Inn at Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

  He gazed down at her, his face looking much less gloomy today than it had on Thursday. There was the tiniest smile at the corner of his mouth, and something changeable in the depths of his great, dark eyes. She knew he was a hard, self-absorbed man, and yet his eyes didn’t convey that right at this moment. They shone with kindness. But of course, she was imagining things. She had a terrible tendency to want to believe the best about people.

  “You don’t look big enough to carry wood. I wouldn’t make you do that for me,” he said.

  If there was one thing that annoyed her, it was men who thought women were helpless. “You’d be surprised how tough I am,” she snarled, reaching for the wood in his arms. But he turned away and started walking toward the back door. Short of tackling him, which would be rude for an innkeeper, she was going to have to let him haul wood.

  Of course, the paltry number of logs in his arms wouldn’t last very long, so Jenny headed off to the woodpile for a load of her own. She wanted to prove that she wasn’t a shrinking violet of a woman. Besides, it was her job to haul wood.

  Bear came over to woof at her briefly, but it was only in play. He looked cleaner and healthier than he had on Thursday morning. Mr. Raintree was obviously kind to the dog, and she wasn’t imagining that.

  She carried her load of wood back to the house with the dog trotting beside her. As she passed through the kitchen, she noticed that her muffins hadn’t been touched.

  When she got to the threshold of Mr. Raintree’s door, she paused for a moment. He’d only been there a day, but the room looked occupied. Several suitcases were open. Dirty clothes littered the floor.

  He’d borrowed her folding table and chair from the living room, where she’d set up her sewing machine. The card table now held a laptop computer and a messy pile of papers torn from a yellow legal pad. Coals already glowed from the fireplace, so he must have been making a lot of trips to the woodpile.

  “This room is drafty as crap,” he said as he dropped a log onto the fire. He picked up the fireplace poker, which, like the bed, had been left behind when the Raintrees had abandoned the house a quarter century ago. “I don’t think your baseboard heating is working in here,” he continued. “And I really don’t like muffins in the morning. So don’t put yourself out on my account.”

  Maybe he wasn’t all that kind. Or maybe he was in pain from his ankle. She stacked her logs beside the fireplace. “Did you try one of the muffins?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should.” She turned to go, but he called her back before she could reach the door.

  “Did you bake them?”

  “I did.”

  “Don’t take it personally. I don’t usually eat sweet things. I bought some milk and cereal, and some sandwich makings. I hope you don’t mind my using the refrigerator.”

  “Of course not.”

  The coals in his fireplace must have been hot because the wood he’d stacked on the andirons had already caught fire. He looked down and poked the log a few times. The fire’s glow lit up his stony features, softening them in a way that made the breath catch in Jenny’s throat.

  Just then, he looked up at her across the bare, almost sterile room. “You’re staring at me. What is it? Are you checking me out? Please don’t tell me that you think I’m handsome.”

  “No,” she said without thought.

  He chuckled. And the sound seemed to warm the room by degrees. “You’re a piece of work, Jenny Carpenter. You look exactly like the kind of conventional woman who hands out platitudes. And yet every time I speak with you, you surprise me. Don’t you know that southern women never speak their minds directly?”

  The room suddenly felt tropical. Her mother had scolded her dozens of times for speaking her mind. She needed to watch it, now that she was an innkeeper. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was too blunt. I should have said something about how what’s on the outside doesn’t matter much.”

  He snorted a laugh. “I’m glad you didn’t. I like honesty. The truth is I’m not even remotely handsome. I never have been. Unlike…” His voice faded away, and he turned to look at an empty corner of the room.

  “Unlike who?”

  He shrugged. “No one.” He turned back to the fire, and the muscle along his jaw flexed. “I need to get back to work.”

  His landlady turned around and scooted out of the room like a rabbit with a dog on her tail. She was a funny little thing dressed in oversized painter pants and a gray-and-garnet University of South Carolina sweatshirt. She’d swept her hair up into a messy bun. Tendrils of gleaming brown hair had come loose, framing her face, making it softer somehow. The pile of hair on top of her head bounced as she hightailed it out of Gabe’s room, and he found himself wishing that all the hairpins would fall out.

  She looked like a little sparrow. So tiny and yet so determined. She had not one bit of artifice about her. She’d lived a simple life cloistered here in East Nowhere, and it showed. Jenny Carpenter was not a worldly woman.

  He smiled at the thought as he collapsed into the hard metal folding chair that he’d purloined from the front room. He propped his bad foot up on an open suitcase and stared into the blank screen of his computer. The cursor blinked, awaiting his brilliance. Or at least a few words, even crappy ones.

  But he had nothing, except the fading image of Jenny Carpenter looking him straight in the eye and telling him she didn’t think he was much to look at.

  He stared at the screen for a moment, then put his fingers on the keys and began to type.

  She wore a shapeless dress, her hair pulled into a loose knot at the top of her head. Her glasses perched low on the bridge of her nose, and she stared at me with a pair of bewitching hazel eyes. “Welcome to the Fairfax Hotel,” she said…

  He got that far and could go no further. But he sat there poised for inspiration that never came.

  When his ankle started throbbing, he popped a pain pill and took a nap. He woke up some time later with a slight headache and a growling stomach. It was almost dusk, and the house was quiet. Jenny had probably left for the day. He needed to get up and make himself a sandwich or something. Then he’d return to the computer and put in a few more hours.

  He rolled out of bed and limped to the card table determined to delete every blessed word he’d written. He clicked his mouse to wake up his laptop. He expected the computer to display the double-spaced document containing the two or three paragraphs he’d managed. But when the screen lit up there were only two words in his document, typed in forty-eight-point type so they filled the entirety of his screen.

  GHOSTS EXIST.

  Gabe went cold from the inside out. He had no recollection of deleting his story or typing those words. Someone was playing tricks on him.

  There were only two logical explanations for how those words got there: Either he’d had a break with reality, which might be possible since he’d taken a painkiller. Or his landlady was not what she appeared to be.

  And that, right there, was a much better story than some stupid tale about a ghost haunting a hotel. What if the sweet, innocent, frumpy owner of the hotel was some kind of psychopath? He got all kinds of excited for a moment before he remembered that Alfred Hitchcock had already written the definitive tale about a psychopathic hotel owner.

  And besides, why the heck would Jenny Carpenter want to mess with his head? It didn’t make any sense. Jenny was a sweet, innocent woman who wanted his help with library fund-raising, nothing more.

  And then it occurred to him that there was one additional explanation. Zeph Gibbs could stalk anything without making a noise. He could move through the woods, or a room, as silent as a breath of air. And Zeph most definitely wanted him to leave town.

  CHAPTER

  6

  On Saturday morning, the Methodist Ladies Sewing Circle arrived at the front door of The Jonquil House carrying card tables, folding chairs, and sewing machines. They set up the cutting area in the dining room and lined up the card tab
les with sewing machines in the living room. But before they got to sewing, they descended on the plate of muffins Jenny had set out in her new kitchen. They gobbled them up, reassuring Jenny that the muffins had a place on her future breakfast menu, regardless of what the dour Mr. Raintree thought of sweets in the morning.

  Sabina Grey, the co-owner of the antiques mall in town, pulled Jenny’s thoughts away from her boarder when she said, “Oh, my goodness, ladies, have you met the new pastor? Because if you haven’t, be prepared to die when you see him the first time.”

  “I don’t want to die,” Jenny said. “I’m too young.”

  “I wasn’t being literal,” Sabina replied, her blue eyes dancing with mischief.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough few days. So what’s wrong with our new minister?” Jenny asked.

  “Wrong? Oh, no, there is not one blessed thing wrong with that man.” This came from Elsie Campbell, who, as chair of the Methodist Altar Guild, had the responsibility of organizing a crew every Friday to polish the cross and arrange the flowers on the altar. She had probably met the new minister yesterday. “I believe he has a halo that follows him around,” Elsie continued. “Or maybe it’s just because he’s so handsome, it’s practically blinding.”

  “And he’s not married,” Sabina said with a smirk.

  Elsie giggled. “Honey, when you see him, you are going to forget all about Reverend Ellis.”

  Wilma Riley, the chair of the sewing club, snorted. “I hope y’all don’t get into a catfight over him. That would be so silly, especially since both of you know good and well that you’re better off without a man. Marriage is overrated.”

  “And how would you know?” Sabina asked. “I mean, you’ve never been married.”

  Wilma gave Sabina the stink eye, which was pretty darn intimidating because Wilma had mastered the stink eye. She was also the closest thing that Last Chance had to a feminist, even if she was chair of the sewing circle. She had the long, lean look of a fashion model, even now in her golden years. Today she was wearing a quilted jacket with a turquoise-and-navy floral pattern and three-quarter-length sleeves. Her white T-shirt featured a matching floral applique. Wilma was one heck of a seamstress and had even worked for a long time in the fashion industry in New York.

  The fact that she was a walking contradiction never bothered her in the least. She always turned herself out to the nines, but she made it a point to let everyone know that she dressed to please herself (and show off her skills as a seamstress), not to please some man. Even worse, she was likely to quote Betty Friedan at the slightest provocation, and usually at precisely the wrong time.

  “Jenny, honey, now would be a poor time for you to become romantically involved. You do know this, right?” Wilma said.

  Jenny nodded and managed a little smile. “I do.”

  “Good. You take my advice and stay the heck away from Reverend Lake. If Sabina wants to chase him, you just let her do it, you hear?”

  The ladies began talking at once, the way they usually did when Wilma took a stand no one agreed with. Jenny refrained from saying a single word. In truth, she didn’t know what to say that any of her friends would want to hear.

  She was on Wilma’s side. She didn’t want to be courted by another preacher. She didn’t want to be courted period. She was tired of waiting for somebody to show up on some nebulous someday. All she had was today, and if she didn’t make today worthwhile, then she was wasting her life.

  She was proud of what she’d accomplished in the last few months. She had channeled all her energies into the inn, and it showed. Now she would be utterly content with a regular stream of guests and maybe a cat… or two. She’d decided to give up on the whole dog scenario. Maybe once Mr. Raintree moved out and took Bear with him, she would think about a dog.

  She was making another pot of coffee and thinking about the dog she’d let get away and her likely future as a crazy cat lady innkeeper when the door to Mr. Raintree’s room opened. Bear came bounding out, heading straight for the kitchen and his food bowl and not in the least deterred by Wilma, who was blocking his path. He had no trouble knocking the chairwoman of the sewing circle right off her feet.

  Which explained why Wilma’s introduction to Mr. Raintree—who appeared at the kitchen door wearing a pair of rumpled jeans, a three-day beard, and a T-shirt that had once been white—was not entirely auspicious.

  Mr. Raintree didn’t even seem to notice that Wilma was sprawled on her butt. He scowled at the women in the kitchen and bellowed, “Would you ladies please shut up?” Bear punctuated this directive with a couple of loud woofs. The ladies stopped talking, which was practically a miracle.

  Of course Wilma was only quiet because she’d been stunned into silence. And she was not likely to stay silent for very long. She scrambled to her feet and stood toe-to-toe with Mr. Raintree and poked her well-manicured finger right into the middle of his chest. “It’s a toss-up as who has worse manners, you or your dog.”

  Wilma was a huge dog lover. She had at least three poodles at home and worked tirelessly with Charlene Polk down at the veterinary clinic on spay and neuter programs. Wilma never blamed any four-legged creature for bad behavior. In her view, all doggie problems were caused by humans.

  Wilma gave Mr. Raintree another poke with her finger. “And, quite frankly, not a one of us is going to shut up. The bill of rights applies to us just as it does to you.”

  Jenny needed to head this one off at the pass because Mr. Raintree’s dark eyes were starting to spark with anger and his brows were lowering right into a masculine scowl that was surprisingly becoming to him. She inserted herself between Wilma and her boarder. “Y’all meet Mr. Gabriel Raintree. He’s a famous author, and he’s staying out here for a little bit while he works on his next book.”

  “Well, I don’t care if he’s the king of England. He needs to keep his dog in check.”

  “It’s not my dog,” Mr. Raintree said. “Bear belongs to Jenny.”

  The sewing circle looked at Jenny, while Jenny looked at Mr. Raintree, her mouth dropping open in surprise. Jenny was on the cusp of saying something very unladylike, but she was saved from that embarrassment when someone opened the front door and hollered, “Hello, is anyone home?”

  “Good Lord,” Elsie said. “Is that Miriam Randall? What’s she doing crashing our party?”

  Jenny closed her mouth and gave Mr. Raintree her own version of the stink eye, which was inferior to Wilma’s but would have to do. Then she headed off to the front foyer. This required her to brush past her infuriating boarder. And wouldn’t you know it? Despite his scruffy appearance, the man smelled good enough to eat. Which was sort of strange because, while Jenny loved to cook for everyone and anyone, she was a picky eater herself.

  She hurried down the center hall and found Miriam Randall and her niece, Savannah, standing in the foyer, each of them dressed in heavy winter coats.

  “Hey, y’all, this is a surprise. I’ve got the sewing circle here and we’re just having some muffins and coffee. Y’all want to come on back and see my new kitchen?”

  Of course Savannah was here to check out Jenny’s kitchen. They’d been one-upping each other at book club meetings for months with their tales of industrial kitchen remodeling. Savannah’s sudden, unannounced visit had to be filed under the heading of kitchen espionage.

  Savannah smiled and held out a Tupperware container. “I know you probably have baked goods out the wazoo, but I brought you a little housewarming gift. It’s a strudel, and I thought with you having a guest out here and all, that it might come in handy.”

  Of course it was a strudel. Savannah wouldn’t have sent anything less.

  “Savannah’s here to talk to your boarder about this book club fund-raiser y’all are planning. I’m just tagging along,” Miriam said with a twinkle behind her thick 1950s-style trifocals. “And coffee would be wonderful. I don’t suppose you have any of those muffins you make every year for the Easter breakfast, do you?�
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  “A few.”

  “Wonderful.” And with that Miriam Randall took off her coat and headed down the hallway without so much as a by-your-leave.

  “I’m sorry,” Savannah whispered as she and Jenny followed the old lady. “Miriam’s had a bee in her bonnet for a couple of days. She insisted that we come out here to visit, unannounced. I have no idea what she’s up to, honestly, besides wanting to get another look at your boarder. She saw him the other day at the Kountry Kitchen. And she’s fibbing when she says I came out here to talk to Mr. Raintree. Nita asked Hettie to chair the library fund-raising committee, not me. She called and asked me to be a member, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, she called me too,” Jenny said. “She wants to have a meeting with Mr. Raintree, and I think he told her next Thursday would be okay. Out here at the house.”

  “Good. I’m sorry about Miriam, but she’s gotten a little strange in the last few months.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve already got the sewing club here. What’s a few more people?”

  They reached the kitchen. And luckily Bear and Mr. Raintree had left the scene of their various crimes.

  “I can’t believe you’re letting that man stay here,” Wilma said the moment Jenny returned. Wilma was so upset with Mr. Raintree that she didn’t even say hi to Savannah and Miriam.

  “He’s a…” Wilma pressed her lips together, no doubt because Miriam was in the room. If Miriam hadn’t been there, Wilma might have really spoken her mind in language that was probably bluer than the deep blue sea. Instead she took a deep breath and said, “You should evict him.”

  “I can’t do that, Wilma,” Jenny said. “I don’t have to like every person who stays here.”

  “And besides,” Savannah said, “we need him for the library fund-raiser. And y’all should know that Hettie Ellis is chairing the effort and could use some volunteers. Y’all have heard about the library being closed, haven’t you?”

  “You’re letting him stay here in order to save the library?” Wilma said, aghast. “Honey, you are never going to succeed in business if you let a man like that take advantage of you. Please tell me you are charging him for staying here.”