The Red Door Inn (11 page)

“No. Nope. I'm good.” Grabbing her jacket, she hurried outside before he could offer again.

She could spend time with him another day. No need to rush into these things. There would be plenty of togetherness between the auction and finishing painting.

As she hustled down the road, away from her beach, she yanked the zipper up to her chin. She'd been used to Boston cold, but PEI temperatures were an entirely new low.

She rounded the bend in the road at a pace that matched her frenzied run earlier. And just as her stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten, the white bakery appeared.

A quick stop to see Caden couldn't hurt.

Neither could a cinnamon roll.

The bell on the door jingled as Marie stepped inside.

“Be right there.” The voice didn't belong to Caden or any other woman, the deep tones nearly rattling the shelves on the walls.

“Um . . .” Her gaze swept around the empty room three times. All with the same result. It was empty, and she was alone with another man—one she didn't know. “No rush.”

Maybe she should just forget breakfast. She could get something to eat at the grocery store. She put her hand on the doorknob, ready to turn it, until the sweet smell of cinnamon and sugar unfurled from the back room, keeping her feet grounded.

Suddenly the knob in her hand twisted, and the door swung open as she tumbled in its wake, still clinging to the handle.

“Whoa!” Caden jumped out of the way and then immediately reached out to steady Marie. Caden's wide eyes didn't
overshadow her smile as Marie found her footing. Before she could move, Caden enveloped her in a hug that felt like she'd stepped inside all over again.

“Good morning.”

Marie shivered as Caden let her go with a pat on the back. “I'm so glad to see you. Aretha told my mom that Jack isn't feeding you. They're all so worried about you getting enough to put some meat on your bones. They keep talking about stopping by the inn to check on you. But really, I think they just want to see what you've done with the old place. It's been empty for more than a year, you know. Are you hungry? Come inside. Dad is making pecan potato rolls. It's one of our specialties. You'll love them.”

Her mind swirled as fast as the words gushed from Caden's mouth. But she'd definitely heard something about a pecan potato roll, so she followed Caden.

“Pumpkin? Is that you?”

“Yes, Dad. Are you done with—”

A man with a shock of red hair stepped from the kitchen. Maybe his hair just looked brighter against the head-to-toe white baker's uniform. He was clearly related to the little girl with the pointy fingers who'd given Marie the evil eye for accidentally tearing the hymnal page. From the hair to the round blue eyes to the little clefts in their chins, they were obviously family.

He stuck his hand out, and she slipped hers into the giant mitt. “James Holt. You must be the girl everyone's talking about.”

Marie's jaw fell slack and her neck burned, the heat creeping up it faster than she could pull back her hand and make sure her jacket covered the blush.

“Dad.” Caden's tone chastised her father, but the smile she added onto the end was anything but critical. “Be nice. This is my friend Marie. From Boston.”

How did Caden know she was from Boston?

Caden answered the unspoken question with a guilty grin. “Aretha really likes you. She and Mom are best friends, and she might have let it slip.”

“Very good.” James smiled at his daughter and winked at Marie. An unfamiliar warmth spiraled through her stomach, drawing her to the flour-covered man. “Now about the business at hand. I need your opinion on the new pecan berry potato roll recipe.”

Marie's stomach growled again, and they all chuckled. “I guess my opinion might not count for much. I'm hungry enough to eat a hippo.”

“Well, we're fresh out of hippo, so you'll have to settle for sweet rolls. Be right back.”

Caden rolled her eyes and whispered, “Sorry about my dad. He's been telling the same bad jokes for years. He's so happy to have someone new to use them on. Feel free not to laugh. You know how dads are.”

Actually, this kind of father-daughter interaction was new to her. Her dad hadn't been playful or ever cracked a joke in his life. At least not to her. Of course, that would have required them to spend time together.

“It's okay.” In fact, it was better than okay. It was kind of nice to have a man want to tell her a joke.

When James reappeared with a plateful of golden rolls overflowing with purple berry juice and a brown sugar and pecan crumb topping, she forgot all about laughing. There
was only the sweet goodness of the blueberry center surrounded by the melt-in-your-mouth roll.

“A-maz-ing.” The word was garbled by the second roll she was already stuffing in her mouth.

Her stomach finally appeased after her third treat, Marie bought a dozen to take back to the house and then bid them farewell. The sweets carried her through her grocery shopping, and despite balancing seven plastic bags, she still felt good when she reached the Red Door. Whether it was the sugar or seeing Caden or the fact that she'd managed to think about New Year's Eve without a panic attack, she didn't care. It was shaping up to be the best day she'd had in months.

She bounded up the steps, swinging a bag at Jack as he drove by. He rolled down his window. “I'll be back in a bit.”

The house was silent as she filled the cupboards with her purchases. She put a roasted chicken breast in the fridge and caught another whiff of the fresh onion she'd chosen. They'd make a good chicken salad. Maybe she'd ask Jack to help her pull something together for lunch.

She left the bag of sweet rolls next to the bread box, but turned back to it before she could get very far. It wouldn't hurt to have just one more.

As she tore the pieces apart, savoring each bite, she bumped her hip against an open drawer. But it didn't budge. She glared at the white bottom before realizing that the white wasn't actually part of the drawer. It was more of the computer paper that Jack had used to write his list.

This was her chance to try out the typewriter, to see if Aretha had been right.

“Seth?” she called, peeking out the window to the backyard.
“Seth, are you here?” She raised her voice as hope bubbled in her chest.

The old home groaned, wind whistling along the paneling, but Seth didn't respond. She looked into the pantry and poked her head into the laundry room just to be sure she was alone before reaching a sticky finger into the drawer, then stopped just short.

“Georgiana would have a fit if I didn't wash my hands before using an antique Underwood.” The image of her mother's friend with crossed arms and stern eyes danced across her mind, and she laughed out loud. Georgiana had loved design and antiques, and she'd have a conniption if she knew Marie was typing on the old black machine.

But Marie had to know. What did it sound like? How hard would she have to press the keys?

Some questions required answers.

Swallowing the rest of her roll in one bite, she hurried to the sink and scrubbed at the sticky residue. While she was at it, it couldn't hurt to work at the paint-stained creases in her knuckles.

Her hands nearly shone as she snagged a piece of paper from the broken drawer and stole through the house to the back room where Seth had stacked their antiques. Dust motes danced in beams of morning light that illuminated the classic tomes. On the floor beside them sat her mission.

Tiptoeing toward it, she looked over her shoulder one last time to make sure she was alone. She kneeled before it, slipped the paper into place, and turned the roller to feed the paper. Butterflies filled her stomach.

This had been her fantasy since Georgiana first showed her one of the classic writing devices. They'd spent hours
speculating about who had used the machine and what had been written on it. Was it government directives or love letters? Wildly fictitious stories or heartbreaking memoirs?

What had been written on this machine?

More importantly, what was yet to be typed on it?

She wrinkled her nose and scratched her chin as she stared at the blank page. She needed to write something short and true. Just a trial run. She searched every corner and crevice of her mind, hunting out something to type.

This machine deserved more than gibberish or random keystrokes. She wouldn't use it just for the sake of throwing letters against a page to see what stuck. That would be a terrible waste of whatever life was left in the black buttons. Even if she was just going to throw the sheet of paper away as soon as she tried it out.

An idea came, slowly at first. Then it cemented into place, and she could see the words on the backs of her eyelids.

The truth. The very real and simple truth as it had struck her that morning.

She held down the shift button, the pressure required to budge it much more than she'd imagined. Then she pressed the
I
key. Then the funny little space bar.

Halfway through the single sentence, her fingers were tired, and she longed for the easy keyboard of her laptop, which was probably collecting dust on her desk at her dad's house. Of course, her computer didn't punctuate each letter with a sharp crack that made the paper tremble.

When it was all said and done, she leaned back, ran her hands over her thighs, and smiled.

I wish I had gone to get ice cream.

Georgiana would have been so jealous. She'd have been proud too.

Marie reached for the knob to scroll the paper out of the machine, but stopped short at a ruckus coming from right above her. A crash was followed immediately by a deep groan and a dull thud.

She jumped to her feet and ran up the stairs in the direction of the noise. “What's wrong?” she called out, trying to decide which of the rooms the sound had come from. As she passed the open door to the bedroom she'd finished painting just a few days before, she spied Seth leaning against a wall, his chin hanging to his chest.

Skidding around the corner, she reached him with outstretched arms. She grabbed his elbow without a thought, spinning him in her direction. The screwdriver in his hands fell to the floor, the sharp note of the plastic handle against hardwood filling the room.

Seth squinted at her, the line of his mouth tight, and she felt the full force of his displeasure.

“What is it? What's going on?”

“Why don't you tell me?” He flicked his hand around the room, motioning to the walls.

As the midmorning sun illuminated the room through the window, she spun in a slow circle. Immediately the backs of her eyes burned and her stomach plummeted to her shoes.

Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't get anything past the lump in her throat.

It was all her fault. Her good day had been ruined. By her own hand.

T
he next evening Seth sat alone in the work shed, swiping sandpaper over a closet rod. A shower of dust fell to his feet, and he brushed it aside with his shoe. Checking the rod for any splinters that had managed to escape his thorough sanding, he spun it around and around. But all he could see in his mind's eye was Marie's lower lip quivering as her shoulders fell when she saw what had become of the bedroom walls.

After two long minutes of utter silence, she had apologized over and over again.

“I don't know what happened,” she said, her eyes glistening like she was about to cry. She ran her hands over the walls, the patches of mismatched color glaring in the sun's spotlight.

Just what he needed, a sobbing girl who was either the greatest actress in the world or not the sharpest tool in the shed.

And she wasn't stupid. The paint, clearly two different shades of green, had been applied with no rhyme or reason.
A patch of the lighter green made a three-foot-wide path across a section of the wall beside the window. Adjacent to the door was a four-foot square of the darker color, but the rest of the wall was the paler green, save for seven or eight circles. And the corners were a magnificent mess, each one a deeper shade than the adjoining walls.

The whole room would have to be repainted.

She was trying to either delay the opening, set them back a day, or waste Jack's money.

Mission accomplished. She had managed to do all three.

It just didn't make any sense. Jack had been nothing but kind to her. He was even paying her for her help.

And wasting money didn't make sense. If her aim was to swindle him, intentionally throwing away money was counterproductive. Unless she didn't care about the money. Unless it was more about keeping the inn from opening. Was she on a mission from another property owner to make sure Jack couldn't open the inn's doors in time to make the business profitable?

Seth laughed at his own ridiculous imaginings as he carried the closet rod out of the shed and pushed the padlock into place. The wind had died down, leaving the early night air crisp. His breath floated in white wisps toward the sky as he trotted across the backyard.

Marie wasn't a spy for the Secret Order of the PEI Bed-and-Breakfast Owners. She could barely make it from one day to another without a breakdown.

Whatever her motives, she wasn't undercover.

Underhanded? Perhaps.

He pulled up a stool in the mudroom, shed his coat, and laid newspaper on the floor. As he lifted the lid off a can of
white paint, Jack strolled into the cramped corner, leaning his shoulder against the wall.

“How's it going?” Jack wasn't very good at small talk. Never had been. And his discomfort traced every word he spoke.

“Fine. You?”

The older man grunted as he tore off a piece of one of the sweet rolls Marie had brought home the day before and shoved it in his mouth. “Picked up another can of paint today.”

“Uh-huh.” Seth dipped a paintbrush into his own can. “Bet that cost you a pretty penny.”

Jack grunted again before the rest of the roll disappeared into his mouth.

“What do you think happened?” He pushed his brush up and down the rod, giving it a quick coat. “She say anything else to you?”

“No. As soon as we got back from the paint store, she disappeared into her room.”

Seth's stomach twisted. It wasn't right to think of the basement apartment as Marie's room. If Jack started thinking like that, he'd have a hard time getting rid of her when the inn opened. Besides, that apartment had already been assigned to another member of their team.

Spinning the dowel again, he eyed his uncle. “What's she been doing in there all day?”

Jack held up his hands before licking his fingers, a slow smile growing from the sugar that had been left there. “Why would I know?”

“Well, you're the only one of us who's ever been married.”

Jack laughed like Seth had told the funniest joke in the world. “You think that makes me an expert on women?”

“Sure makes you more knowledgeable than me.”

Jack just shook his head and crossed his arms. “Boy, I don't have a clue. I only had a great marriage to your aunt Rose because she was the next best thing to a saint. And after forty years, you start to learn the other person's tells. Understanding women is half poker game—who's bluffing, who's holding a full house—and half prayer. There's just no other way around it.” He jerked his head in the general direction of Marie's room. “We've known her for a week. I don't have a clue what she's thinking.”

The man had a point. Despite his resolve to keep an eye on her, Seth hadn't spent all that much time with Marie. He'd counted on spending time with her at the auction, but if he was going to get more than two words out of her when they went to that, he had to lay a sturdy foundation.

Seth balanced the closet bar on one end and walked over to the utility sink next to the commercial-grade washing machine. He turned on the faucet and washed the paint out of the brush with a vigor that wasn't required. “Do you think she'd come up for some supper?”

“Depends who's making it.”

The two men shared a chuckle. “Sure wouldn't mind some more of Aretha's stew.”

“Right about that.” Jack's grin grew as his eyes rolled toward the ceiling.

Seth thumped the old man on the back with a matching grin. “You liked meeting Aretha?” It wasn't really a question. He already knew the answer because for the first time in his whole life, Seth had seen Jack speak more than three words to a woman his own age other than Rose.

“Sure I did. Nice woman. Good cook.”

“And . . .”

“And what?” Jack led the way into the kitchen and stuck his head into the fridge.

“Nothing. I'm just saying. It's nice to see you talking to someone other than me.”

Jack jerked up to look over the refrigerator door. “What's that supposed to mean?” He pulled out a white bowl, opening the lid and sniffing the contents.

“Just what I said.”

“You make this?” His uncle handed him the bowl, and Seth pulled off the lid. It was full of chunks of white meat, onion, and green celery coated with mayonnaise and flecked with black pepper. The chicken salad smelled fresh and tart, like it had a squirt of dill in it.

Seth shook his head. “Nope.”

“Marie?”

He set the bowl down and pulled two paper plates from the cabinet next to the sink. “If it wasn't you or me, who else would it have been? She must have made it last night after we went to bed. You don't think she'd try to poison us, do you?”

Jack's bushy brows lifted about an inch. “You? Maybe. Me? Never. We're safe.”

Seth chuckled as he lifted the lid of the bread box to find a fresh loaf of wheat bread. He spread two slices on each plate and heaped a pile of chicken salad onto them. Handing Jack a sandwich, he squished his bread together and shoved a third of it into his mouth.

It wasn't fancy, but it sure tasted good after a long day of work. Celery crunched between bites of tender chicken, and he sighed as he leaned against the counter, crossing one leg over the other.

He popped an escaped cube of white meat into his mouth and licked his fingers before Jack was even halfway done.

“This would be pretty tasty with some of Aretha's potato stew.”

If Jack was going to leave the door open like that again, then the least Seth could do was walk through it. “Speaking of single women, you ever think about getting remarried?”

“No.” Jack chomped down on another bite of his sandwich.

“Not ever?”

“No.”

Seth nodded and crossed his arms. “You're still pretty young. It might be nice to have a wife to help you run this place.”

The older man's slumped shoulders wrenched to attention, his pale blue eyes flashing with something Seth hadn't seen in a while. Seth clenched his teeth while Jack deliberately finished chewing his food and swallowed.

“This is Rose's Red Door Inn.”

Jack, usually all things good humor, tossed his plate in the recycle bin and stalked out of the room without another word.

All right. Clearly there were still some things off-limits. And suggesting that Jack consider bringing another woman into the Red Door was at the top of the list.

He snagged an orange out of a bag next to the bread box and peeled it before wandering into the dining room. He flicked on the lights to admire the even coat of slate blue that gleamed its perfection below the crown molding. It looked good. And it would look even better with a matching white chair rail all the way around the room.

He made a mental note to ask Marie about it.

He strolled from room to room on the first floor, past Jack's closed door and into the antique room. At least that was what he'd been calling it since they'd begun storing Marie's collection there.

The walls still needed paint, but he flipped the switch to illuminate her purchases, his gaze immediately drawn to the typewriter in the corner. A sheet of white paper had been threaded around the roller and left in place.

Had Aretha been right? Did the old machine actually work?

He squatted in front of it, only then seeing the single typed line.

I wish I had gone to get ice cream.

His stomach lurched. Marie had written this.

He glanced over his shoulder, suddenly expecting her to be staring at him, either angry that he was reading her personal thoughts or upset that it had taken him more than a minute to find her message.

The question remained. Was he supposed to find this? Or was it her secret?

More importantly, was it true?

He ran a hand over his face, the calluses catching on at least three-day-old stubble. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Nothing.

The answer rang so clearly, he thought the word had been spoken aloud. But he was still alone in the room. Alone with Marie's regret.

His gut squeezed, realization jolting to his fingertips.

Marie's regret was his regret too. He wished she'd gone
with him. And not just so he could grill her about her past and her plans and the real reason she'd come to North Rustico. He wished he'd been the first one to introduce her to the boardwalk. He wished he could have seen that light in her eyes—the one she'd had when she got back from her run the morning before—when she first saw the white gazebo, old-time lampposts, and sprawling beach.

He wished he'd been kinder to her. He didn't know her motives for sure. And if Jack was right and she had nowhere else to go, he'd kick himself from here to eternity.

He still didn't have an explanation for the second-floor room with the disaster of a paint job, but maybe that would come. If he lowered his own defenses. If he tried to be kind.

If she turned out to be a snake like Reece, well then, he'd still be right there to stand between her and Jack when she struck.

Pushing to his feet, he turned his back on Marie's letter. Better to preserve their tense truce than cross a line by letting her know he'd seen it.

He walked to the door, flipped the light off, and was halfway down the hall when an unseen hook jerked him back. He marched to the typewriter and stared at the chipped keys. After several deep breaths, he scrolled the paper up until he had a clear line.

He popped the last slice of his orange into his mouth and licked the juice dribbling down his fingers before contemplating his message. He couldn't count on a delete button or Wite-Out if he mistyped. There was no spell-check and no fixing typos on this sheet, so he weighed each word with care. Finally, he punched in the first letter.

A single keystroke sounded like a gunshot that bounced
off the leather books and nautical devices stacked beside him. He jumped, but pressed the next letter and the next until he had left his message for her.

I wish you had too. Next time?

S

Satisfied with his message, he hopped to his feet and hurried toward the door.

She probably wouldn't see it anyway. But the rock in the bottom of his stomach suggested otherwise. Either she'd appreciate it or she'd think he was an idiot.

She might not be wrong.

Strolling back through the house, he shut off the downstairs lights and picked up his closet rod. He checked it with tentative taps. Dry enough.

Halfway up the back stairwell, a cold breeze whistled down the hall, sending a shiver across his shoulders. Someone had probably left a window open. He turned the corner at the top of the stairs to find not only an open window but also a wide-open door and the sharp odor of fresh paint.

He poked his head into the disaster room, where the light of the single fixture in the center of the ceiling illuminated Marie, roller in hand. Her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and head cocked to the side, she wiped her forehead in a familiar motion.

Adding paint to her roller, she leaned to the side, revealing a streak of green down the leg of her jeans.

She kept working for several more minutes without any indication that she'd noticed his arrival. Finally he cleared
his throat. Her shoulders jumped, and the steady sweep of paint hitched then resumed.

“What do you want, Seth?”

He held out the pole in his hand before realizing that she couldn't see it. “I came to put the closet rod back in. What are you doing?”

“What's it look like?” Her words were clipped, each one a barrier against whatever reaction she expected from him.

He swallowed the impulse to respond in kind. After all, he deserved that response. If not worse. Taking a steadying breath and praying for kind words—or at least benign ones—he let the night wind carry her question away. “Looks like you could use a hand.”

“You don't have to. It was my mistake. I should have mixed them . . . I should have seen that they didn't . . . It doesn't matter. I'll fix it.”