He looked up the steep, narrow stairs and grimaced. “Sure you can’t carry me?”
“Positive.” Charlotte smiled with understanding. “Might as well be the last few yards climbing Everest, huh?”
“But it’s not. It’s a set of stairs in an English pub.”
“This is true.”
He made no comment. As he started up the stairs, she eased her arm from around him and placed her hand on his hip, obviously hoping that would help stabilize him. “Are you sure you can manage?” she asked him.
“Absolutely. I can do stairs.”
He faltered only once but Charlotte didn’t have to intervene. When they reached the second floor, he grinned at her. “Are you sorry I didn’t fall backward and get tangled up with you?”
“No.”
Her brown eyes were enough to melt him. His grin broadened. “I bet you’re not as cool and heartless as you’re making out right now.”
“Let’s just get you to bed.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“You know what I mean, Agent Rawlings,” she said, starchy.
“Brody and Heather have gone to the wedding hotel. I’m at your mercy. Brody would have left me under the booth. Nowhere near as fun as having you put me to bed.”
She sighed. “What’s your room number?”
“Crisp and efficient, aren’t you, Charlotte Bennett?” He pointed vaguely. “It’s the second door on the right.”
“Key?”
“I can manage the key.”
“Actually, I’m not sure you can, and I suspect you aren’t sure, either.”
He decided he must look even worse than he felt. He reached into his jacket for the old-fashioned key and handed it to her. She nudged him down the hall, but he was more awake, or at least more alert. Maybe it was having a wall next to him should he collapse, or maybe mounting the stairs had perked him up. Whatever the case, they arrived at his door without incident.
“Where’s your room?” he asked her.
“Down the hall.”
“Do we have connecting doors?”
“No. There’s a room between us.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t know if you’re teasing or just making small talk in an awkward situation, but it doesn’t matter. Two seconds and you’ll be in your room and can get some rest before tomorrow. I don’t want you to make a scene.”
She shoved his key in the lock. One try and she had the door open.
“Efficient,” Greg said.
She tucked the key into his jacket pocket and held the door open. “In you go, Agent Rawlings.”
“Greg. Gregory is fine, too. So is Agent Rawlings, but it’s too formal now that you’re in my hotel room.”
“I’m not in your hotel room.”
“Right. It’s a pub that lets rooms. It’s not a real hotel or even a B and B or an inn.”
“I’m not in your room, period.”
He felt a wave of fatigue and forced himself to stay upright. He attempted a grin. “You’re not going to make sure I get to bed without collapsing?”
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll wait outside the door, and if I hear a thud and think you hit your head or otherwise hurt yourself, I’ll call for an ambulance.”
Greg stood straight, leveling his gaze on her. “I’ll be fine, Charlotte. I’m not sick or drunk. Thanks for your help.”
The pink returned to her cheeks. “You’re exhausted,” she said finally. “Get some sleep. See you at the wedding.”
“How’s your maid-of-honor dress?”
She ignored him and left, shutting the door quickly—not in his face but it was close.
Greg managed to make it to the bed before he collapsed.
No thud for Charlotte to call backup.
* * *
Charlotte didn’t breathe normally again until she reached her room, shut the door and kicked off her shoes. She didn’t know how she’d made it up the stairs in them. Her feet ached. Adrenaline had undoubtedly helped keep her from feeling any pain.
She stared at the locked door next to the closet door. She’d lied. Her room did adjoin Greg’s room, and it did have a connecting door—inaccessible by either one of them without the key. There’d been no point in telling him and getting his imagination fired up. He needed sleep, and so did she, if for different reasons.
Her room was adorable, decorated with warm fabrics and simple furnishings. A small window looked out on the village street, dark and quiet now. She didn’t hear any noise from the pub below her. She supposed the barman would have dealt with Greg if she’d left him in the booth. Presumably, she’d see him at the wedding tomorrow, and then that would be that. They’d be on their separate ways.
She peeled off her dress. Her maid-of-honor dress was at the wedding hotel. She appreciated Samantha’s asking her to be her maid of honor and didn’t regret saying yes—but she’d come close to saying no. Unsaid between them had been the reasons why. “You’re who I want as my maid of honor, Charlotte,” Samantha had told her. “You’re as close to a sister as I have, and you’re my best friend, but I’ll understand if you just want to be a guest.”
“Thank you, Sam. I’m honored. I’d love to be your maid of honor.”
Charlotte had meant every word, but she also knew it wouldn’t be easy to walk down that aisle tomorrow without memories bubbling up. She’d just have to work at stifling them. It wasn’t her wedding. It was Samantha and Justin’s wedding, and Charlotte wanted to do her part to make it a wonderful day for them.
She washed up, slipped into her nightgown and crawled under the cozy duvet in the double bed. She listened, but she didn’t hear anything from the adjoining room. Greg Rawlings was similar to other alpha types she knew in her work. While she appreciated the training and dedication that no doubt went into his job as a DS agent, she was well aware that even tough guys bled, got sick and messed up. The problem wasn’t that she wanted to believe they were indestructible. They wanted to believe it.
She shut her eyes, giving in to her own fatigue. Even after her long day, she had no sign of a headache.
Progress.
But she didn’t want to make too much of it, and she knew getting rid of her headaches didn’t mean she’d ever dive again.
She put that thought out of her mind and pictured Greg instead, half-asleep, genuinely exhausted and yet still capable of teasing—and, no doubt, of getting himself to his room.
She put him out of her mind, too. She’d done her bit for him, but Greg Rawlings was a fit, capable man.
The Diplomatic Security agent in the next room wasn’t her problem.
Two
Greg managed to take a shower, pull on jeans and a sweatshirt, and tie on a pair of running shoes when he woke up at oh dark thirty. He’d been wiped out when he’d arrived in London yesterday. Mop-the-floor-with-him exhausted after months of nonstop, high-intensity, high-stress work. Not an excuse for passing out in an English pub, but no harm, no foul.
As he started down the steep stairs, he remembered more of his encounter with Charlotte Bennett last night than he wanted to remember.
“Should have had more to drink.”
Breakfast was set up in the same room as last night’s party. Eric Sloan, a police officer and the eldest of the Sloan siblings, invited Greg to join him. Greg had met him briefly in February. Eric resembled the rest of the Sloans: dark haired, blue eyed, strong. Straightforward. Another Sloan trait. It was still the middle of the night back home in New England, but Eric looked wide-awake. Probably used to odd hours. He, too, had on jeans and a sweatshirt.
Greg sat at Eric’s table by a partially open window, exchanged a couple of pleasantries, ordered coffee and then got up again and went to the cold buffet table.
He returned with Weeta
bix and cut fruit. “I’ve never had Weetabix,” he said. “Have you?”
Eric shrugged. “It’s like Shredded Wheat?”
“Sort of. I think it’s one of those things you can do anything with. Add fruit, peanut butter, cream cheese, hot milk, cold milk. Probably can make tacos out of it.”
Eric didn’t look amused or interested. He had coffee. Black. Nothing to eat yet.
“Brody and Heather made it back to the wedding hotel?” Greg asked.
“As far as I know. Just my brother Christopher and I are here. The rest of my family’s at the hotel, too.”
“Christopher’s the full-time firefighter?”
“Yes. The youngest brother. Justin’s a volunteer firefighter.” Eric drank some of his coffee. “I skipped the buffet. Just having the hot breakfast.”
“There’s a hot breakfast?”
A slight smile. “You aren’t restricted to Weetabix.”
Suddenly starving, Greg ordered a full English breakfast minus the black pudding. He wondered if Charlotte would be down for breakfast before leaving for the wedding. Since she’d come in from Scotland, she was on the same time as the Cotswolds and wouldn’t be jet-lagged. Early riser? Late riser? He gave himself a mental shake. Last night was over. Time to behave.
“You’ll enjoy staying at the inn for a bit,” Eric said.
Greg tore open his Weetabix. What inn? Had he zoned out and missed something? He dumped the two biscuit-like triangles into his bowl. “I have some time before I need to be in DC for my new assignment,” he said, neutral.
“Great,” Eric said. “Brody says you like to camp. You can pitch a tent out back if you want. The inn could have bats.”
Bats. Still clueless, Greg added some of his cut fruit to the Weetabix. “Good location?”
“It’s within walking distance of the village but feels more remote.”
Okay, getting some specifics. This village? Another village in the Cotswolds? Was this mystery inn located in England? Was staying there Brody and Heather’s idea? Greg was stumped. He had no memory of discussing an inn, with or without bats, with anyone, ever.
“It has an open field on one side,” Eric added. “Makes sense given its name.”
The waiter set a coffee press on the table as Greg poured cold milk over his fruit and Weetabix. Maybe he should have waited and had some coffee before going to the cold-buffet table. “I don’t remember the name of the inn...”
“Red Clover Inn.”
“Cute name,” Greg said, desperate now. What had he done? He cleared his throat. “Homey sound to it.”
“Justin and Samantha want to keep the name. I don’t care one way or the other. It sounds more like it should be out in the country rather than a half mile from the village. We bought it on a whim. The owner died without a proper will and there was a family squabble. It took some time to get sorted out. They couldn’t wait to sell the place.”
The Sloans hadn’t struck Eric as people who did things on a whim, but Heather Sloan had married Brody after a short romance and now Justin Sloan was marrying Samantha Bennett after meeting her in a fire last fall when she’d slipped into Knights Bridge in search of pirate treasure.
People who knew their own minds, maybe.
But...wait...the Sloans owned this inn?
Greg poured his coffee and set the press down. He was an elite federal agent who protected ambassadors and other dignitaries in and outside the United States, and he damn well could figure out that Eric was talking about Knights Bridge, his hometown in rural New England, about two hours west of Boston. Greg hadn’t expected to return to Knights Bridge except maybe to visit Heather and Brody when they built their place on the lake where Brody had grown up. And that was a big maybe.
Greg tried the Weetabix. It was fine. Good, in fact. “Definitely waited too long to give this stuff a try.” He was buying time. Given Eric’s narrowed eyes, Greg suspected the guy’s cop instincts had clicked into gear. He ate more of his cereal. Hard to look suspicious eating cereal. “The fruit helps. The inn sounds like a great family project.”
“We’ll see. It’s a regular country inn. Or it was. It hasn’t been anything for a while.”
Glad his mouth was full and he didn’t have to respond, Greg waited for Eric to head to the cold-buffet table. He got out his phone and surreptitiously texted Brody.
I’m staying at an inn in KB?
Brody’s answer came right away. Yes.
Greg grimaced. Why?
You’re at a loose end. You’re looking after the place.
How long?
While Justin and Sam are on their honeymoon.
A week?
Maybe two.
When did I agree to this?
Text last night after I got back to my hotel.
I was asleep.
Ha.
Greg drank some of his coffee. His head was going to explode. He didn’t want to mess up anyone’s honeymoon, but he’d obviously been impaired when he’d agreed to this mission, or whatever it was. He typed again: Animals?
Bats, mice, spiders. No pets or farm animals.
That meant no cat or dog or pet gerbil to look after, just the place itself, which presumably had been uninhabited for a few years and would be fine without him playing caretaker. He could bow out. Two or three days, never mind longer, next to a field of clover—there had to be clover, right, considering the inn’s name?—would send him over the bend. He didn’t do well sitting still.
He had time to come up with a face-saving excuse and ease out of this thing.
Eric returned to the table with fresh fruit. Their hot breakfasts arrived. Greg dove in. Weetabix would do but even better was a plate of fried eggs, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, sausages, bacon, fried bread and baked beans. Even with wedding food in his near future, he figured stoking up now was a good idea. He needed his full faculties. Fatigue and a slight hangover wouldn’t help him work out how to get out of this Red Clover Inn deal without pissing off a bunch of Sloans, not to mention his friend Brody.
Christopher Sloan joined them. He, too, seemed to Greg like a solid sort. He’d come to England alone for his older brother’s wedding. The Sloans had struck Greg as a tight-knit lot. That didn’t mean there weren’t occasional tensions between them.
He didn’t bring up Red Clover Inn and instead asked Christopher his plans while in England.
“I got here last weekend,” Christopher said. “I had a great time. Good break. I go home tomorrow. Have to be back at work on Monday.”
Eric was also headed back tomorrow. Greg relaxed. There’d be enough Sloans around to look after this old inn of theirs. They didn’t need him.
After breakfast, he went up to his room. He glanced down the hall but Charlotte’s door was shut tight. He knew she’d lied about staying down the hall. He’d heard her going into the room adjoining his. In her place, he probably would have lied, too, what with his behavior last night.
He’d been tired as hell, and in a mood.
Had she ever been to Knights Bridge now that her cousin was making her home there, marrying a local?
“None of your business, pal,” Greg muttered, going into his room.
He could bolt. No one would miss him at the wedding. He’d been invited only because he’d made a stop in England to see Brody and Heather on his roundabout way to Washington.
But as he debated grabbing a cab and fleeing the Sloans and Bennetts, he got dressed for an English country wedding.
* * *
The wedding hotel was charming, located a few miles from the village in the rolling Cotswold countryside. The informal ceremony was held outdoors in a garden brimming with roses, which Greg recognized, and climbing purple flowers he assumed were the wisteria. Samantha Bennett wore a gown designed by Alexandra Rankin
Hunt, Ian Mabry’s fiancée. They were guests at the wedding. Alexandra, an elegant, attractive woman, had her own tangled ties to Knights Bridge through her great-grandfather, an RAF pilot who’d ventured to rural Massachusetts on the eve of World War II. He’d fallen in love with a young American woman, now in her nineties and living in little Knights Bridge. He’d meant to come back for her but had been killed over the English Channel early in the war. Greg didn’t have all the details. Brody had tried to explain a few of the connections of his hometown as he and Greg had found a place to stand for the short wedding service.
Greg might have felt out of place at the simple but elegant wedding, but he wasn’t the type. He appreciated rugged Justin Sloan’s love for Samantha and, likewise, his awkward pleasure at expressing that love in front of his family and friends. Greg thought back to his own wedding. He and Laura had been young, filled with hopes and dreams.
I’m seeing a great guy here in Minneapolis. I wanted you to know.
Laura, a couple of weeks ago. Their divorce had been finalized months ago and Greg was glad she was getting on with her life. No problem there. The problem was his own life. Getting wounded in an ambush on the job and its isolating nature hadn’t helped him with his personal life, but the biggest issue, he knew, was inertia. Laura had always been there. He’d taken their life together for granted. He didn’t want to make that same mistake again.
After the service, he noticed Charlotte Bennett laughing with the bride and groom. Her maid-of-honor dress was a deep coral, its cut perfect for her curves. She didn’t look as cool and judgmental as she had last night. The warm color of her dress and the lush late-spring garden setting probably softened her hard edges. According to Brody, her parents were in Australia on an underwater salvage project and couldn’t make it to the wedding.
Interesting family, the Bennetts.
Greg congratulated the happy couple and found his way to the bar.
A beer, a table in the shade, a breeze stirring in a trellis of peach-colored roses—despite not having a woman at his side, his life, he decided, was pretty good. At least right now, at this moment. He felt some of the weariness and rawness of the past months lift. He was able to focus on his surroundings without being poised for threats. Instead he could sit back and enjoy the beauty of the place. Warm-pink roses in addition to the peach-colored ones, bumblebees, pots of herbs and flowers. Nice. Damn nice, in fact.
Red Clover Inn--A Romance Novel Page 3