www.TeaganOliverAuthor.com
Facebook.com
http://www.facebook.com/TeaganOliver
Twitter
www.Twitter.com/TeaganOliver
APRIL
It Had To Be You
Kat Henry Doran
Madeleine Flynn returns to Serenity Harbor intent on restoring her beloved home to its former grandeur. Nothing will get in her way. Even a man.
Working with their own agenda, local power brokers expect general contractor Azrael Hanson to monitor renovations--and toss in a few diversions to delay progress.
Az dropped like a stone the first time he met Maddy. Standing with her will damage his career beyond salvage. Following orders means he'll lose the future he craves with the one woman who completes him.
Dedication
To Grandmothers:
For the hope you inspire;
dreams you encourage;
confidence you instill;
love you share unconditionally.
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to Jack Kamann, housing inspector extraordinaire and all around fun guy. Az would not be the hero he is without your advice and guidance. ~ KHD
Chapter 1
As Madeleine Flynn combed the narrow attic room in search of her late grandmother's special treasures, bone-numbing sorrow weighed heavy on her shoulders.
Right when common sense intervened to suggest she give it up and begin again in the morning, she was rewarded for her efforts. In a far corner, she uncovered a stack of stained glass panels beneath a stretch of canvas. Though covered with five years worth of dust and grime, Maddy recognized the piece on top as the one her grandmother valued above the rest. She smiled at the once bright yellow tulips sprouting from dark green leaves. Granny swore it had captured her attention the first time she saw it in the lobby of an Amsterdam hotel.
It was during one of her grandmother's annual vacations to Europe in search of the unique and unusual which she then displayed in the rooms of the Victorian mansion where she lived and worked. Milly claimed to have fallen so hard for this one piece, she'd resorted to bribing the hotel owner, a friend of long standing, to sell it to her.
Every Wednesday afternoon, using a solution of vinegar and water, Granny lovingly scrubbed and buffed the heavy glass panel, all the while repeating the stories of how she found this and other pieces, as well as the efforts she'd employed to bring them home. The nature of said 'efforts' were never clearly explained until Maddy was old enough to understand the details of how her grandmother earned a living.
Granny was a whore. And a good one at that. After Milly reached an age where she felt she was too old to 'take care of' the gentlemen who frequented the house, she used her considerable savings to purchase it from its original owner, then set herself up as madam. Within five years she owned three similar establishments along Maine's Down East region. Each thrived, thanks to Millicent's diligence, hard work and a firm belief in treating guests and employees with respect and fairness. She was a simple business woman, she'd claimed. And damn proud of it.
“Not a thing wrong with taking care of a gentleman's needs,” she told her only grandchild in the lilting accent of her homeland. “As long as the man and woman understand the rules and don't try to change them mid-channel.”
Madeleine was forever fascinated by Granny's tales about leaving the slums of Strabane in the North of Ireland at the tender age of fourteen to make the journey to Derry. Once there, she worked long, difficult hours till she earned passage to the States. With only a few punts to her name and nothing but the clothes on her back and what could be stuffed into a faded tapestry satchel, she boarded the steamship for America and never looked back.
From the docks of Boston she hopped a train north and made her way to Portland where she'd heard there were possibilities for girls such as herself who weren't afraid of hard work. For a few years pretty, young Milly toiled as a maid in one of the finer South Portland hotels known for catering to the rich who summered in Maine. Eventually she caught the eye of a young man who took her under his wing, so to speak. The relationship lasted until Milly realized she needed to cleave to no man in return for each morsel of food, every slip of clothing. To survive, a smart woman depended on herself alone.
To that end, Millicent Flynn became a woman of ill repute.
All this made perfect sense to young Madeleine. Of course, when she asked her Granny how old she needed to be in order to become a whore, Milly nearly had a stroke.
“Not while there's breath in me body, little girl,” she vowed. “And still have the energy to take a switch to your backside. Hear me?”
“Yes, Granny.”
“That's better. Now, give us a kiss, then pour the tay just as I taught ye.” They were in the south garden, sharing a tray of Miss Alice's excellent biscuits with a steaming pot of Barry's Breakfast Blend. This section of the garden was Maddy's favorite, mainly because of the butterflies flocked to the profusion of brightly colored flowers that grew alongside the gazebo. With a hand, meticulously manicured and dripping with rings and bracelets, Mil gestured at the slate blue mansion and surrounding gardens.
“One day, God willing, this will all be yours, acushla. I want you to know every nook and cranny, every creak and hollow. Love it as I do. Care for it as I have.”
Maddy remembered nibbling on her favorite poppy seed biscuit and wondering if she'd ever be as accomplished a cook as Miss Alice, or at designing the gardens as Granny. “If I can't be a whore, what shall I become?”
“Anything you want, little girl, long as you work hard and apply yourself.”
Now, almost twenty years later, tulip pane in hand, Maddy walked to one of the tiny attic windows and rubbed a circle in the glass so that she could take in what was left of the once lush landscape. As her grandmother had, she'd loved each plant, every shrub, though now all were overgrown with weeds or damaged irreparably from harsh Maine winters. She'd often played hopscotch on the concrete paths that separated the glorious flowered plots. The rules governing this area were clear: if any of the ladies appeared with a gentleman caller, Madeleine was to join Miss Alice in the kitchen or retire to her quarters on the third floor.
That was a long time ago, she recognized with a hitch in her breath. If she was to succeed at bringing the mansion back to its former glory, she'd need a vivid imagination, a butt load of money and a ton of elbow grease. The imagination end of things was no problem as she'd always held the prize for daydreams and fantasies. If or when she became too tired to lift a scrub brush on her own, she could always hire out the elbow grease. Granny, thanks to the advice of canny lawyers and sharp-eyed financial planners, left Madeleine more money than she could spend in ten lifetimes.
All she'd had to do was bury the person who'd loved her most.
She turned from the window and focused on the collection of art work stacked against the wall nearest the stairwell. No better time, while she still had sufficient light, to look over the canvasses.
The first was a formal portrait of Millicent, posed in front of the fireplace in one of the downstairs salons and dressed to the nines in a steel gray suit, wide-brimmed hat known as a Cartwheel and fur stole. She remembered being obsessed with the idea that Granny Mil, who professed to love all of God's creatures--some more than others, perhaps--would drape a Marten mink around her neck. The … thing featured green glass for eyes and claws that looked like they'd been lacquered with dark nail polish. Totally creepy yet equally fascinating for an inquisitive eight year-old. For one of the first times since making her way back to Serenity Harbor, Maddy smiled, vowing as soon as the portrait was refurbished, she would hang it over the fireplace in the salon.
Since there was more here than she'd recalled from her youth, she knew without a doubt she'd have to take the entire collection to Portland for appraisal. Then, if she liked a piece, she'd hang it in public areas and guest suites. Smaller items would be relegated to staff quarters, the kitchen or bathrooms. The rest wou
ld find their way to auction houses or be donated to thrift shops.
One she found too hideous to hang anywhere, even the johns. She had no idea of the period, nor did she recognize the artist's signature. The subject, a dandy dressed in violet satin with foaming lace at the cuffs and lapels, perched on the back of a huge black horse. The color of the fop's costume, straight out of a stand of lilac bushes, was enough to turn the strongest of stomachs. The mass of shoulder length black curls reminded her of an early Bee Gees video.
From the pocket of her trousers, the opening guitar riff from “Pretty Woman” sounded. Maddy yanked it out and hit the icon portraying a blue telephone receiver. “Hello?”
“Having a good time in the wilds of nowhere, darling?”
She looked around the dusty room. “A regular blast from the past. What's up?”
One of her best friends in all the world sent a dramatic sigh into the receiver, then lowered his voice to a croon. “Missing you like crazy, baby, and hoping you'd be in the mood for a bit of phone sex.” When she didn't respond right away Louis Rawlings asked, “Are you in the mood?”
“If I went for tall, well-built blonds, maybe. As long as they go for tall, well-built blond women.”
“Damn. Guess I'll have to go out tonight, looking for love in all the wrong faces.”
Her friend suffered from bouts of deep depression which often sent him to the bars. Maddy often feared for his safety. “Be careful, Lou.”
As usual, he glossed over her concerns. “How are things up there? Have you seen your inheritance yet?”
“I'm here now,” she said. “I decided to start on the third floor and hope to have worked my way down to the foyer by tomorrow.”
“Use the camera app on your phone and take lots of pictures. I've got ideas about theme rooms separated by Jack and Jill baths. And speaking of Jacks and Jills, have you heard from Suzie Q?”
“Her train is due to arrive at eight. I'll pick her up at the station and take her to my motel. Even though it'd be more convenient, we can't stay here. The electricity hasn't been restored yet and it's still cold as blue blazes at night.”
“One more thing to put on your To Do list,” he reminded her. “Find a reputable general contractor to hire out the electrical, plumbing and ever important HVAC work.”
Maddy groaned her frustration. “Over the last couple days I've put out several feelers but haven't heard back yet. If the locals don't respond soon, I'll expand the search to Portland or Lewiston. If those don't pan out, I'll go farther south to Portsmouth.”
“You're the one who came up with this brilliant idea of morphing a whorehouse into a Bed and Breakfast on the Maine coast. Good thing the zoning for multi-purpose use is already in place. I hear dealing with small town planning boards can be a real nightmare.”
“The fun never ends.”
“Is the lighthouse still functioning?”
Maddy walked back to the west window, hoping for a glimpse of Serenity Light, one of many area attractions, in addition to Acadia National Park, she hoped would draw guests to the remote spit of land sticking out from Maine's rocky coast. The oversize watch on her wrist told her it was approaching five. Time to start making her way down the stairs while there was still enough light so she didn't fall and break a few bones.
Without warning, an eye-blistering beam speared through the only clean spot on the window. She flinched, then laughed. “Oh, you betcha. Working just fine.”
“Great. Stoke the fireplaces and lay in a supply of pillar candles, darling. I'll arrive by Sunday afternoon at the latest. It's face-to-face planning time for the four musketeers. No more Skyping for us.”
“Can't wait,” she said before clicking off the phone and sliding it back into her pocket.
Aided by an extra strength flashlight, she made her way down the narrow set of stairs to the second floor. At the end of the wide hallway, a door opened on to a small landing which led down to the kitchen. As a child, spurred by a craving for a midnight snack, she often tip-toed down these same steps, intent on raiding Miss Alice's Frigidaire. Back then, using only a pocket flashlight, she'd resorted to marking her progress down the darkened tunnel by counting the narrow strips of paneling with her fingertips. When she counted twenty-four, she knew the door to the kitchen would be there on the right.
It was on the top step of the landing when something sent her flying flat on her face. Scrabbling for purchase on the chair rail, she was halfway to her feet when a second blow put her on her back. “Well, dammit!”
Right off she knew it was a man. No one but a guy owned a hard chest and burly arms like what currently pressed her against the hard surface of the floor. And he was tall. At close to six feet herself, her nose mashed against a boney Adam's apple. She reached up and dug her fingers into iron hard biceps. “What do you want?”
“Shut up, bitch. Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
She made a fist the way a former college boyfriend had taught her, reared back and belted him in the mouth. He pulled back far enough for her to get loose and rise to her knees. After one gulping breath, she swung her arm back and delivered a solid roundhouse to his chin. He went down but grabbed her ankle as he landed.
Attempts to kick him off, combined with the follow-through from the punch, put her off balance. Her arms wind-milled as she careened down the stairs. He hung onto her legs, bellowing like a wounded moose. She shrieked every Gaelic curse Miss Alice taught her while they bounced their way down the steps.
At the kitchen doorway, she went into a crouch, then rose to explode in a fury of kicks and punches.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he blurted, using both arms to cover his face and head. “All you have to do is give it up, lady. No one has to get hurt.”
“The hell I will. You're in my house, jackass. Uninvited.”
Then she kicked him. In the crotch. Hard.
And hoped it did some damage. The permanent type.
* * *
Az Hanson settled his butt in the worn seat of a visitor's chair, stretched out his legs and contemplated the look of contentment on the face of his best friend since the womb. Sam Biddleford wore the uniform of Serenity Harbor's Chief of Police with the ease of a long-time law enforcement professional. “Planning to go to the reunion next month?”
“Aye-yuh. Mary Kate never passes up an opportunity to show off the baby bump.”
Az offered him a narrowed look. “Kinda old for that sort of thing, aren't you?”
“What? Showing off a bump?”
“Doing what led to said 'bump'.”
“Spoken like a recently divorced man who ain't getting his pipes flushed regular.”
“My pipes are just fine, thanks very much. You two ever heard of birth control? Self-restraint? Counting the days on a calendar?”
Sammy loosened his tie before settling deeper into the plush leather wheeled chair, an expense his wife termed The Throne. “Get a couple Margaritas into my Katie and good sense goes out the window.”
“That what you tell the daughter you're sending off to college in the fall?”
“Don't go there, pal. Just--”
The door to Sam's office crashed open. An Amazon in dun colored slacks and a leather bomber jacket burst in. Streaky gold-blond hair stuck out in tufts all over her head. Eye makeup streaked down her bruised cheeks. She panted and gasped like an Amtrak engine in need of overhaul. “I just beat the shit out of some guy.”
Both men stood. Az reached her first. She wasn't looking so hot herself. Sporting a fat lip and the beginnings of a shiner that would likely end up the size of a saucer from Brewsters Coffee House, the torn shirt exposed a lacy bra and a couple nasty gouges on her sternum. If she'd beat the shit out of some guy, like she claimed, said guy got in a few licks himself.
“I'm not feeling all that hot,” she mumbled and went limp in his arms. If he hadn't displayed the speed and grace he'd used on a rink for more than thirty years, Mystery Woman would have toppled to the floor
like a felled pine.
* * *
The ER physician looked tired and frazzled. Which to Az came as no surprise given a line of filled stretchers crowding both sides of the corridor. That didn't count the traffic jam of wheelchairs filled with moaning and retching patients, barf bags at the ready.
“Having yourself a BOGO, Teddy?”
“Don't ask,” the doc said, flipping through a chart. “Looks like we got ourselves a case of food poisoning with the chief suspect being last night's Pot Luck Supper at Holy Name of Mary. The Health Department is having a field day.” He flashed Az a narrowed look. “That bit of info isn't for public consumption--no pun intended.”
“Can I see the gal who dropped like a bunker buster in Sammy's office?”
Ted Cranston, MD, and another pal dating back to the womb, just shook his head. “Are you so hard up you're reduced to trolling my ER? Pick on one of the nurses instead of some gal too battered to fight off one of your pathetic come-ons.”
“Hey, if it hadn't been for my grace and speed, she'd have bounced off the floor and hit her head, maybe sued the town for failure to provide for the safety and wellbeing of the citizens. Besides, she's all alone and the thought of anyone having to spend five minutes in this pest hole of yours creeps me out.”
“Spending time here creeps me out, too.” The doc jerked his chin in the direction of Treatment Room One. “Knock yourself out.”
“Anything I should know before I go in?”
“She denied recent foreign travel so I kinda doubt Ebola or Zika.”
“You're a real rip.”
“Yeah, it's a gift. Don't make her talk much. Her face is … well, you'll see.”
Az entered the room cautiously. Someone had dimmed the lights and pulled the privacy curtain around the bed. The usual suspect likely was Grace Ellen O'Toole, the charge nurse on duty today. A real jewel, that Gracie. If he were ever hurt or injured, she'd be the first person he'd hope was on triage duty when they brought him in.
Welcome to Serenity Harbor Page 6
