Jeannie Watt Read online

  “We’ll find room,” she said, unable to suppress a hint of dryness. “We are starting this floor tomorrow.”

  “We?”

  “My carpenter.” Who had better come back. If not, I am very, very sunk. “And a few friends.”

  “I was under the impression you had difficulty keeping help.”

  Tara’s eyebrows went up with mock surprise. Yeah, I’ll bet you’ve been given that impression.

  She swallowed the words and smiled. “My carpenter is very reliable.”

  Nate Bidart gave her a considering look. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll hold the cocktail party here regardless. Martin had me convinced the entire house was a shambles, but I see he was mistaken. I’d already made some alternate arrangements with him for the party, but seeing as that was all a misunderstanding, we’ll change those.”

  Misunderstanding, her butt. Tara decided to go for broke.

  “Look. You’ve been honest with me. I want to be honest with you.”

  Bidart nodded.

  “My aunt took out a loan with the bank prior to her death to renovate this place. It has a hefty balloon attached to it. There are some other circumstances involved, but the bottom line is that I need to make this house start paying for itself. I can fill the rooms before the reunion. I’ve had calls, which is why I’m working on the third floor.” She paused, met Bidart’s steady gaze. “But having someone like you or your mother stay here…well, I was hoping that perhaps in the future, you’d keep my place in mind when you hold a retreat or meeting in the area. Or maybe you might recommend my place. I think if you keep your reservation, you’ll be impressed.” She glanced around. “And surprised.”

  For a moment she was afraid she’d been too candid, had looked too much like a money-grubber. She didn’t want to grub money. She wanted to put Nicky through school, keep her house and survive during the process.

  “How old was your aunt when she took out this loan?”

  Tara was taken aback by the unexpected question. “Seventy-four, I think.”

  Bidart nodded. “Which lending institution?”

  “U.S. Trust.”

  “Surprising.”

  Tara frowned and was about to ask why, but Bidart just shook his head.

  “Never mind,” he said.

  He started down the flight of stairs without another word and Tara automatically followed, wishing she hadn’t been quite so candid. It had been a calculated risk. She’d lost.

  When they reached the ground floor, Bidart headed for the door, but he wasn’t walking as quickly as before and Tara realized he was still assessing the lines and architectural details of her house. He stopped in the foyer and took a moment to study the carved oak molding that framed the archway, running his fingertips lightly over the newly finished surface.

  “This house must have been something in its day,” Bidart said, dropping his hand to his side. “I can see why Mom is so taken with it. But, frankly, you have a very long way to go.”

  “And I have several days to get there,” she replied shortly.

  His gaze settled on her. “You think you can pull this off?”

  “I know I can.”

  Bidart’s mouth worked for a moment. “I’ll want to see the place before they arrive.”

  It was all Tara could do to keep a foolish grin from spreading across her face as the meaning of his words sunk in. “You’ll keep the reservation?” she asked, wanting reassurance that she had not misunderstood.

  “My mother wasn’t too happy about the cancellation anyway,” he admitted. “But—” his expression became matter-of-fact “—as far as business arrangements go, retreats and such, I’ve been using Somers Inn for a number of years. Martin is a friend. We have a mutually satisfactory arrangement and I have every reason to believe it will continue that way.”

  “I understand.”

  Nate reached for the door, then paused. “You do know that if I end up sharing a room at Somers Inn with my mother and two aunts…well, let’s just say I’m not going to be happy with you or your establishment.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “It had better not. Or you won’t get any referrals from me. Good night, Miss Sullivan.”

  She smiled. “Good night.”

  Tara gently closed the door behind him and turned to lean against it, blowing out a breath that lifted the tendrils of hair off her forehead.

  She didn’t have a promise of Bidart’s return business, but she did have her reservations back, and the possibility of referrals, which she desperately wanted. She’d won. Kind of. On the professional front anyway.

  As for the personal front…she wasn’t even going to think about that. It was simply too humiliating and confusing.

  “HEY, BABE.” Jack’s deep voice rumbled over the line early the next morning. “I hate to ask this of you. I know you’re damned busy, but my mom’s sick. Ben just took her to the hospital in Elko. They’re running tests. I gotta get over there.”

  “When do you need me to work?” Tara immediately asked.

  “Six to ten tonight.”

  “No problem.” Matt’s truck turned into the drive and Tara’s heart jumped. Okay. He’d come back. They would work from there.

  “Tonight and tomorrow…” Jack was saying.

  “I’ll plan to work every night until I hear from you.” Matt shot a look her way as he came in the door. He crossed to the counter and filled his cup from the coffee carafe. He looked tired.

  “Thanks, Tara. It’ll only be those two nights. I have the rest of the shifts covered. And I promise I’ll lend a hand fixing up your old barn in return.”

  “Thanks, Jack.” Tara knew he’d have no time, but the offer was sincere. She hung up the phone and looked at Matt leaning against the counter, his expression distant, just as it had been when they’d first met. She’d managed to take them back to square one. She didn’t particularly like it there, but she was going to live with it.

  “Jack’s mom,” she explained, even though he hadn’t asked. “She’s in the hospital.”

  “Something serious?”

  “They’re running tests.”

  At the sound of a car coming up the drive, she went to the window and saw Hailey’s station wagon pull to a stop next to Matt’s truck.

  “Hailey’s here to set up her pottery stuff. I hadn’t expected her quite this early, but she’s excited to get started.”

  “Tara…about last night…”

  Her heart rate increased in spite of herself, but her expression was purposefully cool.

  “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “I wasn’t insulted,” she said in a flat voice. “Confused is a better word.” As were hurt and abandoned. She walked to the door and stepped out onto the porch before he could say anything else to tie her stomach in knots. She didn’t move fast enough.

  “It wasn’t easy to leave last night,” he muttered as he caught up with her.

  “Oh, that makes rejection so much easier.”

  “It should.”

  She stopped on the top step, her hands on her hips. She wanted to put an end to this…rehash. Once and for all.

  “Look. I got your messages loud and clear. You don’t want to hurt me and I shouldn’t get involved with you, even for one night. Fine. I understand and I am not insulted. I just want to move on without losing my carpenter. There? Does that cover all of the bases? Have we talked enough?”

  “Just about.” Matt grated out the words, his eyes narrowing. “What happened with Bidart last night?”

  “I got the reservation. Thank you for asking.” Tara’s tone matched Matt’s exactly.

  Hailey had the tailgate open and was busy dragging a heavy bucket of clay out of the back as Tara and Matt approached.

  “Let me get that,” Matt said as he moved to the rear of the car. He easily hefted the remaining five-gallon plastic bucket and reached for the one Hailey had let thud to the ground.

  “The shop?”

  “The sh
op,” Hailey said with a smile. “Thanks.”

  Both women watched Matt as he walked away, a bucket in each hand, flexing the muscles in his arms and back

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about him.”

  No, Tara thought with an edge of foreboding. Don’t ask me about him. “I would think that working in the salon, you’d know everything there is to know.”

  “Well—” Hailey gave her a roguish grin “—it seems the ladies don’t know much.”

  “Were you sent to find out more?” Tara asked darkly.

  “It was suggested,” Hailey confirmed. Tara gritted her teeth.

  “Some of the ladies think he’s sweet on you, and the rest think he’s hanging around trying to get lucky. The general consensus there is ‘good luck.’”

  Tara felt her jaw tighten, but she liked Hailey and she kept her voice carefully even when she asked, “No chance that he could just be working here as a carpenter?”

  “Nope,” Hailey replied easily. “There has to be an ulterior motive.”

  “How do you stand that place?”

  Hailey laughed. “There are only a few really nasty gossips, but for some reason, they always seem to be there at the same time.”

  Matt came back out of the shop and headed for the house. Tara watched him go, and then turned back to Hailey, who was looking at her now. Tara could see speculation in the blonde’s eyes, but all her friend said was, “So you’re working on the third floor?”

  “I got another reservation,” Tara answered, relieved, “and Matt said he could make it livable.”

  “Not much time,” Hailey pointed out.

  “Tell me about it,” Tara replied, pushing her braid over her shoulder. “I need to get Matt’s breakfast so we can go to work. Do you want something to eat?”

  Hailey shook her head. “No. I’ve eaten. I’ll just go and tidy up my work area. Grandpa is coming later with a couple of friends to move the kiln and table in.”

  “All right then….” Tara started for the house. Matt was in the kitchen, drinking his now-cold coffee.

  “Luke should be here soon to help with the wallboard.”

  Matt nodded, his expression impersonal. Probably his cop face, Tara decided.

  “I’ll make you some pancakes and then maybe you and I could get some of the wallboard upstairs before he arrives…. You know, to kind of save his shoulder?”

  “Good idea.” Matt drained the cup and stood. “I’m not really hungry, so maybe we can get started.”

  Tara didn’t argue.

  Luke showed up twenty minutes later, just as Hailey came out of the shop. She greeted him like an old friend, and despite his protests, got on the other end of a piece of wallboard and helped him cart it up two flights of stairs.

  Between the four of them, the wallboard was soon unloaded and transported to the third floor, where it waited for Matt to turn the framed-in bathroom into an actual room and replace what was once lath and plaster walls. Matt carried Luke’s big circular saw up the stairs and set it on the floor next to the sawhorses. He straightened and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “It’s going to be hot up here today,” Tara said as she started opening windows and propping the fans in them to let a cross breeze through the already overheated room. “I’ll turn the cooler on if you want.”

  “Don’t,” Matt answered automatically. “Too expensive. I’ll survive.” He turned his attention to the framed-in areas, mentally calculating. Fine, Tara thought, melt up here.

  “Hey, Tara.” Hailey came from the far end of the large room. “You know what you could do to this floor?”

  “Cover it with about thirty rugs?”

  Hailey shook her head. “Stencil it. Around the edges, like a border. If you hate it, you can strip it off, but it would be pretty without tons of work. We could put matching stencils around the walls and in the bathrooms.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll have time,” Tara said dubiously.

  “I’ll help. I’ve done this before. In fact,” she said with a smile, “I’m pretty good at it.”

  Tara hesitated, indecisive. She wasn’t used to having people offer to help her. It felt strange. “All right.”

  “I’ll bring my book by tonight and we can make some plans.”

  “I’m bartending tonight,” Tara told her. “Six to ten.”

  “I’ll bring it by the bar. How busy can it be?”

  “There’s a band tonight,” Luke informed her. “You know what that means.”

  “There’ll be really bad music at the Owl?”

  Luke gave her a look that spoke volumes.

  Hailey grinned. “I’ll bring the book by anyway. Maybe we can look at it if you have a minute.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Tara said, but her attention was already back on Matt, who was measuring the first wall. She headed for the stairs. She had work to do.

  The rumble of a truck engine sounded through the open window and Hailey went to look.

  “Grandpa,” she said happily. “Come on, Luke. You want to do some lifting, we have a monster kiln for you down there.”

  LUKE POKED HIS HEAD into the kitchen to say goodbye late that afternoon. Matt hadn’t come down to the first floor all day long, having skipped lunch as well as breakfast, so Tara finally went upstairs to see him before she left for the Owl. She just wanted to check on his progress. Right.

  He was standing in the doorway of the new bathroom, a bottle of water in one hand, surveying his work.

  “You’ve done a lot today.” Tara pulled her eyes away from him and looked around at the newly covered walls. “Which I appreciate, since I contacted the lady on my waiting list, and I now have these—” she glanced around dubiously “—rooms booked.”

  “They’ll be done.” Matt leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, sipping at the water as he spoke. It was almost unbearably hot, even with the windows open and the fans pushing a breeze through the room. Matt’s T-shirt was soaked with sweat and it clung to his chest. The white powder from the gypsum board streaked his face and dotted his glasses. He looked hot and male and sexy…and guarded. Whatever self-protective mechanism she’d triggered was a strong one.

  “Luke’s going to help tomorrow if his shoulder is still all right,” he said.

  “Don’t—”

  Matt raised a hand, cutting off her words. “I won’t let him hurt himself.” They both knew that Luke wanted to work. “You’re tending bar until ten tonight?”

  “I am. How much longer will you be here?”

  “Another hour maybe. Do me a favor, okay?”

  Tara tilted her head.

  “Try,” he said with a straight face, “really try, not to pick a fight with anyone.”

  “Right,” Tara muttered, finding no humor in his comment. She turned and trotted down the stairs, wondering why she put up with this guy who was turning her inside out and ticking her off to boot.

  Because he’s the only carpenter you got…and, in spite of everything, he still makes your hormones sweat.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE BAR WAS remarkably busy for a Thursday and it was entirely due to the band. BrushPopper was one of the area favorites, a garage band that had never moved out of the garage. The four men who’d formed the band in their teens were now in their forties and not yet close to quitting their day jobs.

  Hailey arrived soon after the band, carrying a thick stencil pattern book, which she set on the end of the bar with a loud thump.

  The band was beginning to set up their equipment and Tara knew the bar would soon be filled with the squeaks and squeals of numerous sound checks, followed by songs played through amps too large for the small room. She reached under the bar into the cache of disposable earplugs, automatically handing Hailey a pair before she pulled the stencil book closer, flipping the pages.

  “Can you do this stuff here?” she asked, pointing to a picture of a multishaded trail of flowers and ivy. “All those colors blending together like t
hat?”

  “No problem. And look here,” Hailey said, flipping to another page. “We can make the bathtub match the walls if you want.”

  “That would be kind of neat.”

  Tara was only able to look at the book for a few minutes before she had to start pouring drinks full-time.

  “I thought Matt and Luke would be here,” Hailey said as she resignedly flipped the book shut and shifted on her stool to look out across the barroom. The people kept coming in, happy to have something to do on a Thursday night. The band was playing for three days, and Tara was willing to bet that most of the people in the bar tonight would be back for the other two days.

  “They’ll be here later.”

  Hailey perched on the stool and leaned back against the bar, watching the crowd. Her eyes narrowed as they swept over the pool-table area. Tara followed her gaze and saw Rafe, wearing jeans and a white shirt that accentuated his olive complexion and dark hair. Tara glanced back at Hailey, whose soft lips had tightened ominously.

  Becky arrived with an order from the restaurant and Tara lined up glasses and mixed drinks. “Matt’s here,” Hailey said as Tara floated brandy on top of a pair of Picon Punches. Tara glanced up, her heart beating faster. She saw Matt ambling over to a pool table.

  She glanced purposely back down at the drinks, rubbing the lemon twists around the rims of the glasses before dropping the curls into the drinks.

  “Order up,” she said to Becky, who was flirting with the guy two stools down from Hailey.

  “You know,” Hailey said, pushing off from the barstool with an air of determination, “I think I’ll go and play some pool.”

  “Good idea,” Tara said, and realized that she didn’t mean a word of it as she watched her friend head toward her carpenter with a bright smile on her pretty face.

  I don’t want Hailey hanging around Matt. She swore under her breath. That was so not like her. She gave her head a shake. It didn’t seem to help.