“The spa…being considered professional at first glance…” he began.
She tore her gaze away and nodded, her eyes roaming the room. “Well, based on the excitement level of the community, or the women anyway, this should be a place that women feel comfortable waiting their turn. I am about the only staff so far.”
His brow went up in surprise. “You’ll be the only staff?”
Once again Elliot had her on edge, and a small crease formed between her eyes. “Well, we’ll have a receptionist, and Tara will help with the books, but for now I’ll be the only massage therapist and nail tech, so we need to provide a place where the ladies will be comfortable and happy waiting.” She shifted in her seat. “At least until we see how much business we have, then we can plan for the future. Right now, the spa will only be open three days a week.”
Concern crossed his face. “Can you live on a part-time income?”
Flat-out insulted, Lizzie scowled at him. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”
Elliot blushed. Given the state of her ramshackle house, he’d assumed that she must be poverty-stricken. Everything was obviously different here than in the city. Back home a person’s clothing and their home told you everything you needed to know about their income and social standing. In an effort to regroup, he tried again. “What about first impressions?” he asked. “You know, how your spa is evaluated at first glance. It doesn’t look like a modern, sterile facility.”
“Everyone knows I’m certified and they seem comfortable with my qualifications. It’s clean. And new…” She frowned. “And— first impressions, here? Really?”
“Yes, first impressions.”
She smirked, mocking humor glowing in her eyes. “Honey, first impressions don’t happen here.”
Shocked, Elliot tossed one hand in the air. “Of course they do! How do you ever hope to attract walk-in customers if you don’t consider first impressions?”
Tugging her feet off the ottoman one at a time, she leaned forward, clearly amused. “You’re serious.”
“I am. Surely you see the need for ongoing customer regeneration.”
Her head bobbed with classic female irritation. “Just how much walk-in traffic do you think we’ll get out here? We pretty much have a captive crowd with the inn guests. And first impressions?” Her hand flew in the air. “Good Lord, man, everyone out here knows what the inside of your fridge looks like! They know what you drive, your mother, and the first person you ever kissed. Hell, they even know how many puppies your dog just had. First impressions?”
Elliot’s face drained and his shoulders sagged. “Surely not…”
She nodded, her curls bobbing.
Silence hung between them, his eyes on hers, both wondering if the other understood.
Finally he spoke. “Well… how do you ever come up with a password if everyone knows your first pet and your mother’s maiden name?”
Startled by his comment, Lizzie snorted. “Right…?”
His eyes narrowed. “Besides, I thought you just moved here.”
She sighed and leaned back into the sofa, the tension gone. With a moan she stretched out, crossing her feet on the ottoman again. “I am, but I grew up in the same town in Illinois.”
“How is that possible?” he asked. “Justin said you were from Boston.”
“No, not—” She glanced toward the dark windows, her expression showing her discomfort with the topic. “I spent summers and holidays with my grandfather on his farm.” She gestured with one hand. “The closest town was about this size. Same kind of thing.”
“Oh.” Elliot speculated for a moment. “Your mother’s father or your father’s father?”
Her head rotated back from the window to meet his gaze. “Does it matter?”
He shrugged. “Not really, I guess, just curious.” In reality it made quite a bit of difference. His father’s father had been every bit as—determined—as his father was, but his grandpa Joe, his mom’s father, had been a teddy bear. Maybe he harbored favoritism toward maternal grandfathers.
She stared at the ceiling as she pondered his comment. “My mother’s father,” she finally mumbled.
Elliot waited for her to continue, a bond for lost grandfathers stretching between them.
Focusing on the ceiling, not Elliot, Lizzie’s thoughts wandered. “I wanted to stay there all year…” Her voice trailed off, as if she’d wandered far away. She never talked about her grandfather. None of her work friends in the city understood. No one in Smithville knew of her granddad, or the real reason she’d moved from Boston.
Elliot’s curiosity was sparked and he pushed forward. “Why is that? If I may ask.”
Lizzie’s head snapped up. She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. Contemplating him for a long moment, she clearly wondered if she should continue.
Elliot felt as if her dark eyes could read his soul, but he didn’t mind. She was welcome to understand his place in the universe, his questions. He meant her no threat. He could wait.
Finally her gaze averted to roam back along the ceiling, as if she were seeing into the past. She sighed softly. “My granddad was amazing. He was like… like calm water.” She glanced back to meet Elliot’s eye. “You know what I mean?”
The question pierced Elliot. With his eyes fastened on hers, he was about to nod in agreement, but hesitated. Did he know what she meant? He floundered once again, struggling for an intelligent answer. Calm water? Had he ever met a person who felt that tranquil? “My grandfather Reynolds—well, he died when I was little,” he stuttered. “And my dad—he’s—I suppose you’d say he’s… driven.” He sighed. “I do miss my grandpa Joe though. He was a funny guy.”
She pondered his words with a crinkled brow, then her expression softened. As she relaxed, her countenance visibly altered, her expression vulnerable.
Elliot continued. “He was always finding a penny behind my ear. I could never understand how my mom missed all that money when she combed my hair.”
Lizzie smiled and her eyes shone with understanding.
The bleak intensity surrounding the woman drew Elliot across the space between them. He could feel his thoughts and moods drifting toward her, and his practiced side grappled internally to stay professional.
The child in him wondered why she’d been sent away to her grandfather each summer, and he wanted to comfort the little girl far away from home. The adult in him wondered why her grandfather had been such a force in her life, the man’s image forming in his mind’s eye. The guardian in him wondered where her parents were in all this. His corporate side wanted to understand her business plan, because she seemed to have one but he couldn’t fathom what it was.
There it was, business, an anchor point to grab. The ultimate reason he’d come to this place. “So let me see if I understand,” he said, reining himself in. “You are drawn to this type of setting, and you are concerned primarily with providing service to a limited local customer base.” He flinched as the words left his mouth, not at all what he’d been hoping to say.
Lizzie’s expression instantly iced up.
“I mean… it’s as if… sounds like a dead end…” he stuttered, trying to correct the comment. He frowned, realizing that he was being rude but was somehow unable to halt the downhill slide of the conversation.
She tossed down the pillow and stood with a huff. “I can see your mind is made up. I’m tired.” She took a few halting steps forward, then was blocked by his feet between the couch and the ottoman. “I need to get home,” she muttered with a dismissive gesture. “Everyone will be hungry.”
Shocked by the realization that Lizzie had a—everyone—waiting for her, Elliot glanced at her left hand, trying to recall if Justin or Tara had mentioned that Lizzie had a husband. She wore no ring, and he hadn’t seen anyone at her house. Did she have kids?
He jolted to his feet, bringing them face-to-chest. Her eyes were level with the top button of his shirt, and he couldn’t help but admire her shining black c
urls, the likes of which he’d never seen. The thought of her having a husband saddened him somehow. She felt too lonely and exhausted to be in a relationship. Not a good one anyway.
Her gaze slid up his chest and neck to his eyes, her exhaustion and frustration with him clear. He shuffled back to one side and put out his hand for her to pass.
She crossed the room, reached her desk and frowned at the stack of empty boxes, then lifted her purse. “I need to lock up,” she explained tiredly as she headed for the door.
Her perfume still lingered as he watched her cross the room. “Right.” He lurched forward, drawn from his thoughts, determined to end the evening on a positive note.
They passed through the door, him pausing to let her go first, out into the cool autumn evening filled with crickets chirps and moonbeams. He waited on the porch as she locked the spa door, then strolled beside her down the steps and toward her car. He bent to open her car door, but it was locked, nearly wrenching his arm from the socket.
Lizzie glanced up at him and raised the key fob. She pressed the unlock button.
As if nothing embarrassing had happened, Elliot smoothly opened her door and stepped back with a footman-style flourish and bow, motioning for her to get in.
“Seriously?” she asked with a chuckle.
“I’m nothing if not a gentleman,” he assured her as he closed her door, careful to be sure that all the parts of her strange outfit were inside the car. “Goodnight Lizzie,” he said under his breath with a wave and a grin. Then he spun on his heel and headed across the lawn toward the inn, his hands in his trouser pockets.
Just before she started the car, Lizzie thought she heard him whistling.
* * *
As she wound her car down her long driveway, the white spots of her headlights bobbing in front of her, the conversation with Elliot played through Lizzie’s mind. Now that she’d spoken with him, he was exactly what she’d expected: highly educated and a little too pompous, like all the men her mother had pushed at her. She’d tried to have a relationship with some of those men, but ultimately they’d had nothing in common, and her mother’s continual interference had been unbearable. She’d decided long ago that her only hope to have a life of her own was to counteract her mother at every turn. If she gave an inch, her mother always took a mile.
“Ugh,” she grunted. Now she’d done it; she’d opened the Pandora’s box that was her mother, and once again the woman dominated her thoughts. She’d rather think about anyone else, even Elliot, but it was too late now. How many phone messages had her mother left? What horrible things did she have to say?
She rubbed her temple with her fingertips, as if she could smooth away the intrusive thoughts.
The car rolled to a stop behind her house and she turned off the ignition. With a sigh, she fished her phone from her purse and scrolled through the day’s messages. She hit speaker and leaned her head against the headrest, waiting to hear what her mother had called to berate her about this time. She knew it would be something, it always was. But now, with the move, Lizzie had added mountains of ammo to her mother’s complaint arsenal.
“Elizabeth, this is your mother…”
Lizzie rolled her hand in front of her, willing her mother to get on with it.
“I don’t know why you insist on ignoring me, but I’m sure I didn’t raise you to treat your parents in such a way!”
Lizzie clamped her eyes closed.
“I was just telling your father that you’ve turned into an ungrateful, hateful person. Just like that, I said that to him, ‘ungrateful and hateful.’”
Lizzie snorted into the darkness.
The older woman cleared her throat loudly. “After all we’ve done for you, it’s a shame that you can’t see the harm you’ve done. Well, missy, I’m not going to continue speaking to this infernal machine any longer. You can call me and speak with me like the civilized young lady I know you to be. Goodnight!”
The line went dead and the phone beeped in Lizzie’s hand. She sighed out loud, her head still flopped back, staring at the ceiling of her car. Would her mother never relent and finally see that Lizzie had dreams of her own? Would the woman ever understand that Lizzie didn’t want the high-society life that her mother adored? That she wanted to walk on gravel roads wearing worn boots and return home to a quiet house, creak open the door, and walk across a squeaky wood floor to stoke a fire in the fireplace? Why didn’t her mother love the huge blue sky, the chilling heights of thunderheads, watching grain wave in the wind like ripples on water? The way sparks from a fire drifted upwards in the darkness?
Finally, collecting her purse and computer bag, Lizzie climbed from the car. A cool breeze swirled around her as the trees waved in the night, dropping leaves like confetti. As she trudged toward the house, her achy feet protesting with each step, Elliot came to mind.
Because of her clothes and the style of the spa, he had assumed not only that she was unprofessional, but that she was a penniless clod too. Admittedly, she dressed the way she did to portray her heartland prairie style, and to make an announcement about who she was and how she lived, so if he’d been put off by her outfit, then she’d hit the mark. Her goal was to not attract his type. But the fact that he assumed she had no idea how to run a business bit at her pride. She shrugged, straightened her shoulders, and reached for the screen door handle. She could relax now, she was home, and she looked forward to changing her boots and feeding her animals.
Chapter Six
Afternoon shadows stretched long across the floor of the spa lobby as Tara and Lizzie shuffled through papers and adjusted their laptops on their laps.
“I think we’ve about got this under control,” Tara sighed, tugging her hair over one shoulder and combing through it with her fingers.
Lizzie clamped a stack of paperwork onto her clipboard, then saved and closed the spreadsheets on her computer. “I agree, we’re ready to open tomorrow as planned. Things went well with Gloria today. I explained that we’ll wear white lab coats here at the spa, and I left the clothing issue at that.” Lizzie rubbed her left temple with her fingertips and continued, “She really is a pretty girl under all that glitz and glam, a classic beauty, and I think she’ll be a good receptionist—are you okay?”
Tara closed her computer and stood, arched her back, then stretched her hands over her head before letting them fall limply to her sides. “Yeah, I’m just— I’m not sure what’s wrong with me lately. I can’t seem to think and I’m exhausted all the time.”
Collecting her paperwork and laptop, Lizzie stood. “Have you been sleeping okay?”
“Like a dead body.”
Lizzie shrugged. “Well, I should be able to take over things now, so you can get some rest. I’m sure all the construction and running the inn has worn you down.”
“Maybe…” Tara muttered, gathering her paperwork and sliding it into her bag with her laptop.
As the women headed for the desk across the sitting room, Lizzie scrutinized Tara’s face. “You do look a bit green…”
“I’m good,” Tara said more confidently, switching gears and adjusting her strap on her shoulder. “Shall we see how things are going down at the barn?”
Lizzie grimaced. “You sure you’re up for that?”
Tara shrugged. “I’d rather Justin didn’t have to deal with it. I still feel bad for springing it on him.”
Lizzie smiled. “Sure, why not.”
As the women crossed the yard, the sound of teenage voices echoed toward them from the barn. They rounded the corner just in time to see Mr. Chatterton waving one arm over his head, directing the kids to load onto the bus. The students were milling around the theater seats laughing and talking, but once they spotted Tara and Lizzie, they headed toward the bus.
Tara approached the besieged teacher and smiled. “How are things going?”
The man glanced nervously toward the kids, now filing onto the bus with boisterous laughs. “Quite well, I believe, we’ve got parts assigne
d and we have the first few scenes blocked out.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Thank you so much for the use of your theater.”
Lizzie smiled sympathetically. “How is the music coming along?”
He waved and fluttered his hands nervously for the last few kids to get on the bus. “The band teacher assures me that he has the orchestra covered, and I’ve heard them practicing. The leads are learning their parts, they are very excited.”
“I’m sure they are.” Lizzie said as a tiny piece of her heart remembered the thrill of performing. She’d enjoyed being in theatrical events; sadly, it had been her overbearing and vocal mother who had ruined it for her.
“When is opening night?” Tara asked, interrupting Lizzie’s thoughts. “I’m sorry, I know you told me, but I can’t remember.”
Mr. Chatterton hefted a briefcase up onto a bleacher seat, popped it open, and rummaged through various papers. Finally he pulled out a scribbled note and handed it to Tara. “I meant to give this to you yesterday but I forgot, it’s all the dates of performances and the dress rehearsal. It also has my—”
The man was interrupted by a loud blare from the bus horn. Lizzie, Tara, and the teacher all jumped and turned to see a student waving and grinning from the driver’s seat of the bus.
“Get back in your seat!” the teacher hollered, his voice cracking. He turned back to Tara and Lizzie, his eyes wild with frustration. “I’m so sorry, as I was saying, I’ve written it down for you. We haven’t gotten the programs or posters printed yet. The dress rehearsal is on—”
The students in the bus called and shouted, and the teacher rolled his eyes and tried to concentrate over the rising din. “—On the twenty-sixth, at which time—” He glanced toward the bus, where the kids shouted and hollered louder than ever. His head jolted in a violent double take and his eyes bugged. The color drained from the man’s thin face and his mouth opened in a silent scream.
Alarmed, Lizzie glanced toward the bus, or, more correctly, where the bus had been. The big yellow vehicle was rolling backward away from the barn, gathering speed, with the students inside screaming and waving their arms out the open windows.
Hometown Series Box Set Page 61
