Homecoming Reunion (12 page)

“Why didn’t you ask me what I wanted?” she asked.

“You told me what you wanted. You wanted to stay in Hartley Creek and you wanted me to work for your father. I thought you wanted me to become like your dad. Take care of you like your dad did.”

His words nudged open a door to her past and she knew that, to some degree, he was right. She had hoped he would stay here and slowly become a part of the company and work his way up the business.

“What made it harder to stay—” Garret continued, “—was the fact that your dad told me if I didn’t quit my job and leave town, he would fire me and make it difficult for anyone else to hire me. I knew I couldn’t take care of you after he said that. So I didn’t have much choice but to leave. Try to make something of myself somewhere else. I had always planned to return and had come to your house to tell you, but when you chose not to talk to me, I knew there was no reason to come back to Hartley Creek.”

Larissa frowned, trying to assimilate what she knew about her father with what Garret was telling her. Had her father really threatened Garret?

Doubts and second thoughts fought each other in her mind. Her old feelings for Garret and the relationship they had rose to the surface, adding more fuel to the fire burning in her soul.

“Would you have come back if I had talked to you?” she finally asked.

As soon as the words left her lips she regretted the needy tone that slipped into her voice. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She was independent. She’d dealt with huge things after Garret left. The illness and subsequent death of her mother. She’d kept the inn going in spite of her father’s unwillingness to make any changes. She’d shown herself she didn’t need anyone to complete her.

Then, to her surprise, Garret took one more step, closing the distance between them. He reached out and touched her cheek, his finger surprisingly rough against her skin.

“Once I felt like I could have taken care of you the way you were used to, yes. Yes, I would have come back.”

His touch sent a tingle down her spine as his words cocooned her heart. Then, before she could stop herself, her hand came up and she wrapped her fingers around his, his skin warm and rough. They stood this way for a moment, past melding into present. Old fears and hurts being displaced by current feelings.

“Did you think about me while you were gone?” Her words slipped out, fueled by the lonely months that she had endured after he left. Moments fraught with anger and sorrow and the idea that she had meant so little to him.

He said nothing for a few long, silent seconds. Then he drew in a slow breath. “I never forgot you, Larissa. I thought of you all the time.”

Garret’s fingers tightened for a moment, but then he lowered his gaze and stepped away.

A flush warmed her cheeks and her heart did a slow flip in her chest as his words seeped into her soul. Had he really thought of her all the time?

Get a grip,
she reminded herself glancing around the room again, focusing herself on the job at hand. That was in the past.

Even as she tried to focus on what needed to be done, she knew she wouldn’t forget his words.

“So, what should we start with in this room?” she asked, forcing herself to get on task.

Garret was silent a moment as if acknowledging the move to a safer topic, then walked around the room looking at it with a critical eye. “I really think if we do some superficial stuff for now—painting and new covers for the beds, maybe some cheap prints for the walls—we can go a long way with low financial output.” He stopped at the window, his features in profile to her. Then she caught a hint of a smile as he rested his fingertips on the window ledge. “I think if we get rid of the curtains, the view can make up for a lot.”

Larissa thought of the long hours he had put into maintenance the past week. “A view that, I must say, is improving every day,” she added.

He nodded, one corner of his mouth tipping up in a smile. “It’s been fun seeing the improvement.” He flexed his arms and gave her a quick grin. “Though my arms and legs have been complaining.”

The tone in his voice and the gentle lift of his lips as he looked out the window was almost as heartening as what had just happened between them. Was he learning to love the inn as she had come to? If so, that meant she had hope for the future.

Hope for the future of the inn, that is, she reminded herself.

* * *

Garret hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head as he heaved out a frustrated sigh.

“Doesn’t sound like you had any more luck than I did,” he said, glancing across the table at Larissa.

She set her cell phone down, scratched another name on the pad of paper in front of her and shook her head. “Not quite a shutout, but close.”

For the past hour they’d been trying to find someone, anyone who could do the job on such short notice. And even worse, Garret had a hard time concentrating on the conversations he was having with Larissa right across the table from him. He couldn’t dismiss the moment of connection he’d felt upstairs, that feeling that things were right when he was with her.

Yet the entire time they worked upstairs, measuring and taking notes then coming down here and making phone calls, the idea that she thought her father had paid him ten thousand dollars was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. How could she have thought that? What had Jack done to make her believe that?

He wished Jack were here so he could confront him and even as the thought was formulated in his mind, he pushed it back. And what purpose would that serve? He wasn’t here to dig up past dealings with Jack Weir. He was here to establish himself in this town. To make a name for himself. Right now that meant trying to find a way to get the inn up to snuff in time for Pete’s inspection trip.

“What do you have?” he asked, leaning forward.

Larissa tapped her pen against her mouth as she looked down at the paper. “The closest I came to success was with Benny Alpern,” she murmured. “He said he had only enough time to do the prep work on all the rooms and the first coat on fifteen of them, so that’s a start.”

“How long would that take him?”

“About five days and he can come tomorrow.”

Garret pulled at his lower lip, thinking. “Doesn’t seem to be much point getting him to come period if he can’t finish the job.” Things weren’t looking so positive and the job seemed daunting.

Larissa’s only reply was to tap her pen harder, twisting her hair around her finger with her other hand. Just like she always did. He smiled at the sight, remembering how he used to tease her that if she didn’t quit that habit, she’d end up bald.

“I still don’t think we’ll need all thirty rooms like Pete thinks,” Larissa said. “Lots of people who come to these things double up to save money.”

He pulled his focus back to the job at hand, surprised at the even tone of her voice.

The moment they had shared upstairs still clung to his soul and echoed in his mind.

He swept the tangling thoughts aside. He had no headspace to deal with that now.

“Doesn’t matter what we think we need,” he said, hunching over the papers with their endless rows of figures and numbers. “We need to get two coats of paint on those walls and that’s just the beginning”

His head was growing tired, trying to work his way around this problem. It seemed insurmountable. “All that work and no one who can do it. It’s hardly worth starting.”

“Don’t be such a Debbie Downer,” Larissa mumbled, chewing on the end of her pen. “There’s got to be a way to solve this.”

“Debbie Downer?”

“Television character. Always looking on the dark side of life. You’ve never heard of her?”

“I never watch television.”

“Not even those long, lonely nights in hotel rooms?”

He shook his head, the memory of those long, lonely nights in hotels still too recent. Sure, he lived in an apartment now, but coming here every day filled the space in his life that had been emptied when he moved away from his grandparent’s ranch and Hartley Creek.

“I was always too busy to spend time watching television,” he said.

“Busy doing what?”

“Working. Writing up reports, crunching numbers and scenarios, emailing, doing proposals, conference calls, chasing down paper trails. Sitting through endless meetings.”

“No dates? No evenings out on the town?” She was smiling at him, but he sensed a puzzling undertone. As if she vaguely hinted at something else. “No girlfriend to keep company?”

“A few. Here and there. I had a girlfriend for a few months, but it didn’t take.” Why did he think she needed to know that? And why did she seem to want to know?

He thought back to that little moment they shared in the room upstairs. The connection he couldn’t shrug off.

“Really?” Larissa twirled her hair a bit harder. “That’s too bad.”

“Seems like you’ve been in the same situation,” he said, leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms. If she could hint, so could he.

She lifted her shoulder in a vague gesture. “I’ve had a couple of...friends.”

“I gather Pete was one of those...friends.” That comment came out sharper than he intended and the puzzlement on her face showed him she had picked up on it.

“We dated for a while,” she said, waving her pen in a dismissive gesture. “But as you can tell, whatever we had didn’t make any difference in his booking the inn.”

“Friends is friends and business is business,” Garret said feeling a sudden burst of surprising jealousy. Did she still think about him? She didn’t seem too bothered by it. In fact Pete seemed to be doing more of the chasing than she did.

Suddenly she sat up and clapped her hands. “Friends is friends indeed. If its workers we need, I could call in a few favors,” she said leaning forward, her hands clasped picking up some energy. “Get some of my friends to help. We could have a painting party.”

Garret frowned. “Could they do a good job, though? We can’t have paint all over the place.”

“Now Debbie,” Larissa said wagging her finger at him.

Garret laughed again, stifling his next objection.

“We’d have to supervise, of course,” Larissa continued, “Which would mean extra work for us, but I’m sure we could get the work done properly. Especially if we’ve got Benny doing the prep work and the first coat. That’s the fussy work. The rest is just production.”

“Could we get it done on time?”

“I’m positive we can,” she said, picking up her cell phone, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

“That’s just the painting. What about the furnishings?”

“If I get enough people painting, Alanna and I can head over to Cranbrook and get some fun and funky bedding at that new home furnishing store. I know they’ve got some really good deals going on now. We could do every room a bit different. Like a cross between a B and B and an inn. What do you think?”

“Do you really think we can get enough people together? And how would we pay them?”

She frowned. “Pay them?”

“We certainly can’t expect people to come here and help us out for nothing?”

“You don’t think your family would want to help you out?”

He returned her frown, not sure what to think. “This is a business. Why would they want to help me?”

Larissa sat back, her one arm folded across her midsection, her fisted hand resting under her chin as she seemed to be studying him. “Friends may be friends, but I’m sure family falls under another category. Besides that’s what family does for each other. That’s what a community does for each other. When Kerry needed painting done at Mug Shots, a bunch of us all pitched in and helped. Mia, Alanna, myself. When Mia Verbeek moved out of her house we all helped out. It’s what you do when you live in a community.”

Garret held her gaze, aware that while she was looking at him, she nodded, her grin growing. “Watch me make some Hartley Creek magic,” she said and started punching in numbers on her cell phone.

Garret couldn’t help pick up on her energy, her enthusiasm. As she started scribbling a list of potential candidates and talking to her friend Alanna, he found himself unable to look away. Unable to not be drawn in to her smile, the sparkle in her eyes, the enthusiasm in her voice.

He tried to remind himself that she was his business partner and not his old girlfriend.

But he found the more time he spent with her, the harder that got to be.

Chapter Nine

“S
o for today I’ve got Hailey in the yellow room and Emma and Carter doing one of the blue rooms. Alanna and I will be doing the green room and Kerry and Evangeline are in the gray room.”

Garret looked over Larissa’s chart, nodding as she showed him her plan, the smell of fresh paint filling his nostrils. “Looks like we’ll get done by today if all goes well,” he said. The panic that had gripped him since he made his rash promise to Pete was slowly easing with each day of progress. “I still can’t believe you got all this done so quickly and with minimal interference to our other guests.”

Larissa nodded, her head down, but to Garret’s surprise he saw a flush working its way up her neck. Was she embarrassed by his praise?

“It took a bit of organizing, but your family has been a great help.” She looked up at him then and her smile dove into his soul. “And thanks for helping as well.”

Her hair was held back by a paint-speckled bandanna and smudges of paint decorated her cheek and the oversize shirt she wore over her clothes. And still she looked beautiful.

“Hey, I’ve got a vested interest in turning this place around. It’s been kind of exciting to see the changes the past few days.” He held her gaze, the warmth of her smile creating an answering warmth deep in his soul. “Sort of like seeing this place rising up and being restored to its former glory.”

Her smile grew, her expression softened. “I’ve always gotten the impression that the only reason you wanted to do anything to this inn was to make it profitable for profit’s sake.”

“It’s a business, of course that’s a priority, but at the same time I have to think of what you said about this being a place of refuge for travelers...” His voice trailed off as he looked past her to a room that had already been painted, trying to imagine what it would like when it was all completed. He turned back to her, feeling a bit embarrassed at his little outburst. “Anyhow, it’s looking good.”