“I am,” she admitted belatedly. “Surprised you’re here, I mean.” The Lucius grapevine must have had a temporary power outage.
“Should I have gone elsewhere? You’re the one who suggested it.”
She had, in a minor fit of madness even though she’d never believed he would take her up on it. “The Lucius Inn might be more to your liking. They have room service, and satellite television and—”
“Now you’re making me feel unwelcome.”
“No!” Dismayed, her fingers crumpled the canvas bag she’d been unpacking. “I didn’t mean that at all. Of course you’re welcome here. It’s the least I can do. But, I just—”
“Hadley.”
“What?”
He set his mug down and leaned his arms on the
counter until his face was only a foot from hers. “I was kidding.”
She could see those small scars near his eye again. “Oh. Right.”
His mouth kicked up a little on one side and after a moment he straightened again, picking up the mug. “Got a lot of stuff there. Thought you were helping out your dad at his church this morning.”
She swallowed and diligently focused again on unpacking her purchases. “I was. I did. Then I went shopping.” Nothing like stating the obvious, Hadley. Her face felt hot. “I have another guest coming in this afternoon. She actually made the reservation a few weeks ago, which is pretty unusual for me. So I wanted to make it particularly special for her.”
Wood lifted a tissue-wrapped bundle of wild flowers from the smallest bag. “Nice.” He tipped the bundle toward his nose, smelling them. “You buy flowers for all your guests?”
Feeling like the biggest ninny on the planet, she cautiously slipped them out of his hand. “Not for the regulars.” If she were one of her characters that she wrote about, she’d have flirted outrageously with the man and had him falling over himself to win her heart.
Instead she retrieved a crystal vase from the breakfront and filled it with water, wishing that she could control the heat that filled her cheeks whenever she glanced his way.
He had to move out of her way for her to reach the sink, which he did, but not enough, and standing so near to him made her breath feel woefully short.
“Tiff’s used to really be a bed and breakfast, but since I’ve taken over we’ve become more of a boardinghouse.” She turned off the water and reached for the flowers again.
“Who ran it before you?”
“My mother, Holly.”
His eyebrows rose. “Holly. Golightly.”
His surprise was toned down more than the usual disbelief she’d heard most of her life and she found herself smiling a little. “I know. And, yes, her favorite movie was Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Audrey Hepburn. Mom wasn’t anything like the character Holly Golightly, though. Well, other than being a survivor.” She arranged the flowers and stepped back to study them.
“Pretty,” he murmured.
She nodded, her eyes still on the flowers.
“What happened to her?”
Hadley sighed a little. “She died when I was twenty. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
Funnily enough, she had the sense the words weren’t merely a platitude. She looked up at him and he wasn’t looking at the flowers, at all. “We all were.” And even though there were days she missed her mother with a physical ache, she’d lived through the worst of her grief and could think about her without wanting to dissolve.
She set the flowers safely to one side and returned to unpacking the rest of her purchases. Any minute he’d probably get bored and leave the room. “What about your parents?” she asked quickly, before she lost her nerve.
“Divorced a long time ago.”
She paused, caught by something in his expression that she couldn’t have defined had she tried. “That must have been hard,” she said quietly.
His gaze didn’t waver. “Be glad you never had to live through your own parents going to war.”
Hadley’s fingers tightened around a fresh tomato. She set it down before she punctured the skin. The war between her mother and natural father had gone on before she’d been born. Beau Golightly was her stepfather. “So.” She took a cheerful note. “What’s the word on your car?”
“Your brother is working up the estimate.”
“He’ll be fair. And not just in deference to my insurance rates that are undoubtedly going to go up again.”
“Again?”
She shrugged and smiled ruefully. What was the point in being offended over the simple truth? She folded the emptied canvas bags and stacked them beneath the sink. “We both know I’m not going to win any driving awards.” She straightened and brushed her hands down her slacks.
Maybe if she focused on the business at hand, she would prove she wasn’t inept in that area, at least. “We need to get you settled in a room, then. Can’t have you just hovering around the downstairs rooms with no place of your own.”
Joanie Adams padded into the kitchen, the ever-present cereal bowl in her young hand. “No sweat,
Had,” she said, obviously overhearing Hadley’s comment. “I told him to go up to the tower room. He’s the one you were expecting, right?”
Hadley’s smile wilted a little. Joanie had her heart in the right place. “Actually, he isn’t.”
Joanie’s sweet face fell. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
Hadley waved her hands. “Don’t be silly. I should have been here when Mr. Tolliver arrived. It’ll all be fine.”
“I’m not choosy,” Wood murmured. “As long as there’s a bed.”
But Joanie still looked troubled. Fat tears filled her blue eyes. “I was only trying to help.”
Hadley tucked her arm through Joanie’s, leading her from the kitchen. She knew from experience that once Joanie started the waterworks, it only got worse from there. “I know you were,” she soothed. “Truly, Joanie. It’s fine. No harm done.” She snuck an apologetic look over her shoulder at Wood as she herded Joanie back to her room. If he thought Joanie’s reaction extreme, it didn’t show on his face.
The man was proving to have the patience of Job.
The only other person she knew personally with that kind of patience was her stepfather, Beau.
By the time Hadley had opened a fresh box of tissues and Joanie’s wailing had ceased, Hadley wanted nothing more than to sit down with a good book and put up her feet. But lunch needed to be prepared, and she had to move Wood out of the tower and into the only other room she had prepared for guests.
Mrs. Ardelle was banging away on the piano keys, and Hadley stuck her head in the parlor, meaning to yell hello over the notes.
Wood sat on the bench beside the white-haired woman, holding the pages of the sheet music in place.
Hadley hovered, unnoticed in the doorway until Mrs. Ardelle finished with a flourish and dimpled at Wood. “Do you play?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Badly. Blame six years of enforced lessons. No—” he waved Mrs. Ardelle back in place on the bench when she made to move so he could take her spot “—you keep playing. My ego would roll over and die if I made an attempt at it.”
Mrs. Ardelle