Barefoot Season

by Susan Mallery

  Michelle glanced at the tray. Damaris had made her a roast-beef sandwich. Her favorite. There were chips and a small salad and a chocolate milk shake.

  She reached for the glass and scooped out a spoonful of whipped cream. “Thanks.”

  “Someone has to take care of you. You’re too skinny. How will you ever get a man?”

  For the first time since arriving home, Michelle laughed. “I don’t think getting a man is my biggest problem right now.”

  “A man would help.”

  Michelle thought getting through the night without having nightmares and waking up in a cold sweat was probably a better first step, but she didn’t say that. The information would only frighten Damaris.

  The other woman poked at the papers on the desk. “Is it bad?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.” She stuck a straw in the milk shake. “Do you think my mother screwed up on purpose?”

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t the type to have a plan. I think maybe it just happened.”

  “What about Carly? Did she help or hurt the inn?”

  Damaris shrugged. “I don’t like her very much, but I don’t think she did anything wrong.”

  Not exactly what Michelle wanted to hear. Carly’s low salary made her suspicious and their past made her want to show her the door. The deal with the bank was a problem, but more than that was the fact that Carly didn’t even know how to work the computer system. Her carefully handwritten notes proved that.

  If Carly wasn’t stealing, then it was all Brenda.

  “How long has Carly worked here?” Michelle asked.

  “Practically since you left. One day she was here. Pregnant. Brenda gave her one of the rooms. After Gabby was born, she moved into the owner’s suite and Brenda took the two bedrooms on the second floor.”

  Michelle wanted to ask what had happened to Allen. If Carly had been alone and pregnant, he’d obviously left. But why?

  “The customers like her,” Damaris said grudgingly. “She’s good with them, but she’s not the boss of me.”

  That made Michelle grin. “What are you? Five?”

  Damaris chuckled. Then her humor faded. “Are you going to fire her?”

  If wishes were horses, Michelle thought. “Not today.”

  “Soon?”

  “That eager for her to be gone?”

  “It goes back to the ‘boss of me’ thing.”

  “I’m the boss of you now.”

  “Good. I like that.” Damaris stood and walked around the desk. “Give me a hug. I’m going home.”

  Michelle stood, then winced as the fire surged through her and she nearly lost her balance.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. My hip.”

  “Don’t you have something you can take?”

  “I’d rather not.” She’d rather drink.

  Damaris put her hands on her hips. “You were always stubborn. You must get that from your dad. Take something. I’ll wait.”

  Determination gleamed from behind her glasses, telling Michelle this wasn’t a battle of wills she was going to win. Besides, by the time she got back to her motel room, the pill would have worn off and she would be able to drink as much as she wanted.

  “Fine,” she grumbled, then reached for her backpack. She fished out the prescription bottle and swallowed a pill. “Happy?”

  “Always.”

  * * *

  Michelle kept Carly waiting for two days. Despite the fact that they were spending their workdays in the same building, they seemed to be skilled at avoiding each other.

  Carly spent her time alternating between wondering if she should start packing up and praying she didn’t have to go. She was able to fake it enough with Gabby that her daughter didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong.

  Ann had asked to come in late, so Carly was in the gift shop at lunch on Thursday. Several customers were browsing the book section while a teenage girl and her mother sighed over the dolls. Carly rang up a teapot, then wrapped it.

  “I hope your friend loves it,” she said as she handed over the package. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I think so, too,” the middle-aged tourist said. “Have a nice day.”

  Carly gave her a friendly wave, then turned and nearly ran into Michelle, who had apparently crept silently into the store. Carly had to jump back and steady herself on the counter.

  “You have a minute?” Michelle asked.

  Carly glanced toward the customers. “I shouldn’t leave them.”

  Michelle eyed the few people looking around. She pointed to the alcove by the rear storage room. “What about there?”

  Carly nodded. She could see the cash register and know if anyone was ready to check out.

  She crossed to the doorway. Michelle followed more slowly, her gait uneven, her hip obviously troubling her. Carly wanted to ask how she was, but held the words inside. For all she knew, she was about to be fired. Again. Showing compassion in the face of that seemed to be giving away the grain of power she had left.

  She hadn’t decided if she was going to plead her case or accept her fate with dignity. Two nights of sweating her bank balance had done nothing to improve her lack of a bottom line and going through the Seattle paper hadn’t given her much in the way of job options.

  As Carly leaned against the door frame, she saw that Michelle looked more tired than she had when she’d first arrived. Lines of weariness and pain pulled at her mouth. Dark smudges shadowed her eyes and there was a gray cast to her skin. Her long hair hung limp, and if she lost any more weight, her cargo pants were going to slip off her skinny hips.

  Michelle braced herself against the wall.

  “Do you need to sit?” Carly asked, then wanted to smack herself for asking.

  Michelle shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  She was a lot of things, but fine wasn’t one of them. Carly told herself this wasn’t the time to remember that, years ago, Michelle had been her best friend in the world. That they’d grown up together until ugliness had ripped them apart. Still, she wanted to connect with her former friend, to talk about all that had happened, to find a common middle ground. To heal, she thought wistfully. Closure and something positive out of this mess would be nice.

  “You’re not stealing.”

  Michelle made the pronouncement with the ease of someone sharing facts about the weather. Carly’s head jerked, as if she’d been slapped. All the warm, gooey feelings evaporated until she was left with anger and the knowledge that she was a down-to-the-bone idiot for expecting anything close to friendship from the woman in front of her.

  “I thought maybe you were, but you’re not,” Michelle continued. “I’ve been over the bank statements and books for the past three years and I can’t find where you’ve done anything wrong.”

  If Carly thought she had a hope of surviving without her job, she would have walked away. Simply turned and disappeared into the afternoon, maybe after giving Michelle a well-deserved kick in the teeth.

  “How disappointing,” Carly snapped. “I’m sure finding out I’m the bad guy in this would be a highlight in your day.”

  “I’m due a few highlights, and you’re right. I’m disappointed. I would love to fire you.”

  “You did fire me.”

  “You didn’t leave.”

  “I wasn’t sure you meant it.” Carly hated to admit the truth.

  “I did,” Michelle told her flatly. “But it’s not a luxury I can afford.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Michelle studied her. “You have to keep this to yourself.”

  “All right.”

  “I don’t know why I’m about to trust you.”

  “If it’s about the inn, then you can trust me. I’ve worked here nearly ten years. I care about this place. If that’s not enough, then hey, I don’t steal. That has to be worth something.”

  Michelle’s left eyebrow rose. “Attitude?”

  “I’ve earned it.”


  Michelle closed her eyes for a second, then opened them. Emotions swirled through her green irises. Whatever she was thinking, the thoughts weren’t happy.

  “The inn is in trouble. Financially, we’re sinking. I was at the bank a couple of days ago and it’s bad.”

  Carly considered the information. “I don’t understand. We had a pretty decent winter. Lots of guests, considering the season. When I paid the bills, there was money in the bank.”

  “Not enough. Two mortgages were taken out on the property. Ten years ago, there wasn’t one.” Accusation sharpened the words until they were a knife.

  “The renovations,” Carly breathed, knowing they had to have cost a fortune.

  “Something you pushed my mother to do.”

  “What? No. They were her idea. We had to get the roof repaired and things sort of spiraled from there.” Mostly because Brenda had gotten involved with the contractor. Getting him to do more work had kept him around.

  “Sure. Blame the dead woman.”

  Carly straightened. “You can rewrite history all you want, but that won’t change the facts,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “The renovations were your mother’s idea. She’s the one who wanted to build this gift shop and expand the restaurant. If you need proof, I can show you the files. She did the drawings, made notes. This was her vision. I wanted to spend the money on remodeling the bathrooms.”

  Aware of the customers close by, she consciously lowered her voice. “If you’d bothered to come back even once, you’d know that.”

  “Don’t make this about me,” Michelle told her. “Trust me, you don’t want to fight with me. I’m not who you remember. I can take you down.”

  Despite the tension between them and the seriousness of the moment, Carly laughed. “Seriously? You’re threatening me physically? You were in the army, not the CIA. You can’t kill me with a matchbook cover, so get over yourself. You’re moving about as fast as a woman in her late nineties and you’re obviously in pain. But this is so like you. Reacting without thinking. You’re still impulsive.”

  “You’re still annoying.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Double bitch.” One corner of Michelle’s mouth twitched as if she were about to smile.

  In that nanosecond, Carly felt the connection that had always been there. Then Michelle’s expression turned hard again.

  “I still blame you and as far as I’m concerned you’re the enemy.”

  “If that’s what it takes for you to sleep at night, go for it. I’m a single mother with a nine-year-old and sixteen hundred dollars in the bank. Making my life more difficult isn’t going to be much of a stretch, but sure. If you need to do that to feel important, I can’t stop you.”

  Michelle’s jaw tightened. “Then it’s in your best interest to keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself.”

  “All right.”

  Michelle looked away. For a second it seemed that her shoulders slumped, that she was giving in to defeat. Carly waited, not sure if the weakness was real or a way to trick her. Before she could decide, the moment passed and she drew in a breath.

  “The inn’s financial state is desperate,” Michelle began, then explained about the overdue mortgages and threat of foreclosure.

  Because she needed one more thing to keep her up at night, Carly thought grimly, horrified and yet not even surprised by the news.

  “She never said a word. Never hinted. Four months ago we were looking at catalogs of French linens.”

  “Tell me you didn’t order any,” Michelle said.

  “We didn’t. But we could have.” Carly looked around at the gift shop. “How could she have done this? Don’t bother answering. I’m just talking out loud. This is so her. So her.”

  Anger joined disbelief and resignation. Anger that Brenda, who had seemed to care about Gabby, would have put the child in harm’s way.

  Carly and Brenda had talked about the future so many times. How Carly would become a partner and then have financial security. The inn would never make her rich, but having money in the bank, a college fund for Gabby, the comfort of knowing she could afford a decent used car every six or seven years, would have been enough.

  “I cared about her,” Carly murmured, more to herself. “I was there for her when she got sick.” She looked at Michelle. “I was there when she died.”

  As expected, Michelle’s expression didn’t change.

  “She screwed us both. Do you want to keep your job?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to keep the inn. The bank has conditions. The loans have to be brought up-to-date. We have to maintain better than an eighty-five percent occupancy through the summer. That’s twenty-six rooms at any given time.”

  Michelle hesitated. “There’s one more thing. They want you to commit to stay on.”

  The words sank in slowly. “You can’t fire me?”

  “You sound smug.”

  “I’ve earned it.”

  “How the hell do you figure that? I’m gone thirty seconds and you weasel your way in here, taking advantage of my mother, sucking this place dry.”

  Carly glared at her. “That’s crap and you know it. I didn’t weasel my way into anything. I’ve worked my ass off here for practically no money. I work ten- or twelve-hour days, I take care of all the guests. Since I’ve been here, our repeat business is up sixty percent. Do you think they come back because your mother made them feel welcome? It was me.”

  “Aren’t you a saint.”

  Carly angled toward her. “I’m someone who was here, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Color stained Michelle’s cheeks. “I was away defending your country. Getting shot at.”

  “You were hiding. You didn’t have the courage to come back. You stayed away because it was easier.”

  “What’s your excuse?” Michelle asked, not denying the words. “If everything was so difficult, if you had to work so hard, why didn’t you leave?”

  “Because she told me I would get a piece of the inn. That I was earning my way into owning part of it.”

  Michelle stared at her for several seconds. “It wasn’t hers to give,” she said quietly.

  “I found that out recently.” That lie had been the hardest to handle.

  “I told you the inn was mine. Before. When we were kids.”

  “I thought you were bragging.”

  “Maybe if you’d believed me, none of this would have happened.”

  “What does that mean?” Carly demanded. “That the inn being in trouble was my fault? You’re not listening.”

  In the background a bell tinkled. She turned and saw that all the customers had fled the store. So much for selling anything else this morning.

  “I want you to stay on,” Michelle told her. “I’ll draw up a contract. It will give you job security.”

  Something Carly could appreciate. “I want to stay in the owner’s suite. It’s the only home Gabby’s ever known.”

  Michelle’s mouth twisted. “Fine.”

  Carly desperately wanted to demand a raise, as well, but if the inn was in enough trouble that Michelle was willing to promise employment for a period of time, then there wasn’t going to be any extra cash for her. Still, she would work harder at saving. She would come up with a plan, and when her contract ended, she would be prepared.

  “Thank you for taking care of Brenda. At the end.”

  The words were as shocking as the news about the inn. Carly blinked. “You’re welcome.”

  “I’m sure it was more meaningful for her than having me here. After all, you were the daughter of her heart, something she mentioned frequently in her emails.”

  Serve and point, Carly thought grimly. Michelle had learned to go for the throat.

  “I’m not going to apologize for taking care of someone who was dying,” she snapped. “Twist it however you want. I know what happened. But if it bugs you so much, maybe you should have come home. Or not left in the first place. Of cour
se, you wouldn’t have had to run off and join the army if you hadn’t slept with my fiancé two days before the wedding. Considering you were my maid of honor, it was a bit of a shock for all of us.”

  “For you, most of all,” Michelle said. “You knew what he was, what he’d done. Why did you marry him?”

  “I was pregnant. I didn’t think I had much of a choice. I wanted to avoid being a single mother.” She gave a hollow laugh. “Not that it made a difference.”