True Colors

by Judith Arnold

  Chapter Four

   

  Max entered the Ocean Bluff Inn and zeroed in on the clerk behind the burnished wood counter. She was dressed neatly in a blazer and blouse—the counter blocked his view of her lower half, so he couldn’t see whether she was wearing slacks or a skirt, but he felt safe in assuming that whatever she had on was appropriate. Her hair was neat, her lips glistening with a soft pink lipstick.

  Monica Reinhart, he guessed. The proper professional he’d rented his house to. The young woman Andrea Simonetti had sworn would make a perfect tenant, taking care of his property until he decided what to do with it.

  He took a deep breath and crossed the cozy lobby to the counter. Another man might storm across the room and light into the woman, but Max wasn’t given to displays of temper. He was kind of surprised that Emma Glendon had triggered so much anger in him, an anger hot enough that it hadn’t burned itself out in the time it took him to drive down the winding, weaving roads back to town and this hotel.

  Monica tapped a few keys on her computer and then turned and smiled at him. A middle-aged couple descended the broad, carpeted stairs to the lobby, and Max hesitated, figuring it would be better for Monica to assist them first. Even if he didn’t lose his temper with his tenant, he didn’t want to discuss her breach of their lease—or possibly breaches, plural—in front of hotel guests.

  But they strolled past him and out the front door to the veranda, leaving him and Monica alone in the lobby. He approached the counter and asked, “Monica Reinhart?”

  Her smile unflinching, she shook her head. “Kim Seaver. Can I help you?”

  Okay. Not Monica Reinhart. He wondered if Ms. Reinhart would turn up in baggy old pants spattered with paint, like her illegal roommate. “I need to talk to Monica Reinhart.”

  “She’s in a meeting with the tennis court people,” Kim informed him. “The court needs to be resurfaced before the season starts. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No. It has to be Ms. Reinhart.”

  Kim quirked one eyebrow, as if trying to guess what he needed to see her colleague about. If it were her business, he would have told her. He wished she would put her eyebrow back down.

  “You’re welcome to have a seat and wait. The parlor is quiet.” She gestured toward an arched doorway off the lobby. “Or you can have a drink in the lounge. Or the TV room—”

  He didn’t want a drink. Or a TV. He wanted to discuss his house with Monica, and then he wanted to sell the damned place and get on with his life.

  “Oh, wait—here she comes now,” Kim said, her attention snared by chattering voices that drifted into the lobby from a back corridor. “You’re in luck.” The smile she gave him was oddly coquettish, which made him recoil. He didn’t trust flirtatious women.

  The woman he presumed to be Monica Reinhart soon appeared in the hallway leading into the lobby from somewhere beyond the check-in counter. She was flanked by two burly men in work clothes—rugged jeans, flannel shirts, denim jackets. She, however, was clearly a graduate of the same school of grooming as Kim. She wore a tailored blue blazer over a plain white blouse, a pale gray skirt, nylons and dark shoes with low heels. Her hair was straight and dark, neatly trimmed to chin length, and her face was buffed and polished. She seemed to be everything Emma Glendon was not.

  “Monica, this gentleman is here to see you,” Kim said cheerfully, then gestured toward Max. Did she actually wink at him?

  He didn’t want to know. Seizing the moment, he extended his right hand across the counter and introduced himself. “Max Tarloff.”

  Monica’s smile lost a bit of its luster as his name registered on her. Then she brightened again, with some effort. He could see the struggle as the corners of her mouth edged upward. “Yes, of course. Max Tarloff.” After shaking his hand, she slid hers free of his grip and turned to the workmen. “So—clay surfaces, new nets, work with the landscape people and leave the fence as is.”

  “Right,” one of the workmen said. “We’re on it.”

  “Thanks.” She turned back to Max, then glided around the counter. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know you were coming to town.”

  “Well.” He spread his hands as if to say, here I am.

  “Why don’t you come to my office?” She beckoned him around the counter and toward the back hall. Kim gazed after them, her expression calculating.

  No, he wanted to shout at Kim. I’m not here to flirt. I don’t have a personal relationship with Monica Reinhart, and I don’t want a personal relationship with you. I want to get that wild-haired woman out of my house and I want to put it up for sale. And I want to forget it ever existed.

  Doing his best to ignore Kim, he followed Monica down the hall to an office barely large enough to contain a small teak computer desk and a few chairs. The window behind the desk looked out onto a patio. While she might boast her own office, Monica was too young to roost high on the executive ladder at this resort. He supposed the offices overlooking the ocean were reserved for the head honchos.

  He waited until she’d taken her seat behind the desk before he lowered himself into a chair facing her. The chair seemed better suited to someone her height than his; his knees jutted out, nearly banging the desk. Inching the chair back, he bumped the wall behind him. He felt like Alice after she’d eaten the cake that said “Eat Me” and outgrew the house she was trapped inside.

  “It’s so nice to meet you face to face,” Monica said.

  He braced himself against the charm offensive she seemed determined to launch. “Ms. Reinhart,” he said, choosing to keep things as formal as possible. “I stopped by the house before coming here. Some other person—who wasn’t you—was living there.”

  “Emma,” Monica said. “My best friend.”

  “According to the lease—”

  He was interrupted by the ringing of a telephone on the desk. “Excuse me,” she murmured before lifting the receiver and tucking it against her cheek. “Monica Reinhart speaking… Hi, Dad. Yes, the tennis court guys were here…. They’ll get it done before Memorial Day. Don’t worry…. Well, with the weather, they couldn’t… It’ll get done, Dad. In time for the season…. No, they’re leaving the fence. Just like we discussed…. Okay. ’Bye.” She lowered the phone and gave Max an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”

  He checked himself before reassuring her he didn’t mind. He didn’t, really; after all, he’d just barged in on her, interrupting her work day. He hadn’t made an appointment, and he ought to be grateful she’d invited him into her office. But he didn’t want things to get too friendly between her and himself. He was pissed off, and he wanted to stay pissed off.

  What had he been saying before the phone rang? Monica thoughtfully reminded him. “According to the lease…?”

  He nodded. “According to the lease, you were supposed to be the only person living in the house. No sublets were allowed.”

  “Emma isn’t subletting. She’s just staying with me.”

  “I rented to you, not to her. I wasn’t renting the house to make money—obviously. The rent is way below market value. I just wanted someone—one quiet, responsible adult—to stay in the house and make sure the pipes didn’t freeze in the winter.”

  “They didn’t,” Monica said sweetly. “I made sure.”

  “The lease was a simple arrangement. Straightforward. Low rent, one person. But you invited someone else to live with you—and even worse, she’s running a school out of the house.”

  “It’s not a school,” Monica argued. “She just does art with some kids. I don’t suppose it matters though, does it? Andrea told us we’re going to have to vacate the premises in June. Unless you’d like to consider renewing the lease.” She sent him a hopeful smile.

  “That’s not going to happen.” Damn Monica Reinhart for being so pleasant. She was coming across as civil and polite, and he was coming across as some sort of monster.

  But he was pissed off. He’d flown into Boston, rented a car and driven u
p to Brogan’s Point, intending to make sure his house was still standing and then stop by at Andrea Simonetti’s real estate office to discuss listing the house for sale. Then he’d planned to drive back south to Cambridge, to spend a couple of days visiting his beloved mentor, Professor Stan Weisner, and indulging in a beer or two at one of his favorite college hangouts.

  He hadn’t expected to find that wild-haired woman in his house—with a pair of kids in tow. And to learn that she was living there, and running a commercial enterprise without his permission, without a zoning clearance, without any of the legal necessities…

  He’d been taken advantage of before. He wasn’t going to let that happen again, regardless of how civil and polite Monica Reinhart was.

  Her phone rang again. “Oh—excuse me,” she said before lifting the phone and directing all her civility and politeness toward her caller. “Monica Reinhart speaking… No, that’s up to the landscaper. He has to work around the sprinkler heads. Talk to Barry about it, okay?” Another contrite smile as she set the phone back in its cradle. “We’ve really loved living in the house,” she told him. “We’ve put every effort into taking good care of it. We’ve shoveled the driveway all winter, even though technically that wasn’t our responsibility. We scrubbed all the outdoor furniture on the deck and stored it in the basement. We thought about hanging some pictures—well, Emma did. She’s an artist. She loves being surrounded by art. But we didn’t want to put any nail holes into your walls, so we left them bare.”

  “An artist. Right,” he muttered, a vision of that short, curvaceous woman with her flamboyant mop of hair flashing through his mind.

  “Did she tell you about her Dream Portraits? This is so cool—she paints a portrait of a person and surrounds the portrait with that person’s dreams. The one she’s working on now is a portrait of a little girl who dreams about being a princess. So she’s painting a castle, and a crown… I think she’s going to include a unicorn, too. She’s so amazingly talented.”

  Max didn’t want to hear how amazingly talented she was. “She’s painting this portrait in my house?”

  “Oh, she’s very careful. She’s laid drop-cloths all over the floor.”

  Wonderful. She was not only running a school in his house, but also painting castles and unicorns. “There are licensing and insurance issues—”

  The phone rang again. Monica held her hand up like a traffic cop, halting him, and then answered the phone. “Monica Reinhart speaking… Where’s Donna? She should be handling that.” Monica listened for a moment, then sighed. “All right. I’ll be there in a minute.” She hung up the phone and sighed again. “I’ve got a nervous bride-to-be who wants to change her menu for the fifth time, and our events planner took the day off to get a root canal. I’m sorry. I really have to deal with this.” She rose, and Max reluctantly stood, too. “Do you have a place to stay while you’re in town?”

  “I was planning to stay in Cambridge.”

  “But you’re here, and it’s such a beautiful day. Why don’t you spend the night at the Ocean Bluff Inn as my guest? It’s off season. We’ve got some vacant rooms. Please. As my guest,” she repeated.

  She was being too damned nice, which made him suspicious. And he hadn’t intended to stay in Brogan’s Point during this trip. Brogan’s Point had never particularly appealed to him. Sure, the ocean was pretty, but Vanessa had been the one who wanted to live here. He was more of a city person. He’d grown up in New York, he currently lived in San Francisco, and this place was too quiet. Too tranquil.

  “Thank you, but—”

  “I insist.” Monica circled the small room to the door. “Why don’t I have Kim set you up in a room, and then you, Emma and I can meet for a drink at the Faulk Street Tavern at—” she glanced at her watch “—six o’clock and we can discuss this whole lease thing. You really can’t leave Brogan’s Point without having a drink at the Faulk Street Tavern. And you can’t leave Brogan’s Point without spending a night at the Ocean Bluff Inn. I’ll have Kim take care of it.”

  With that, Monica strode out of the office and down the corridor, her sensible leather shoes carrying her at a brisk clip.

  He didn’t want to stay here, in this beautiful New England resort. He didn’t want to have a drink at the Faulk Street Tavern, wherever that was. He definitely didn’t want to get friendly with Monica Reinhart and her illegal roommate.

  A castle. A unicorn. If there was one thing Max loathed, it was whimsy.

  He should just drive over to Simonetti Realty and let Andrea take care of everything. Get Emma out of his house, inspect the premises, have an appraisal done, get the place listed. He could drive back to Cambridge and enjoy a drink at one of his old haunts instead of some picturesque little seaside tavern. He could get on with his life.

  That was what he should do… But another memory of Emma Glendon, her lush hair and her even lusher lips, lodged itself in his brain. And he found himself at the counter in the lobby, allowing Kim to book him into a third-floor room.