Here to Stay (Where Love Begins Book #2)

by Melissa Tagg

“You crazy . . . ” But for just one moment, facing Blake in the doorframe’s embrace, his breath on her face, the barely-there hint of spicy cologne, the man’s broad shoulders filling up the space . . . Well, for just a second, he wasn’t crazy Blake Hunziker.

  He was the guy who made a fake-pine-needle-dotted black sweater seem like the most masculine article of clothing ever.

  Whose teasing she’d honest-to-goodness begun to crave.

  Who’d stood in Ava’s bedroom last night wearing vulnerability like a second skin.

  And who she was starting to like way, way, way too much for her own good.

  “Just s-stay here ’til I come back.” And who turned her into a stuttering idiot.

  Of all people, Victoria Kingsley had given him the idea.

  “I don’t know about this, Blaze.” The assistant city manager led the way through the beige-colored walls of the Whisper Shore city offices. The aroma of donuts trailed them through the maze of hallways. At least one town tradition hadn’t fallen by the wayside—Friday morning refreshments at the town hall, open to the public. “You realize I could get an earful from the council if I do this without approval?”

  Blaze unzipped his hooded jacket and followed Joe Lemon into a room stacked with computer monitors and equipment. “I’ll take the blame if anyone gives you any grief. I promise.”

  Last night, from his hiding place in the guest room at the top of the stairs, he’d caught snatches of Autumn and her mother’s conversation. Which reminded him, he should talk to Autumn about adding soundproof insulation in the guest rooms. It’s the first improvement he’d make at the inn if it were his place.

  Not that it was. Even so, after a week and a half of spending nearly every day at the inn, he’d started to feel a part of the place.

  “We’ll have this place looking like a Thomas Kinkade Christmas painting in no time, Mom.”

  “All you need now is Christmas music.”

  Their voices had drifted up the open stairway, and the idea hit him.

  Joe paused in the middle of the computer room now, one hand on his hip. He adjusted his cap with the other. The longtime city leader had a Barney Fife appearance, complete with creases bordering his half smile. “I will admit, I have missed the music. The Andrews Sisters come holidays. The Beach Boys during the Summer Splash Festival each July.” Joe removed his hat, ran a hand through thinning gray hair, then plopped the cap on again. “Never thought you young’uns put much stock in it, though.”

  “You kidding? We used to take bets as to how many times in a day we’d hear certain songs.” The speakers placed throughout town had dished out one Christmas classic after another, every weekday in December, nine a.m. to five p.m., as far back as Blake could remember—and then it stopped. “I made a good hundred and twenty dollars one year off Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas.’”

  Joe dropped into a chair and turned on the one computer monitor in the room. “Let’s see if I remember how to run this here thingy.”

  Blake peered over the man’s shoulder. Far as he could tell, the ancient system was simple—open up the set list, pull up the central controls for the off-site computerized speakers, hit Play. “Who made the decision to stop playing the music?”

  “Don’t rightly know. Don’t know that anyone made the actual decision. Some things just fade away, you know?” Joe slanted closer to the monitor, eyes squinting. “Ahh, there it is. The old Christmas playlist.”

  A few more clicks of the computer’s mouse and Joe leaned back in his chair, raising his arms and lacing his fingers behind his head. “Here we go. Starting with a goody—‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’”

  One of Mom’s favorites. Would she hear it from home? “How do we know if it’s working?”

  Joe spun in his chair and chuckled. “Open the window, of course.”

  “Right.” He crossed the room and unlatched the locks of the lone window, then pushed the glass to the side. He leaned his ear to the screen, cold threading through to settle over his face. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Joe’s chair creaked as he turned back to the screen. “Drat.” A few clicks, and then, “Now?”

  Only the distant honking of a horn and the murmur of cold seeping through the screen. “Nothing.”

  “Well, something’s not right. Let me fiddle around, see what I can do.”

  “If you can’t, that’s all right. I just thought it might be a nice throwback to the good old days in Whisper Shore. Better yet, a happy note of things to come.”

  “I’ll keep working on this thing, and if we’re lucky, you can start taking bets on songs again.”

  Blake clapped Joe on the shoulder and offered his thanks, and minutes later he was on his way, trekking down the sidewalk toward his parents’ house. Winter had finally settled in temperature-wise—it burrowed through his coat to send a shiver down his spine—but still no snow. Only a beige carpet of dying grass underfoot and evergreen trees waiting for a frosty cover.

  He was starting to worry Michigan wouldn’t get its winter wonderland in time for the festival. A burly wind hurled through, scraping over his cheeks, and he picked up his pace as he turned onto a residential street.

  “Afternoon, Blake.”

  He paused mid-sidewalk, glance shifting to the lawn where Mrs. Satterly stood. She held an armful of sticks. “Mrs. Satterly, you shouldn’t be doing yard work in this cold.”

  “Don’t be silly, Blake. I’m as spry as they come, and the exercise does me good.” Her neon-pink coat glowed against the paleness of the day.

  He crossed the lawn. “Why don’t you let me take over?”

  “That’s very gallant of you, but frankly, I was just asking myself why I’m even doing this when we’re supposed to get even crazier winds overnight. Let’s go inside. I’ll make you a cup of something warm.”

  She patted his cheek and led him up to the side door of her two-story brick house. The heat blasted him the second he entered. Felt like summer around the equator. But it didn’t seem to bother Mrs. Satterly, because she left her coat on as she ambled to the kitchen.

  “It’s too late in the day for me to drink caffeine, so I hope you’re okay with decaf,” she said as she filled her coffeepot with water.

  “But I don’t . . . ” Oh, well, if Mrs. Satterly wanted him to drink coffee, then, he’d drink coffee.

  But she paused. “Oh, that’s right. It’s beyond me how a boy gets to be your age and doesn’t drink coffee. What can I get you instead? I can heat some milk for cocoa. There’s a jug of apple cider at the back of the fridge, but I’m guessing it’s fermented by now. ’Fraid I don’t keep any soda around.”

  “Please, I’m fine. Don’t go to any trouble.” Was it just the brightness of the kitchen lights that gave her cheeks a sallow tone?

  “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Pam. You’d think you were the senile one.”

  “I’d hardly call you senile . . . Pam.” He punctuated the last word with a chuckle.

  “True. My mind’s sharp, even if the ticker’s not.”

  He swiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and shrugged out of his coat. “Your . . . ticker?”

  She plopped a pan of brownies in front of him, ignoring his question. “Tell me about the festival.” She reached for a glass from the sink, walked to the fridge, and pull out a milk jug.

  “Well, we’re doing a few new things this year. Ceremonial tree lighting, for one. And, if we can manage to get some snow, sleigh rides. I—”

  “That’s a wonderful idea.” She set the milk on the table and clapped her hands together. “I will never forget when my Paul and I took a sleigh ride. It was back when we lived in Illinois, and . . . ” She trailed off with a wave of her hand. “Oh, there I go. Paul’s been gone fifteen years, and I still can’t stop telling stories about him. Go on.” She filled the glass to the brim and pushed it his way.

  “No, I want to hear your story. I didn’t realize you lived in Illinois.” He pulled at the high collar of his
sweater, warmth reddening his cheeks.

  “Oh yes, for the first two decades of our marriage. Lived out on a rural property with a barn and everything. Someone else rented the surrounding acres and worked the land, but all the same, we liked to consider ourselves farmers. Kept a few chickens, had a garden, that sort of thing.”

  She sat in the seat next to him. “On our tenth anniversary, Paul surprised me with a sleigh ride. He rented it, and we rode in the back while the owner drove it.” The memory danced in her eyes as her voice softened. “Full moon that night. We rode all over the property. Incredibly romantic.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for a chance to see that farm again.” She looked up. “I’ve always wondered about the couple we sold it to. We joked as we drove that U-Haul up to Michigan that the couple reminded us of us at that same age.”

  She laced her fingers in her lap. “We were never able to have kids, you know. Which was hard at times. And we didn’t travel the world or live exotic or eclectic lives.” Her gaze moved to the window, flurries of white racing past. “But I never felt . . . incomplete.”

  Blake stopped chewing and set his brownie on the table. This moment felt sacred. Mrs. Satterly’s words, heavy with importance.

  “I think it’s because Paul and I, we shared an awareness that life’s greatest adventure is love. Loving each other, loving others. And being loved—first by God, then by each other. There’s no better purpose.”

  Her words hung in the air, rich and touching, a soothing cool for the heat of her house.

  And the weariness in his heart.

  Because after years of running, wishing he knew where he belonged and what to do next, searching for a purpose to make up for the pain of his past, incomplete had become a place he knew intimately.

  And love too often felt like something lost.

  He lifted the brownie once more, took a bite, unsure what to do with the swirl of emotions pooling through him.

  “I’m sick, Blake.”

  Her words pierced the moment. Crumbs turned to dust in his mouth, and he couldn’t swallow. “What?”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Her gray eyes brimmed with clarity and calm.

  He took a drink of milk, forcing the bite down with the gulp. “But you . . . you said you’re spry. You were doing yard work.”

  “I fatigue quickly. I would’ve quit in another five minutes if you hadn’t come along. But I’m not going to just sit around waiting for the inevitable.”

  Inevitable? The word soured the second he tasted it. “What kind of sick?” But even as he asked, her cryptic comment from only minutes earlier returned. “My mind’s sharp, even if the ticker’s not.”

  “Sick enough to make the most of every day I’ve got left. To not hold back.”

  “Why . . . did you tell me?”

  “Because the Christmas festival was Paul’s and my favorite event of the year. And this . . .” For the first time in their conversation, she faltered. But her recovery was quick. “This will likely be my last one.”

  “So then, he starts telling me all these ideas he has for making our third-floor suite, in his words, ‘beyond awesome.’” Autumn sliced into the tomato on her cutting board with more force than necessary.

  “Girl, you’re worrying me. How about I take over dicing vegetables?” Ellie tucked a stray ringlet behind her ear from her perch atop the barstool on the other side of Autumn’s mom’s kitchen counter.

  Mom and Lucy had gone to the diner for dinner. But tonight was one of Autumn’s twice monthly best-friend dates. With Autumn’s busyness at the inn and Ellie’s full mom schedule, they’d decided long ago to intentionally set aside a couple nights each month to hang out.

  “So then Blake tells me we need to install a Jacuzzi in the bathroom, swap out the queen bed for a king and, get this, build a balcony, knock out half a wall, and stick in French doors leading to said hypothetical balcony.”

  Which is when she’d called him crazy. He’d thanked her for the compliment. And she’d realized, even in her annoyance, that maybe she kind of liked crazy. Which only annoyed her all the more.

  “What’s so bad about that? I’d book that room.”

  “It’d cost a fortune—that’s what. I’m trying to keep the inn’s doors open.” Another spear into the tomato. Blake Hunziker wore exasperating like a floppy overcoat. He and his ideas.

  Ellie nabbed a cucumber from the salad bowl before speaking up. “Hon, you need to take a breath. And I’m not kidding, hand over the knife.”

  Autumn rolled her eyes and surrendered the knife.

  Honestly, she had to get Blake out of her head. Sure, he’d helped her turn the first floor of the inn into a Christmas paradise today—despite his complaints. And then he’d spent another hour helping her rearrange the furniture in the master suite where Dominic Laurent would stay.

  But the whole hour he’d needled her with ideas about how to make the space better, as if he had some personal stake in her inn. Why it rankled her so, she didn’t know.

  Or maybe she did. Maybe it frustrated her that she liked his ideas. Wished she had the kind of vision he had. Wished she could wave a magic wand and turn his ideas into reality. Knew she couldn’t.

  Ellie’s knife scraping against the wooden cutting board drew Autumn back. Ellie used the utensil to nudge the cut-up tomatoes into the salad bowl. “You have to admit, his ideas are good, even if you can’t afford them.”

  And then there’d been the way he teased her when she’d hidden him away in that guest room. It’d been a teenage move, but the thought of Mom encountering him had been too much. “He just . . . drives me crazy.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  She didn’t like the layer of suggestion in Ellie’s voice.

  “And it’s not the only thing I’ve noticed.”

  “By which you mean . . .”

  “The man has done a little filling out over the years, is all I’m saying. I’m a married woman, of course, so I’ll leave it at that. Other than to say, if you weren’t so irked by the guy, I might be pointing out his TDH qualities and telling you to go after him.”

  Tall, dark, and handsome? Blake? Fine, so the description fit. The insinuation, not so much. “Right. Because Hunzikers and Kingsleys go together so well. Like ketchup on strawberries.”

  “Are you the ketchup or the strawberry?”

  “Ha. Funny.”

  Autumn grabbed three kinds of salad dressing from the fridge and dropped them on the counter. Ellie pushed a plate heaping with salad at her. “Why did we decide to have salads? I feel like Tater Tots. Let’s have Tater Tots.”

  Ellie held up her fork like a teacher pointing a ruler. “No. You told me last week you were giving up foods that come out of a bag.”

  Autumn wrinkled her nose. “This lettuce came from a bag.”

  “But it’s not frozen.”

  “Fine. Salads. Yum.”

  They climbed onto the stools around the island, and Ellie bowed her head. “I’ll pray.”

  Autumn nodded and lowered her gaze as Ellie began. “God, thank you for this meal—even if it’s not Tater Tots—and the chance to spend time with Autumn.”

  When Autumn opened her eyes, she gulped in the warmth in her friend’s eyes. Shirley Temple curls framed Ellie’s face and a circle of orange stained her T-shirt—probably something Oliver had spilled. “You do realize you’re the best friend ever, right, Ell?” She forked a piece of lettuce. Lifted it to her mouth. Wrinkled her nose. “And I changed my mind. We’re having Tater Tots.” She stood.

  Ellie’s fork clinked against her plate as Autumn fished in the freezer for the bag she’d stuffed toward the back. She’d insisted on purchasing groceries as a way of thanking Mom for letting her and Lucy crash there.

  “So much for determination,” Ellie quipped. “Hey, I almost forgot, we got Oliver’s two-year photos back today. I brought you a five by seven.” She reached for the purse hooked around the b
ack of her seat and pulled out a photo. But when she twisted back around, her face scrunched.

  “You all right?”

  Ellie held her arm to her stomach, wincing once more. “Must’ve turned too fast.”

  Autumn dropped the bag of Tots on the counter. “You sure?”

  Ellie blinked, nodded. “Yeah, just a weird moment.” She slid the picture to Autumn.

  Oliver’s smile bubbled from the photo, his reddish-blond cowlick adding extra cuteness. “Oh, he’s so adorable.”

  Autumn had gotten used to the stir of longing being around a pregnant Ellie or her son produced. Someday.

  “Ooh, I’ve got the perfect frame. Just a sec. Stick the Tots in the oven while I’m gone, will ya?”

  She left the kitchen, trailed past the massive antique table swallowing up the dining room and toward the staircase to the second floor. In her old bedroom, she stepped over a pile of laundry she’d meant to throw in the washer for three days now, and plucked a frame from the overcrowded vanity surface.

  Ava smiled at her from the photo. A senior photo, taken on the veranda of the inn. This is how she liked to remember her sister—smiling and wind whipping through her blond hair. Eyes clear, not downcast and sullen like they were in the days after Ryan’s death.

  She set to work prying the back off the frame. She slipped out Ava’s photo, then paused when a second photo fluttered to the floor.

  Huh, there’d been a picture behind Ava’s? She reached for the photograph. From the glossy surface shone the Kingsley Inn in all its once-glory. Yellow exterior clean and bright, white-washed wraparound porch inviting and in perfect repair. And on the front steps—Mom, Ava, Autumn . . . even Dad. This photo was old.

  You loved this place, Dad. I know you did. And yet you were just going to leave it.

  But wasn’t she doing the same?

  No. No, this is different. I’m not abandoning it. The opposite, really. Everything she was doing now—fixing it up, throwing the Christmas party, helping with the festival, prepping for Dominic Laurent—was in an effort to secure the Kingsley Inn’s future.

  And what if Dominic Laurent wants to buy you out completely? What if he wants to change the name and the entire feel of the place?