by Melissa West
“Hey there, stranger.”
Savannah turned to see Hannah and Dana standing close by, clearly with something on their minds. For a grocery run, they were overly dressed, making her feel less and less like she belonged in their circle. Savannah tried to remember why she’d ever been friends with them.
“We heard you were having volunteers over to help with a few projects. We’d be happy to help.”
Ah, man. Here she was thinking the worst of them, and they were just trying to be nice. She was a horrible person, who should repent her judgments to God…along with her four uses of God and seven uses of Jesus C yesterday. Or maybe she’d just say sorry for everything I’ve ever done that might be considered a sin and call it a day.
“That would be great,” Savannah said, edging closer to them. “We’re working in the garden later today. Maybe you could—”
“Is Logan going to be there? I mean, surely he is, right? After all, y’all are an item aren’t you?”
So much for nice.
“I don’t really know if he will. Probably.”
“Fantastic. We were eager to see you two together in the flesh. Talk has it you’ve been hiding out,” Dana said. “Though, if it is all just a rumor, would you let me know? I wouldn’t mind asking Logan out.” She grinned. “You know…if you won’t mind?”
“Sure,” Savannah said through gritted teeth. Thankfully that seemed to appease them, and they went on their way.
So, clearly they were still in high school. Though she didn’t remember either of them giving Logan a second glance back then. Sure, he’d had his looks, but he was from the wrong side of the tracks, his father or mother always the source of some type of town gossip. They didn’t see Logan for the person he was then and likely didn’t now, either.
Her thoughts drifted back to the lunar eclipse, a romantic evening under the stars. That was Logan—all crooked grin on the outside, but inside lay a man who knew how to sweep a woman away. If only she could spend every evening under the stars.
She stopped walking, her mind turning the phrase over and over again. A romantic evening under the stars. What if the bed-and-breakfast offered something like that for its guests? What if they coordinated romantic picnics under the stars—or just wine like Logan had planned for her? And maybe she could have a screen brought in on Fridays and show old movies. Or have a live band.
Pushing her cart to the checkout as fast as possible, ignoring the sidelong looks from people as she passed, she called Leigh.
“Are you at the bed-and-breakfast?”
“Yes. Where else would I be? You have me running the front desk.”
Savannah ignored her sister’s snark and continued on. “Good. Grab Jack. I’ll be there in five.”
There were people seated out in the garden as Savannah walked by, and she waved to them cheerfully. “Having a nice stay?”
“The best. Thank you, dear.”
Her heart expanded in her chest. Maybe Logan was right. She did love the bed-and-breakfast, loved interacting with guests, loved choosing the menu. She loved building memories for other people, watching their faces light up as they arrived. How could she go back to a corporate job after this?
She couldn’t.
Dangerous ideas poked at her brain, tempting her to make plans she had no right to make. Plans with her family back together, running the bed-and-breakfast. Plans with Logan by her side.
Shaking off the thought before hope gave way to crazy, she nodded to Leigh. “One second. Let me set down these bags.” Mrs. Cooke took them off her hands in the kitchen, and she went back to the front.
“I have an idea. What if we start a romance under the stars theme? We can have laundered plush blankets, wooden serving trays, and wine and goblets for each couple. We can even serve food out there for them. Maybe one night we have live music. Maybe another we can rent a screen and show old movies. It would give us a theme. People would know they would get a special time when they came here.”
Leigh chewed at her black-painted nails, and then she dropped her arms and grinned. “I like it. We can create a Facebook page and even run a few ads to get the word out. This could work.”
Both girls turned to their brother, who just stared out the front windows. “Jack?”
“What?”
“What do you think?” Leigh asked, clearly growing frustrated with her brother.
“I think it costs money to run ads and the bed-and-breakfast is already in the red.”
Savannah bit her lip. Now or never. “Well, I was kind of hoping to talk to you about that. I thought maybe you could—”
“No.” He turned for the steps, but Savannah was the oldest of the Hale kids and she wasn’t going to be cut off by her little brother, even if he was a foot taller than her.
“What do you mean ‘no’? We need you.”
Jack shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“You aren’t even trying. Mama and Daddy loved this place. It was everything to them. Don’t you care? Don’t you care about anyone but yourself? I’m not asking you to buy the place. I’m asking you to help continue our parents’ legacy. Please.”
Jack’s gaze landed on Savannah, his voice full of defeat. “You don’t understand what I’m saying, Anna. There’s nothing I can do.”
“But—”
“I’m broke.”
The words hung in the air between them, dirty and disheartening. “But how is that possible. You’re a pro athlete. Surely your salary is…” Savannah trailed off at the look on his face.
“Mom knew. She’d been pushing me to get help for the last few years.”
“Help with what?”
He released a long breath, like he’d been holding it his whole life and only now had remembered to exhale. “I have a gambling problem. It started several years ago and finally came to a head just before Mom died. Now I’m out for a year, maybe longer. I bet on a game.”
“I don’t understand. Gambling’s a problem, but it’s not illegal.”
“It goes against rule twenty-one for a player to bet on a baseball game. Any game. If it’s a bet against a game the player isn’t involved in, then the player’s ineligible for a year. If it’s a game the player was set to play in, then he’s permanently ineligible.”
“Oh my God.”
Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry I can’t help. Sorry for screwing up my life. Sorry it’s ended up hurting the family.”
Unable to bear the weight of losing the last shot she had, Savannah slumped down onto the top step, tears welling in her eyes though she wouldn’t let them fall. Not yet. Frank had told her she had two more weeks, but how could she earn enough to keep the house from foreclosure?
“What if we took out a loan?” she said.
Jack laughed sarcastically. “Do you really want to talk credit scores with me? Maybe you could get a loan.”
“I had the bank try yesterday. I was denied, and Leigh doesn’t have enough credit to qualify.”
“So what do we do?”
The light streamed in from the oval window in the two-story foyer, hitting Savannah directly in the face. For a moment she felt angry—at her meager savings, at her brother’s gambling, at her mother for allowing the bed-and-breakfast to get into this mess. She wanted to shout at the light to get out of her face, let her cry in the shadows for once. But the sun refused to let up, and that’s when Savannah realized neither did her mother.
Jane had mortgaged the house again and again to help the bed-and-breakfast stay afloat, and she wouldn’t have given it up without exhausting every possible option.
Savannah thought her romance under the stars idea was a good one. Good enough to pull them out of this mess? Maybe with a little creative play with their cash flow, it just might be a start.
“We’ll work harder,” Savannah finally said to her brother. “We need the volunteers here today and tomorrow to finish up the last of the projects on the list. I’ll have Leigh create the Facebook page
, run a few ads, and contact radio stations for ad costs. We’ll use every dollar we make to try to save it.”
“Do you think it will work?”
Starting down the steps with new determination, she said, “It has to,” before pushing up her shirtsleeves and heading out the front door. Time to save the bed-and-breakfast, even if it took every ounce of sweat and tears she had to do it.
...
Logan turned down the dirt road to his parents’ house, bile climbing his throat with each passing second. His care for Savannah was the only reason he was there, and while she’d never ask him to seek out his father, Logan knew she needed a landscaper and there was only one in town.
They had two days to do a lot of work in the garden of the bed-and-breakfast, and though Logan’s dad was a piece of shit father and husband and man, he was a damn good landscaper. It was the one thing he’d done right in his life, and with any luck, he’d agree to help them get the gardens ready for Friday’s debut of Maple Cove’s Romance Under the Stars.
Asking Canton Park for help would be one of the hardest things Logan had ever done, but he told himself that no matter what his father said, it didn’t change who Logan was today. His father’s words were just that—words. They couldn’t touch him now.
The once white house resembled an old, dying zebra. Brown, rotted wood ran side-by-side with the white. One of the windows had been broken and was covered with a black trash bag. Several shingles from the roof had blown off from one of the many summer thunderstorms Maple saw, likely creating a leak somewhere in the house that his father would never fix.
Logan wondered if his mother took one look at the rundown house, the angry drunk inside, her son fighting a war a world away, and decided she couldn’t do it anymore. Or if she’d broken up yet another marriage and ran off with the sleaze. He didn’t know, but he liked to think a person could change—he certainly had—and it gave him a bit of comfort to think at least one of his parents had become a good person after all the bad.
As though on cue, Canton Park pushed open his screen door, letting it rap loudly behind him, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lips. Gray sprinkled his greasy black hair and, like always, he wore a white V-neck undershirt, worn khaki pants, and a sneer at finding his son before him. No amount of time could turn this man good.
“Nice truck. You steal it?” He chuckled, but the laugh was quickly replaced by a hacking, emphysema-related cough.
Pushing aside the insult—there would be more before he made it off the property—Logan asked, “Can I come in?” His voice sounded weaker to his ears than he liked, but even as a man a part of him would always be Canton Park’s boy.
His father considered him. “If you’re here for money, I ain’t—”
“I’m not here for money.” Even the suggestion pissed Logan off. He’d never once asked him for anything, taking a job for Jim senior when he turned thirteen, and it’d been a chore to keep the cash he earned back then from his father’s greedy hands. The question proved just how little his father knew of Logan today, which stung despite Logan’s efforts to guard his feelings. “I came to offer you a job.”
“Well, come in already. I don’t got all day.”
Drawing a long breath for patience, Logan stepped inside his childhood home. Memories hit him immediately. The forever cloud of smoke in the living room. The black spot on the linoleum floor in the kitchen, where Canton (drunk as always) had poured liquor on Logan’s Army T-shirt and set fire to it, laughing as he asked if his son was brave now. That was the last day he’d seen his father, the last day he’d ever planned to see him. Being there again felt like a physical assault.
The TV sat in the center of the room, the orange couch still had the same indentations in it where Canton passed out there at night, never quite making it to his room.
“What’s this about a job?”
Logan sat down on the couch, wishing he could have had someone else hire his father. Jack or Leigh. But he couldn’t explain to them why he didn’t want to go there himself. Savannah knew a little, but only Will had known the depths of Logan’s upbringing.
“The bed-and-breakfast in town needs some help in their garden and maybe a few things surrounding it.”
Canton lit another cigarette. “I don’t work for free.”
“I’ll pay you. Half now. Half when the job is done.” His father might be a good landscaper, but he didn’t trust him to fulfill any agreement he made with Logan. “The only thing I ask is that you don’t mention the money when you’re there. Just tell them you’re doing it for free.”
His eyebrow cocked as he blew out a long puff of smoke, followed by a single cough as though his body no longer knew how to breathe without coughing. “Why would I do that?”
“Here’s the first half,” Logan said, setting down five hundred dollars on the end table. “I figured a thousand should cover it.”
“Is this about that Hale girl you used to be sweet on? What would that girl want with a piece of shit like you? You’ll never learn will you? Girls like that want respectable men who can commit. You couldn’t even commit to the military. Did your time and got the hell out. So much for serving your country. What is it you do now to have a thousand dollars to fork out?”
Logan kept his mouth shut. He’d spent five years in the army, risking his life more times than he could count. He would never claim he was the bravest, but damned if he’d allow someone to lessen what he’d done for America in that time. Instead he stood, eager to get the hell out of there. “Ah, this and that. Do we have a deal or not?”
“Another five hundred when I’m done? Plus the cost of materials.”
Logan counted out another three hundred onto the table. “That should cover materials and whatever plants you need. Be there tomorrow at nine. Sober.” Then he walked out of the house where he was raised, praying he’d never have to return.
Chapter Fourteen
The moon rose high above them, full and vibrant, casting its own light down on the scene. Savannah sighed as she took another glance around the grounds where they had everything set up for Romance Under the Stars. A smile of pride spread across her face.
Already there were five couples seated on plaid blankets, all red with white and green crisscrossing lines, and fringe on all four sides. The gardens cradling the plot of land where they’d decided to position the event were overflowing with blooming bushes and tulips and lilies. Spaced every few feet were large metal lanterns, immersed into the gardens like they’d grown from the ground up, and soft music played in the speakers hidden within the greenery. The whole effect was enchanting and oh so romantic.
Canton had done an amazing job, all at no charge, which made Savannah wonder if he’d turned his life around. Maybe he’d given up the bottle, decided to live his life for someone other than himself—like for his son. She wasn’t sure, but she knew better than to ask. Logan revealed the depths of his life in his own way and in his own time. She wouldn’t push him.
“Savannah, honey,” Mrs. Cooke said from the kitchen door, wearing her best pearl earrings and her hair swept back in a fashionable bun. Everyone dressed well tonight. “There are three couples asking to eat under the stars. I didn’t know if you wanted to show them out?”
“I do, thank you.” Savannah dashed back inside, her white skirt dancing around her calves as she walked, her black, strappy heels clacking against the hardwood floors. A simple black sleeveless blouse completed her look, and she decided that if she could pull this off and save the bed-and-breakfast she would make black and white her signature look while at work.
The smell of roasted chicken hit her nose as she passed the kitchen, causing her stomach to rumble. A promise to stop for lunch had turned into dinner, and she made a mental note to ask Mrs. Cooke to make her a plate for later.
She clasped her hands together as she walked into the grand foyer, her eyes sparking with excitement as she took in the line of guests. “Welcome to Maple Cove’s Bed and Breakfast, we’
re happy you’re with us to—” Savannah stopped short at the sight of the second couple in the row.
The man was tall, with cropped gray and white hair and a slight hunch from working over a computer all his life. Beside him stood a petite woman with black hair that’d never once been dyed, yet still showed signs of her age. Simple makeup complemented her face, but as her eyes met Savannah’s, she beamed.
“Oh, honey, I have missed your sweet face.” She walked to Savannah and pulled her into the sort of hug that would have made Savannah smile if it weren’t for the fact that she was trying very hard not to throw up. With stinging eyes, she drew a breath, then two, for strength, and took a step back to take in Patricia and William Pruitt. Will’s parents. They must have returned from Europe.
“Can you give me one second?” she said to them, then went to the front desk and whispered for Leigh to take care of the other guests. Leigh’s eyebrows rose in question until she caught sight of the Pruitts. She nodded and took the other four couples away. Four! That made nine couples already and the night had just begun. Clearly, Leigh’s work advertising the event had proven worth the money they’d thrown together to pay for it. She’d need to thank her later. If they managed to save the place, Leigh would make an amazing events coordinator. The thought sent butterflies through her stomach, and she said a little prayer that God would give her this one second chance. All right, two. This and…Logan.
As though he heard his name called in her thoughts, he walked through the front door. Instantly, a smile spread across his face and her skin hummed in answer. It was as if the moment he entered a room, all the tension she held so tightly melted away. He made her feel like anything was possible, his strong arms and warm eyes ready to carry her through the worst of whatever happened.
