Crazy in Love (26 page)

“Go on,” he said.

“
Right. See, Dad, here’s the thing. I love this place.” She smiled as she said the words, and her face reddened. “I mean, I know I was only there for five days, but there was this rose garden… and the people there were…”

He watched as his daughter took a deep breath, steele
d herself, and met his eye, all with an effort and resolve he’d never witnessed in her before. She had changed, was confident and in charge of herself where before she’d been like a little girl in her mother’s shoes. Richard felt a shock of surprise as he realized that his little girl was a grown woman now.

When had that happened?

She stood before him, her posture straight as she met his eye. “I
love
this place, Dad. And I know that it seems rash to base huge decisions like where I’m going to live and work on five days of experience, but… well, hell. People have made crazier decisions based on less than what I feel for this place and sometimes it turns out okay. Sometimes, you can’t rationalize why something is right. Sometimes, you just know it, you know it in your gut and your bones that this…” She held her hand out, gesturing toward the proposal on the desk.
“
This
is it, Dad. I can’t explain why, but I just know. And if you give me this chance and it turns out not to be what I think it is, then what have you lost, really? You’re going to have to invest in it anyway to get the full market value. If it doesn’t work, I’ll clean up my mess and move on, but if I don’t do this now I will never know for sure if I was right. And I really think I’m right about this.”

Richard picked up the proposal and stared at the picture of the Goodhouse Arms on the cover, then dropped it back on the desk.

“Flynn,” he said, “I appreciate your passion. I really do. But when you’re talking to a business person about a business decision, it can’t all be passion. There need to be numbers, and projections, and I’m sorry, but some of these ideas you have for side businesses don’t make sense to me. You have to understand, when you’re talking about business, you have to—”

Flynn leaned over and slammed both hands down on the edge of his desk.
“I don’t know how to do that. And I can’t learn in the next fifteen seconds. All I can say is that I deserve this chance, and I can make it work.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and Richard dropped his focus back to the proposal.

“I’ve already decided,” she went on, “that if you say no, then I’ll consider it Fate’s answer. I’ll accept that I’m just wrong about this, and I’ll go work for you, and I will do the best job I know how. So, Dad, no pressure, but you’re speaking for Fate. Please be very careful about your answer. Fate’s a bitch when she’s pissed off.”

He nodded, his focus stil
l on the proposal. He remembered a time when Flynn’s mother had made a similarly passionate and irrational plea to open her own dance studio. Richard had given in then, because he’d never been able to say no to Veronica, and it had worked. There had been no guarantees, but it had worked, and Veronica had been happy.

And that had been worth a lot.

He took a long moment to think, then tapped his fingers down on the proposal, still keeping his eyes on the picture.

“
I want you out here at least once a month to deliver a full report on what’s going on. We’ll review your progress with the property in six months and I make no promises about what decision I’ll make at that time.”

He pushed up from his chair, and before he was able to bring himself to look at his daughter, she had bounced into his arms.

“Daddy, thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said. “I swear, it’s gonna be great. I just know it.”

Richard returned the hug as best he could, and then cleared his throat as he stepped back.
“I expect you to call if you have any questions, even if you think they’re stupid. This is a lot of responsibility even for someone with commensurate experience, Flynn. It’s not going to be easy.”

Flynn smiled.
“I’m up to it.”

She turned and practically danced out of his office, and Richard stood staring at the door for a long time after she
’d vacated.

She reminded him so much of her mother.

Someday, he’d have to tell her that.

Fifteen

Flynn pushed her way into the lobby, barely able to stop herself from giggling as she did.

“
Hello,” a voice called from the front desk. “Welcome to the Goodhouse Arms.”

Flynn blinked. A tall brunette in a neat blue suit extended her hand from behind the front desk and smiled warmly down at Flynn.

“My name is Cherise. How may I help you?”

Flynn took her hand.

“Flynn Daly,” she said. “Is my sister…?”

“
Oh, yes.” Cherise hit a button on the phone, and after a short pause, said, “Ms. Daly? Ms. Daly is here to see you.”

Cherise grinned and nodded to Flynn.
“You can go on in. But I just wanted to say how nice it is to meet you. I look forward to working with you.”

“
Um, me, too,” Flynn said, then took the corner
around the front desk and opened the office door, carefully shutting it behind her.

“
Where did you find her?” Flynn asked.

Freya kept her eyes on the laptop she was working on, but took the pencil out of her mouth so she could speak.
“I headhunted her from The Boston Harbor Hotel. She’s brilliant, knows everything there is to know about running a hospitality business. She’s costing us an arm and a leg, but she’s worth every damn penny. Plus, bonus, not perky.”

“
Yeah, she’s perfect,” Flynn settled into the guest chair. “So, go ahead. Tell me. How cool am I?”

Freya looked up at Flynn, her eyes smiling.
“Very cool. I still can’t believe you got all that past him. You pulled out the pouty face, didn’t you?”

“
No. I presented a lot of really good ideas, and he’s even going to let me do some of them. Like the catering business, and the wedding planning, and the private investigations business.”

Freya
’s mouth dropped open. “Bullshit.”

“
I’m so serious. Tucker used to be a cop, and he was really good with all that stuff with Gordon Chase. So, I thought, you know, if we use these offices and Tucker agrees to stay on as a bartender and just do the P.I. stuff on contract, there’s no additional overhead, and Dad said yes!”

“
Did you just say ‘no additional overhead’?” Freya asked, wiping away a fake tear, then grinning. “My baby’s all growed up.”

“
Yeah, well, keep it to yourself. I haven’t told Tucker yet. I haven’t
seen
Tucker yet. I... um… have you seen him?”

Freya stared at her.
“All this for a man, and you haven’t even called him to tell him you’re coming back?”

Flynn straightened up, pulling on her blazer.
“I didn’t do it for him. I really like it here.” She paused. “And we’re just friends, anyway.”

Freya chuckled.
“Yeah. Right.”

Flynn sighed in exasperation.
“Well? Have you seen him?”

Freya shut the laptop cover.
“No. Not since we dropped you off at the train station.”

“
Oh. Okay. Well.” Flynn sat down in the office chair across from her sister. “So, everything okay here?”

“
Now’s not the time.” Freya shut the laptop. “Your sweet little Annabelle screwed this place but good, but I think it’ll recover. I emailed you all the reports. You can deal with it tomorrow.”

“
Good.” Flynn wrung her hands in her lap. “So… do you think I should call him? I mean, you know, I have to offer him his job back and everything, so I should call him, right?”

Freya tucked the laptop in its case.
“If you don’t, I’ll be forced to kill you.”

Flynn grinned.
“Okay.”

Freya leaned forward as if to push up from the desk, but then she sighed and sat back again.
“I had a panic attack,” she said.

Flynn went quiet, not sure what to say. Freya focused hard on the tissue box on the far
corner of the desk.

“
I thought it was a heart attack, but they said I was fine. Except, you know, in the head.” She gave a weak laugh, but her smile faded quickly. “I didn’t want to call Dad because I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t handle things,
and I didn’t want to call you because it was the middle of the night and the idea of you coming out from Southie just made it all worse.” She paused, her eyes looking tired. “And there was no one else to call because I work twenty-four-seven like I’m trying to prove something, only I don’t know what I’m trying to prove, you know?”

“
I’m so sorry,” Flynn said. “I didn’t know. I mean, you always seem—”

“
I know,” Freya said quickly. “That’s my problem.” She sighed heavily, then pushed up from her seat and slung the laptop bag over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I lied to you about Dad.”

Flynn got up and pulled her sister into a hug.
“It’s okay. I don’t care.”

Freya hugged her back, then sniffed and released her.
“Okay, enough of this crap. Go get your bartender, before you both make me crazy.” She rolled her eyes. “Crazier.”

Flynn laughed, and a horn honked outside.

“There’s my cab.” Freya stayed where she was, staring at Flynn for a long moment, then said, “Well, don’t fuck it up.”

Flynn smiled.
“Love you, too.”

Freya huffed, then leaned in and kissed Flynn on the cheek before making a hasty exit. Flynn watched her sister leave, then shut the door to the office.
Her
office. But it would wait. First she wanted to get to the cottage and freshen up. And then …

Tucker.

Her heart leapt at the thought of seeing him again, and she grabbed her bag and hurried out the French doors and across the courtyard to her cottage. When she saw the figure standing on the porch, she thought at first it was
Tucker waiting for her, but when he turned around and hit her in the face with a
tink
ing smile, her disappointment came with a side of cranky.

“
What are you doing here?” she said as she turned the knob on the door.

“
Oddly enough, looking for you.”

“
How did you know I’d be here?”

“
I called your father this morning. I would have picked you up at the train station, but I thought that would be presumptuous. Can I talk with you for a moment?”

Flynn pushed the door open and stepped inside, hurling her bag in and reaching to flick on the light.

“Say what you have to say fast and get out, Gordon,” Flynn said. “I have things to do.”

“
Oh, what I have to say will be worth it,” he said. “Trust me.”

***

“What the hell is going on, Mercy?” Jake asked as his sister dragged him through the back hallway between the kitchen and the bar. “It’s two in the morning. If it’s fucking radishes, I swear, I’ll kill you.”

“
It’s not radishes,” she said. “It’s better than radishes.”

“
Wow. Better than radishes. That really narrows it—” They pushed through the door into the bar and he stopped talking. The jukebox was playing, but the bar was empty, except for one table set up in the middle of the room with food and candles.

And Flynn.

Mercy giggled next to him.

“
Now, don’t you two worry about a thing,” she said. “Just enjoy your meal and my staff will come in and clean it all out in the morning. Just relax. And have fun.”

She scurried over to hug Flynn quickly, and then planted a kiss on his cheek on her way out.

“Don’t screw it up,” she whispered into his ear, then gave
him
a light slap on the shoulder to accentuate her point before leaving.

Jake tucked his hands in his pockets and smiled.
“Hey, there,” he said.

“
Hi.” She stepped out from behind the table and took a few steps toward him, the waves in her hair dancing in the candlelight. “I hope this is okay. I mean, I hope it isn’t too much. I know it’s late, but this was Mercy’s idea, and once she gets going on something, it’s kind of hard to stop her. I mean, I wanted to ask you to dinner, but she thought this would be…” She gave a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. If you want to go home and go back to bed, I’ll totally—”

He shook his head.
“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

She went quiet and their eyes met and locked. He reached out and took her hand, examining her fingers, so light and delicate.

And right here with him.

“
When did you get back?” he asked.

“
This afternoon,” she said. “I would have called, but—”

“
I wish you had,” he said, too worn-out from the last few days to not be honest. “I’ve been a fucking wreck.”

Her face brightened.
“Oh, you have? Me, too. I mean, I couldn’t sleep, I—”

He pulled her to him and kissed her, his hands reaching up to touch her face, her hair, to know that she was really here, really back. The how and why of it could wait. He
needed to feel her right now, and based on her response, she needed the same thing.

Thank God.

“I’m sorry,” he said when he finally pulled back to catch his breath. “I interrupted you. You were saying?”

“
I talk too much anyway,” she said, pulling him in for another kiss. She smelled of vanilla and tasted like raspberries and in all his life, he’d never experienced anything this good. Now all he had to do was not screw it up.

How hard could that be?

“The music stopped,” he said after a while. She pulled back, her eyes heavy-lidded.

“
I only had two quarters,” she said.

He smiled and touched her face.
“Wait here a minute.” He walked over to the jukebox, emptied his pockets, and made his choice, then walked back to her as the light piano tones of Sam Cooke’s “Nothing Can Change This Love” filled the room.

“
Oh,” she said, clasping her hands to her chest. “I love this song.”

“
Can’t go wrong with Sam,” he said, taking her hand in his and bringing her fingers up to his lips for a quick kiss. “Can I have this dance?”

She nodded. He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“I was thinking about coming up to Boston,” he said as they swayed together to the music. “I had this grand vision that I would go up there and say something or do something to make you come back. But I couldn’t think of anything good enough, so I sat home, drank beer, and listened to Willie Nelson.”

“
Ohhh,” she said, smiling up at him. “That’s so sad.”

“
You have no idea,” he said. “I was this close to getting a dog, buying a pickup truck, and growing my hair out into a mullet. You saved me from a terrible fate.”

She reached up and touched his hair.
“You’d look good in a mullet.”

“
I appreciate that, but no one looks good in a mullet.”

“
You would,” she said, then laughed. “Sorry. I’m just... I’m really glad to see you. I missed you, even though, you know, I know that’s ridiculous because how can you miss someone you’ve only known for—”

He put his fingers under her chin and forced her to look him in the eye.
“I missed you, too.”

She smiled.
“Good.”

They danced in silence to the rest of the song, looking into each other
’s eyes and smiling like a couple of giddy teenagers. Jake didn’t care. He’d be a stupid giddy teenager for this woman, and consider it a damn bargain. The song ended, and they stopped moving.

“
Are you hungry?” she asked after a moment. “I know it’s the middle of the night, but there’s wine. And pumpkin risotto, of course. I think Mercy cooked up some quail. She went to a lot of trouble.”

“
Let’s go.” He took her hand and guided her to the table, pulling her chair out for her before picking up the wine and filling their glasses.

“
So, I have to tell you what happened,” she said, picking up her glass.

“
I was hoping you would.” He sat down, enjoying the sight of her happy face, practically glowing in the candlelight.

God, she was beautiful.

“I have plans for this place. And some things I’d like to ask you about. I did this whole big proposal for my dad and he thought they were good ideas. He’s given me a budget for a new bookkeeping and reservations system—”

“
Oh,” Jake said sadly. “No more trained monkeys?”

Flynn grinned.
“Anyway, we’ll get a website, have an online reservations system, a full-time desk staff, all that jazz. But that’s the boring stuff. I had these ideas, you know, for side businesses to fill out the bottom line.”