“Are you sure you don’t have any vacancy?” I asked hopefully, giving her my most beseeching expression.
She seemed impervious to my desperation. “Yep, we’re sure. Full up. This place is impossible to book into this time of year.”
“Seriously?” I gestured toward the mostly empty lot. It was obvious the motel wasn’t booked more than 20 percent capacity, and that was being extraordinarily generous. Sawyer had obviously been messing with me to prove a point. Hopefully this woman would be more welcoming.
She shrugged. “We’re popular with the adventure crowd, so they’re all… off… adventuring right now. Mm-hm. This parking lot… it’s deceptive, you know?”
I squinted around, trying to find any evidence of guests, any at all. “Are you sure—”
Sawyer came storming back over with a giant metal wrench in his hands and a scowl on his face. “Leave,” he said, pushing past me into the still-flooding room. “You’re not welcome here.” He pointed the wrench at me and shook it. “Go back to New York and tell your client to fuck off.”
I bit my tongue to keep from grinning at him like a fool. He was way too handsome to be taken seriously as a curmudgeon. Sawyer’s skin was already tan from the early summer sun, and his dirty-blond hair sported lighter bits on the tips that I could see more clearly in the daylight now he was no longer sporting a ball cap. If he wasn’t so busy glowering at me, he’d look like a laid-back California surfer dude. But it was clear to me he had way more worry on his shoulders than I’d first realized.
“I’m not going back to the city until I finish gathering the information I need here,” I said. “But it can wait. I’ll get out of your hair while you deal with this.” I glanced at the disaster the flooding had made of the room. “Do you want me to call someone? Your uncle, or…?”
The receptionist flapped her hand and rolled her eyes. “That asshole? Not likely.” Then she tilted her head, giving me an obvious once-over. “But I’ll tell you what you can do.” She pointed at the luggage cart full of bags and, for some odd reason, several different flower arrangements. “Be a doll and take that over to room 202, won’t you?”
She sauntered off without waiting for an answer. I glanced back toward Sawyer, wondering if she’d been serious. But he was already back in the bathroom, cursing up a storm as he banged away at the leaking pipe.
Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed the luggage cart and began pushing it across the empty parking lot. One of the wheels was twisted, and the frame itself seemed to be held together with rust and hope, making the whole thing wobble and creak and clatter in an embarrassingly obnoxious racket. My hands were numb from the jostling by the time I reached room 202 and knocked on the door.
I waited, but there was no answer. I knocked again just before the door swung open to reveal an older man wearing nothing but a towel. The few strands of hair on his head were mussed into a nest of downy knots. Behind him I caught sight of sheets strewn across the floor and a pillow lodged in one of the lampshades. A vase of fat sunflowers was tipped precariously on the edge of the bedside table.
I immediately dropped my eyes, trying desperately not to see more than I already had.
“Luggage’s here,” the man called over his shoulder.
“Tell him to leave it, and you get your sexy tush back to bed!” an older woman’s voice called.
My cheeks blazed even hotter.
The man grinned at me and waggled his bushy eyebrows. “You heard what the lady said.” Then he seemed to remember something. “Oh wait, a tip.” He patted at his hips as though looking for his wallet and forgetting he wasn’t wearing pants. The motion jostled the towel, and it slipped dangerously low.
I held up my hands, desperate for him to stop. “This one’s on the house.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you.” He tilted his head. “You’re new, aren’t you? Been coming here forty years and haven’t seen you around before.”
I was willing to say anything if it would make this conversation end. “Yep, just started today.”
He reached out and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Well, you picked a good place to work. Fine family, the Gilleys. One of the best I know. They’ll treat you right.”
Without a hand holding up his towel, it began to unravel quickly. I lunged for the doorknob. “Thank you sir, good to know. Enjoy your stay,” I added before pulling the door firmly closed. Through the faded wood, I heard a peal of laughter and something that sounded like a growl. I spun and bolted for my car before I heard anything more.
I drove back into town, my thoughts in a jumble. The morning had gone well—I’d made my offer, the family seemed more than receptive, and I was confident this deal would close on time at the terms I’d proposed. If anything, the leaking toilet in room 109 only reinforced the point that the inn had fallen into disrepair and it was time to sell.
Then why wasn’t I feeling happier?
It was because of what the old man had said, about the Gilleys being a good family. From what I’d seen, it was true.
But business was business. I had to remember that. It had been one of the first things Dick Sr. had said to me when he’d suggested hiring my firm to represent his massive real estate company. He believed in honesty and integrity, and he despised cheaters. But what he detested most of all were people who let emotions cloud their judgments. “Business is business, son,” he’d told me over a glass of scotch. “It’s numbers, facts, and objective reason. You let emotions play a role, and you’ve already lost. So long as you remember that, we’ll get along just fine.”
The Gilleys could be the best family in the entire world, but that didn’t change the parameters of the deal. And it wasn’t like the offer I’d made them wasn’t fair. It was more than fair—generous even. I shouldn’t feel too sorry for a family that was about to become instant millionaires.
I pulled into the main street of McBride just as the clock tower in the middle of the town chimed noon. There was an empty parking spot in front of the old barn-shaped general store, and I pulled in, intending to grab a snack. But when I stepped out of the car, I was greeted by the heavenly smell of freshly grilled hamburgers.
Richard, my ex, would have balked at the idea of a hamburger for lunch which was exactly why I decided it was the best idea ever. I switched direction and headed toward the source of the smell—the town’s old-fashioned soda fountain located inside Flamingo Pharmacy. As soon as I opened the front door, heads swiveled toward me. I tried to pretend I didn’t feel like I was in an old western film where at any minute someone might draw down on me and demand I leave town on the next wagon train.
The stools at the bar were covered in hot pink vinyl which seemed to be the only nod to the pharmacy’s name as well as the only thing remotely fresh and new. Everything else looked like it hadn’t changed since the days of sock hops and Studebakers. Despite the time warp, the place was doing a decent business.
“Coffee? Frappe? Patty melt special? What can I get you?”
I glanced up at the woman behind the counter. She looked to be about my age but had her hair pulled back in a long, thick ponytail that gave her a youthful energy I definitely wasn’t feeling these days.