and bedspread, paced some more, then finally climbed the stairs to his room. His door was closed, and there was no sound coming from behind it. His bike was still parked out front, so she assumed he was in there. Probably sleeping.
She’d crept down the back way to the kitchen, only to find her clothes and panties folded in a pile on one of the kitchen chairs. Mortified and kind of amazed at herself still, she’d added them to the laundry, set out a bottle of wine, along with some cheese and crackers, in the front parlor, in case he came down. It was part of his room and board, after all.
Then she’d grabbed the legal pad and pen she’d started her garden design on and headed outside again. Kind of full circle, a bookend to how and where it had all started. She sat, cross-legged, between the trees and the open hillside on the side of the house, supposedly dreaming up her garden pattern and subsequent planting schedule. But the pad remained empty of sketches and lists. Instead, she found her gaze drawn to Brett’s bike. Again. And her mind replaying what Thad had said on his answering machine message.
What happened next? she wondered. Was that it? A casual, if mind-blowing, fling? Did he hop on his bike now and head out to parts unknown, never to be seen again? Much less go to bed with. Or…did he stay? And, if he did…then what? How did she act? How should she feel? More importantly, how
She laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “Yeah, I’m in control all right.” He was under her roof and very admittedly already under her skin. She sucked at casual. One time-okay, technically two times-and she was already spending way too much time thinking about him. All of her time, actually.
Not that she had much to distract her, Kirby argued silently. After all, it was the most exciting thing that had happened since…well since she’d almost killed herself falling out of her own tree, but before that? In a very, very, far too many verys, long time. Naturally she was going to think about it, ponder it, analyze it. She felt the weight of her cell phone in her hoodie pocket and was tempted, for about two seconds, to call Aunt Frieda. Frieda wasn’t her actual aunt. Kirby had no idea if she had actual blood relatives left anywhere. Frieda, who had worked at the resort and taken Kirby in when she was sixteen and had left her most recent foster family when they’d told her they were packing up and moving to Texas.
Frieda had been one in a long line of resort folks who had kind of adopted her after her biological mother, a teenager working at the resort, had left her in the manager’s office with a note pinned to her onesie and taken off for parts unknown. She’d bounced in and out of foster homes and state-funded homes, but had always stuck around the resort because that was really home to her. Frieda had let her stick around until she finished her college degrees, and had become as close as anyone had ever come to being Kirby’s family. Longest she’d ever stayed in one place, that was for sure.
But while Frieda was solidly supportive of Kirby’s goals, and proud of the career she’d launched after graduation, and the business she was trying to start now, she hadn’t been a huge fan of Kirby’s relationship with Patrick. Given the way it had ended, clearly Frieda had been the better judge of character. So Kirby couldn’t quite imagine how she’d start a phone conversation that needed to be steered in the direction of how she’d had wildly satisfying animal sex in her own kitchen with a virtual stranger. Who happened, apparently, to be kind of famous. If you liked poker. And was also maybe filthy rich.
Of course, Patrick hadn’t exactly been hurting, but this was a different scale and sort of wealth. At least so she imagined given what Thad had said. Patrick was born into money, but he always seemed to have all of his ready assets tied up in this investment scheme or that new development deal. She had no doubt he’d always be successful as he was a born wheeler and dealer. Why she hadn’t realized that skill would naturally extend from the boardroom to the bedroom, she had no idea.
Complete naivete where men were concerned was only a partial excuse for her inability to see what had always been right in front of her face. She supposed it had more to do with her wanting what she’d never had. Stability, a family, someone she could truly count on. A foundation. And in her mind, the older, more mature, well-established Patrick was easily all those things. And he’d chosen her.
She sighed and thought again about the man who was sleeping right now on the top floor of her inn. Brett hadn’t chosen her, he’d just taken advantage of an opportunity. As had she. She had no idea if he was stable or wise, or what he did with his earnings, much less what had put him in such a quandary that he’d taken off on his motorcycle and headed out for parts unknown. Certainly if she was looking for stable and steady, a new foundation, so to speak…he certainly didn’t seem like a very wise candidate. But then, on paper, Patrick had been perfect.
And Patrick had never once made her feel so…understood. Not in the way Brett had within their first five minutes talking to one another. Possibly merely a side effect of launching a relationship with one of them rescuing the other from a near-death experience, but that instant intimacy couldn’t be completely discounted, either. She’d had a more frank, open, and intimate conversation within a day of knowing him than she’d had with…well, pretty much anybody, save Aunt Frieda. In years. Even where Patrick was concerned. Not that she hadn’t been open with him, but she realized now, after seeing the intent way that Brett focused and truly listened, that Patrick hadn’t been paying the least bit of attention to her. Not really. Other than as he had to do to get her to do whatever he wanted.
“Damn, I was a pathetic idiot, wasn’t I?” It was a rhetorical question. She just wished she could be more certain of the decisions she was making right now. It was a bit disconcerting, more than a bit really, to realize that even after everything she’d been through, both with Patrick and with launching the inn, there were still going to be things she had no clue how to deal with.
Which, of course, would all resolve itself when Brett got on his bike and rode right out of her life. But what she did between now and then could matter afterward. And moving forward. Why make more stupid mistakes if they could be avoided?
She glanced at the house and wished she could convince herself that continuing to mess around with Brett Hennessey wasn’t going to be a mistake.
The fact that she’d cried-cried, for God’s sake-in the shower was proof enough she couldn’t handle this… whatever the hell it was. It certainly didn’t feel casual, but what the hell else could it really be? Sure, it was understandable to get emotional. She was forty years old, and Brett Hennessey was only the second man she’d ever let-who’d ever really touched-ever gone-the first to truly…She closed her eyes.
Yeah. It was understandable.
She opened her eyes again and forced her attention back to the legal pad. Did she want vegetables? Or just flowers? Was she willing to do the work to have fresh tomatoes on her table? She decided she was. But mostly she wanted flowers. Aunt Frieda had taught her the joy to be found in planting with her own hands, growing things in the dirt…and enjoying the vivid colors, the spicy scents, the organized chaos of beauty that was a well-planned garden.
So first…the flowers. She was sketching out an outline of the house, the property lines, and had just started to fill in a few dotted line areas for proposed beds, when her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She pulled it out, shaded her eyes, and read: Front Desk. Which meant the call was from a guest. And she only had one of those.
She froze. The phone vibrated in her hand again. What did she do? Pretend to be Kirby Farrell, hostess? Or Kirby Farrell, recent recipient of a multiple orgasm in her own shower, thanks to said guest on the other end of the line?
Yeah, she was never going to try having a fling with a guest, ever again. Ever.
It vibrated again, which did other vibratory things to her senses that she really didn’t need to be reminded of at the moment. She pressed TALK before her nerve gave out. “Front Desk,” she said, then made a face at herself. She was such a loser. A dork loser who suddenly felt a lot more like a woman who’d only had two lovers in her whole life, than a woman who’d single-handedly bought, built, opened, and was running her own business. Sort of.
“Ah, yes. This would be Room Seven.”
God, just his voice was enough to make her melt into a puddle of goo. Good thing she was already sitting down. “Yes, what can I do for you?” She squeezed her eyes shut and swore under her breath. Double dork!
