“Very well, Mr. Ackerly.” Phoebe Woodward marched a half circle around him, closed her front door, then marched the same orbital path back to the edge of the porch steps. With a glance over her shoulder, she tossed him a look of challenge. “This way, if you please.”
Barnabas fit his fedora back onto his head and gave a sharp nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
He’d expected the inn to be in town. Most rooming houses were, after all. But once they’d left Oak Springs behind, he realized he needed to adjust his expectations. Again.
Private. Romantic. Secluded.
That was how he’d need to describe the place. Give the isolated location a positive slant. Convince the client the inn would suit all his wooing needs. Ad copy bounced through Barnabas’s mind as they walked, the swish of Phoebe’s dark red skirt adding a rhythm to his thoughts as well as his steps.
Elegant lodging nestled in the quiet countryside. Take a walk down a country lane, hand in hand. Picnic by a stream. Surely there was a stream somewhere. Woo your sweetheart beneath the branches of the world-famous Kissing Tree. All right, it wasn’t world-famous. It wasn’t even state-famous. Barnabas tilted his head, his gaze ignoring the freshly plowed field on his right in favor of examining his thoughts more closely. Beneath the branches of an ancient love tree? No, that was drivel. Beneath the arms of a chivalrous oaken knight? Even worse.
Sentiment was not his forte. Maybe he could ask Miss Woodward to write something. He’d have to give her tight parameters—ad copy was a different animal from narrative prose—but she obviously had literary skill. Lippincott’s wouldn’t have published her work otherwise.
A school bell rang nearby, bringing Barnabas out of his head long enough to take stock of his surroundings. A fortunate happenstance, as he nearly missed Miss Woodward turning down a narrow lane to their right. Barnabas lengthened his stride to make up for his lack of attention and nearly strode past his hostess when she slowed to gesture to something invisible on either side of the drive.
“I’m thinking of planting a pair of rosebushes here,” she said, speaking for the first time since they’d left her home in town. “One on either side of the drive. To serve as a landmark of sorts, as well as to set a romantic tone for the guests’ arrival to the inn.”
A touch of charm that served a practical purpose. Impressive. Perhaps this Inn of Smooching Shrubbery wouldn’t be the disaster he’d imagined. Barnabas grinned broadly. “I think that an excellent notion, Miss Woodward.”
She blinked for a moment before a truly genuine smile blossomed across her face. An odd tightness closed around Barnabas’s chest. That unguarded smile utterly changed her appearance. No longer was she the timid girl with downcast eyes who wished to be left alone to her reading. Nor did she resemble the feisty entrepreneur determined to protect her visionary masterpiece at all costs. This Phoebe Woodward was entirely new. Entirely . . . enchanting.
Barnabas’s starched collar seemed to shrink against his throat. He swallowed roughly, forcing the sudden excess of saliva down his gullet as he jerked his attention away from the pretty blush that had scattered his focus. Well, that wasn’t true. His focus was as sharp as ever, just aimed at the wrong target. His job was to attract customers to the Kissing Tree Inn, not to imagine kissing the attractive innkeeper beneath the nearest tree.
“You’ll be able to see the inn and the Kissing Tree itself once we get past this line of trees.” Her voice had lost its defensive edge, bubbling with excitement instead.
His own anticipation swelled in reaction.
“I have to admit, it still takes my breath away when it bursts into view,” she said.
Barnabas smiled, intending to make a suitably polite statement about the value of dramatic impact, but the words prancing so smartly on his tongue did an abrupt about-face the moment he cleared the trees. They scrambled down his windpipe with astonishing speed, choking him in their hurry to disappear.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she asked.
Barnabas stumbled to a halt.
Good heavens. It wasn’t as bad as he’d imagined.
It was worse.
The Inn of Osculating Topiaries jutted up from the earth thirty yards down the lane—horrendously, garishly . . . pink.
Phoebe’s heart pattered as if little cherub wings beat within her breast. As soon as the first coat of Valentine Pink had been applied earlier this week, she’d known at once it would be perfect. Nothing said romance like lacy, delicate valentines. And while the color was a bit bolder than Comstock’s Modern House Painting recommended, she’d decided to be daring. It was important to create a memorable impression, after all.
“I selected a lighter fern-green shade for the gingerbread trim,” she explained, waving her hand toward the inn as if holding a paintbrush herself. “The painter I hired assures me the result will be stunning.”
“I’m stunned, all right.”
Phoebe tore her gaze from her beloved inn to stare at the gaping man beside her. His gaping didn’t appear to stem from enraptured delight as hers did, however. This gaping was more of the fish-out-of-water-in-the-last-throes-of-death variety.
The prickles so recently soothed by his praise of her rosebush idea sprang back to thorny attention.
She folded her arms over her middle. “You’re not the romantic sort, are you, Mr. Ackerly?”
The stuffy fellow didn’t look a bit abashed by her accusation. “No, Miss Woodward. I am not. But I do recognize the role emotions play in the customer experience. My preference is not what matters.”
Amen! Phoebe couldn’t agree more.
Mr. Ackerly looked her directly in the eye, one brow raising slightly. “Just as your preference is not what matters.”
Her preference? Of course her preference mattered. This was her inn.
“What truly matters,” he continued, “is the customer’s preference.”
Phoebe’s mouth, open to refute his claim about the insignificance of her opinion, snapped shut at his third pronouncement. Horsefeathers. He had a point.
But who was to say her preferences wouldn’t match those of her customers? That cheerful thought returned a bit of starch to her spine. She was a romantic at heart. She’d been observing courting couples around the Kissing Tree since she was a child. Studying the carvings left in the bark. Dreaming up tales that delighted readers all over the country. She might be a spinster with little personal experience in romantic love, but she’d cultivated a base of knowledge that made her far more of an expert on the matter than Mr. Persnickety over there.
“I daresay my customers will have more in common with my sensibilities than with yours, sir. After all, the people who wish to reserve a room at the Kissing Tree Inn will be those looking for an atmosphere of love and romanticism. An atmosphere I intend to provide with or without your approval.”
“You are, of course, correct. I am quite lacking in romantic sensibilities.” Mr. Ackerly dipped his head in a shallow bow, yet his gaze was anything but conciliatory. “However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have other areas of expertise that could be of value. You might understand the intricacies of the heart, but I understand the intricacies of business. Both are necessary if this enterprise is to succeed.”
She wanted to passionately defend her dream against the cold, unfeeling logic oozing from the man before her, but she knew instinctively that railing at him would change nothing. It would only make her look childish and histrionic. A man as stiff and stodgy as Barnabas Ackerly would not respect theatrics. Such behavior would simply lower his opinion of her.
An outcome, strangely enough, she found she wished to avoid, despite the fact that she found him rather irksome at the moment.
“Perhaps the interior will be more to your liking,” she said, her jaw only partially clamped as she strode forward.
He fell into step beside her. “I look forward to seeing it.”
“The furnishings are on order, so the building is empty, but that gives the
paperers more space to work.”
“You’ve already ordered wallpaper?”
Why did he sound like a man before a firing squad, asking if the bullets had been loaded?
“Samples.” Phoebe took him around to the back of the inn and waved to the workman on a ladder who was brushing that beautiful pink paint along the second-story siding. “I intend to use a different pattern in each of the bedrooms, though I’m considering keeping things more consistent in the common areas downstairs.”
She marched up the steps and let herself in through the back door.
“This is the kitchen.” Sure to be his favorite room, with so many practical items on display. Cabinets. Stove. Sink. No irrational sentiment anywhere to be found. But that was all about to change.
Phoebe pushed through the swinging door into the dining room, where a pair of workmen were pasting sheets of wallpaper above the cherrywood wainscoting to help her envision which patterns she liked best. The blue-and-white one being affixed to the outside wall consisted of grapevines and frolicking cupids. The second sample, on the wall shared with the kitchen, offered subtle green and pink shades with lush floral bouquets and adorable little birds looking on from their garden perches.
A rough worktable in the middle of the room held a half dozen additional options, all handpicked for their fanciful designs and romantic overtones. Making a selection was going to be difficult, but once she could see them all on the wall, she knew the choice would become clear.
Mr. Ackerly crossed to the worktable in four strides, passed a quick glance over her painstakingly pared-down samples, then swept the entire collection into his arms, turned, and strode from the room.
four
Hey!”
Barnabas ignored Miss Woodward’s affronted call, not stopping until he stood outside in the fresh air. Well, fresh air doused in paint fumes. Pink paint fumes, which had to be the most toxic variety. Heaven knew his brain had been addled from their effect the moment he’d spied the Inn of Unfortunate Fuchsia-ness. Only one thought currently sparked in his fogged mind with any clarity—he had to stop the atrocities before the damage to the inn, and his future, became irreparable.
“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just abscond with my wallpaper samples. That’s thievery!” Phoebe Woodward lunged off the back porch and grabbed his arm.
“I’m not stealing your precious papers, madam,” Barnabas objected. “I’m merely holding them hostage temporarily so we might negotiate a few terms.”
She harrumphed as she released his arm and crossed hers over her chest. “Kidnapping carries more prison time than theft, I’ll have you know.”
Barnabas nearly smiled. Miss Woodward might have atrocious taste in inn décor, but her verbal sparring skills were on point. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been so invigorated by a conversational adversary—male or female.
“Rest assured, all captives will be returned in good health as soon as negotiations are complete.” He glanced around. “Is there someplace nearby we can speak privately?” He didn’t want to question her authority in front of the workmen.
Miss Woodward exhaled heavily, then uncrossed her arms and strode north. “This way.”
He followed, straightening the wallpaper samples as he went, until he realized where they were heading. He’d been so focused on the inn, he’d failed to notice the tree for which it had been named.
An ancient live oak stood before him in stately grandeur. Barnabas’s steps slowed as his gaze climbed from the ground to the leafy, neck-crimping top. The gentle giant had to be at least thirty feet tall. Maybe more. And the width of the canopy . . . he couldn’t even estimate. Seventy feet in diameter? Eighty? It was the most magnificent tree he’d ever seen.
“This is amazing.”
The awe in his voice must have caught Miss Woodward’s attention, for she ceased stomping through the dirt and grass and turned to face him. The pique that had lined her face softened into a fondness no one could deny.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “But it gets better.” She actually smiled, as if his appreciation of her tree made him less a villain. “Come see.”
She pushed a group of thin branches upward and gestured for him to enter her sanctuary. He hesitated, the place feeling a bit too sacred for the argument he knew to be in store. But curiosity drove him forward. This tree had not only inspired the inn he’d been tasked with turning into a success, but it inspired the woman before him. A woman, he suspected, who was much more complex than her superficial affinity for overblown floral patterns and pink cupids would suggest.
Ducking his head, Barnabas stepped beneath the canopy. His breath stilled. Branches wider than his shoulders stretched above his head, then reached down like a grandfather’s loving arms.
“It’s magical,” he said.
“Isn’t it?” Miss Woodward slipped her hand through his elbow and drew him forward.
The touch surprised him so much that he nearly dropped his wallpaper plunder. Her hand felt alarmingly wonderful in the crook of his arm. And with the way she glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes filled with delight and secrets begging to be shared, he nearly forgot his purpose was confrontation, not courtship.
It was unfair, really. Taking a man unawares like that. Letting filtered sunlight dance over oneself like fairy dust. Smiling at him as if she were no longer cross. More than that—as if she actually desired his company. It stole a man’s sense. And apparently his vocabulary, for Barnabas could think of nothing to say as she drew him toward the massive trunk at the heart of the tree.
“This is where the true magic lies,” she said, her voice reverent as she released his arm and traced a set of scarred letters visible in the bark. “These are the oldest initials, carved a generation ago by a couple who found love under these very branches.”
A heart enclosed the letters AF and BE at a spot slightly below eye level. But other pairs of initials surrounded that first carving. Dozens, by the look of it.
“Kids started calling it the Kissing Tree, and before long nearly every courting couple in town found their way here, either before or after the wedding. According to local legend, Freda Bresden refused to accept her husband’s proposal until he’d carved their initials here.” A soft laugh escaped Miss Woodward as she traced a nearby FL and MB. “She dragged poor Max all the way from her front parlor to this tree, then made him dig out his pocketknife and engrave a forever symbol of their love before she gave him her answer.”
Miss Woodward glanced at him, a smile in her eyes. “Freda believed that once a couple’s initials were carved into the Kissing Tree, the lovers were guaranteed to remain dedicated to each other until death.” She turned away, a melancholy dimness dousing some of the light in her eyes. “For some, that dedication lasts even beyond the grave.”
She backed away from the trunk and turned to follow the path of a large limb that stretched above her head. As the branch gradually sloped toward the ground, she placed her hand against the bark, running her fingers lightly over the surface. When it came even with her face, she ducked beneath the limb and followed its downward progression until it was level with her waist. There her hand stilled, and her gaze fixed on a spot Barnabas could not see.
Rolling the wallpaper samples into a tight cylinder and tucking them loosely under his arm, Barnabas ducked under the branch and circled around behind his contemplative companion. A pair of initials were etched into the branch, the only initials on this section of the tree. HW and LW.
“My parents,” Miss Woodward said as she traced the heart that bound the two sets of letters together. “Hollis and Laurel. As far as I know, they’re the only couple to add their initials to the tree after being married for several years. I was five years old when they brought me here to make a memory. The most treasured memory I have of the two of them together.”
She glanced at him, and there was such a tender tranquility about her that Barnabas swallowed the words of sympathy springin
g to his tongue. Polite platitudes would ring hollow in a place rife with such personal significance. So he said nothing, just held her gaze and waited.
“It was their eighth anniversary.” She turned around and leaned her back against the limb that held a sacred piece of her family history. “Mama had suffered a fever a few months before, and it left her with a weakened heart. I was too young to realize what her growing frailty signified, but Father must have known the end was near. He came home early that afternoon, bundled the two of us up in the buggy, then drove us out here. He carried Mama in his arms and set her on the stone bench he’d arranged to have placed here before he commenced with the carving.” She gestured with a tip of her head to a white marble bench that had been hidden behind the large drooping branches of the oak.
“Father made a production of it.” Her face lit with fond reminiscence. “He stopped every few minutes to tell stories about how he and Mama met. How he knew right away that she was the one for him. Then, whenever he returned to carving, Mama would share tales about their courtship. Like the time Father rented a buggy and took her for a drive, only to have rain pour down on them. Their buggy wheel mired in the mud, and they had to ride one of the horses back to town. They arrived bedraggled, Mama’s dress utterly ruined. But it had been worth it, she said, to snuggle up against Father’s back as they rode. Arms around his waist. Cheek lying against his shoulder. She realized she could rely on him to see her through any hardship they might face together.”
As she spoke, pictures swirled in Barnabas’s mind. A pale, thin woman wrapped in blankets and wreathed in smiles. A little girl on the bench beside her, legs swinging as she thirstily absorbed the stories of her parents’ romance. A man determined to fill his wife’s last days with joy, not only out of an unwavering love for her, but to plant seeds of happy memories in the tender heart of the daughter they both cherished.
Barnabas had always respected his employer for his keen mind and no-nonsense leadership style, but seeing him through his daughter’s eyes gave him an entirely different picture of Hollis Woodward—one of a man ultimately motivated by love, not profit.
The Kissing Tree Page 10