“This is what happens when you meddle in other peoples’ lives,” Kyle said for the tenth time.
He was pacing in his parents’ living room where they were seated side by side on a couch. He had come there directly from the airport, after calling to make sure they were home.
“But, Kyle,” his mother said yet again, “we were only thinking of your happiness. Your life. We wanted you to get married. Settle down. Have children.”
“No.” He stopped and pointed a finger at them. “You wanted me to have children so you could be grandparents. You didn’t trust me enough to find the right woman on my own.”
“You weren’t doing so well,” Hal Montgomery grumbled.
“That’s beside the point. Is it so hard to understand that I wanted to fall in love before I got married? Like you two did?”
Brenda Montgomery sat up straighter, her eyes bright. “And now you have.”
He glared. “To a woman who, thanks to the two of you, wants nothing to do with me. Ever again. Period.”
“I’m sure we can make this right,” she told him in a calm voice. “When Joseph helped his three sons marry, they had a few rocks in the road.”
“He was plenty lucky that it all worked out,” he replied. “All of those matches could have blown up in his face. Don’t use him as an example.”
“All right.” Hal cleared his throat. “The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“The first thing,” he answered, “is I’m going to make damn sure she knows I’m not trying to steal Hibiscus House from her.”
“You have to admit,” Brenda pointed out, “it’s a jewel of a place. It would be a great cornerstone for a new division.”
Kyle shook his head. “No cornerstone. No new division. If we ever decide to do it—and I mean ever—I’ll get the research done on it, along with financial projections, and we’ll go from there.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” Brenda sat back and threw her hands up. “How are you going to let her know if she won’t talk to you?”
“I have a plan.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I thought about it all the way home on the plane. I have a plan, and I’m going to get started on it. It involves a lot of groveling among many other things.” He stopped pacing and glared at the two of them. “And I want the two of you to promise me you’ll stay out of it.”
“But we made the mess,” his mother protested. “We should be the ones to help clean it up.”
“Absolutely not. You’ve given me all the help I can stand. I have to do this my way.”
His parents stared at each other for a long moment then turned back to him and nodded their heads.
“Just so you know,” he went on, “I’ll be keeping my eye on you. I don’t trust either of you.”
He was sure his mother was about to comment, but his father reached over and squeezed her hand.
“We’ll be good,” he promised.
If only Kyle could believe that.
*****
“Honey, I only had your best interests at heart,” Maggie Thornton repeated yet one more time. She sat at the island counter in the kitchen of Hibiscus House, drinking coffee and trying to explain why she’d set everything up the way she had.
“Mama” Pepper set down her glass of iced tea and stared at her mother. “I am thirty years old. I can handle my own life.”
“But you weren’t settling down,” Maggie wailed. “I wanted you to have a home and children before it got too late.”
“And you didn’t trust me to find someone on my own?”
“Not as long as you were burying yourself in Bayview with Hibiscus House.”
Pepper chose her next words carefully. “You can’t arrange love, Mama. It either happens or it doesn’t.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I just wanted for you what your dad and I have.”
“Let me also point out,” Pepper added, “that Judd Wallace is not the answer, either. I wouldn’t give the man house room.”
“He’s president of the local bank,” Maggie pointed out.
“He could be president of the United States, and my opinion of him would be the same. He’s an obnoxious, disgusting jerk.” She took another swallow of iced tea. When she looked at her mama over the rim of her glass, her stomach knotted at the woman’s expression. “And do not under any circumstances contact Kyle. Or Roger. Or whatever name he uses.”
“But, apparently, I’m the one who made the mess. I should get to clean it up.”
“No. Just no. And furthermore, no.”
“The Montgomerys are such lovely people,” Maggie protested. “We got to talking, realized we want the same thing for our kids, and saw a win/win situation.”
“Which turned out to be lose/lose,” Pepper reminded her. “I love you, Mama, but stay out of my life. If I spend the rest of it running Hibiscus House, then that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But it’s my decision.”
Maggie sighed. “Fine, fine, fine. Your father told me the same thing.”
“At least one of you has good sense. If you want to get rid of this place so badly, sell it to me. I want it. Let me take over the loan at the bank.”
A few years ago, when they’d experienced a downturn in business for a while, her parents had taken out an equity loan on Hibiscus House to give themselves cash flow.
“Oh, honey.” Maggie sighed again. “I’m not going to do that. That loan will be paid off before long anyway.”
“But you guys don’t even want to be involved anymore.” Pepper shook her head. “We’re doing good now, and the money’s coming out of profits anyway. Let’s get your names off the paperwork. You and Dad can go off and see the world.”
“The country.” Maggie gave a weak grin. “We only want to see the country.”
“Well, whatever. I’m going to talk to Dad about it.”
“No, and that’s that. I want you to know I am so sorry you got hurt this way. It wasn’t my intention.” She carried her coffee cup and saucer to the sink, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher. Then she turned back to Pepper and pulled her into a hug. “One more thing. It breaks my heart to see you like this.”
“I’ll be fine, Mama.” Pepper hoped she sounded convincing, because she wasn’t sure she’d ever be fine again. “Now, go on home to Dad. Cilla’s coming over with ice cream and movies.”
When the woman had left, Pepper slumped down on her stool again, resting her elbows on the counter and her head in her hands. She wondered if the pain in her heart would ever go away. She didn’t know which was worse, feeling so betrayed by the man she’d fallen in love with in two short days or knowing she’d never see him again.
“Okay, enough wallowing.” Cilla’s cheery voice broke into her pity party. The woman held up two bags. “I have salted caramel and cheery chocolate ice cream in one hand and four kinds of cookies in the other. I figured we could put on Netflix, find some movies that were anything but chick flicks, and pig out.”
“Sounds good to me.” She slid off the stool, took the bags and put them on the counter, and threw her arms around her friend. “What would I ever do without you?”
“I don’t know, but let’s not try to find out. Was that Maggie I saw leaving?”
“Sure was.”
“Please tell me she isn’t trying to meddle again.”
Pepper snorted. “I threatened her to within an inch of her life. We’ll see if that works. Come on. That ice cream’s going to melt.”
The goodies might fill her stomach, but nothing would fill the hole in her heart.
*****
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Julie asked, reviewing the papers on her desk one more time.
“Positive.”
“You know you could negotiate a much better price if—”
“No!” Kyle practically shouted the word this time. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “That would defeat the purpose. And also open the door to a leak. I don’t trust anyone right now.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” Julie threw up her hands. Then she grinned. “I have to admit I like seeing Mr. Cool, Calm, and Collected rattled like this. She must be some woman.”
A smile crept over his face. “She is, believe me. And I’ll do anything to make up for what happened.”
“I’m on it, then. Want to go over the rest of this list while we’re at it?”
He nodded. “Yes. I do. I don’t want to leave any room for error.”
“Gotcha.” She tilted her head and looked at him. “Sorry I couldn’t find you a better place to hide out, but you managed to flood your favorite place with reservations.”
“Not a problem. I’ll take my laptop and try to get some work done. And monitor everything we’ve set in motion.”
“Does anyone else know what you’re doing here?”
“No, and it’s going to stay that way. My brothers and my parents would probably have cardiac arrest if they knew so this is between us. And, by the way, thanks again for coming in on a Sunday to do this for me.”
“Oh, well.” Julie flapped a hand at him. “I figure I’m piling up points here for the future.”
“Good enough. Let’s get to it.”
*****
Pepper sat behind the carved desk in the lobby, studying the registration list on her computer.
“Hey, Cilla?” she called.
“What’s up?” Cilla hurried in from the kitchen, carrying two iced teas.
Breakfast was over, the kitchen cleaned, and Mary Tierney was working her way through the bedrooms and bathrooms. The weekend guests had all left, and the next group wasn’t due to arrive until the next day.
“When did all these reservations come in?” She continued to scroll through the program.
“Oh.” Cilla read the screen over Pepper’s shoulder. “We had a slew of calls yesterday afternoon while you were out. Did I do it wrong?”
“No. You did great. I’m…I don’t know where they are all coming from all of a sudden. Can you believe it? We’re booked up for the next four months.”
“Isn’t it exciting?” Cilla laughed and squeezed Pepper’s shoulder. “Word of mouth, I guess. Or maybe those listings you’ve been placing on travel sites are finally paying off.”
“Maybe. It just seems so weird, you know?”
“Hey. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You might be able to pay off the loan on this place sooner than you think. Then your folks would have no reason not to sign it over to you. There’d be no debt to hang on you.”
“Would be nice.” She grinned at Cilla. “If it keeps up like this, I can pay off the rest of the loan and do some other things I’ve had on my list for some time.” She scowled at her friend. “But you, my dear, need to get a life outside this place. Your whole social life revolves around Hibiscus House, and you won’t even let me pay you.”
“What would I do with the money? I got a whoppingly generous settlement from Jay, and I enjoy playing hostess around here.”
“If business keeps up like this, we’ll revisit it. And don’t give me any lip.”
“We’ll see.” She looked up as the wide front door opened. “And what’s this?”
“Delivery for Miss Pepper Thornton.” The delivery man in black slacks and a green polo shirt double checked his notes. “Yup. Which of you is Miss Thornton?”
“That’s me.” Pepper rose, eyes wide as she took in the gigantic arrangement of hibiscus in a tall vase. “What on earth?”
“Where would you like me to put it?”
“Um, right here.” She pointed next to the desk. “That way everyone can see them when they come through the door.”
The delivery man set them down, nodded, and took his leave. Pepper couldn’t keep herself from staring at them.
“Oh, look.” Cilla reached into the center of the arrangement and pulled out a small white box. “What’s this?”
“I don’t know. Give it here.” Pepper put the four-inch square box on the desk, undid the red bow, and pulled off the lid. And stared. “What on earth?”
“It’s a heart,” Cilla said. “A broken heart. Someone is giving you their broken heart.”
Sure enough. The big red heart had a diagonal crack from top to bottom.
“But who—?”
“Who indeed. Who do you know who might have a broken heart that they want you to know about?”
“This is stupid.” Pepper still stared into the box. “It’s nothing more than some cheap trick on his part.”
Cilla chuckled. “I’d say it’s a pretty expensive trick.”
“Well. I’ll keep the flowers, but he can keep his heart. Mine’s just as broken.”
“Maybe he’s trying to make amends,” Cilla pointed out.
“If he is, it’s going to take a lot more than flowers.”
Reservations continued to pour in and, two days later, as Pepper and Cilla were trying to juggle reservations for Memorial Day weekend, the phone rang.
“God, if this is another reservation,” Pepper said, “I’ll have to take out another loan just to add more rooms.”
“A nice spot to be in,” Cilla told her.
But the call was from a national travel show called Travel America.
“We received your information,” the man on the phone told her, “and Hibiscus House fits right in with our bed-and-breakfast tour coming up. We’d like to know when we can come down there to shoot some footage.”
Pepper stared at the phone. “Are you sure you have the right place?”
“I believe so.” Papers rattled on the other end. “Yes, yes, yes. Hibiscus House. Bayview, Florida. We almost didn’t get you in. Is it possible for us to be down there next week?”
Pepper was dumbstruck. “Yes. I guess so. Can you email or fax me everything?” She gave him the information. “But, if you want to stay here, it will have to be from Monday night until Thursday morning. I’m booked solid after that.”
“That works out fine. Perfect, in fact. Let me give you my credit card information. We’ll need four rooms.”
When Pepper hung up the phone, she sat there for a long moment, dazed.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” Cilla asked. When Pepper told her, she burst out laughing. “I’ll say this for Roger Kyle Montgomery. He’s got style. He doesn’t do anything by half measures.”
“B-but why is he doing this? He has a zillion hotels to run.”
“Obviously, my dear, you are far more important to him than any hotel. I think I’m starting to like him again.”
“Come on. Because he did a couple of hokey things?”
“Hokey things? Pepper, he sent you flowers that the place you love the most is named for and handed over his heart. He got you on the top-rated destination show on television. And, unless I miss my guess, I’d say he has something to do with the flood of reservations.”
“B-but why?”
“Because he loves you, and he feels like a cheap trick for what he did.” She smiled at Pepper. “Come on, honey. Give him a break. At least call him.”
Call him. Talk to him. What if he broke her heart again?
“I’ll think about it.”
“Fine. But if you don’t want him, I might go after him myself.”
“You said after Jay you were done with men.”
She laughed. “For him, I’d make an exception.”
Pepper was up early the next morning. She wanted to go through the guest rooms and make lists of what she needed to jazz them up before the television people showed up. Flowers in vases on all the dressers. Special sachet packets in the drawers. Crystal dishes with those special peppermint candies people loved so much. She’d make sure the bathrooms were all stocked with the full complement of special toiletries. She’d have Cilla work on the downstairs. The woman had a great eye and knew exactly what to do to make a room “pop,” as she was fond of saying. She was suspicious that she hadn’t heard a word from her parents for a while but she decided not to worry about it for the moment.
She had just fixed a mug with coffee when she heard the front door open. Tony Rosen, the local UPS delivery man, waited for her in the lobby. He was wearing a big smile when he greeted her.
“I got an envelope here for you, Pepper. Says I have to get your signature.” He looked at it as if it was a foreign object. “Must be mighty important. You don’t get many of these.”
What on earth?
“Who is it from?” Who would be sending her something that required her signature? Tony was right. She didn’t get things like this.
Tony shrugged. “Can’t tell. All the return info is blanked out.” He frowned. “Sounds kind of fishy to me. Think it’s a bomb?”
Pepper laughed. “Of all the places people might choose to bomb, I don’t think this is one of them. Here. Let me sign.”
She waited until Tony had left before she took the envelope over to the desk and sat down in the chair behind it. Unsure what she would find, she took her time opening the flat UPS envelope. There was a document inside, which she fished out with the tips of her fingers. She opened it, looked at it carefully, and she let out a scream.
Cilla raced in from the kitchen. “What? What the hell is going on? Are you okay?”
“L-look.” She held out the papers in the envelope. “What do you think about this?”
“Oh. My. God.” Cilla stared. “He’s paid off the rest of the loan. This is the deed to Hibiscus House, and it’s in your name. Damn, Pepper. Either you call him right now or I’m going after him myself. I’m serious.”
Before Pepper could answer her, the phone rang.
“Did you get something from UPS today?” Mam’s voice was filled with excitement.
“Yes, I did.” Pepper was having trouble breathing. “How…? What…? When…?”
Maggie laughed. “I had to stop myself from rushing over there to wait for it. But Kyle said he’d kill us if we gave it away. I just couldn’t wait any longer to call you.”
“Mama. I’m floored.”
“Honey, he loves you so much. He’s been beating himself up over what happened and he wanted to show you how much he cares. And how important what you want is to him.”
“And you know this how?”
“Oh, well, we might have chatted with him a time or two. Now you call him, Pepper. Right this minute.”
Pepper stood there, still shocked. No one had ever done things like this for her before. She glanced over at Cilla.
“Can you dig out the information from Kyle’s reservation? There must be a phone number on there. Maybe his cell?”
Cilla was already scrolling through the computer. “Yes. Here it is.” She read off the number.”
Pepper’s hands were shaking when she punched the numbers into her own cell phone.
“It’s ringing,” she said.
“Is this the woman I love more than life itself?”
She heard his deep voice but not coming from the phone. It came from behind her. She turned to see him walking in through the front door. He looked so good she didn’t want to tear her eyes away from him.
“I-I don’t know what to say.”
“How about I love you, Kyle?”
“I love you, Kyle,” she repeated.
He shoved his own cell phone in his pocket and took hers away from her, setting it on the desk. Then he pulled her into his arms.
“I’ve wanted to do this every minute since I left here.”
The kiss he gave her was so full of heat and emotion, it seared her very soul. He threaded his fingers through her hair, holding her head in place while he fed from her mouth as if he’d hadn’t tasted her in forever. Only when he had completely stolen her breath did she break the kiss. If she had any doubts about his feelings for her, when she looked in his eyes, she saw her answer. There was so much love there, her heart swelled.
“You don’t know how I regret the way everything happened,” he told her. “I should have told you after that first night, but I didn’t know how. I was afraid you’d throw me out, and I wanted a chance for you to really fall in love with me.”
“But then—”
“But then I got caught up in my own trap. I was trying to figure out the right words when you found me on the Internet, and the jig was up. Honey, I know what this place means to you. If you want to live here and run it, I’ll figure out how to make it work. It’s only logistics. The important thing is for us to be together. I love you, Pepper. Will you marry me?”
“You sent me your broken heart,” she said, watching his face.
“I did. Can you fix it? Marry me? Keep it whole?”
“For heaven’s sake, answer him,” Cilla said. “Don’t keep the poor man in suspense.”
Kyle pulled her tight to his body and tilted her face up to him again.
“Will you, Pepper? Please? I am no good without you.”
She let out a long breath, and everything fell into place inside her.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I’ll marry you.”
He kissed her again, and when she kissed him back, she put her whole heart and soul into it. And everything about it felt absolutely right.