To his surprise, LeeAnn burst out laughing. “Ah, well, you definitely are mistaken there.” She shook her head. “I don’t cook, and I don’t bake. That’s my staff, I’m afraid.”
“Because you spend so much time seeing to your guests, of course.” Cristopoulis said smoothly. “There are many cottages that make up the inn as well, yes?”
“Not so many as that,” LeeAnn hedged. “Twelve or so, ranging up the mountain.”
“And so much more.” He gestured around him. “I want to understand what each requires. These gardens, the dock house, the stone barn by the lake, all of it.”
“Oh, that,” she wrinkled her nose. It was such an unaffected gesture he was instantly charmed by it, and he wondered at himself. Had he been stuck in this backwoods for too long? He was used to having some of the most gorgeous women of Greece and Garronia on speed dial. What was he doing looking twice at the tousle-haired innkeeper?
But he was looking twice at her. Looking twice and liking what he saw a great deal. He wanted to get to know this LeeAnn Werth who worked so hard for others, to see what lay beneath the warm smiles and self-effacing comments. It was the least he could do, yes? A last, positive memory of the great and wild north woods.
LeeAnn’s next words derailed those thoughts. “There’s nothing in the barn but junk, so you can scratch that off your list,” she said. “I haven’t been in there since my—since I took over the inn, to be honest. It has to be completely cleaned out and refurbished, but I haven’t had the time.”
“Then we should have a look, eh?” Cristopoulis said, spreading his hands wide. “My men can find something else useful to do besides lurk about in the shadows and attack strangers. They can help you clean out this barn.”
Before she could object, he continued. “I insist. I’ll hold off on departing until at least we have done that. It will be good exercise, something we have all sorely missed.”
Not at all true, but LeeAnn had no idea of the life he’d led before decamping to Minnesota. The long days of football training had paid off, however, and the Greek national football team had been poised to crush its international competition this summer…until the coach had pissed off Cristopoulis for the last time. He could deal with corruption in the sport—that was to be expected. But he could not deal with the blatant cheating and foul play that the coach encouraged.
The fact that Cristopoulis had snapped during the quarter-finals match of an internationally televised tournament was simply bad timing. The fact that he’d broken the coach’s jaw with his fist, however, had become a national embarrassment for Garronia. When his father had suggested America as the most likely place for an international football star to hide out, Cristopoulis had gone one step further, choosing the remotest location possible: the north woods of Minnesota.
Now he’d be leaving again. It would only take a half-day for his men to inform the ambassador of the local interest in him, then he would be gone.
If Cristopoulis had already committed himself to some worthy cause, however, he could potentially buy himself a little time. His father was, above all, a man of honor.
Even as Cristopoulis warmed to the idea, LeeAnn tried to shut it down. “I do appreciate your offer, but I’m afraid that’s simply not possible,” she said. “You’re all guests of the hotel.”
“Then we will leave today,” Cristopoulis said, with such finality LeeAnn blinked.
“I don’t understand.”
“We are desperate for work, the men especially—they have resorted to picking up small women in order to get their exercise, you see?” He grinned disarmingly, and LeeAnn was no more immune to it than the women at home had been. “So if you’re not willing to allow us to stay and work, then we will leave your lovely inn and find lodging elsewhere, then apply here as day laborers.”
She stared at him. “Mr. Evans—”
“Please. Call me Cris—but no h in it, eh? My true name is Cristopoulis, but Cris is so much easier.” He lifted one shoulder, dropped it. “Since we will be working very close, it’s better this way. Christopher, he was useful, but a bit boring, I think. I no longer wish to be boring.”
Her blush flared higher. “Oh. Well, Cris, then. You can’t seriously want me to put you and your men to work.”
“I assure you, I have never been more sincere,” Cristopoulis said, adding every ounce of authenticity he could to his voice as he held LeeAnn’s gaze. “I cannot imagine a better way to end my vacation than spending it by your side, Ms. Werth, helping you do whatever you must do.”
Chapter Two
LeeAnn knew Cris-without-the-h was simply trying to make up for his men carting off Ellie, but once he had his mind set on the idea of helping her, he seemed driven with a single-minded purpose. After she’d successfully staged lunch—under the man’s watchful and curious eye—she’d hesitantly asked for his help with tidying up the boat house.
It was a distraction for herself, she knew. She really needed to sit down with the lease documents, figure out how much money she needed to borrow to keep the place running, call Mr. Prentiss, the property manager to finalize the paperwork. The same as she’d done five years earlier, in the wake of her father’s death. Back then, there’d been some assets she could liquidate, but now…now she didn’t know.
So instead she cleaned the boat house.
Cris and his men threw themselves into the task. They removed all the kayaks and canoes from the building and repainted the stands, then staged races with the other lodgers while everything dried. Her guests loved it, chattering into the evening, none of them aware that Werth Inn may not even exist in another few months if LeeAnn didn’t get her act in gear and secure a new lease.
Still, for the moment, the inn did exist—and for the moment, she had five very strong men at her disposal. And as much as she needed to focus on her paperwork…she really did need to clean out that stone barn too.
Trooping down the hill to the barn the next morning after breakfast, however, LeeAnn had her doubts. Cris kept pace as he simultaneously keyed in notes on a tablet. He’d done that throughout the past day with such an intensity she could almost believe he truly wished to understand the art of running an inn successfully.
LeeAnn grimaced. As soon as he figured that out, he should give her some pointers.
“I haven’t even opened this since I started managing the inn,” she said now, sliding the correct key around the chain. Her critical eye picked up every flaw in the old stone building. It’d been her grandfather’s pride and joy, but her father had had too much work to do to keep up with it, and they’d shuttered it long ago. LeeAnn’s heart twinged at the memory of her dad, his weathered face still happy despite all the hard effort that had gone into the inn. Always with a kind word or a friendly smile to ease the load of some careworn traveler. He hadn’t truly understood the financial status of the inn, when all was said and done. She hadn’t either until after he was gone.
But she still remembered his smile. His clear blue eyes and hearty laugh. The only time she’d ever seen him sad, really, was when her mother had left them for what she’d apparently decided was an easier life. LeeAnn wouldn’t let her dad down, she’d resolved then. She wasn’t about to let him down now, either.
“Which was how long ago?” Cris’s curious words startled her, and it took her a second to realize what he was asking. The inn. He wanted to know how long she’d been managing the inn.
“Five years,” she said, her tone more clipped than it usually was. Cris nodded, turning his dark gaze toward the broad barn with a smile that looked so much like her father’s that it teased her back into a good mood.
“This building could be refurbished as another guest house, yes?” he asked. “You’re full up it seems at the main lodge.”
“Only because it’s still tourist season.” LeeAnn shook her head. The idea of hosting more than the inn’s current allotment of fifty guests made her stomach clench. They were already spilling out of the main dining room into the gar
den most days. When it rained, she had to convert the sitting rooms with tables and chairs as well. Then there were the cottages, whose guests often brought their own provisions—until they didn’t, which left her scrambling to create portable meals for her staff to drive up the long, winding mountain road. “Once the snow starts to fly, our guest numbers drop.”
“But they don’t have to! You could store the boats for the winter, then bring in skis, snowmobiles, and store them all here.”
“I could,” she agreed, amiably enough. How long was this lunatic staying? He had no idea of the work his suggestions would take. And there was still that paperwork sitting on her desk, beckoning to her to face her own truths.
Cris’s enthusiasm didn’t wane as she opened the doors. “This barn! Tell me there is electricity.”
“I really don’t…”
He stepped past her and threw the switch on the wall. Sure enough, lights flickered on.
LeeAnn’s throat tightened as she blinked in the dim glow, her mind suddenly flooded with memories. She’d come up to the inn every year as a little girl. Back then the barn had been open, filled with old equipment and her grandfather’s half-completed projects. Then her grandpa had died, her parents had divorced and her dad hadn’t done much of anything but keep the inn afloat for several years, all while LeeAnn was in college getting a business degree she had no idea how to use once she graduated.
She’d never planned on returning to Haralson, Minnesota, though. Not when so much was out there waiting to be explored.
Then her dad had gotten sick the summer after her senior year, and it’d seemed natural to come home to help.
But her dad had never recovered. Instead, the inn and all its memories had been left to LeeAnn, and she’d found herself following in the family footsteps—doing as much as she could to keep it afloat, with no energy left over for anything more.
“This is outstanding!” Cris’s shout brought her back to the moment, and she squinted at him through the dust motes dancing in the air. Even his men were grinning, ranging out through the tight corridors between enormous tarp-covered mounds. “The ceilings of this room are nearly fifteen feet high.” He pointed. “What’s up there?”
One of his men spoke from the back of the chamber, and though she couldn’t translate, she heard his feet on the stairs.
“Be careful!” she shouted, but Cris merely laughed, dashing toward the sound.
“Stairs, he says. Wooden stairs leading up to a loft. Clean out this area here, refurbish the loft as an apartment, and you’d have a year-round studio for an artist or photographer. A new income stream, eh?”
LeeAnn shook her head as his laughter floated down. Granted, the place wasn’t as messy as she’d feared it would be after so many years. She pulled off a few of the tarps, smiling as Cris and his men traded comments in their native language. There was the Model-T her grandfather had never been able to part with, the antique canoe her dad had been refinishing since she’d been a little girl. The dust on the floor was easily an inch thick, but the treasures they’d carefully hidden away remained pristine, perfect. Trapping her every bit as much as the inn did, in the snow globe of her early childhood.
How could she leave this place, when everything her dad and grandpa loved was here? She’d have to find some way to re-up the lease for another five years. Maybe then she could leave and travel, as she’d always planned to do.
Maybe.
“Oh!” Cris was suddenly beside her again. He breathed another word like a benediction, but she couldn’t decipher it. “What is this you have here?”
He stood with another of the tarps in his grasp, his jaw agape. LeeAnn followed his gaze, and chuckled as she realized the object of his focus. “That’s grandpa’s old motorbike,” she said with a fond smile. “He loved that thing, but it doesn’t really handle all that well.”
“Doesn’t handle…” Cris swung around to her, his eyes wide. “This is an MV Augusta 750s! Do you have any idea how extraordinary that is?”
“Umm…” LeeAnn took the tarp he pushed at her, then it was her turn to stare as Cris knelt down almost reverentially beside the bike.
“These bikes, they’re very rare. And this one—it’s in such good condition. What year is it, a ’72?”
“I have no idea. Grandpa mostly complained about the fact that it broke down all the time.”
“It is a legend! Built in Italy, did you know? And it doesn’t have a lip on the crankcase—that is…that is unbelievable. The seat is wrong—the original MVs had no room for another passenger, but that is easily fixed. The rest…it’s perfect.” Cris’s voice had turned awed, and LeeAnn couldn’t help laughing.
“Well, it hasn’t been ridden in…” She cast her gaze toward the ceiling, trying to remember. “Ten years, maybe. So I have no idea if it even runs.”
“It runs. It must. We need gas, oil.” Cris peered beyond the bike at the collection of canisters, and LeeAnn lifted her hands.
“No—no way. That gasoline is as old as the dust in this place and you do not want to use it. Trust me.”
Cris apparently agreed with her, because he turned to one of his men, rattling off instructions in his native tongue. The man left at a run, and his shout drew two of the others down, their faces lighting up with surprise as they drew near the bike.
“What language are you speaking, Greek?” she asked, and Cris was so distracted that he muttered under his breath.
“Garronois,” he said, then leaned forward before she could ask anything further, speaking rapidly to his men.
Garronois? She’d never heard of that language. Was it some sort of Greek dialect? Maybe a little province inside the country? Making a mental note to check later, she turned with a sigh toward the rest of the barn. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to pull Cris away from the bike, but no sooner had she taken a step deeper into the gloom than he popped up again.
“It will take awhile for Rico to return with supplies, but in the meantime, we work! You’ve given us an easy task with so many treasures to uncover. First we must clean these floors though, then the walls.” He glanced around. “Then the windows. It’s so dark in here.”
“They’re covered over.” LeeAnn showed him how to pull down the tarps with a minimum of effort, and Cris grinned as light flooded into the barn.
“Direct us!” he commanded. “We’re at your service.”
Rico returned an hour later with the oil and gas, and by then his men had cleared maybe a quarter of the large stone room with a combination of shop vacs and push brooms, all under LeeAnn’s bemused direction. She clearly had no idea what she had in this place, Cristopoulis thought. He had no understanding of anything but the MV, but he suspected the other pieces were worth something as well.
LeeAnn seemed unfazed by it, but then, wherever she looked, he suspected she only saw more work. Even his suggestions of renovating the barn into a living quarters drew a weary nod from her, and her eyes were sad. How could she not see the beauty in every stone and turned rail? The barn had been crafted back when building had mattered, its craftsmanship a rarity during his sojourn through the US thus far, at least outside of major cities.
Now she was frowning at him as Rico walked through the large barn doors with his box of supplies. “Cris, that bike should be overhauled by a mechanic.”
“A mechanic,” he scoffed. “Did your grandfather trust it to a mechanic?”
“Well, no. He didn’t trust it with anyone.”
“And neither should you.” He winked. “Except me. And I will take exceptional care of it.”
She shook her head and left him, grabbing one of the brooms and retreating as his men crowded around.
“My father contacted you, I assume?” Cristopoulis asked Rico, his voice low, though of course LeeAnn couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Rico nodded as he handed Cristopoulis the oil. “The season is well underway, and most of the outrage has passed. He thinks you can leave the US, but perhaps not travel
directly to Garronia for awhile yet. Another month, maybe two and you can be seen again without causing a public outcry.”
“Comforting,” Cristopoulis said. “How quickly they forget.”
“Not so quickly as all that,” another of his men put in. “They’re losing without you.”
Cristopoulis snorted. “I noticed.”
Rico grinned. “But it’s nothing that they are not used to, the Greeks. Losing comes naturally to them.”
The wry comment provoked laughter and more off-color comments, but their focus was on the bike, and within another half-hour, they’d turned over the engine, the deep, throaty roar of it filling the barn as a thick puff of smoke poured out the back.
“Enough—enough!” LeeAnn returned, pointing urgently toward the door of the barn. “Don’t start it inside!”
“Agreed!” Cristopoulis was already wheezing from the smoke, but in truth he hadn’t known if the antique would even start, despite his bold claim to LeeAnn. He cut the engine and pushed the bike outside, then pointed at her. “You have work to do at the cottages, no?”
“Always,” she said, her tone a little wary.
“Then come, we should go together.”
“Sir,” Rico said in Garronois. “You know the rules.”
Cristopoulis grinned back at him but his words were pointed. “I’m on a motorcycle with a woman driving up a deserted road. I’m pretty sure no one will disturb me—or even know I’m here. Relax, Rico. We’re leaving soon enough.”
His head bodyguard didn’t look happy, but he stood down. “We’ll track you, then,” he said. “If you leave the road too far, we’ll follow.”
“Very well.”
In truth, Cristopoulis didn’t want to be obnoxious to his men. His bodyguard contingent had accepted this exile in Nowhere, Minnesota without so much as a murmur of complaint. He tried not to make their lives any more difficult, though he knew they made regular reports to his father, Count Matretti, brother to Queen Catherine. As the US ambassador from Garronia, the count hadn’t wanted anyone to know he’d stashed his trouble-making son in the heart of America’s wilderness.
Finding Chris Evans: The Royal Edition Page 2
