by Kat Cantrell
That’s when Caleb realized Havana’s plan to raze the town would affect Serenity’s hotel too. No wonder the two of them were at such odds. His bewilderment at the fractures in their relationship grew. Did her niece have a clue how much Serenity loved this building? Caleb didn’t believe in ghosts, but Serenity did, and he had every intention of honoring the ones she’d befriended in her hotel. Maybe Havana had been away too long to see that.
“Of course,” he assured her. “Old-timey main strips with the original buildings still intact would be a huge draw. We just have to get some people to agree to open up shop here.”
The vision unfolded in 3-D like a movie in his head. The row of buildings took on a sheen of prosperity, new signs, people strolling down the new sidewalk he’d put in. A candy store, spruce up the antique store, maybe a place that sold books. No pigs though.
On second thought… “You said the town used to be an artist’s colony?”
At Serenity’s nod, the entire canvas blanked out and reshaped itself. He might not have a fancy degree like Havana, but he could use his imagination.
The key here wasn’t to remodel the town into a carbon copy of a hundred other historical spots. Maybe they should embrace the pigs. Let the people of Superstition Springs do their thing at the top of their lungs. Serenity was her own kind of different, dispensing love predictions when her extrasensory perception got the nudge. The only place in town to buy staples was called Voodoo Grocery for crying out loud. It wasn’t hard to imagine that most if not all of the town’s residents had more color than gray.
“I can see a shop that sells crystals and other new age stuff,” he said as the plan fell open in his head. “Turn the antique store into a curio shop. Open a bakery called Spirits and Cupcakes, I don’t know. This is Superstition Springs. Let’s show the world that they too can find some magic in their lives.”
Serenity clapped her hands, her eyes damp with emotion. “I love that idea, Caleb Hardy. You have to be the one to make it happen. I can see now that my prediction was always meant to bring you here.”
Walked into that one. Magic might be on the horizon for other people but not him and not just because he didn’t quite believe in such things. The power of suggestion went a long way toward fulfilling people’s expectations about the mystical.
Sure, there was something special about the hotel that you could feel the moment you walked across the threshold, but it wasn’t magic, and even if it was, Caleb didn’t deserve special, not yet. After he’d built a prosperous town in memory of a Syrian village that had been victimized by five ruthless warriors trained to kill, then maybe.
Of course, he had no idea where to start. More than a decade of special warfare gave a guy the skills to HALO drop from a helicopter over the Mediterranean but not to create a tourist draw from scratch. Sure, he had some skill at seeing the big picture, but that didn’t make him overly qualified at filling the gaps in a town that wasn’t his—as Havana had so eloquently pointed out.
Maybe he should step back and let someone else run the intel on this op.
“I have some money,” Serenity offered hesitantly. “My grandmother left it to me, and other than buying this hotel from Goldie Mays, I haven’t done a thing with the balance. Could we use it to help make over the town?”
Blind trust. He’d done nothing to earn that. His team was one thing, but Serenity was another entirely, and it humbled him to have her so on board with whatever he might conjure up. She didn’t have anyone else to turn to. That much was clear. Her own niece couldn’t see past her ambitions to the vulnerable town that needed protecting. That alone meant he had to do this right. But he also cared. Inexplicably. He’d never set foot in this town before, and already he had a fierce need to see that vision for the town come to life.
It was the right thing, no question. He’d just have to find someone else to fill the leadership boots.
“Hold that money tight. It might come in handy later, but for now we need to work on getting the town to agree on the direction,” he said slowly, feeling his way through the steps. “If there are some who want to sell out to Havana and her shopping center, we gotta get them to see reason. We have to be united on this.”
“I knew you’d come to be something special to me,” she said, and she’d practically lit up with a glow that made her lined face beautiful. “I got a sense the moment I saw your name on the list of deployed servicemen who had no family.”
That speared him right through the gut. He’d always wondered how Serenity had first decided to pick up a pen and send an authentic handwritten letter to a stranger half her age. The letters had quickly become a lifeline, often bolstering his flagging spirits as the assignments in Syria got tougher and tougher the longer the conflict dragged on.
Eventually she’d started writing to the others on his strike team after he jokingly mentioned that they were jealous of him for gaining a surrogate mom. They all had family-shaped holes inside, only one of many reasons the four of them had jumped in the Yukon after him when he’d announced he was moving to Texas.
Caleb might not deserve his own magic, but even he couldn’t deny that this had destiny written all over it. Maybe he believed in the power of suggestion a little more than he’d have admitted.
Six
The first time Havana came to live in Superstition Springs, Serenity had owned a tiny clapboard house nine miles from the center of town, off the dirt road that led to Farmer Moon’s property. With window box air conditioners and the random space heater for the short but frigid winters, it hadn’t been terribly comfortable, made less so by the fact that Havana’d had to share a room with Aria and Ember.
Aria had been seven and always did everything Havana said. But at nine, Ember and Havana were too close in age, and her sister did not recognize anyone’s authority other than her own. Still didn’t. Or at least that was Havana’s assumption since they hadn’t spoken in years, not since Havana had abandoned her sisters in desperate search of her own identity.
Which had been totally selfish. A knee-jerk reaction to Ember’s pregnancy. Havana knew that. Had been living with the knowledge that she’d dumped all her responsibility and jetted off like she didn’t care, except she did. Her life had turned into this push-pull of insanity where she yearned to be a normal teenager and couldn’t in Superstition Springs.
Ember had fled Superstition Springs in presumed disgrace shortly after Havana, which was also Havana’s fault. She should have been there to take care of Ember. At least warn her sister away from that one life-wrecking bad decision. But her sister hadn’t ever returned. Havana was the one back here begging for someone to give her another chance to prove she could take care of people as well as she thought she could. She wasn’t going to cut and run this time.
Her aunt had bought the old Mays Hotel sometime during the eight years Havana had been away. Serenity lived on the third floor, which had been converted from single rooms into what could have been a trendy loft-style space if done correctly but instead had taken on a Winchester House patchwork feel, with hallways leading nowhere and walls half-painted with a hard line down the middle where the color just stopped.
It was quaint on a good day and weird all the rest of them.
But it was a place to stay, so she’d taken her aunt’s offer of a room before realizing the extra bedroom in question already had an occupant—Aria.
Fortunately, Havana didn’t mind sharing with her youngest sister, who had moved to the hotel with their aunt instead of finding her own place. It was a chance for them to catch up while Havana was in town to work on her shopping center pitch, and anyway, the pickings were slim in Superstition Springs no matter what you were looking for, let alone a spare bed.
Aria was family, and Havana didn’t have much of that left. Plus Aria still looked up to her, despite all of Havana’s failings. That made her sister extraspecial.
Havana flopped on the quilted comforter to watch as Aria braided her waist-length hair in anticipation of
a shift at the diner where her sister waited tables for Ruby. The braid didn’t do Aria any favors, muting the already dull red shade of her hair. Havana had gotten their mother’s bold red, while Ember’s had picked up a ton of gold highlights from their father that had blended into more of a strawberry blonde that worked well with her delicate skin.
Aria had long accepted her role as “the plain Nixon sister,” as she called herself, and refused to lift a finger to work with what she had. No makeup, shapeless clothes, and her shoes made Havana want to cry. She’d pleaded with Aria to let her do something, a haircut, take her shopping, but no. Some things never changed.
“Sorry if I’m putting you out,” Havana called, eager to connect with her sister again. Of course, the reason they weren’t close anymore was Havana’s fault, so she wouldn’t blame Aria if she got a little frosty.
“Of course not. I’m the one who suggested it.” Aria glanced at her in the mirror she was using to view her weaving workmanship. “Though I have to admit, I don’t get why you’re not staying with your fiancé.”
Damian had taken a room at the Best Western in La Grange, which meant he was a good thirty minutes away over country back roads at any given time. It didn’t work so well when it came to faking their courtship but worked exceedingly well for Havana, who had no intention of sharing a room with any man. “You know Serenity. She’s got funny ideas about grown adults sleeping together in her house even if they do it at home.”
That was one of the main factors that had allowed Havana to come up with such a cockamamy idea as a fake fiancé. There was no way she could pretend to be engaged to someone like Damian Scott behind closed doors.
All at once, Caleb’s face sprang into her head and something twanged inside as, totally against her will, she got an image of how things would go if she’d asked him to be her fake fiancé. There wouldn’t be a whole lot of pretending, she had a feeling. He wasn’t the type to put up with fake anything.
The twinge turned into more of a spike as she recalled the very real feel of his arms around her. She shook it off. The man was a lunatic, barging in here and telling her he wasn’t going to allow her to build a shopping center like he had some kind of authority or something. Honestly.
Aria’s eyebrows arched in blatant interest. “Are you and Damian living together back in Austin? Do tell.”
She shook her head, glad they’d already worked that part out so their stories would be straight. “We’re waiting until after the wedding, and then we were thinking about building a house here.”
“In Superstition Springs?”
Havana couldn’t blame Aria for her incredulity since she had hightailed it out of town as fast as she could after graduation. “I’ve been trying to tell everyone. I don’t hate this town. I’m here to fix everything. Once the resort is built and there’s a lovely shopping oasis nearby, this area will be hot property. People will love it. Best part, everyone can pick up premium land for a song before the boom.”
Including Havana. Serenity had called that idea “mercenary.” Havana called it due compensation. That’s how a poor girl from the sticks got ahead, by being first in line. If the husband she’d so desperately wanted didn’t want her, she’d invest all her time and energy in her career and this town. She’d find someone who wanted her help or die trying.
“That sounds fantastic,” Aria said loyally, which Havana could not get enough of.
She’d missed her sister’s blind support. Sure, they’d talked by phone often, but it wasn’t the same as being in each other’s orbits again, holding a running conversation that they could pick up again hours later as if they’d never stopped. Havana had given up that right—and the right to her sister’s support—when she’d fled Superstition Springs almost a decade ago.
It was on the tip of her tongue to confess to Aria that the engagement was fake. But she couldn’t bear all the questions when Cole’s betrayal still stung, even five months later. No one knew about Cole because she hadn’t told anyone. If she had, Serenity might not have made her love prediction and none of this fake fiancé stuff would have been necessary. Honestly though, Havana liked having the barrier of Damian in place. Kept everyone from asking too many questions.
Her aunt’s crazy “feelings” and “senses” had always cropped up at convenient times, usually when Serenity got overwhelmed with adult things like paying bills and guiding a teenage girl through birth control options. This time Havana had no idea what Serenity hoped to gain from the prediction. Mysticism had no place with Havana, who preferred to chart her own destiny instead of leaving it to the stars.
Though she couldn’t quite forget what her aunt had told her. Not when it hit a little too close to home.
Work success may overshadow the desire for a relationship, and a problem may arise in becoming a bit too pushy or aggressive. This is a turnoff to the person receiving your advances, but there is an opportunity to meet a new love through a business colleague or work-related event.
Not if she already had a fiancé! The brilliance of the Damian Scott plan could not be overstated. So what if the first part of the prediction put a worm of doubt in her stomach? She knew she came off the wrong way to people sometimes, but it wasn’t because she was pushy. She cared; that’s why she tried to help.
“I have to get to Ruby’s,” Aria said with a frown, clearly unhappy to end their conversation as well. “Come by later. It’ll be slow by nine. Bring Damian and have some pie so I can get to know him. You don’t come around enough.”
By design. She’d been busy trying to figure out how she’d gone wrong with this shopping center pitch. She’d first floated the idea by Serenity several months ago since she—rightly so—suspected her aunt would be a factor in her success. She’d hoped to get a feel for how the project might fly. Badly, would be the answer, so she’d come to town to start working on the townspeople, only to find that Serenity had already spilled the beans and then danced all over them until they were smushed little corpses.
“I will,” she promised before she thought better of it.
Ruby’s had been pretty empty earlier today when she’d met Serenity’s sailor boys, but by dinnertime, it would be packed with people. Especially as word got around that her aunt’s new friends had bodies honed by Uncle Sam and pretty faces to go along with that, especially the tall blond. He did nothing for her, but she also wasn’t blind and the man had some drool-worthy components.
Her mind snapped back to Caleb, and she did not need the spike to the gut to remind her which of the men did do something for her.
Aria stepped into her gawd-awful, thick-soled shoes that she wore to work and waved goodbye. At loose ends and not the slightest bit interested in going over the architectural drawings of her shopping center for the umpteenth time, she wandered to the window to watch Aria walk the short distance to Ruby’s.
The familiar figure of Caleb Hardy slammed through her senses. He stood on the balcony off the second floor of the hotel, directly below the window of Aria’s bedroom.
Rationally, she should have known her aunt’s pen pals would have landed at the hotel. Where else would they stay? But irrationally, she would have preferred not to be so painfully aware that Caleb’s bedroom lay right below hers. Their showers shared pipes. The exterior staircase from the kitchen hugged the sidewall where it descended to a second-floor landing adjacent to the balcony. She could join him in under ten seconds anytime she felt like it.
Not that she would! He was insufferable. A huge roadblock to her project, which was not going to happen if she didn’t figure out how to sway the folks into selling. That was her deal with Damian; he’d front the money if she’d talk them into it. And then it would be her project to run while he focused on the resort.
Caleb’s timing could not have been worse.
Or could it not have been better?
Inspired all at once, she didn’t hesitate to do exactly as she’d sworn she would not. Taking the stairs two at a time, she hit the landing be
fore fully catching her breath.
“Hey,” she called and climbed over the spindle railing. There should have been a gate, but the stairs had been erected as a fire escape, not a second path to the balcony. Or a secret back entrance to his bedroom that her aunt would know nothing about if she chose to use it.
Definitely she should not have thought of that.
“Hey,” he said casually as if women climbed onto his balcony every day.
Maybe they did. None of her business. “I’m on the third floor.”
“Congratulations.”
The temper that lived under the surface of her skin started simmering again. Curse of the Irish, and it figured that she’d gotten that from her mother instead of the luck of the Irish. “Do you have a problem with me? Because we’re not on opposite sides here.”
“Aren’t we?”
He hadn’t moved from his solitary pose, leaning against the spindle railing as he surveyed the street. She’d call it people watching if they’d been on 6th Street in downtown Austin where all the bars and tattoo parlors had apartments above them. If you stood on one of the balconies overlooking the throng at around midnight, you could see one of everything—drag queens, Amish on Rumspringa, drunk college kids, drunk middle-aged tourists, once even someone in a full Buzz Lightyear costume when it wasn’t even Halloween.
In Superstition Springs, only Aria trod the dust until she hit Ruby’s front door, disappearing inside quickly where the air-conditioning was the coldest in town. It wasn’t an accident. Ruby kept it low to get people in the door, which was smart marketing.
Since the sole person available to watch on Main Street had vanished, Caleb only had one excuse for not facing someone speaking to him—rudeness.
She crossed her arms. “I’m on the side of doing what’s best for this town. Since you haven’t been here all that long, I’ll help you understand what that is. We need more traffic. Locals come in to get carrots and cabbages from Mavis and to eat at Ruby’s, but outside of that, it’s a ghost town. I want to change that.”