CHAPTER FOUR
THE COLD GRIPPED WINTER in a breathless, frigid stranglehold. Under the harsh blue skies, every breath of air blew bitter. Another hard frost slicked The Courtyard pavers as Owen trooped up the outside stairs with Beckett and Ryder.
“I don’t want to hear about any changes, flourishes, or what-ifs,” Ryder muttered.
“Let’s just take a look at this.” Beckett led the way into Jane and Rochester.
“Hell of a lot of boxes yet.” Ryder stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Looks like Mom bought enough lamps to light half the town.”
“We might as well take down what we can for N&N when we go back.” Owen gestured to the appropriate area. “What’s the problem in here, Beck?”
“I don’t know if there is one, but it’s about the only private spot in the building right now, and we’ve been surrounded since last night—plus you took off from Avery’s before I could corner you. Now, what the hell happened with Elizabeth?”
“For Christ’s sake.” Ryder pulled off his cap, dragged his fingers through his dense dark brown hair. “You brought us up here to talk ghosts?”
“Murphy was in that room,” Beckett reminded him. “Alone, hall door shut, porch door open. He just turned goddamn six. Clare’s not so freaked by Lizzy anymore. If it hadn’t been for Lizzy writing in the steam on the bathroom mirror down there—however she managed to pull that off—to warn us, we might not have gotten there in time when Freemont went after Clare. Still, Murphy’s just a little boy.”
“Okay.” Ryder stuck his cap back on. “Okay, you’re right about that. But this whole ghost thing’s irritating.”
“Park benches are irritating to you in some moods.”
“Depends on whether or not I want to sit down.”
Beckett just shook his head. “We got most of it out of Murphy. The kid’s got no off button. He decided to go pay her a visit, and went on in. He told her about school, about the pups. She asked after his family.”
“So Murph the Smurf had a social conversation with a ghost,” Ryder commented. “He needs his own TV show. Murph, Host for Ghosts.”
“Funny,” Beckett said dryly. “She went outside, but told him not to come out, that his mother wouldn’t like it. She’d worry. And she told him she liked to stand out there. How she was waiting for Billy. Now that the inn was being fixed, and there were lights and people, she thought he’d be able to find her easier.”
“Billy who?” Ryder asked.
“Exactly. Murphy didn’t get that part.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Owen demanded. “I wasn’t in on any of that. When I went in Avery was already there, and she had Murphy. We sent him up to Clare so she wouldn’t worry.”
“Yeah, then he chatted away about Lizzy, about you and Avery being in there. And I couldn’t get the door open. It wouldn’t budge.”
“So, she was playing games.” Owen shrugged, trying for casual, ending with a jerk. “It’s not the first time.”
“Won’t be the last,” Ryder muttered.
“No, not the first or the last,” Beckett agreed. “But when you opened the door from the inside, you looked like somebody’d knocked you stupid with a blunt object. I want to know what happened between the time you sent Murphy out and when you opened up.”
“Nothing. Especially.”
“Bullshit.” Ryder let out a snort. “You can’t lie worth dick. And if it was nothing especially, why were you all broody over at Vesta? Like a hen on a nest of cracked eggs, then you made noises about paperwork and took off.” Grinning now, Ryder nodded at Beckett. “It was something especially.”
“Cough it up, Owen,” Beckett told him.
“Fine. Fine. Avery filled me in on what Murphy told her. She’s all excited and dreamy. The ghost deal, the waiting for Billy thing. Like it’s a made-for-TV movie. Romantic, love beyond the grave, all that stuff. You know how Avery can get on a theme.”
“Not really.” Ryder shrugged. “I’ve never had a romantic, love-beyond-the-grave conversation with Avery. You?” he asked Beckett.
“Not as I recall. Then again, Owen was her first boyfriend.”
“Cut it out.” Caught between embarrassment and annoyance, Owen shuffled his feet. “She was like five, maybe six. Like Murphy’s age. Jesus.”
“She said she was going to marry you,” Beckett reminded him, snorting along with Ryder now. “And you’d have three dogs, two cats, and five babies. Or maybe it was three babies and five dogs.”
“You got her a ring, bro.”
Trapped, Owen bared his teeth at Ryder. “Out of a frigging gum ball machine. Just playing around. I was a kid, too, for Christ’s sake.”
“Kissed her, right on the mouth,” Beckett remembered.
“It just happened! That honeysuckle-smelling, short-tempered ghost of yours shoved the porch door back open when Avery was leaning against it. The next thing I know she’s wrapped around me, and . . .”
Brows lifted, Beckett angled his head as he studied Owen’s face. “I was talking about when she was five.”
“Oh.”
“But bring us up to date,” Ryder insisted. “You laid one on the Little Red Machine?”
“It just happened,” he insisted. “The door knocked her into me.”
“Yeah, anytime a woman trips, I’m all over them.”
“Suck me,” Owen said to Ryder.
“Must’ve been a hell of a just-happened lip-lock,” Beckett speculated. “Considering how you looked when you unlocked the door.”
“I didn’t unlock the door because it wasn’t locked. She did it.”
“Red?”
“No, not Avery. Elizabeth. Then she laughed.”
“Avery?”
“No!” Close to tearing out his hair, Owen paced between stacks of boxes. “Elizabeth. After Avery got pissed and left, I heard her laughing.”
“Avery got pissed because you kissed her?” Beckett asked.
“No. Maybe. How the hell do I know what pisses a woman off?” Frustration rippled over him in waves. “Nobody knows because it can be any damn thing. It’s an unsolved mystery. And the next day, that any damn thing is fine, and it’s some other damn thing. No man knows,” Owen said darkly.
“He ain’t wrong,” Ryder commented. “So. Back up.” Ryder hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “Did she kiss you back? Men know that one, pal.”
“Yeah, she kissed me back.”
“Like reflex, or bring it on?”
“She was in it,” Owen muttered. “It wasn’t some friendly peck.”
“Tongues?”
“Jesus, Ry.”
“You’re not the only one who appreciates details.” Ryder nodded at Beckett. “Definitely tongues involved.”
“I said she was in it, didn’t I? Then Beck’s banging on the door, and it’s all surreal. She didn’t want it to be weird, you know? So I said okay. She said she was going to go give Dave a hand, and I said okay.”
“You’re a moron.” In pity, Ryder shook his head. “You’re supposed to be the smart one. You’re the smart one, Beckett’s the nice one, I’m the good-looking one. And you’re a moron. You just fucked the curve, dude.”
“Why? Why am I a moron?”
Beckett raised his hand. “I got this. You kiss a woman till your eyes roll back in your head, and if your information is correct, she’s just as in it as you. Then all you can say when she’s obviously probing for what it meant is ‘okay’? You’re a moron.”
“She didn’t want it to be weird. I was trying not to make it weird.”
“You get a shove from a dead woman and end up tangling tongues with an old girlfriend and the ghost blocks the exit? That’s fucking weird,” Ryder concluded.
“She’s not an old girlfriend. She was five!”
Companionably now, Ryder laid a hand on Owen’s shoulder. “Women never forget. You don’t want it to be weirder than it is now, you have to talk to her about it. You poor bastard.”
“Avery was right,” Beckett speculated. “Lizzy’s a romantic. The first time I kissed Clare was in this building—and after, I figured Lizzy maneuvered it. At least some of it.”
“Then you talk to her,” Owen insisted. “Tell her to back off.”
“Kissing Red must’ve killed off some of your brain cells,” Ryder decided. “You can tell a woman what to do—if you play it right—and maybe, maybe half the time she’d do it, or something close to it. That’s a live woman. A dead one? I figure that’s closer to zero.”
“Crap.”
“Better talk to Avery,” Beckett advised. “And do it soon, do it right.”
“Crap.”
“So, now that we’ve had our heart-to-heart, ladies, let’s get the hell back to work.” Ryder walked to the door, opened it. “We’ve got an inn to finish.”
* * *
HE COULDN’T AVOID her—not that he wanted to. Exactly. But he couldn’t, not between punch-out, load-in, cleaning, food breaks. In the normal course of things, he saw Avery at least once a week. Since work began on the inn, it was pretty much daily. And now with that work coming down the stretch, they tended to cross paths multiple times a day.
But—because he wasn’t a moron—none of those times included the sort of privacy he knew the conversation they needed to have required.
Even if he could find a spot where a half a dozen people weren’t moving through, by, or around, he got interrupted every ten minutes.
So he did what he decided was the next best thing. He acted as if nothing had happened. He talked to her, carted boxes for her, ordered food from her, just like normal over the next couple of days.
Since she behaved exactly the same way, he figured: problem solved.
For his last chore of the day—hopefully of the week, he thought—he carried a box of lightbulbs into Nick and Nora. He intended to work his way through the finished rooms, assembling lamps, screwing in the correct bulbs.
He hesitated only a moment when he saw Avery hanging glass drops on a floor lamp.
She glanced his way. “Some assembly required,” she said.
“Looks good.”
“I’m hanging these my way. I like it better than the way they have it in the diagram. Justine said she did, too.”
“Works for me.” He noted that the stacked glass ball lamps beside the panel bed had already been assembled.
“I’m Lamp Girl this evening,” she told him.
He started to make a joke about being Lightbulb Boy, but thought better of it.
Damn it. It was weird.
“I’m the man with the bulbs, so let there be light.” He took a bulb out of the box. “Listen, Avery—”
“Look!” Hope dashed in, still wearing her coat and scarf. “Isn’t this fabulous?”
She carried a Deco-style statue of a man and woman.
“It’s great! It’s Nick and Nora Charles.” Avery shifted to admire it.
“The amazing people at Bast gave it to us.”
“Aww. Now I love it even more.”
“It’s just perfect!” After a moment’s scan, Hope set it on the corner of the carved heater cover Owen had built. “Just perfect. I love that floor lamp. A little glimmer, a lot of glamour and style. Oh, when you’re done there, Avery, maybe you can give us an opinion out in J&R. Owen, we’re trying to decide on your grandmother’s crocheted pieces, the ones your mother had matted and framed. They’re so beautiful. She was an artist.”
“If she’d had enough thread, she could’ve crocheted the Taj Mahal.”
“I believe it. We’ve narrowed it down to two spots. We need another eye, Avery.”
“You can have mine. That’s the last drop. Thank God.” She stepped back, nodded. “Excellent.”
“Come on down then. We have to decide, then that’s it for tonight.”
“Good, because I need to run over, take care of a couple of things.”
“After you do, come to my place,” Hope told her. “Clare’s parents have the kids tonight, and Beckett’s got a dinner meeting with a client. We’ll have some wine, and I’ll cook something.”
“I’m in. Two minutes here.”
As Hope went out, Avery crouched to gather up the packaging from the lamp. “They’re even prettier lit,” she commented when Owen tested the lamps.
“Yeah. So, Avery . . . are we okay?”
After a humming beat of silence, she flicked him a glance. “There’s that word again.”
“Come on, Avery.”
Still crouched, she gave him a long, steady stare from under her arched eyebrows. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just—”
“Sounds like we’re okay. It wasn’t my first kiss, Owen.”
“No, but—”
“Not even my first with you.”
He shifted the box of bulbs to his other hip. “That was—”
“So, no problem here.”
“No problem,” he agreed, but thought it felt like one. “I’ll get that stuff. We’ve got a load to take out anyway.”
“Good enough.” She started out. “Oh, if you have time, maybe you can hang the mirror, that starburst deal there. Hope marked the spot on the wall.”
“Sure.”
“Have a good weekend if I don’t see you.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
He frowned at the cardboard, frowned at the mirror, frowned at the empty doorway.
“Shit,” he muttered, and went out for his drill.
“‘Are we okay?’” Avery gestured with her wineglass. “Jerk.”
In Hope’s living room, curled on the sofa, Clare smiled at her friend. “He just doesn’t know how to handle it.”
Far from ready to cut him a break, Avery huffed. “He didn’t have any problem handling me the other night.”
“Beckett got awkward and a little jerky with me after we almost kissed the first time. Maybe it’s a Montgomery brothers trait.”
“Once you had, he wasn’t awkward.”
“True.” Clare’s smile warmed. “Very true. Still, given your history—”
“History-smistory.”
“What history?” Hope carried a tray of fruit and cheese out of her little kitchen. “I haven’t had the opportunity to get all the details on this. Ghostly nudges, hot kiss, lame Owen aftermath.”
“That sums it.”
“History? Is this more than knowing each other forever? Clare and Beckett knew each other for years before they got together.”
“I was with Clint,” Clare reminded her. “We were a couple from the start, so I didn’t have any history other than casual friendship with Beckett.”
“And you had more with Owen?” Hope probed. “What have I missed?”
“They were engaged.” Grinning now, Clare toasted Avery.
“What?” Hope’s dark chocolate eyes rounded with shock. “When? Why didn’t I know this? This is huge.”
“We were kids. I think I was five—almost six. Our fathers were tight, so we had a lot of activities together. I had a crush on him.”
“So she proposed to him—or more she announced they were going to get married when they grew up.”
“Aw, that’s so cute.”
Softening a little, Avery shrugged. “It was probably a major embarrassment for him. I guess he was about eight. But he was nice about it. Patient,” she remembered, softening a bit more. “I crushed on him for a couple of years.”
“That’s a long time at that age,” Hope pointed out.
“I tend to dig in. Then he started hanging out with Kirby Anderson.” The softening process halted as her eyes went flinty. “That ten-year-old slut. Owen Montgomery broke my heart with that boyfriend-stealing bimbo.”
“I should point out, for Hope, that Kirby Anderson is now married, the mother of two, and an environmental activist living in Arlington, Virginia.”
“She grew out of it.” Avery shrugged. “But there could still be slutitude in there, dormant. Anyway, after that I was off boys until I hit puberty.”
“But you forgave Owen,” Hope prompted.
“Sure. I refused to pine. Besides, a girl’s first boyfriend isn’t going to be her last, right?” After gesturing, she cut a slice of Gouda and nipped into it. “Especially when he’s an ass.”
“Don’t be too hard on him.” Clare reached over, patted Avery’s hand. “He’s probably flustered, not sure how to act. You know you mean a lot to him. To all of them.”
“Yeah, yeah.” But she sighed. “It was a damn fine kiss. He’s learned a lot since eight—or I’ve learned. We both have. I wouldn’t mind kissing him again.”
“Really?” Hope drew out the word as she sampled an apple slice.
“Sure. What am I, stupid? He’s a damn fine kisser—as I now know. And he’s really pretty.”
“Would you sleep with him?” Hope wondered.
“Hmm.” Considering, Avery reached forward, snagged a tart, green grape. “We’re both currently unattached, both adults. Maybe. Yeah, maybe, as long as we went into it clear-eyed. You can trust Owen. That’s a big one, knowing you’re with somebody you can trust.” She bit into the grape, grinned. “And who’s really pretty.”
“Listening to all this, I’m glad I’m out of the arena.” Content, Hope slid down in the chair with her wine.
“You won’t stay out.” Avery shook her head. “You’re gorgeous, smart, interesting—and human.”
“I’m not interested in dating right now. Not just because of Jonathan. In fact, now that I think about it, not at all because of that dick. Right now, all I want is to focus on the inn, on being the world’s best innkeeper, and keeping that beautiful place perfect. Men, dating, sex? Just not currently on the radar.”
“Careful,” Clare warned. “Best-laid plans.”
“But I excel at planning.”
* * *
OWEN DIDN’T SLEEP well, which he considered a pisser. He always slept well. He thought of it as a skill, like carpentry or adding up columns of numbers in his head.
But instead of dropping off after a full day of work, a sweaty hour-long workout, a relaxing soak in his hot tub, he’d slept in fits and starts.
He’d promised himself no work over the weekend, but when a man climbed out of bed before sunrise, what the hell was he supposed to do with himself all day?
His house was in order. It generally was, but with the push on the inn over the last couple of weeks, he’d barely done more than sleep there. Even he couldn’t find anything to fuss over.
He and Beckett had designed the house, a couple of stones’ throws from his mother’s, from Ryder’s, from the home Beckett was finally finishing. He liked being close to family, and still solitary and private on his wooded lot.
The space suited him and his efficient nature with its open kitchen and dining room serving as great room and entertainment area when he had anybody over. To the left, the laundry and utility room served the added purpose of mudroom.
He believed in multitasking, even for houses.
Now, wearing only loose flannel pants, he stood at the atrium doors leading out to his wide, paved patio, drinking coffee ground and brewed in the sleek and efficient machine he’d treated himself to on his last birthday.
Ryder called it Hilda, claiming anything that shiny and complicated had to be female.
Generally that first good, strong cup of coffee pleased him, perked him up for the day ahead. But right at the moment it did nothing to cut through his irritability.
She was the one being weird, he told himself—as he had countless times during the restless night. She’d said she didn’t want things to be weird, then she acted weird. Trying to make him feel guilty, he decided, when he didn’t have anything to feel guilty about.
It was all just stupid, and he needed to forget it. Because he damn well wasn’t losing another night’s sleep over it.
He thought about breakfast, but didn’t feel like cooking. Not that he minded cooking, particularly a weekend breakfast where he could load up on bacon and eggs, sit at his counter, and play with his iPad.
He didn’t feel like using his iPad either, and that was just wrong. He always felt like using his iPad.
So he’d work after all. He’d put some time in at the shop on the mantel for Beckett’s bedroom fireplace. Maybe even get it finished so Beckett could just seal the chestnut.
No point in hanging out at home all day if he couldn’t enjoy the loafing. Plus, his mother habitually rose early, he thought as he headed up the central stairs he and his brothers had built. She’d cook him some breakfast—and maybe he could pump her a little—subtly—about Avery.
Not that he’d tell his mother the full shot—it was too . . . okay, weird. But he knew no one who had better insight on people than Justine Montgomery.
He turned into his bedroom, switched on the little gas log fireplace built into the mocha-colored wall, and carried his coffee into the bath. Once he’d showered and shaved, he dressed in work clothes and steel-toed boots.
He made the bed—smoothing the sheets, drawing the white duvet up, stacking the pillows in their dark brown cases.
He took his phone off the charger, hooked it on his belt, took his pocketknife, loose change, wallet out of the tray on his dresser. Got a fresh bandana out of the dresser drawer.
He stood a moment, frowning at nothing. Too quiet, he realized. His house and grounds were exactly the way he liked them, work was plentiful, and satisfying. But it was just too quiet.
Time for a dog, he told himself. Time to seriously think about getting a dog. Maybe a Lab-mix like his mother’s—or a faithful mutt like Ryder’s.
He’d promised himself a dog, but with the time and demands of the inn project, he’d postponed the idea.
Better to wait till spring, he considered as he started downstairs. Easier to house-train a puppy in warmer weather. Or maybe he’d rescue an older dog—if he could get half as lucky as Ry had with Dumbass.
He pulled his shop coat out of the closet, pulled on a ski cap, gloves, plucked his keys out of the dish by the door.
A guy needed a dog, he thought. That was what was missing in his life. A good dog.
Maybe he’d swing by the animal shelter after he’d had breakfast with his mother, after he put in some shop time.
Nodding in satisfaction, he climbed into his truck. Sounded like a plan—and he liked a good plan.
He pulled out, drove past the little barn he’d built to house the jeep and plow he used on the property, down to the main road. He made the turn, turned again into his mother’s lane to her house on the slope.
The dogs bounded across the drive—Cus (short for Atticus) with one of his many mangled balls clamped in his mouth, and his eyes wild with joy. His brother Finch gave Cus a body block that had both dogs rolling and wrestling.
Yeah, Owen thought with a grin, he definitely needed a dog.
He wound the drive, puzzled for a moment when he saw Willy B’s truck parked beside his mother’s car.
Early for a visit, Owen thought, even for Avery’s father. Then again, Willy B dropped by often, Owen knew, and now that he was one of the featured artists at his mother’s gift shop, he likely dropped by more with some new piece or design.
Stroke of luck, Owen decided as he parked. He might be able to finesse some insight or info out of Willy B on Avery—subtle, subtle.
He stopped long enough to snatch up the ball Cus had dropped pleadingly at his feet. He winged it, long and hard for the dogs to chase while he hurried up to the back door.
He heard the music when he was still ten feet away, and shook his head. Typical for his mom—who’d never yelled at any of her sons to turn that damn music down.
She’d always blasted her own.
He shoved open the door, caught the scent of bacon, of coffee. Grinning, he thought: just in time.
Then his eyes all but popped out of his head.
Bacon sizzled on the stove. His mother stood in front of the griddle.
So did Willy B, all six feet four inches of him wearing nothing but white boxers, with his hands on Owen’s mother’s ass, and his mouth locked on hers.