Open for Love

by Elana Johnson

  Then he’d remember that look of disgust on her face when she realized he’d touched her. He’d hear the absolute fury in her voice when she told him she didn’t want to see him at the house when she returned. Then he’d flip over on the very lumpy couch and try to fall asleep.

  He dozed in fits, mostly because it was the second night without sleep and his body simply acquiesced to the exhaustion. He woke before first light and headed to his B&B. He’d watched his pastry chef make quiches and cinnamon rolls for two days straight. Today, he’d wanted to observe housekeeping and how they prepped to sanitize, restock, and re-beautify fourteen rooms between the hours of six a.m. and noon.

  As he ducked into his car, his appointment with his maids hardly seemed worth keeping. He opened his map app and keyed in the word hospital, unsure as to where Nana would’ve been taken.

  The nearest hospital was ten minutes away, and Carter set his GPS to navigate. He arrived, but the attendant at the emergency room desk wouldn’t tell him if an old woman had been brought in last night. He didn’t even know Nana’s name, and he returned to his car full of discouragement.

  Carter leaned against the window, his desperation to make things right crawling up his throat. He swallowed it away as he thought about Abbington House.

  Surely it had a website.

  He snatched his phone off the passenger seat and looked up the business website for Abbington. He knew Bri well enough to know she’d mention their old New Orleans charm and long lineage as part of the features of the House.

  He wasn’t wrong, a fact which pulled at him like putty. He knew Bri. Why hadn’t he trusted her with who he was? Did he think himself that unlikable?

  He buried the thoughts as he scanned the text for Nana’s name.

  Joan Arnold.

  Jackpot. He grinned to himself as he thumbed open a new tab in his Internet app to find the phone number for the hospital.

  Before he could dial, his phone vibrated. For one terrible, wonderful moment, he thought it was Bri. She’d ask him to sit with her at Nana’s bedside, and he’d hold her hand, and by this evening he’d be kissing her again.

  The screen showed Amanda Monroe’s face. He swiped open the call. “Amanda,” he said, his voice remarkably normal. “It’s early. Don’t you sleep?”

  She laughed. “I’m on tour, silly. There’s no sleeping.”

  He chuckled, but only out of sheer will. He couldn’t spend fifteen minutes on the phone with a childhood friend. Not right now.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You called me yesterday afternoon,” Amanda said. “Left me a somewhat frantic message about calling you back. I’m calling you back.”

  Carter startled in his seat as his memory returned. “Of course! I did call you yesterday. I just—a lot’s happened since then, and I’m kind of in a crisis situation, and I forgot.”

  “Crisis situation?”

  “A friend of mine is in the hospital.” Not entirely true, but Amanda didn’t need the nitty gritty details. “I called because I want you to take your wedding party back to Abbington House. It seems unfair to lure you to Hammond simply because we’re friends. You had a booking.”

  Carter imagined the familiar frown on Amanda’s face, though she didn’t say anything. The silence stretched as Carter’s patience thinned.

  “Amanda?”

  “Do you not have room for us anymore?”

  He seized the idea. “I’m so sorry, but no.” He spoke with that practiced professionalism his father had taught him. “I had a basketball team inquire about that weekend, and well, they’ll fill all fourteen rooms. You’re only taking seven. If I don’t book them, I lose the whole team.”

  She exhaled, grumbling something about being grateful she hadn’t ordered the invitations yet. “And a good thing, too,” she said. “All these changes.”

  “I really am sorry.” Carter closed his eyes, hoping she’d confirm she’d go back to Abbington.

  Scuffling came through the line, and she said, “I know, Yuri. I need five more minutes.” Her volume increased as she said, “I’m late for departure.” She sighed. “I’ll figure something out. Thanks, Carter.”

  Carter leaned forward. “Don’t hang up yet, Amanda.”

  “What is it?”

  A smile stretched his lips. “I can call over to Abbington for you today, if you don’t have time. I know you like to do things on your own, that you would never let your assistant plan your wedding. Let me rebook the rooms.”

  A hesitation. “Would you?”

  “Of course. It’s the least I can do. Anything else you’d like me to do while I have the owner on the phone?”

  “She was supposed to send me details about the price of a wedding-only package at the House. I guess she won’t need to now.”

  “I’ll let her know.” Carter hung up, thoroughly pleased with himself. Bri might not entertain a personal call from him, but he’d bet millions she’d listen as soon as he said the words Amanda Monroe wants to book your entire B&B for her wedding.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Bri barely had the energy to lift her head when her phone started singing. But it rested on Nana’s rolling tray, so Bri leapt for it to silence the sound.

  She should’ve known it would be Carter. Always where he shouldn’t be. Showing up on the one day she’d snuck into his B&B. At her Nana’s just as she slipped into unconsciousness. And now calling her before normal people woke up.

  She answered with her Cold as Ice Tone. “Carter Hammond, it’s very early in the morning.”

  He chuckled, and Bri wished the sound didn’t rumble in her own chest. “I’m sorry, Sabrina Arnold. But I just got off the phone with a client, and I needed to talk to you.”

  Bri slipped into the hallway so the high pitch of her voice wouldn’t wake Nana. “Why would you need to talk to me about your clients?” Her voice came out slightly like a banshee.

  “Hold on, you’re breaking up.”

  She moved at a slow pace toward the nurse’s station, freezing when Carter Hammond himself rounded the corner, his cell phone stuck to his ear. A grin graced his strong features as he lowered the phone and approached her.

  She pocketed her own device and folded her arms tight, her eyes scanning for possible escape routes.

  “Just hear me out.” Carter stopped a healthy distance from her and held his hands up in surrender. When she didn’t scream or sprint, he continued. “Sadly, Amanda Monroe can’t stay at Hammond House during the dates she needs. She’s on tour, and late for her next departure, so she asked me to personally rebook her rooms at Abbington.”

  Bri stared over his shoulder, her mind running like a herd of wild horses. Why did he have to smell so good? And so early in the morning? What time did he get up anyway?

  “And why can’t she stay at Hammond House?” she asked.

  “We’re full that weekend.”

  Bri detected the lie in his tone, saw it in his eyes when she looked at him. She wondered how she’d missed his tells when he’d told her his name that first time. Probably because the sentence preceding his name had electrified her heart into galloping status. He’d just said he was a lawyer. A lawyer for the B&B where she was trespassing.

  “I think you’ve lied to me enough.” She lifted her chin as she spoke.

  “I’m so sorry, Bri.” He took a step forward, seemed to think better of it, and retreated again. “I tried to tell you who I was a thousand times.”

  She swallowed hard to keep her voice from cracking. “How is Hammond House suddenly full that exact weekend?”

  “We’re not. Yet.”

  “Carter—” She bit back the rest of her sentence, unsure of what it would even be. “I can’t believe I bought that people—including your mother—call you by your last name.”

  “I’m really sorry. That was the only thing I lied about, I swear.” His voice strained over the last sentence, and Bri recognized the genuine qualities she’d
admired in him. “I didn’t know Amanda had booked her wedding at Abbington, or I wouldn’t have called her. I would never do that to you.”

  As much as Bri wanted to hold onto the anchor keeping herself away from him, she felt her grip slipping. Carter had seemed real, open, honest, genuine, during the week she’d spent with him. Face to face with him now, nothing had changed. Not really.

  She gestured to the space between them. “This doesn’t change anything between us,” Bri said, though now she was the liar.

  “Of course not,” he said. “Maybe you’d let me take you to dinner anyway.”

  “I’m booked,” Bri said, her stubborn streak rearing its head. “Until the wedding.”

  “Bri—”

  “Carter.”

  “Give me one meal,” he said, his dark eyes begging, pleading. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know. More, probably, if my over-sharing tendencies this past week are any indication.”

  Her body hummed at the thought of being in a close space with Carter, not this wide-open hall where a nurse could walk by at any moment.

  “One meal,” she confirmed.

  “Fantastic.” A smile accompanied his voice. “I’ll come over to Abbington at six?”

  She glanced back toward Nana’s closed door. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”

  He fished his phone from his pocket. “Then I’ll stay with you.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Carter erased the distance between them, apprehension and determination in the tightness of his mouth. “Please,” he whispered into her hair, both hands rubbing circles on her back. “Please let me stay with you.”

  She’d longed to hear him say those words, show up and fight to keep her. Tears threatened to make an appearance, but she pressed them back.

  “I went to visit your nana, because I missed you. I figured I could have a small piece of you through her. She showed me pictures of a trip she took you on just after your parents’ funerals.” He tucked her hair behind her ears, and she gazed up into his handsome face. “One moment, she was fine, talking away about how you’d gotten too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon.” He smiled, but it only stayed for a moment before flitting back into seriousness. “The next moment, I realized she’d stopped talking. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. She started wheezing, and that’s when I called nine-one-one.”

  “What would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there?” The thought of it sent Bri into a tailspin. “I wasn’t planning on going to visit her last night, and Jamie doesn’t come in on Mondays.”

  “Doesn’t matter, because I was there.” He nodded toward Nana’s closed door. “How is she?”

  “She hasn’t woken up yet, but she’s stable. The doctor isn’t sure what happened. He thinks she just might….” Bri struggled to find the right words, finally settling on exactly what the doctor had told her. “It might be her time to go.”

  She let the tears out then, grateful Carter was there to wipe them away and whisper comforting words.

  “I loved that Grand Canyon trip,” she said. “It made me feel normal in a new world, one without my mom and dad.” She sucked in a hard breath. “And Nana did that. What will I do without her?”

  Carter wrapped her in a hug, and she pressed her cheek to his steady heartbeat, stealing his strength to use as her own.

  A week later, Bri sat next to Carter in the front row of Nana’s memorial service. Nana had been detail-oriented to the last item, and planning the funeral had been easy. The past several days had passed in a blur. Bri ate what Yasmine or Carter put in front of her, and she’d spent days cleaning out Nana’s house.

  Bri wasn’t quite sure how to be this new person. She’d moved into the mansion house, vacating the smaller guest quarters. She owned Abbington House now—and had inherited quite a large sum of money in Nana’s estate. She could afford to buy new plumbing for the entire B&B and pay someone to do all the installation.

  The pastor spoke in a deep voice, further calming Bri. She squeezed Carter’s hand during the last hymn and stood to take her place at the head of the line during the final viewing before they headed to the cemetery.

  Hours later, she alone remained at her family’s gravesite. She trailed her fingertips along her mother’s name, then her father’s. Nana’s plaque wouldn’t arrive for a couple of weeks, and Bri would come back to make sure everything was correct.

  Someone walked up behind her, and she recognized Carter by his clean, fresh smell. “You need a ride, Bri?”

  She shook her head. “I think I’ll walk.”

  “No bicycle today?”

  She jerked her attention to him and found a playful smile on his face. “I loved watching you ride your bike to work.”

  Horror snaked through her, replaced quickly by gratitude that he hadn’t said anything until now. He’d respected her privacy, hadn’t brought up her obvious lack of wealth.

  “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” she said. “Though I think I’ll buy myself a car with some of Nana’s money.”

  “Maybe you can put that on hold for a couple of weeks,” he said, a devilish glint in his eye.

  “What have you done?”

  He produced an envelope from inside his jacket. “Maybe you’ll want to go to the Grand Canyon with me.” He flashed two airplane tickets and an irresistible smile. “Maybe you’ll let me show you how to live in this new world, without your nana, but with the man who loves you?”

  Emotions and feelings and words rose through her. All Bri managed to do was laugh and cry and nod all at the same time.

  Carter brought his lips to hers, gentle yet strong, and as Bri kissed him back, she took the first step down a new road—with the man she loved.

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  ABOUT ELANA:

  Elana Johnson is the author of the YA dystopian Possession series, which includes full-length novels POSSESSION, SURRENDER, and ABANDON, and short stories REGRET (ebook only) and RESIST (free). She is also the author of ELEVATED and SOMETHING ABOUT LOVE, which are young adult contemporary romance novels-in-verse, and a new adult futuristic fantasy series that includes ELEMENTAL RUSH, ELEMENTAL HUNGER, and ELEMENTAL RELEASE. Her new fantasy series started with ECHOES OF SILENCE, available now from Kindle Press (Amazon).

  Her novella-length romance can be found in the Timeless Romance anthology, ALL HALLOWS' EVE, and the Sweet & Sassy Anthology, Beach Edition. Her debut novel-length romance, UNTIL SUMMER ENDS, will be out in 2016, as well as another novella in the UNDER YOUR SPELL Halloween anthology in Fall 2016.

  Find her on Facebook, twitter, her website, and her blog. Tap here to see all her books.

  She also writes under the pen name Liz Isaacson, who is the author of the Amazon #1 bestselling Three Rivers Ranch Romance series. She writes inspirational romance, usually set in Texas, or Wyoming, or anywhere else horses and cowboys exist. She lives in Utah, where she teaches elementary school, taxis her daughter to dance several times a week, and eats a lot of Ferrero Rocher while writing. Check out Liz's romance -- and join her mailing list -- here.

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  OPEN FOR LOVE

  A Sweet & Sassy novella

  by Elana Johnson

  Copyright © 2016 by Elana Johnson

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or p
ersons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Cover Design by Elana Johnson

  Interior Design by AEJ Creative Works