The Red Door Inn

by Liz Johnson

  This was her chance to run. She could put distance between them until she couldn’t see the blue of the bay or smell Caden’s pastries. It was time to go. Time to run.

  But her feet refused to move.

  Seth’s gaze swept over her as goose bumps exploded down her arms. She grabbed the lapel of her sweater, tugging it closed beneath her chin and covering every inch of skin. The rush of fear that zipped down her spine had nothing to do with being in this house, but there was no denying that the hazel gaze trained on her sent her pulse sailing and her mind racing to a dark night and a midnight morning.

  “Well? Which one?” Jack waved the cards again. “I need ya, kid.”

  Run.

  She just had to put one foot in front of the other and run.

  Before they sent her packing. Before it broke her heart to have to leave.

  Instead, she followed the lines on Jack’s face like streets on a map and ignored the steam nearly coming out of Seth’s ears. She hugged the door frame, calculating each movement to ensure she wouldn’t brush even a hair against Seth, and slipped past his broad chest. When she reached the older man, she accepted the outstretched cards, her hair swishing with each shake of her head. “Neither.”

  “Neither?”

  “They’re all terrible kitchen colors.”

  Jack’s face fell, his eyes jumping back and forth between the cards in her hands like he was watching a never-ending tennis match. Finally, he pointed at the middle color on the green swatch. “What’s wrong with this one? It’ll match the dining room.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

  Seth, who still stood at the open door, coughed, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. Was that a smile? She hadn’t even known he knew how.

  “It’s not?”

  Again her hair swayed. “No.”

  “Need to paint the dining room again?” His eyebrows curved to match the frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “Only if you want your guests to enjoy eating in there.” She glanced toward the ugly room. “Did you paint it that color yourself?”

  He nodded and swept an age-spotted hand around the room. “What are we going to do? We have to open in just under two months.” He leaned his forearms on the kitchen island, hanging his head to his chest and plunging his fingers into his hair. “If we miss the tourist season this summer, I won’t be able to pay the mortgage on this place for the rest of the year.”

  Seth swept past her, his arm brushing her shoulder. She sucked in a quick breath, recoiling from even the briefest touch, but he didn’t seem to notice as he charged toward his uncle.

  Placing a hand on the older man’s shoulder, he sighed. “It’s going to be all right. We have enough time.”

  Jack’s words, muffled against the counter, knocked her against the wall. “I’m not so sure.”

  What would he do if the inn didn’t open in time? She could go. But what would Jack do with a house he couldn’t pay for and no rooms to rent?

  “We’ll get it done.” Seth pressed both of his hands to his hips and closed his eyes, pinching his lips together. “We’ll figure it out.”

  How could this man be the same one who had suggested she was after Jack’s money? How could he be so set on tossing her out one minute and so kind to his uncle the next?

  Jack straightened, pressing his hair down where his fingers had yanked on it. “Going to take all three of us.”

  “I think you and I can—” Seth’s words stopped at a sharp glance from his uncle.

  “I said it’ll take all three of us to make this house into the inn that Rose dreamed of.” He stepped around Seth, reaching out to Marie, though not quite touching her. “And you’ll stick around, right? You’ll stay here until we’re ready to open. You’ll make sure we don’t paint the wrong colors or end up with mattresses on the floor.”

  The urge to run washed over her again, but she swallowed it down twice, still hugging the brown paper package like it was a life vest on the Titanic.

  This was her chance to bolt. There were really only two choices. Freedom and uncertainty or commitment and stability—for the time being. The stability only lasted as long as Jack offered it, and there was no telling when he would change his mind.

  The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes sagged as he peered at her, silently nodding her into agreement. He wanted her to stay. He wanted her.

  It had been so long that she’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to be needed. And, at least on Jack’s part, wanted.

  She couldn’t leave now. After all, she still owed Jack for the ferry ticket.

  She’d go before Seth forced her to. But for a little bit she’d stay. Until they didn’t need her anymore.

  “I have a pretty good idea where to start.” She held the map out.

  “Oh really?” Seth’s words dripped with sarcasm.

  “What’s that?” Jack’s eyebrows rose.

  Their words tumbled together, and she chose to respond to only one. The crinkling of the paper would have masked her breathing—if she hadn’t been holding her breath as she revealed her treasure.

  Jack’s forehead wrinkled as she handed it to him, and he traced the pattern of the frame. “For the dining room. It matches the light fixture.”

  “I thought so too.”

  Even Seth’s eyes brightened at the old map, his jaw going slack as he leaned in to look at the legend. Suddenly his eyebrows snapped together, the familiar cynicism returning. “You blew two hundred bucks on this thing?”

  5

  No.” Marie swung her arms around her middle in an instinctively protective motion. “It wasn’t like that.”

  Seth’s eyes narrowed, and he jerked a hand toward the white sticker on the glass that clearly stated the price. “Then, what? You stole it?”

  Jack snorted at the suggestion, but Marie wasn’t so sure that Seth had been joking. He leaned a hip against the far counter, crossing his arms and scowling at his uncle, whose finger still traced the detail of the frame.

  “Where did you get this? It’s perfect. My Rose would have loved this. She loved this island so much.” Jack’s eyes glistened, and he blinked against the pools beginning to form there.

  “I got it at the antique store you told me about. Aretha Franklin, the owner, pointed it out to me, and I knew it would fit in this house.” Her hand hovered over Jack’s forearm long enough for her to take a deep breath before she risked touching him. Her skin burned at the first voluntary contact she’d had in weeks, and she yanked her hand to her chest, cradling it there.

  Seth, oblivious to the enormous step she’d just taken, pointed his chin toward the map. “So is that all you got? I thought you were going to look for some bedspreads.”

  Twisting a finger into the collar of her sweater, she stared at the planks of the floor. “They were a little more than I expected.”

  Jack looked up from where he inspected a tract of land. “How much?”

  “Between six and eight hundred.” She managed a swift breath. “Each.”

  “I told you the antique store was a waste.” Seth’s words bit so hard they nearly broke her skin. Even though he addressed his uncle, the reprimand was clearly for her. “We don’t have time or money to throw away on frivolous knickknacks.”

  She reached into her pocket, pulled out all the money Jack had given her, and held the bills out to him. Seth’s jaw went slack.

  “Close your mouth, boy, or you’ll start catching flies.” Jack shot him a hard look. “And keep it closed unless you’ve got something constructive to add to this conversation.”

  “Aretha gave the map to me. It’s kind of a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift, but I promised that if we need any other antiques for decorating the inn, we’ll look at her store first. And there were so many interesting things there. We can easily find one or two key pieces for each room in the house. Our paint colors and linens will accentuate them. For example, this silver frame would pop against a dusky blue, so we should loo
k for that when it’s time to repaint the dining room.”

  Jack lifted his brows just enough to tell her he knew she was teasing him about the green walls, but he said only, “Well done.”

  Something sparked in her chest, but she couldn’t quite name it. She’d found just the right piece to start, and Jack approved. Perhaps it was just pride in a job well done, but somehow this felt different than graduating with honors from Wharton with her MBA or winning a high school swim meet.

  What she’d done mattered to someone. It was more than bragging rights to his buddies or closing another deal.

  The inn mattered to Jack. And to Seth.

  Maybe she was a part of that. Because it mattered to her too.

  “And I saw these sheets—beautiful antique linens.”

  “For this B and B?” Seth cocked his head like she’d almost certainly lost her mind.

  She waved her hand to stall his train of thought. “They were hanging with the quilts, and there was a gorgeous embroidered monogram. R. D. I. And I thought . . .” She shrugged, not sure where she was going or at all how to get there. “I thought the name of the inn should be simple. Straightforward.”

  “The Red Door Inn.” Jack’s eyes turned misty.

  Goose bumps erupted down her arms as her gaze locked with his. He heard the same ring of rightness in the three simple letters.

  “Very well done, young lady.”

  “And the bedspreads? What are we going to do about those?” Seth’s questions ripped her from the cozy world of mattering. “As far as I can tell, we still only have the sheets Jack picked up and a handful of blankets in the entire house.”

  “Well, the quilts are still there. And so beautiful.” She squeezed her hands together. “And I told Aretha that we’d be back to look at them again.”

  Seth recoiled like he’d been struck. “You did what? We can’t afford eight hundred dollars a room on bedding. You had no right to promise something like that.”

  Her heart stopped, and her words in the antique store settled like a brick in her stomach, bile rising in the back of her throat. It had all seemed so right at the time. That morning Jack had been on board with the idea of adding an island-made quilt to every bedroom.

  But that had been before he’d seen a price tag.

  He’d been careful about giving her 225 dollars. How ridiculous to hope he’d be willing to part with three times that much for just one quilt.

  Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and she tried to blink them away, but they rushed in again and again. Her cheeks burned, and she covered them with fingers cold as icicles.

  Now she’d have to either break her promise to Aretha or spend money that Jack didn’t have.

  Jack cleared his throat, tilting his chin toward the open package on the island and tapping his cheek. “No harm in looking. I’ll have to think about those quilts a bit then.”

  “Oh, Jack. I didn’t—” Her lip shook so hard she had to bite deep into it to keep the tears from flowing, to keep her fears from showing.

  His rich baritone laugh echoed through the room. “Don’t worry, my dear.” He patted her hand. “We’ve a name for the Red Door Inn and a connection at the antique store. Worth the trip, don’t you think?”

  She shook her head, still pinching her lip between her teeth for fear that the rush of tears would spill if she let go. Silence fell over them, the weight of four eyes trained on her sending sharp pains down the middle of her chest.

  Her breath vanished in an instant, and she wheezed twice before dark spots flashed in her periphery and her skin lit from a fire within.

  She pointed to the hallway, dashing away before they could object.

  Down the stairs. She had to make it down the stairs to her room. She’d be safe there, protected from Jack’s curious stares and Seth’s . . . Seth-ness. Those disapproving glowers and crossed arms, like a sentry standing at the inn’s entrance, keeping the unwanteds at bay.

  She pushed the door closed behind her, crashed onto the pillow-soft mattress in the center of the bedroom, and pressed her arms open as wide as possible. Air had vanished, replaced only by the binding around her lungs. She tried again and again to find any trace of oxygen left in the room until her line of vision narrowed, then vanished altogether.

  “What was that all about?”

  Seth paced the narrow confines of the kitchen, the hair on his arms on high alert. Though Jack’s tone wasn’t sharp, the seriousness underlying the words was clear. Or maybe it was his own regret at the way he’d spoken to the girl. “I might have been a little hard on her.”

  Jack stepped in his path, standing firm despite giving up at least three inches and thirty pounds of muscle. But his eyes flashed like he had the entire United States Navy backing him up. He waited for the artillery to sound, for Jack to lay into him like he deserved.

  He’d been downright mean to Marie. And why? Because he didn’t want to be near a pretty woman? Because it might remind him of what he’d lost when Reece ran out on him?

  Those excuses were weak.

  The truth stung more than Jack’s next words.

  “You think you were a little hard on her?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s gotten into you, boy? I know you’re hurting, so I’ve let you be sour. But this”—he waved to the door where Marie had disappeared—“this isn’t like you. You’re a better man than that. She’s a guest in this house, and you’ve treated her worse than an enemy. How are you going to make it right?”

  He could just avoid her for the rest of his time on the island. They were under one roof, but it was a pretty big one. With a little planning he might be able to dodge her for a few months.

  Like a coward.

  “I haven’t told you enough since your dad died, but you know that I love you like my own son. If Rose and I had been able to have a kid, I’d have wanted him to be like you.”

  The old man had never strung so many consequential words together in one conversation.

  Jack cleared his throat, staring hard into Seth’s eyes.

  Seth’s stomach flipped, and he picked at the paint stain under his thumbnail, fighting the urge to escape to the bathroom on the second floor in need of a mirror. Those nice words were just a setup. He was about to get hammered. He’d seen that look in Jack’s eyes before. He’d been a boy then and deserved everything Jack had said.

  But he wasn’t a kid anymore.

  Which made this infinitely worse.

  Jack jabbed his crooked finger again at the spot where Marie had disappeared. “I know you’ve been hurt. Understand that Reece hurt you.”

  Seth flinched at the mention of her name. She’d stolen everything. Including—apparently—his mind.

  “I’ve given you leeway to be cranky and unpleasant, but we’re all that girl has.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “She’d have bolted if she had any other option.” Jack took a steady breath, then let it out like an angry steed.

  Seth prayed the worst was over.

  “Rose had big plans for this house. She’d have taken in every single stray on the island if she could, so don’t you dare dishonor her memory by running off our first one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A wrinkled hand clapped him hard on the back. “Fix it so it’s sweeter than a lobster tail covered in butter ’round here. And take her back to the antique store to get started picking out decoration pieces like she was talking about.”

  Seth stepped back, crossing his arms again. “I’ve got lots of things to do around here. That sink upstairs isn’t going to fix itself, and I still need to install that closet rod, put up the shelves, and hang that door.”

  Jack turned to the counter next to the double-sided sink, collecting a handful of paint samples and ignoring the excuse. Which is exactly what it was. “And buy at least one of those quilts while you’re there.”

  God help him, he had to apologize, or Jack would send him back to an apartment filled w
ith nothing more than lousy memories and condolence cards. And most of those were probably from wedding guests who had missed the chance for a party more than the opportunity to see him marry the woman he’d loved.

  “I have a few errands to run this afternoon, so don’t expect me back early.” Jack stopped at the laundry room door, tucking the money Marie had given back to him into his pocket. “Make it right.”

  Seth glared at the clock on the microwave as though he could turn back the time. A year might just do it. That was enough time to get back his life and livelihood. If he’d never met Reece, never gone to that party, never popped the question, he wouldn’t be where he was.

  He wouldn’t be stuck in small-town Prince Edward Island, trying to figure out what to say to a woman he wasn’t ready to trust. Jack might think she was a lost puppy in need of a home. Seth wasn’t convinced. She was more than the down-on-her-luck kid that Jack saw.

  And he’d have to stick close to her side to figure her out before she could do any real damage. But he’d have to earn her trust in order to do that.

  His stomach growled, and he pulled open the refrigerator door, staring hard at the empty shelves. Two bachelors true to the stereotype. They didn’t shop for more than the bare essentials. And they certainly didn’t cook. So they didn’t eat well.

  He grabbed a carton of yogurt out of the door, pulled a plastic utensil from the spoon drawer, and beat the yogurt into submission before shoveling it into his mouth. It disappeared sooner than he was ready to make his trek down the stairs, but the longer he waited, the more time Marie had to fester in her anger. If Reece had taught him anything, it was that a woman could make a mosquito of a grudge into a mammoth if left to her own devices.

  Hoping something had magically appeared in the three seconds it took to finish off his snack, he peered back into the fridge. Still empty except for one more yogurt.

  Maybe Marie was hungry too.