Page 56 of The Accidental Innkeeper

Except it clearly wasn’t just that. I caught the flicker before he shut it down, the part he didn’t advertise. Dust-guy had a heart. Well, that was inconvenient.

“Will you have time to write,” he asked, “and run the inn?”

The question knocked me right out of my thoughts. My lips parted. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

He looked at me then, his gaze steady and intense. “Of course I remember.”

Well, shit. I was not expecting that.

We stood there for a moment, neither of us saying anything. I was surprised by how easy it felt, how comfortable I was around him, without even saying a word. Just… standing there.

I cleared my throat. “Thank you. For doing this,” I said again, softer this time.

And as he nodded, I had the distinct, unsettling thought that I might have been wrong about him.

Which, historically, was how trouble started.

He waved it off, already stepping toward the door. “It’s work.”

Sure. Just work. Men who showed up every day, fixed things that mattered, and spoke in sentences that made my secret garden pound were apparently just part of the service package.

He reached the threshold and paused again, like his brain was running a second checklist. “I’ll bring a bigger ladder,” he added.

I laughed before I could stop myself. “Of course you will.”

He nodded once, satisfied, and yanked open the basement door. It closed behind him with a solid click, and then he was gone.

I stood there in the hallway, listening to the quiet settle back in. The good kind this time. The kind that felt earned.

Every day.

I walked back to the den and looked around the room—the cleared space, the absence of Edna-statue, the way the light hit the floor without interruption.

Every day meant progress. It also meant shared mornings, overlapping routines, someone else knowing the bones of this place as intimately as I was starting to.

I pressed my palm against the banister, steadying myself.

This was good. This was necessary. This was exactly what the inn needed.

Still, as I left the den and headed toward the front desk to answer the next inevitable call, I took a breath and stepped behind the desk, already switching into innkeeper mode. But one thought slipped in, uninvited and far too calm to be ignored.

Dust-guy was still here, fixing things and making plans.

Tomorrow, he’d be back and every day after that.

And apparently, I’d just added one more thing to my already overflowing schedule.

Him.

12

ALEX

The basement smelled like damp concrete, old dust, and something faintly metallic, which usually meant someone had cut corners and hoped for the best.

I stood in front of the breaker panel and stared. And stared. And then stared a little longer, just to make sure my eyes weren’t lying to me.

They weren’t.