machine ring Owen had put on her finger. Twice.
“Getting married,
“I can take some time tomorrow.”
“Good.” Hope took a moment to flip through her mental list, rearrange tasks, gauge the timing. “One o’clock. I can clear the time. Can you make that?” she asked Clare. “I can fix us a little lunch and we can get some of the planning worked out before I have check-ins.”
“One o’clock tomorrow.” Clare patted her belly. “We’ll be there.”
“I’ll be over,” Avery promised. “If I’m a little later, we had a good lunch rush. But I’ll get over.”
Hope walked out with Clare, grabbed another hug before separating. And imagined Clare telling her parents the happy news. Imagined, too, Avery texting Owen. And Beckett slipping off to check on Clare during the day, or just stealing a few minutes to bask with her.
For a moment she wished she had someone to call or text, or slip away to, someone to share the lovely news with.
Instead she went around the back of the inn, up the outside stairs. She let herself in on the third floor, listening as she walked down to her apartment.
Yes, she thought, she could just hear Carolee’s voice, and the excitement in it. No doubt Justine Montgomery had already called her sister to share the news about the twins.
Hope closed herself into her apartment. She’d spend a couple hours in the quiet, she decided, researching their resident ghost, and the man named Billy she waited for.
CHAPTER TWO
HIS MOTHER WAS DRIVING HIM CRAZY. IF SHE POPPED UP with another project before he finished one of the half dozen currently on his plate, he might just take his dog and move to Barbados.
He could build himself a nice little beach house. Maybe a lanai. He had the skills.
Ryder pulled his truck into the lot behind the inn, major project, finished—thank God—but never really done because there was always something. The inn shared that lot with what would be, according to the ever-plotting Justine Montgomery, a pretty, clever, state-of-the-art fitness center.
Right now it was an ugly, green, flat-roofed, leaky lump. And that was just the outside. Inside currently boasted a rabbit warren of rooms, a basement full of water, staircases out of a horror movie, and falling-down ceilings. Not to mention the abysmal state of the wiring and plumbing, which he wouldn’t since they’d just gut the whole fucking mess.
Part of him wanted to sneak in some night on a giant machine and bulldoze the whole fugly building. But he knew better, and could admit he enjoyed a challenge.
He had one.
Still, as the always reliable Owen had texted him the demo permit was in, at least they could start tearing in.
Ryder sat a moment with his homely and sweet-natured dog, Dumbass, beside him while Lady Gaga seduced the edge of glory. Chick was pretty weird, Ryder thought, but she sure had the pipes.
Together Ryder and his dog studied the ugly green lump. He liked demo. Beating the shit out of walls never failed to satisfy. So that was something. And the work, transforming the ugly bastard, would be interesting.
A fitness center. He didn’t understand people who plugged themselves into a machine and went nowhere. Why not do something constructive that made you sweat? A gym, yeah, he could see a gym with speed bags, a sparring ring, some serious weights. But fitness center said girly to him. Yoga and that Pilates stuff.
And women in those snug little outfits, he reminded himself. Yeah, there was that. Like demo, who wouldn’t enjoy that?
No point brooding about it anyway, he decided. It was a done deal.
He got out of the truck, and D.A. hopped out faithfully beside him.
He couldn’t figure out why he was in such a broody mood anyway. The bakery project was down to punch-out and paint, Avery’s MacT’s was coming right along—and he looked forward to sitting down on a bar stool in her new pub and having a beer.
He had a kitchen remodel all but wrapped, and Owen was handling some built-ins for another client. A lot of work was better than no work. He could build a beach house in Barbados when he was old.
Still, he felt edgy and annoyed, and couldn’t quite figure out why. Until he glanced over at the inn.
Hope Beaumont. Yeah, that might account for some edgy.
She did a good job, no question about that. The fact that she was anal, obsessively organized, and a chewer of details didn’t bother him especially. He’d lived and worked with that type all his life, in the form of his brother Owen.
Just something about her got under his skin, and tended to burn there from time to time since they’d locked lips on New Year’s Eve.
It had been an accident, he told himself. An impulse. An accidental impulse. He didn’t intend to repeat it.
But he could wish she was a plump, homely, middle-aged woman with a couple of grandkids and a knitting hobby.
“One day she could be,” he muttered to D.A., who obligingly thumped his tail.
With a shrug, he walked down, crossed over, and opened the door of the future MacT’s Restaurant and Tap House for the crew.
He liked the space, liked it particularly now that they’d rejoined the two buildings, opening the wall between with a wide doorway so the restaurant and bar patrons, and the staff, could move from one side to the other.
Avery knew what she wanted, and how to make it happen, so he knew MacT’s would be a good place to eat and drink, to socialize if socializing was your thing. Good dining for grown-ups she called it, as opposed to the casual family style of Vesta.
He had a soft spot for Vesta—and a softer one for their Warrior’s Pizza, but as Avery had been trying out recipes on them for months, he figured he’d be able to choke down a meal or two in her new place.
He crossed over to the opening, studied the bar space. A lot of work yet, he judged, but he could envision it finished, with the long bar he and his brothers were building in place. Dark woods, strong colors, some brick on the walls. And all those beers on tap.
Yeah, it wouldn’t hurt his feelings to spend some time there, and hoist a beer in satisfaction of a job well done.
When it was done.
He heard voices, crossed back over.
Once he got the crew going, he walked down to the bakery to check on the men there. If he’d had a choice, he’d have strapped on his tool belt, gotten to the real work.
But he had a morning meeting scheduled back at the new job site, and he was already running late.
He started back around, saw both of his brothers’ trucks in the lot. He assumed Owen had picked up coffee and donuts as well as the demo permit. You could count on Owen in the everyday and in a nuclear holocaust.
He thought of Beckett, married to Clare the Fair, instant father of three, and now the expectant father of twins.
Jesus, twins.
But maybe the thrill of upcoming twins would distract their mother from thinking up a new project.
Probably not.
He went through the open doors on St. Paul, smelled the coffee.
Yeah, you could count on Owen.
He plucked out the single go-cup left, the one with an
His dog’s tail immediately sent out a tattoo on the floor.
He heard his brothers’ voices, somewhere in the rabbit warren, but took his coffee and, after tossing D.A. a
