By the time Bridget returned from school drop-off on Monday morning, she had to bite her tongue from telling Abby, “I told you so.”
“There’s no one to serve,” she said, gesturing to the bowl of pancake batter that was sitting in front of Abby.
“Maybe,” said Abby, with a little lilt in her voice, “you should offer your guest a little room service.”
Bridget felt her pulse skip. If Abby had any clue what had already transpired between Bridget and Jack, no doubt her word choice would have a different insinuation. But in this case, her sister had one thing in mind: serving food.
“He’s in town to work,” Bridget informed her. “I don’t want to interrupt him.”
“You wouldn’t be interrupting him,” Abby said pointedly. “You’d be serving him. The man is probably hungry. Thirsty. He’s staying in an inn that doesn’t offer room service when he doesn’t want to leave his room!”
Abby did make a good point. And it was tempting to think about seeing Jack again. But there was a little part of Bridget that wondered if he’d stayed in his room since Saturday night because he was avoiding her. And what almost happened between them.
Nonsense! She was giving herself far too much credit. He had not kissed her. This time. So really, there was nothing to even think about.
“I’m sure he’s left to eat in town,” she said to her sister. She came and went throughout the day, and probably hadn’t noticed when Jack popped in and out.
Even if she’d looked. A few times. As a concerned innkeeper, of course.
“Well, it’s nine thirty and I have these amazing strawberries and cream pancakes I’d love to serve, not to mention that box of pastries that is going to go stale.” Here, Abby pinched her lips and made a stern glance at the white bakery box from Angie’s Café. “You should at least let him know what his options are.”
Bridget hesitated. All her guests knew what time breakfast hours were. It was written on the information card she kept on the bedside table. She assumed that Jack still had his. Not that she could be certain of this. Unlike the other guests, who happily allowed her entrance to make their beds and refresh their sheets, Jack’s door handle permanently boasted the Do Not Disturb sign.
“Well, if you’re not going to do it, I’ll do it myself!” Abby announced.
Bridget popped off the counter stool. “No…I’ll go. You’re right,” she said, trying to convince herself of that. “He’s probably hungry and I should at least offer something to his room, considering he’s our only guest.”
If this were a woman, say in her fifties, with the same workload and same need for privacy, would she extend an offer of breakfast being delivered to her room?
Yes.
And that was her answer.
He wasn’t Jack Riley. Jack with the nut-brown tousled hair and warm eyes and oh so kissable lips.
He was a guest. And so help her, he would be treated as one.
She walked through the dining room with growing dread, wishing that he might just appear at any moment instead, and spare her from interrupting him. But when she rounded the corner to the front hall, there was no one there, and so she took each step slowly, moving as quietly as she could up the stairs until she was standing directly in front of the white-painted door with a single oil-rubbed bronze number hanging from it.
The DO NOT DISTURB sign hung firmly from the knob, just as it had last evening, when she’d come home from Serenity Hills and, after settling Emma into her room to have a tea party with her dolls, made the rounds to change the bedding after her weekend guests had checked out.
She strained for any sounds in the room, heat creeping up her cheeks when she considered the possibility that the man could still be sleeping. After all, it was entirely possible that he’d worked all through the night and had only just now fallen asleep and—
He is a fifty-six-year-old woman with a wart on her nose and three grandchildren. He is not a handsome, single man of a respectable age. He is hungry. He is your guest.
She knocked.
Oh, Jesus. Her heart began to pound as she stood and waited, waited for a door in her own house to fling open. The door that had once opened into a purple and pink bedroom complete with celebrity fan posters and a shocking amount of nail polish bottles that Abby arranged by color.
She waited, and just when she began to calm down and conclude that he was not going to open the door, he did.
***
Jack wasn’t one to lie. Not even to himself. When he heard the knock on the door, he considered not answering it. He was in the midst of a thought, a good one, one he might lose if he stepped away from the keyboard, even for a minute.
But now, looking at Bridget, in her pale pink T-shirt and bright blue eyes, he was glad he had.
“Am I disturbing you?” she asked.
“I was just about to take a break,” he said, even though this wasn’t true at all.
Her shoulders seemed to relax. “I just wanted to let you know that breakfast is ready. Can I invite you down to the dining room, or would you prefer a tray in your room?”
So that’s all it was then? Formal hospitality. He couldn’t help but feel a bit of disappointment that the reason for her visit wasn’t a bit more…personal. Something had shifted between them in the past week, and, despite how hard he was fighting it, something was changing in him, too. It was showing, in his writing. A passion and an interest that hadn’t been there in a long time.
“I should probably stay in and work today,” he admitted. God knew if he went downstairs, he might never get back to his room again today, and he still had a job to do.
“Of course, of course.” Bridget nodded, but there was a sense of disappointment in her expression that he felt too. “I can bring you up dinner tonight. It’s no trouble.”
The thought of eating meal after meal, alone in his room, when he could be downstairs, or out, exploring this town, left him feeling nothing short of depressed. He didn’t know what to make of that. He had come here to do exactly that, after all. And now…now it was the last thing he wanted to do. And not because he wanted to avoid writing.
Because he finally wanted to stop avoiding living.
“Do you ever let guests use your kitchen?” he asked suddenly.
Bridget shrugged, seeming surprised by the question. “I’ve never had the request before, but I’m sure that can be arranged. Why?”
“How about dinner tonight?” he suggested, before rational thought could take over, put him in check, remind him what a truly stupid idea this was.“On me?”
She laughed. “You mean, I’d be the guest? In my own home?”
“That’s right,” he said. When she put it that way, it was kind of a nice thought. And he’d like to do something nice for her. He had the impression that not enough people did. “I’ll even do the shopping. I should probably get some fresh air at some point today, after all.”
“You’re really working hard in here, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he confessed. “I haven’t felt this good in a long time, actually. And I have you to thank.”
“Me?” She flushed a little.
He nodded. “Being here, around you, it’s…opened my eyes. Cleared my head. Let me return the favor by doing something nice for you,” he said.
She looked so pleased, he knew he had made the right call. “Well, all right then. Name your time.”
“Would eight be too late?’
“Emma goes to bed at eight,” Bridget said, looking at him carefully. “I think eight would be perfect.”
***
“So?” Abby asked when Bridget appeared in the kitchen a moment later, grinning ear to ear and wishing she had more control on her emotions.
“So…what?” Bridget asked.
Abby’s eyes widened. “Is he having breakfast?”
Oh, that. Bridget nodded. “Yes. Yes, he’ll have breakfast.”
Abby pursed her lips as she flicked on the burner on the range. “I must say, Bridget, I’ve never seen you quite so flustered when it came to a guest before.”
Bridget picked up her coffee mug and took a long sip. It sobered her. Cleared her head. Pushed out all those silly little notions that were already getting her into trouble with her sister.
“You’ve only been around the inn for a week,” she pointed out.
Abby shrugged. “True.” But she didn’t look convinced.
“Is this the man with the thick brown hair and the nice eyes? From New York, right? The one who came with you to the festival?”
Bridget didn’t know where her sister was going with this, but she didn’t like it, either. “Yes. Why?”
“Just asking.” Abby’s grin was cheeky. She waited until after she’d added the batter to the pan, in perfect, symmetrical circles, Bridget was rather impressed to notice, before saying, “He’s single.”
Bridget felt her face heat, and she didn’t need a mirror to tell her it was red. She busied herself with fetching a tray, even though the job could have been done in three seconds flat, considering the drawer was at her feet. “Is he?” God, she was a bad liar. She should have just said, “I know.” Because she did know, of course she did, and Abby knew it!
This was the same tactic that Abby used to use when she was trying to get Bridget to confess that she knew where their parents had hidden the Christmas gifts, once she had stopped believing in Santa, that was.
“He is,” Abby said.
Silence lingered. Bridget knew she should let it go, Abby was just trying to yank her chain, get a reaction. But why?
Abby began to hum, a rather annoying tune, and loudly, obviously, until finally Bridget couldn’t take it anymore.
“Why do you ask?” She was mad at herself for feeding into it the moment the words were out of her mouth.
“Oh, no reason.” Abby’s eyes glimmered when she turned back to the island where she sprinkled a bowl of strawberries with sugar.
No reason indeed, Bridget thought.