Sweet

She laid her hand on mine, and I knew right then there was nothing I wouldn’t do to make her mine, short of dragging her down with me.

“What will you do next?”

“No idea,” I said, which wasn’t the whole truth. I had one short-term plan—a proposition I intended to make. I wouldn’t share it with her, though. If she knew the details, she’d never let me go through with it.

Pearl

I’d never wanted to give somebody a piece of my mind like I wanted to give it to Bud Wynn in that moment. Too bad he was dead. All I could do was hope hell was real and he was in it.

My sorority’s social director, Jen, had been pre-law, and her parents were both attorneys. She’d explained the basics of trust funds and inheritance transfers and prenups to any of us who weren’t familiar with the legal pitfalls of saying I do and later saying I sure as hell don’t. I’d assumed that if Mitchell and I got married, we’d be doing so as doctors—equals. If it didn’t work out we’d arrange a reasonable, equitable split.

I’d never considered what happened in a situation like this—where a divorce should have happened but hadn’t. Boyce’s mother had run from an abusive husband, leaving her share of marital property behind. I couldn’t justly fault her for wanting her share—I just hated what she might take from Boyce. He wouldn’t know what she intended until she showed up, but I’d learned two things from Jen’s warnings and a bit of Internet research: she was probably entitled to everything, and when it came to money and inheritance, people lost their damned minds.

“You have a personal account in your name, right? Separate from the business and your dad’s accounts?”

He nodded, staring at his plate. “There’s not a whole lot in it. I’ve been channeling most of the garage income back into the business, replacing crap diagnostic equipment, buying new tools. I got advice from Maxfield’s dad when I first took over, and he told me to keep the business money completely separate and pay myself a salary. I wish I’d given myself a fucking raise a year ago.” He chuckled. “But thank Christ I listened to him or I’d have lumped it all together like a dumbass.”

“Boyce, there’s no way you could have seen this coming,” I said—his words to me when Mama had told me I couldn’t live at home and pursue the life I wanted. Little did I know I’d be echoing them back to him about his own mother. I took a bite of rice and nearly spit it right back out. “Aauugh! How much salt did I put in this?”

He laughed and arched a brow. “You were a tad distracted.”

Lord, was I ever. I downed half my iced tea in an attempt to dilute the salt and battled the urge to fan myself like a swooning twit. “Maybe you shouldn’t distract me while I’m cooking.”

He leapt from playful to predatory in two seconds flat. “But I like distracting you.”

His mouth curved into the lazy half smirk I knew so well, and his gaze dropped to my lips. When I licked them (combination nervous habit and enough salt on that rice to choke a horse), our eyes connected. There was nothing guarded in the deep green of his.

It was official: when it came to Boyce Wynn, I was the quintessential swooning twit.

• • • • • • • • • •

The inn was over a century old but had been reincarnated multiple times. In one form or another, it had survived a fire, a tidal wave, and a lengthy economic downturn. My semi-official title was Front Desk Person, but that hardly covered the responsibilities of the position. By my third shift, I’d unclogged the ice machine with a screwdriver and a couple of swift kicks, placated a returning guest when another guest refused to vacate the room they’d reserved, and set mousetraps in a storage closet after a guest freaked out that the scratching noises she heard in her room overnight were evidence of a haunting—part of the inn’s folklore.

Minnie assured her that the inn’s resident spirit meant no harm. “Alyce was a former tenant who’d lived a happy life here and didn’t want to leave. She had a touch of the OCD—not diagnosed back in those days, y’know. She’s been known to sweep the floors at night. Maybe that’s what you heard?”

“It did sound like sweeping!” The woman agreed while I fought to maintain a straight face and worried whether my boss actually believed what she was saying.

When the door shut behind the guest, Minnie reached beneath the counter and pulled out a box of mousetraps and a jar of peanut butter. “Ghosts they’ll stay for, rodents they won’t.”

The room (and storage closet next to it) was upstairs, and Minnie was under strict orders not to climb the creaky staircase with her cast and cane. “Don’t let it snap on your finger,” she said. “It’ll take your nail clean off.”

I was less worried about trap springs and more worried about squeezing into a narrow closet with a territorial horde of mice.

In my last hour of the night, I’d been summoned three times to a room shared by three college boys—first to deliver fresh towels, then extra pillows, and then to change a lightbulb in the ceiling—which I accomplished standing on a chair while they stood around watching. Their last call was an invitation to join them in some whiskey-shot pregaming before they went out. I declined.

As I locked up the office and drove home, I thought about Boyce’s mother. Specifically, where would she stay when she arrived? I’d spent one night in the new bed, but I could be back on the sofa in a day or two. Or sleeping in my car.