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“Cut it out, asshole.” But he laughed a little despite himself. At least until the door flew open, and both porch doors did the same.
He smelled honeysuckle, sweet as summer, on the rush of icy air.
“Well, Jesus.”
He’d mostly accepted they had a ghost—mostly believed it. After all, there’d been incidents, and Beckett was adamant. Adamant enough that he’d named her Elizabeth in honor of the room she preferred.
But this was Owen’s first personal, up-close and inarguable experience.
He stood, slack-jawed, as the bathroom door slammed, then flew open, then slammed again.
“Okay. Wow, okay. Um, sorry to intrude. I was just—” The door slammed in his face—or would have if he hadn’t jumped back in time to avoid the bust to the nose.
“Hey, come on. You’ve got to know me by now. I’m here almost every day. Owen, Beck’s brother. I, ah, come in peace and all that.”
The bathroom door slammed again, and the sound made him wince. “Easy on the material, okay? What’s the problem? I was just . . . Oh. I get it.”
Clearing his throat, he pulled off his cool cap, raked his hands through his thick, bark brown hair. “Listen, I wasn’t calling you an asshole. I thought it was Ry. You know my other brother. Ryder? He can be an asshole, you have to admit. And I’m standing in the hallway explaining myself to a ghost.”
The door opened a crack. Cautiously, Owen eased it open. “I’m just going to close the porch doors. We really have to keep them closed.”
He could admit, to himself, that the sound of his own voice echoing in the empty room gave him the jitters. But he shoved the cap in his coat pocket as he moved to the far door, shut it, locked it. When he got to the second door, he saw the lights shining in Avery’s apartment over the restaurant.
He saw her, or a flash of her, move by the window.
The rush of air stilled; the scent of honeysuckle sweetened.
“I’ve smelled you before,” he murmured, still looking out at Avery’s windows. “Beckett says you warned him the night that fucker—sorry for the language—Sam Freemont went after Clare. So thanks for that. They’re getting married—Beck and Clare. You probably know that. He’s been stuck on her most of his life.”
He shut the door now, turned around. “So thanks again.”
The bathroom door stood open now, and he caught his own reflection in the mirror with its curvy iron frame over the vanity.
He could admit to himself that he looked a little wild eyed, and the hair sticking up in tufts from the rake of his fingers added to the spooked image.
Automatically, he shoved his fingers through again to try to calm it down.
“I’m just going through the place, making notes. We’re down to punch-out work, essentially. Not in here though. This is done. I think the crew wanted to finish up this room. Some of them get a little spooked. No offense. So . . . I’m going to finish up and go. See you—or not see you, but . . .”
Whatever, he decided, and backed out of the room.
He spent more than thirty minutes moving from room to room, floor to floor, adding to his notes. A few times the scent of honeysuckle returned, or a door opened.
Her presence—and he couldn’t deny it—seemed benign enough now. But he couldn’t deny the faint sense of relief either as he locked up for the night.
FROST CRUNCHED LIGHTLY under Owen’s boots as he juggled coffee and doughnuts. A half hour before sunrise, he let himself back into the inn, headed straight to the kitchen to set down the box of doughnuts, the tray of take-out coffee, and his briefcase. To brighten the mood, and because it was there, he moved to Reception, switched on the gas logs of the fireplace. Pleased by the heat and light, he stripped off his gloves, folded them into the pockets of his jacket.
Back in the kitchen, he opened his briefcase, took out his clipboard and began to review—again—the agenda for the day. The phone on his belt beeped, signaling the time for the morning meeting.
He’d finished half a glazed doughnut by the time he heard Ryder’s truck pull in.
His brother wore a cap, a thick, scarred work jacket, and his need-more-coffee scowl. Dumbass, Ryder’s dog, padded in, sniffed the air, then looked longingly at the second half of Owen’s doughnut.
Ryder grunted, reached for a cup.
“That’s Beck’s,” Owen told him with barely a glance. “As is clear by the B I wrote on the side.”
Ryder grunted again, took the cup marked R. After one long gulp, he eyed the doughnuts, opted for a jelly-filled.
At the thump of D.A.’s tail, Ryder tossed him a chunk.
“Beck’s late,” Owen commented.
“You’re the one who decided we needed to meet before dawn.” Ryder took a huge bite of doughnut, washed it down with coffee. He hadn’t shaved, so dark stubble covered the hard planes of his face. But his gold-flecked green eyes lost some of their sleepy scowl thanks to the caffeine and sugar.
“Too many interruptions once the crew’s here. I looked around some on my way home last night. You had a good day.”
“Damn straight. We’ll finish punch-out on the third floor this morning. Some trim and crown molding, some lights and those damn heated towel racks still to go in a couple rooms on two. Luther’s moving on the rails and banisters.”
“So I saw. I’ve got some notes.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I’ll have more, I expect, when I finish going over two, and head up to three.”
“Why wait?” Ryder grabbed a second doughnut, started out. He tossed another chunk without bothering to glance at the dog who trotted with him.
Dumbass fielded it with Golden Glove precision.
“Beckett’s not here.”
“Dude’s got a woman,” Ryder pointed out, “and three kids. School morning. He’ll be here when he is, and can catch up.”
“There’s some paint needs touching up down here,” Owen began.
“I got eyes, too.”
“I’m going to have them come in, install the blinds throughout. If three gets punched-out today, I can have them start on the window treatments by early next week.”
“The men cleaned up, but it’s construction clean. It needs a real cleaning, a polish. You need to get the innkeeper on that.”
“I’ll be talking to Hope this morning. I’m going to talk County into letting us start load-in.”
Ryder slanted a look at his brother. “We’ve got another two weeks, easy, and that’s not counting the holidays.”
But Owen, as usual, had a plan. “We can get three done, Ry, start working our way down. You think Mom and Carolee—not to mention Hope—aren’t going to be running around buying more stuff once we get things in place?”
“I do figure it. We don’t need them underfoot any more than they already are.”
They heard a door open from below as they rounded up to the third floor.
“On three,” Owen called down. “Coffee’s in the kitchen.”
“Thank you, Jesus.”
“Jesus didn’t buy the coffee.” Owen brushed his fingers over the oval oil-rubbed bronzed plaque with the word Innkeeper engraved on it. “Classy touch.”
“The place is full of them.” Ryder gulped more coffee as they stepped inside.
“It looks good.” Owen nodded as he toured through, in and out of the little kitchen, the bath, circling the two bedrooms. “It’s a nice, comfortable space. Pretty and efficient—like our innkeeper.”
“She’s damn near as pain-in-the-ass fussy as you are.”
“Remember who keeps you in doughnuts, bro.”
At the word doughnut, D.A. wagged his entire body. “You’re done, pal,” Ryder told him, and with a doggie sigh, D.A. sprawled on the floor.
Owen glanced over as Beckett came up the stairs.
He’d shaved, Owen noted, and looked bright-eyed. Maybe a little wild-eyed, as he imagined most men did with three kids under the age of ten and the school morning chaos that created.
/> He remembered his own school mornings well enough, and wondered how his parents had resisted doing major drugs.
“One of the dogs puked in Murphy’s bed,” Beckett announced. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Works for me. Owen’s talking about window treatments and loading in.”
Beckett paused as he gave Dumbass a quick head rub. “We’ve still got trim to run, painting, punch-out.”
“Not up here.” Owen crossed to the first of their two suites, The Penthouse. “This is what I’m talking about.” He moved through, saw muted colored crystal lights, creamy trim, and the big splashy bath with its stunning tile work. He paused at the floating wall, nodded at the long counter and double vessel sinks, stepped over, scanned the large glass shower, the generous rain head, the body jets, turned toward the wide white tub.
“We could outfit this suite. Hope could move her stuff in across the hall. How about the Westley and Buttercup room?”
“It’s done. We hung the bathroom mirror and lights yesterday.”
“Then I’ll tell Hope to break out the mop, get this level shined up.” Though he trusted Ryder, he’d check the room himself. “She’s got the list of what goes where, so she can run down to Bast, tell them what to deliver up here.”
He made notes on his clipboard—shipment of towels and linens, purchase of light bulbs and so on. Behind his back, Beckett and Ryder exchanged looks.
“I guess we’re loading in.”
“I don’t know who we is,” Ryder corrected. “It’s not me or the crew. We’ve got to finish the damn place.”
“Don’t bitch at me.” Beckett held up his hands. “I’ve got to make the changes to the bakery project next door if we’re going to shift the crew from here to there without much of a lag.”
“I could use a lag,” Ryder muttered, but headed down behind Owen.
