by V. K. Sykes
So much for wanting to spend time with Morgan.
Jessie Jameson, looking cute as a button, fiddled with the karaoke machine while her boss, boatyard owner Mike O’Hanlon, took the microphone as emcee. He started with a mildly off-color joke, earning a reprimand from Father Michael and a laugh from everyone else. “Sorry, Father,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Anyway, everybody knows Roy likes to open the festivities every year with his, ahem, unique version of that Stevie Wonder classic, ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life.’”
Half the room broke into applause while the other half groaned. Roy cranked himself up out of his chair and gave a low bow. Miss Annie, seated next to him, rolled her eyes at her boyfriend’s dramatic gesture.
“Unfortunately, we’re going to have to forgo that wonderful treat tonight,” Mike went on, “because Roy’s throat is acting up on him again. He said he’s got a little head cold, though Miss Annie tells me he got hoarse yelling at the TV last night when the Red Sox were blowing that big lead.”
More laughter from the peanut gallery.
“Hell, no,” Roy groused in a scratchy voice after the din subsided.
“Hell, yes,” Miss Annie countered. “Boys will be boys.”
Despite her glum mood, Morgan couldn’t help smiling. It wasn’t a party on Seashell Bay unless Miss Annie and Roy were bickering.
She glanced over at the bar, where Aiden and Ryan seemed to be having a small argument. Whatever Aiden was saying, it made Ryan emphatically shake his head. Aiden kept at him though.
“So who’s ready to kick things off tonight in Roy’s stead?” Mike asked.
Aiden waved a hand. “Ryan and I are going to lead off with a duet, if that’s okay with everybody. Since neither of us has been able to make it back here on July Fourth for years, it’d be a real privilege to give it our best shot. It’s about time, right?”
People in the room started applauding, cheering, and whistling. Ryan seemed pained at first, looking straight at Morgan. The only times she’d ever heard him sing was in the church choir, but his voice had grown deep and rich when they were in high school, bypassing the crackly stage most young guys went through.
Morgan gave him a thumbs-up sign. Ryan rolled his eyes but smiled.
After a quick huddle with Jessie, Aiden looked relaxed in the corner of the dance floor as he held the karaoke mic while Ryan—with the other mic—shuffled his feet, looking embarrassed. It was incredibly endearing as far as Morgan was concerned.
Jessie slid a CD into the machine. The men switched their attention to the small screen in front of them.
“Folks, please don’t take any message from this song choice,” Aiden said. “It just happens to be one Ryan and I both know.”
Morgan recognized the song from the opening guitar notes—Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places.” She couldn’t help a chuckle, hoping none of her sometimes-prickly fellow islanders would take offense.
Aiden led off with the first verse, and then Ryan joined in on the chorus, adding his smooth bass to Aiden’s baritone in a harmony that sounded pretty good to Morgan’s ears. By the time the men reached the second rollicking chorus, more than half the people in the room were singing along. That clearly surprised Ryan and Aiden, who grinned at each other and started singing even louder. By the time they finished, just about everybody was standing and clapping. Morgan found herself applauding as hard as anybody, while Sabrina stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew an earsplitting series of whistles.
It was a stellar performance, and by the end of it, Ryan had clearly been enjoying himself.
The two guys returned to the table, shaking hands and getting high fives and fist bumps as they passed through the crowd. “Wow, Ryan can really sing,” Lily said pointedly to her fiancé.
“Har, har, funny girl.” Aiden said, thumping down onto his chair. “Anyway, I told him I hoped he wasn’t going to let me embarrass myself up there.”
Ryan smiled. “I’ve heard that tune in places so low it would make your hair curl. So I figured I might as well give it a shot when I’m in a room with the people I care about the most.”
He looked straight at Morgan, his expression conveying so much sincerity that she was taken aback. Ryan rarely gave any glimpses into how he felt about Seashell Bay. Most of the time she thought he’d left the island so far behind that he barely even thought about it anymore.
Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed—by everything. A wave of anxiety swept through her.
“Whew, is it hot in here or is it just me?” she said, struggling to sound normal. “I’m going to have to grab a few breaths of fresh air.”
Lily leaned over to whisper. “Want me to come?”
“Thanks, I’m fine. I really do just need a bit of air.” And a few moments to get my head back on straight.
She hurried out through the foyer and down the rear steps of the hall onto the path that connected the church and the cemetery. The air outside was still warm and some humidity had set in, so there wasn’t much relief. She raked both hands back though her hair, getting it off her face and behind her ears as best she could. She felt flushed, and a little sweat had already dampened her once-crisp, pink cotton blouse.
Even worse, she felt furious with herself for wanting Ryan as much as she did. A big part of her longed to head straight for her truck and take off back to the safety of her bedroom at the inn.
But she wasn’t that much of a coward. She wouldn’t run away from either Sabrina or her friends, no matter how uncomfortable she might feel under Soldier Boy’s penetrating gaze.
Ryan quickly drained his beer and excused himself, claiming he needed a restroom break. He didn’t want the others at the table to think he was chasing after Morgan, though that was exactly what he was doing.
He’d fought the temptation to show up at the social tonight. He’d gone back to the inn after the parade was over and done some more work because he thought it might distract him. But it hadn’t. Morgan had never left his thoughts for more than a moment. He’d then headed to the Pot for dinner before going back to Golden Sunset after Morgan and Sabrina left. An evening holed up in his room with a book had seemed a safer option than having to face the lure of being with Morgan in a setting all too reminiscent of last summer’s encounter between them at the VFW.
That plan had gone up in smoke when his mother called from the church hall and asked sarcastically if he was sick. She wouldn’t have believed a lie anyway, so Ryan told her the truth about not wanting Morgan to feel uncomfortable. He knew he didn’t have to elaborate since his mom and apparently everybody else on the island knew that he and Morgan were having trouble sorting out exactly how they felt about each other.
Mom, of course, had laid on guilt about how he was giving islanders a slap in the face by not showing up when it was the only time in recent memory that he’d been on the island for July Fourth. She’d then told him Morgan had been looking all evening like her dog just died, and he’d darn well better come down and try to cheer her up.
After ten minutes of straight-on mom lecturing, he’d given in, deciding to show up for a while and see what happened. And maybe it was time that he and Morgan finally got things out on the table, because it was pointless and frustrating for them to pussyfoot around each other for the rest of the summer.
Ryan slipped out the side door of the hall. About thirty feet away, Morgan stared up at the starlit sky above the stand of pines bordering the historic little cemetery. His adrenaline went immediately into overdrive at the sight of her. She looked sweet enough to eat in a sleeveless pink blouse and slim-fitting black capris.
Her body language sucked though, with her shoulders hunched and her arms wrapped around herself.
There was a low, steady hum from inside the church, but otherwise the warm summer night was silent except for the sound of crickets and the breeze sighing through the tall pines. That quiet was one of the things Ryan had always loved best about coming home to Seashell Bay.
War zones wer
e rarely quiet.
“Communing with our sainted ancestors?” Ryan said in a soft voice as he walked over the grass toward her. Actually, she was pretty near her parents’ graves, so communing probably wasn’t far off the mark.
Morgan pivoted, and her lips opened in a little gasp. “What are you doing out here?”
Ryan quickly closed the gap between them. “I was worried about you.”
She stared for a moment before giving him a tight smile. “No need. I was just getting a little overheated in there.”
“I suppose my arrival didn’t help matters, did it?” There was obviously more to her down mood than she was letting on.
She gave a casual shrug but looked about as uncomfortable as he’d ever seen her. Frustration rippled through him.
“Talk to me, Morgan. What can I do to make things right with you?”
She turned half away from him, her shoulders practically crawling up around her ears. He had to repress the instinct to pull her into his arms. He so wanted to make things better for her, but he was afraid he didn’t know how.
“I’m sorry, Ryan,” she said in a flat voice. “It’s not really you. Well, it is, but that’s not the big thing right now.”
“Okay, then tell me what is.”
“Remember the Longstreet wedding I told you about? The one that had booked all our rooms for a week?”
“Sure. You said I’d have to move out by then because you’d be full up.”
“Well, no worries about that anymore. They called off the wedding. Cancelled the whole damn booking.”
Shit. Again, he had to fight the instinct to yank her into his arms. “I’m really sorry, Morgan. I know what that booking meant to you.”
“The difference between life and death?” Then she flapped a hand. “Cripes, that was stupidly dramatic, especially since you’ve actually lived through that sort of situation.”
Ryan didn’t know if she was being too dramatic or not, and he wasn’t about to guess. “Hey, no worries, babe.”
Morgan sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I’m racking my brains to come up with something, but our hole is getting so deep I’m not sure we’ll be able to climb out. I really don’t want to believe that this cancellation is fate’s way of telling me it’s time to face facts and walk away.”
“Well, I don’t believe in fate. Not that kind of fate anyway. If anybody can get the inn back on its feet, it’s you. You’ll find a way.”
She flashed him a look halfway between a smile and a grimace. “Okay, then maybe you can give Sabrina the bad news, Soldier Boy. She already thinks I’m a complete failure.”
His heart twisted at her attempt to make light of the situation. Morgan had more guts than some of the guys he’d fought with, and he hated to see her up against the wall. “You’re no kind of failure at all. As for Sabrina, the girl idolizes you. She always has.”
Morgan made a soft scoffing noise.
“Hey, none of that crap, Merrifield,” he said. “It’s obvious to everyone how Sabrina feels about you. But you can’t spend your whole life trying to insulate her from every bad thing that could possibly happen. She’ll never be able to handle anything if you keep coddling her.”
She plopped her hands on her hips. “Excuse me?”
“Okay, maybe that was out of line. But I was just trying to say that you shouldn’t forget you’ve got your own life to live too. Stop being Sabrina’s doormat.”
The last person on Earth who should feel guilty about anything was Morgan, and he wanted her to hear that loud and clear.
“Ryan, would you do me a big favor and make sure Sabrina gets home in one piece?” Morgan finally said after a few tense moments of silence. “I think I need to get out of here.”
He took her by the arm and gently reeled her in. “Not yet, honey, because I’ve got a thought about how we might attack the problem.”
She resisted a bit but came reluctantly back. Then she let out a short laugh. “Okay, I guess a cemetery is the right place to hold this discussion anyway, given the state of my finances.”
“Good, but just so you know, it would have to involve spending—no, investing—more money,” he said.
“Oh, wow. I guess I could always fetch my old piggy bank from Pickle River,” she said sarcastically.
“Very funny. Can I just lay out my idea?”
“Actually, I do have a few ideas of my own, but you go first.”
“We run full out with an advertising blitz,” he said, throwing it at her in one go. “As all out as we can afford, because we’ve got to reach more people. We’ve got to get to folks who’ve never heard of the B&B or the island or even Casco Bay. And we offer them discounts for last-minute bookings right through to the end of the summer.”
Morgan slowly nodded. “Right, but that kind of advertising would be mad expensive. We need to find a way around that.”
“Maybe we could concentrate on travel web sites, plus ads in a few selected newspapers.”
“Nope. Still too expensive.”
Screw that. He refused to let her lack of cash stand in their way. “Why don’t you let me pick up the cost? I can afford it. What I can’t afford is to let the inn go down, taking you and your sister with it.”
More head shaking, now emphatic. “You know I can’t let you do that.”
“Sure you can. Because what’s the alternative?”
She narrowed her eyes, and Ryan had the notion that she was doing a series of quick mental calculations rather than actually looking at him.
“All right, I agree, except for the part about you paying the costs,” she finally said. “We definitely should advertise last-minute bookings, though not spend a lot of money on ads. But I’m thinking for that to work, the discounts would have to be huge. Forty percent, maybe even fifty. We need to go big, or go home.”
“Now you’re talking, babe. I’m happy to go big, as you well know.”
“Seriously lame, Butler,” she said, shaking her head.
He just grinned and carried on. “A full house at even half the normal rate is a hell of a lot better than empty rooms producing zero cash. Since you and Sabrina do all the work yourselves, your overhead is almost as much when the place is empty as when it’s full. Most of what you’d take in through the discounted rates would go straight to the bottom line.”
Morgan perked up, starting to look genuinely enthusiastic about the plan. “We should focus hard on the online options. A lot of sites don’t charge that much for ads, and some are even free. Maybe that will leave me with some money to do one or two print ads.”
“Great, but what about the cost?”
“I’ll handle it somehow,” she said. “The piggy bank might have enough left in it since we’re talking pretty small potatoes, especially with the websites. I’ve already done a little research on them.”
Okay, he’d let her play it like that—for now.
“Let’s do it, then.” He was surprised to feel his energy surging, excited that he was able to help her find a way out.
She wagged a playful finger at him. “Now, don’t get too cocky. We can’t keep up that kind of discounting for long—not with the mortgage and all our other fixed costs.”
“No,” he acknowledged, “but you might not even make it through the summer otherwise. Let’s try it and see where things stand when Labor Day rolls around.”
Morgan slapped a hand to her chest and widened her eyes. “Am I hearing you right, Ryan Butler? Because that sounded to me like you’re going to be in this thing with Sabrina and me until at least Labor Day.”
She looked so damn cute that he wanted to sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless. But instinct told him that making a move on her now would be stupid. Ryan had spent the past couple of days thinking Morgan was ready to kick him out of Golden Sunset. At times, that prospect had even looked good. But he couldn’t walk away from either the B&B or Morgan yet. And sure as hell not when she was making it clear that she wanted him to stay.
�
�You’re hearing me exactly right,” he said.
The smile that lit up her face made his heart go wonky. “Okay, let’s do this thing. Let’s chop the hell out of our rates and see what happens.”
“Seal the deal with a hug?” Ryan said with a grin.
She rolled her eyes. “You are so bad, but why not?”
He enfolded her in his arms, enjoying the warm softness of her body against his for a couple of moments before forcing himself to let her go.
“We’d better go back inside before they send out a search party,” he said. He could hear the gravel in his voice. “And I promise not to ask you to dance if you sing at least one karaoke number for me.”
Morgan swiped a hand across her brow in mock relief, but her sweet smile told him he’d said exactly the right thing.
Chapter 14
Morgan felt like skipping from her office to the kitchen. “Chalk up another booking!”
“Yes!” Sabrina, up to her elbows in flour, dropped her wooden roller and pumped her fist. “For how long?”
“Two rooms for a full week in late August. Two couples are coming in by boat to explore the islands. They’ll use Golden Sunset as their base.”
“At 50 percent discount?” Sabrina asked, going back to rolling out dough.
“Forty, because this one’s not last minute. Like Ryan said, it sure beats having empty rooms.”
The day after her ads went up on a slew of social media and advertising websites, bookings had started to roll in and had continued at a decent pace for the past three weeks. For the Blueberry Festival, the inn was now booked solid, and every day in August had at least four rooms reserved already. People were hungry for cheap vacation deals.