Ah. Her lying little chickens were now coming home to roost. Laura fought the urge to bang her head on the old pine kitchen table a few dozen times.
Ten years ago, she had worked so hard to convince everyone involved that nobody’s heart had been shattered by the implosion of their engagement. To her parents, she had put on a bright, happy face and pretended to be excited about the adventures awaiting her, knowing how crushed they would have been if they caught even a tiny glimmer of the truth—that inside her heart felt like a vast, empty wasteland.
How could she blame her mother for not seeing through her carefully constructed act to the stark and painful reality, especially when only a few years later, Laura was married to someone else and expecting Jan’s first grandchild? It was unfair to be hurt, to wish Jan had somehow glimpsed the depth of her hidden heartache.
This, then, was her own fault. Well, hers and a certain opportunistic male who had always been very good at charming her mother—and every other female within a dozen miles of Pine Gulch.
“Okay, the carpentry work. I get that. Yes, we certainly need the help and Taft is very good with his hands.” She refused to remember just how good those hands could be. “But did you have to offer him a room?”
Jan shrugged, adding a lemony sauce to the chicken that instantly started to burble, filling the kitchen with a delicious aroma. “That was his idea.”
Oh, Laura was quite sure it was Taft’s idea. The bigger question was why? What possible reason could he have for this sudden wish to stay at the inn? By the stunned look he had worn when he spotted her at the fire scene, she would have assumed he wanted to stay as far away from her as possible.
He had to find this whole situation as awkward and, yes, painful as she did.
Maybe it was all some twisted revenge plot. She had spurned him after all. Maybe he wanted to somehow punish her all these years later with shoddy carpentry work that would end up costing an arm and a leg to repair….
She sighed at her own ridiculous imaginings. Taft didn’t work that way. Whatever his motive for making this arrangement with her mother, she had no doubt he would put his best effort into the job.
“Apparently his lease was up on the apartment where he’s been living,” Jan went on. “He’s building a house in Cold Creek Canyon—which I’ve heard is perfectly lovely, by the way—but it won’t be finished for a few more weeks. Think of how much you can save on paying for a carpenter, all in exchange only for letting him stay in a room that was likely to be empty anyway, the way our vacancy rate will be during the shoulder season until the summer tourist activity heats up. I honestly thought you would be happy about this. When Taft suggested it, the whole thing seemed like a good solution all the way around.”
A good solution for everyone except her! How would she survive having him underfoot all the time, smiling at her out of those green eyes she had once adored so much, talking to her out of that delicious mouth she had tasted so many times?
She gave a tiny sigh and her mother sent her a careful look. “I can still tell him no. He was planning on bringing some of his things over in the morning, but I’ll just give him a ring and tell him never mind. We can find someone else, honey, if having Taft here will make you too uncomfortable.”
Her mother was completely sincere, she knew. Jan would call him in immediately if she had any idea how much Laura had grieved for the dreams they had once spun together.
For an instant, she was tempted to have her mother do exactly that, call and tell him the deal was off.
How could she, though? She knew just what Taft would think. He would guess, quite accurately, that she was the one who didn’t want him here and would know she had dissuaded her mother from the plan.
Her shoulder blades itched at the thought. She didn’t want him thinking she was uncomfortable having him around. Better that he continue to believe she was completely indifferent to the ramifications of being back in Pine Gulch with him.
She had done her very best to strike the proper tone the day of the fire, polite but cool, as if they were distant acquaintances instead of once having shared everything.
If she told her mother she didn’t want to have Taft here, he would know her demeanor was all an act.
She was trapped. Well and truly trussed, just like one of the calves he used to rope in the high-school rodeo. It was a helpless, miserable feeling, one that felt all too familiar. She had lived with it every day of the past seven years, since her marriage to Javier Santiago. But unlike those calves in the rodeo ring, she had wandered willingly into the ropes that bound her to a man she didn’t love.
Well, she hadn’t been completely willing, she supposed. From the beginning she had known marrying him was a mistake and had tried every way she could think short of jilting him also to escape the ties binding them together. But unlike with Taft, this time she’d had a third life to consider. She had been four months pregnant with Alexandro. Javier—strangely old-fashioned about this, at least—wouldn’t consider any other option but marriage.
She had tried hard to convince herself she was in love with him. He was handsome and seductively charming and made her laugh with his extravagant pursuit of her, which had been the reason she had finally given in and begun to date him while she was working at the small, exclusive boutique hotel he owned in Madrid.
She had tried to be a good wife and had worked hard to convince herself she loved him, but it hadn’t been enough. Not for him and not for her—but by then she had been thoroughly entangled in the piggin’ rope, so to speak, by Alex and then by Maya, her sweet-natured and vulnerable daughter.
This, though, with Taft. She couldn’t control what her mother had done, but she could certainly control her own response to it. She wouldn’t allow herself to care if the man had suddenly invaded every inch of her personal space by moving into the hotel. It was only temporary and then he would be out of her life again.
“Do you want me to call him?” her mother asked again.
She forced herself to smile. “Not at all, Mama. I’m sorry. I was just … surprised, that’s all. Everything should be fine. You’re right—it’s probably a great idea. Free labor is always a good thing, and like you said, the only thing we’re giving up is a room that probably wouldn’t have been booked anyway.”
Maya wandered into the kitchen, apparently tired of playing, and gave her mother one of those generous hugs Laura had come to depend upon like oxygen and water. “Hungry, Mama.”
“Gram is fixing us something delicious for dinner. Aren’t we lucky to have her?”
Maya nodded with a broad smile to her grandmother. “Love you, Gram.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.” Jan beamed back at her.
This—her daughter and Alex—was more important than her discomfort about Taft. She was trying her best to turn the hotel into something that could actually turn a profit instead of just provide a subsistence for her mother and now her and her children.
She had her chance to live her lifelong dream now and make the Cold Creek Inn into the warm and gracious facility she had always imagined, a place where families could feel comfortable to gather, where couples could find or rekindle romance, where the occasional business traveler could find a home away from home.
This was her moment to seize control of her life and make a new future for herself and her children. She couldn’t let Taft ruin that for her.
All she had to do was remind herself that she hadn’t loved him for ten years and she should be able to handle his presence here at the inn with calm aplomb.
No big deal whatsoever. Right?
If some part of him had hoped Laura might fall all over him with gratitude