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Annette Martina stands in the doorway with two cups of coffee from the Friendly Bean. She’s wearing a hot-pink T-shirt that’s one size too small and a look of utter delight. It should be a nice change from the harsh welcome I received the other day.
The skin on the back of my neck prickles.
“I hope this is a good time. I would have called first, but ...” She sweeps an assessing gaze around the room, taking in the clothes spilling out of my suitcase and the toiletries stacked on the desk. She wrinkles her nose. “Does your mother know you’re sleeping in the office?”
“To know that she’d have to call me back.” It takes all my effort to keep my tone even.
“I suppose that’s true.” She strides into the room and places one of the coffees in front of me. “Extra bitter. That’s still how you like it, right?”
“What are you doing here?”
Annette eases herself into the seat on the opposite side of the desk. It groans under her weight, as if like me, it’s too tired to be dealing with her right now.
“We need to chat, and I didn’t want to speak in front of everyone at the restaurant.” She sniffs delicately, the smell of woodsmoke wafting off my skin heightened by my rising body temperature.
“That’s odd. I’ve never known you to be private.”
She purses her lips. “There’s no reason to be unkind, especially when I’m here to help you.”
The headache that was wrapping around the back of my skull becomes a drill burrowing into various hot spots around my brain. Forget Tylenol and coffee. A plane ticket is the only thing that can help now.
“Help me?” Annette’s not leaving this office until she says what she came to say. It’s easier if I just sit back and let her.
Annette scrutinizes the office, starting at the framed sailboat photo my mother took after a photography class she’d started—and then quit—a few months after my father died, and ending on the papers scattered across the desk. “Your mother shouldn’t have dumped this job on you. It was quite selfish, if you ask me.”
“She didn’t dump it on me.” My voice rises with a defensiveness I’m not even sure my mother deserves. She did dump it on me. It was selfish. But it’s not for Annette, or anyone in this chatty town, to judge the choices she made.
A memory long buried deep in my subconscious flares to life. My mother had a rare free night and made a reservation for the three of us at our favorite restaurant. There, we ran into three couples, including Annette and her husband.
My mother chatted with them, her posture rigid, with a smile I knew wasn’t her own. She came back distracted, with a look that then I didn’t understand but that made me want to punch through a wall.
Not unlike how I feel now.
Annette brings her coffee to her lips. It comes away with a pink lipstick stain on the white lid. “Well, semantics aside. You’re here. Your mother’s gone, and everyone knows the Inn is in serious financial trouble.”
I shake my head. “This town is unbelievable.”
Annette places her coffee cup down on a spreadsheet. “There’s no reason to be defensive. I’m trying to help.”
“By telling me the entire town knows I’m running this place into the ground?”
“By offering to buy this place from you.”
A roaring silence in my ears chases her offer. It takes a beat too long to recover from the shock of her words. “What? You want to buy the Inn? It’s been in my family for generations.”
“Yes, I’m aware. The Kingsette Inn is a fixture of this town. It’s part of our legacy, and it belongs to all of us. It—and we—deserve an owner who cares about this place and wants to see it flourish.”
“I care about this place.”
Annette’s cool gaze runs over me. “I’m sure that’s true in some fashion ...”
She clicks her tongue, and as if a veil has been pulled from my eyes, details my attention skimmed over this past week sharpen into focus. I see the office with its water-stained walls and faded carpet the way Annette must see it. Heat flushes up my neck.
“Will, you’re not up to this, and you don’t want to be the son who lets it fail.” Her words hover between us, heavy with the weight of old fears and unrealized expectations. This is the problem with returning home, returning to Kingsette specifically—too many people know too much. They can weaponize your past. “We can discuss terms after you’ve given it some thought.”
“I’m not going to sell. I won’t change my mind.”
She breathes a laugh. “We both know you will. The only thing that’s ever mattered to you about this place is the door. This time, I’m showing you the exit.”
