured out, okay?”
In a fog of disappointment, Kayla thanked her brother, hung up, and tried to ignore the sinking feeling that it may be a while before she’d see Indiana again. A long while. She hoped like crazy that wouldn’t be the case. Because the sooner she could get back, the sooner she could stop lying to her father about being stuck here. Or wh
y she’d skipped town in the first place.
Brent collected his tools from the Gooseberry Suite Sunday evening and tried to compile a mental checklist of everything he had left to do before the Checkerberry opened. But his mind refused to cooperate. Instead, it kept shifting back to a certain someone he’d sworn he would be able to love, leave, and forget.
So far, he hadn’t had any luck with that last part.
He’d tried to stay busy Saturday, cutting, priming, and painting crown molding in the barn until well past dark. Miles had stuck around for no more than a few hours, which left the rest of Brent’s day much too susceptible to daydreaming. Which totally sucked, since he kept picturing Kayla’s peaches and cream skin under him. And over him. And on him.
Sheer torture is what it was.
That’s why he’d kept working. If he had to concentrate on an important task like not losing a few fingers to the saw, then he somehow managed to keep her off his mind. But as soon as he’d start a mindless task like stirring paint, those damned images would creep right back in.
When his strength had finally given out, Brent headed for the inn. He’d been unwilling to go home, to face a lonely house and cold bed. Instead, he climbed the rear staircase up to the second floor, made his way into the Strawberry Suite, and promptly collapsed onto the bed he should have slept in Friday night. After a quick text to Miles asking his cousin to check on his assuredly lonely pooch one more time, Brent fell fast asleep.
Damn it, how could one night with a perfect stranger have managed to slice through his emotional barriers? Before, he’d been utterly convinced he could survive on his own. Could live the rest of his days just me, myself, and I. But then Kayla had walked into EAT and turned that thinking on its head.
And a small part of him hated her for it.
The next morning at breakfast, Ruby didn’t question his decision to stay. In fact, for the first time in ages she didn’t even try to pry into his closed thoughts. Maybe the misery was plain enough on his face, or maybe it was because she seemed preoccupied with her clipboard of honey-dos. Either way, the dining room felt empty without Kayla, and that realization steered him from the table and right back out to the barn once the meal was over and plates had been cleared.