by A. J. Pine
Tyler nodded. It was early afternoon on a Monday in October. There probably wouldn’t be many calls for them to field.
“What time do you punch out?” Ben asked.
Tyler checked his watch. “In about forty-five minutes.”
Ben grinned. “We’ll be out in fifteen and you can call it a day. Paid early leave.” He cleared his throat. “As long as your interim boss agrees, of course.”
That would give him plenty of time to show her the ropes. Then she’d be steering the ship, and Ben could stay until Tyler’s shift ended to make sure she was comfortable in her new role. And to see if—maybe, perhaps—the energy between them wasn’t as one-sided as Charlotte made it seem.
Tyler handed Ben the laptop from the front desk, a shock of sandy waves falling over his eyes. “Thanks, Mr. Callahan. I might actually have time to eat before class later this afternoon.”
Ben winced. He was turning thirty in nine weeks, on New Year’s Day, in fact. He didn’t think that was so old. But Tyler’s Mr. Callahan made him feel otherwise. He’d gotten all the way to the point where kids barely out of high school saw him as a mature adult, yet he didn’t feel like he’d earned the label.
He switched the two bottles to one hand and grabbed the laptop with the other.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said again, and Tyler nodded.
Ben crossed behind the desk and past the stairs that led to the second floor, to the hallway that housed the first-floor rooms.
The door to room 7A was open a crack, so he nudged it farther with the toe of his boot.
“Somebody order a cold one?” he asked.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, phone in her hands, furiously typing.
He approached the bed, let the laptop fall onto one of the pillows, and set the beers on the nightstand. He tossed his hat onto a corner chair and ran a hand through his hair. Then he glanced over her shoulder, expecting to find her firing off a text or seven. But she was in her notes app.
“What are you doing, Doc?” he asked, letting the nickname slip.
She either didn’t care or was too busy to notice.
“Making a list,” she said. “Or lists, I guess. After learning the software, I’m going to acquaint myself with the kitchen staff—let them know they probably shouldn’t let me near the food unless it’s an absolute emergency. Then I want to meet the guest room staff and get a list of any vendors I should call in the morning. Oh, and Gran’s going to be released today, so somewhere in there I have to work out how to get her home, situated, and pick up any medication she might need. I could take her car and do it, but I should probably be here, shouldn’t I? Wait, what if she was already released while I was sleeping?” She shook her head vigorously. “Carter would have called, right? Also, there’s the night staff for me to meet. I know it’s only a few people, but I’ll need to bring them up to speed.”
He furrowed his brow as he saw times next to each event on the list. All the way at the bottom of the second column, at 3:00 a.m., it said Sleep (maybe). And then at 5:00 a.m. Wake up and start my first full day.
“Who are you, and what did you do with the woman I met three weeks ago? She didn’t have a planner or lists. And the only thing that kept her from a good night’s sleep was me,” he said.
She gave him a nervous smile, swiped at her screen a few times, and then turned the phone toward him.
It was a note that said Vacation Agenda Day One in bold with a list beneath it, each item marked with an asterisk. His eyes widened as he read.
*Coffee with Gran
*Go for a ride at Meadow Valley Ranch
*Shower
*Relax
*Dinner with Gran
*Meet Carter at tavern (do NOT flirt with rancher if he’s there)
*OR, if you flirt with rancher, make sure he knows you don’t do more than flings.
Ben made a move to swipe at her screen, but she yanked the phone away.
“Aw, come on,” he teased. “I want to see what happened to your list once you decided to flirt with the rancher.”
She rolled her eyes. “You flirted first.”
He raised his brows. “Sure did. And you shot me down—but then decided you couldn’t resist me. That’s usually how it goes.”
This time she groaned. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me how to run this place?”
He held out his hand, palm up.
“What?” she asked, finally looking up.
“Hand over the phone first,” he said with gentle authority.
“But if I don’t write it all down…”
“One thing at a time, okay? This isn’t New York City. It’s Meadow Valley. Things work a little differently around here. The phone’s not ringing off the hook. There’s not a two-hour wait for a table at the inn’s café. Slow and steady, Doc. No one’s going to beat you to the finish line.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, but she gave up the phone.
“I just want everything to be perfect when Gran gets home. I don’t want her to worry or overextend herself when she’s supposed to be healing.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “What was she thinking going up a ladder by herself?”
Ben pocketed her phone, grabbed the two beers, and sat next to her on the foot of the bed.
“She was thinking she was going to do something she does all the time, something that she’s completely capable of doing. But accidents happen.”
He handed her a beer, and she took a long, slow sip.
“It’s different when it’s someone you know—someone you love. Kids come into the office every day, some sick and some hurt. I can apply the science, and I can detach. It’s easy. I thought I could do the same with Pearl, but seeing my grandmother like that?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t prepared for it despite everything I know about broken bones and healing and…She’s the closest person in my life.”
Ben narrowed his eyes. “Three thousand miles away is close?”
She laughed. “I mean closest.” She pressed a hand over her heart.
He thought for a second and took a sip of his own beer.
“What about your parents? Friends back in New York?” he asked.
“My parents have never been much for stability. They’re more the wanderlust type, which meant dropping me in Meadow Valley most summers while they traveled the globe, building up their photography business’s reputation. These days they’re overseas more often than not, which means they miss a lot of stuff going on at home.” She cleared her throat. “Like my grandfather’s funeral, but that’s a whole other story.”
“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “About your grandfather.”
She shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
But Ben could tell from the way her eyes glassed over that time hadn’t healed all.
“New York is where my residency took me,” she continued. “And because I found a great job with a great practice and stability is my thing, I never left. But residency, internship, getting hired at a practice, and keeping up with every new advancement and trend in pediatrics—it doesn’t leave a lot of time for things like lasting friendships.” She blew out a breath. “Look, I appreciate you trying to do the whole talk-about-my-feelings thing, but I have medical journals and conference recordings and even a few podcasts to set my mind at ease. And all that is beside the point. I need to learn how to run this inn, like, right now.”
“You got it, Doc,” he said, setting down his beer and grabbing the laptop.
“Charlotte,” she reminded him. “I’m Charlotte. You’re Ben. I think these next several weeks will go a whole lot better if we use proper names only from here on out.”
He opened the laptop, the appointment calendar still on the screen.
“Okay, Charlotte, this is the—” He shook his head. “Nope. Can’t do it. I’m sorry, but I called you Doc for a full two weeks. Until you blew back into town, I don’t think I ever said your given name out loud. Charlotte is…weird.”
She scoffed. “It�
��s my name. And I actually like it.”
Ben laughed. “That’s not what I meant.” Her hair was in a ponytail, but one auburn lock had fallen free and hung down the side of her face. He wanted to tuck it behind her ear, to do something that had once felt so natural but now seemed wrong. “It’s just hard to transition.”
She blew out a breath and nodded. “I get it. But it’s what we have to do, isn’t it?”
He set the laptop down again and stood, arms crossed over his chest.
“If that’s what you want.”
She blew the piece of hair out of her face. At least, she tried to, but it only fell right back where it was. Then she stood and started pacing. “Don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of fun during the time we spent together, not to mention the stress relief, but stress or no stress, I’m not here to blow off steam, Ben. I don’t have time for fun, and I don’t have time for…for anything other than taking care of Gran and her inn.”
Ben raised his brows. “You mentioned the time thing. Twice. And the fun thing too.”
She waved him off. “Because fun doesn’t factor into the equation anymore. Fun isn’t why I’m here. Fun is…that was all it was, for both of us. The perfect commitment is one where you don’t have to commit to anything but the fun part, right?” She stopped so she was facing him, hands in the pockets of her jeans as she rocked back and forth on her heels.
That was what he’d said to her on the day they’d met, not because he was an ass but because they’d both wanted the same thing. Now she used his own words against him, and she wasn’t exactly wrong to do so. But there was still something between them. He could feel it bubbling beneath the surface. He wouldn’t push though. If it was there today, it’d be there tomorrow, right? After she got settled and realized that maybe, possibly, the next several weeks didn’t have to be all work and no play.
“Right,” he finally said. “Our time was fun. I should let you get to work.”
She held up her beer. “This is good. I could use another. My last chance to blow off some steam before I’m officially on the job twenty-four-seven.” Her cheeks turned pink. “I didn’t mean blowing off steam as in…you know. Just a drink. And then business as usual.”
He grinned. He could always help when it came to blowing off steam—even if it wasn’t the way he’d initially intended.
“I can do you one better. I know you know just about everyone in town. But you need a squad. You know Ivy and Casey. And I can introduce you to Delaney. She’s pretty tight with them now…”
Instead of laughing, this time she snorted and narrowly escaped spitting out her beer.
“A squad?” she said after swallowing. She swiped her forearm over the corner of her mouth where a tiny dribble of beer had leaked out.
He squared his shoulders. “We have this family with a couple of teenage girls who checked in the other day. All they talk about is texting their squad and sharing pics. They don’t even say the whole word—pictures.” Good Lord. He was about to be thirty, not seventy. When did he start talking like a curmudgeon? “Whatever. What I was going to say was I could text Ivy, Casey, and Delaney and get you that much-needed girls’ night before all hell breaks loose tomorrow.”
Charlotte nodded slowly. Then she cocked her head to the side and looked at him like she’d never seen anything like him before. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign.
“You’d do all that for me?” she asked. “Even though I said we can’t…you know.”
“Sleep together?” he asked, going for blunt because why dance around the subject?
She coughed on her next sip of beer, then nodded.
“Geez, Do—Charlotte. Give a guy some credit. I can do something nice for someone without there being anything in it for me.”
Sure, it shocked him too—wanting to do something for her just because—but it didn’t mean he was incapable of such an act.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. This is just new ground for me, I guess. Are we becoming friends?”
His brows drew together for a moment as he thought about the word. Friends. He didn’t really have any female friends who weren’t at least in other relationships. He thought about the idea of a friendship with a woman to whom he was still attracted and realized—oddly enough—that he’d prefer that over nothing at all.
“Sure,” he said. “Friends. On one condition though. Ya gotta let me call you Doc, Doc. The Charlotte thing—it just feels weird.”
She laughed and held out her hand to shake.
“Okay,” she said. “You got yourself a deal, cowboy.”
He smiled at that and shook her hand. “Well, it looks like we’ve come to an agreement.”
They shook again, and her hand lingered in his. They stayed that way for a few quiet moments until the phone on Charlotte’s nightstand rang.
She gasped. “What if it’s someone calling to book a room? You were supposed to show me. I had a list.”
Ben picked up the phone.
“Meadow Valley Inn, this is Ben. How may I help you?”
He strode to the dresser and woke up the laptop. Then he nodded and double-clicked on a date in the calendar and typed in the patron’s name and email address. “Okay, ma’am. You’ll receive a confirmation email with your reservation and a link to enter payment information. Your card will not be charged until you check out, but we require one to hold the room. We take cancellations up until twenty-four hours before your stay.” He nodded. “Yes. Thank you, and we look forward to your visit.”
He ended the call and placed the phone back in its cradle.
Charlotte’s hands were on her hips, her eyes narrow slits.
“That’s it?” she asked. “Double-click, enter an email, and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am? I’ve been freaking out about how to use the reservation system, and a twelve-year-old could have figured it out?”
Ben grinned. “Would you have let me stick around and get you situated if you didn’t think I had something important to offer you?”
She opened her mouth to protest, but then blew out a breath, her shoulders relaxing.
“I’m sorry about yelling at you last night,” she said. “I was so worked up about what happened to Gran that I didn’t exactly know how to react when I saw you at the hospital. I was a little less than friendly, but it was only because you caught me off guard.”
He winked at her. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re friends, now, huh? Maybe it’ll help with knowing how to react next time you see me.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she cleared her throat. “Right. Exactly. We can wave or high-five or whatever it is that friends do.”
“Sure, Doc,” he said, wondering if she was flustered because this was as new for her as it was for him. Then he held his hand up high. “I should let you get back to your lists. Up top?”
She laughed nervously and slapped his palm with hers.
“I’ll see you around, friend,” he said, backing toward her bedroom door.
“See you. Friend,” she said with a soft smile.
Then he pulled her door shut behind him, shaking his head once he was out in the hall.
Did he still feel the urge to kiss her? Sure did. Old habits die hard, and this cowboy was chock-full of habits he needed to break. But something about the good doctor made him want to prove that he could.
He still held his bottle of beer and raised it in a toast to no one in particular as he made his way back up front to let Tyler off the hook.
“To friends,” he said to himself, then smiled and drank.
Chapter Six
You’re going to be friends with Ben Callahan?” Casey asked. The proprietor of Midtown Tavern slipped out from behind the bar and joined Charlotte and Ivy on the other side. “Ben Callahan,” she said again. “The guy who is the cowboy version of Joey from Friends.”
Charlotte imagined Ben saying, “How you doin’?” and laughed out loud.
“Why is it so hard to believe? Wasn’t i
t friend-like for him to get us all together tonight?” she whisper-shouted as if someone might hear her talking about said cowboy.
Ivy looked around the empty bar and giggled. Casey had locked the doors twenty minutes ago, but she’d topped off the other two women’s pints so she could join them for her own after-work drink.
“There’s no one here,” Ivy whisper-shouted back to her. “And you’re okay with…I mean, the last time you were here, you and Ben…”
“Had a fun vacation fling that’s in the past?” Charlotte asked, ignoring the sudden flush of heat she felt at the mere mention of that week. Nothing good could come of her and Ben falling back into that pattern of…activity. Besides…time. She had no time for a fling. She had an inn to run and a grandmother to take care of.
Casey nodded. “Yeah. That. The fling. Friends after a fling in the close quarters of a town as small as Meadow Valley?” She whistled. “Easier said than done.”
Charlotte’s laughter subsided. The whole small-town thing clicked into place.
“Have either of you…” she asked. “I mean, are you both friends with Ben Callahan?” She winced at the tiny pang of jealousy deep in her gut. She didn’t want anything more from Ben than his friendship, but she also wanted to believe that despite his reputation as a player that she’d been slightly more than a notch on his bedpost. After all, they did spend a whole two weeks together.
“No,” Ivy said, shaking her head emphatically.
“You’re not friends?” Charlotte asked, and Ivy laughed.
“I meant no, I’ve never…Carter’s the only guy for me. And yes. Ben Callahan and I are friends. More like friendly acquaintances. His brother Sam though. He’s the good friend type. A great friend, actually. They don’t make ’em like that anymore. I mean, except for Carter.” Ivy’s cheeks flushed at the mention of her fiancé. “And Casey’s sort of pined for Boone Murphy since high school, so I guarantee she and Ben have never…you know.”
Casey elbowed her friend. “I don’t pine,” she insisted. “I just don’t do the whole heartbreak thing.” She turned her attention to Charlotte. “Look. Ben’s a good guy. Just because he’s not the commitment type doesn’t mean he’s a total jerk. And just because he’s easy on the eyes doesn’t mean every woman in town is unable to resist him.”