Crazy in Love (6 page)

“
Here’s the thing,” he said, leaning closer to her, creating an air of intimacy between them. “This place, it’s a great place. With great people. There’s history here. Did you know that George Washington actually slept here?”

“
How do you know he’s not
still
sleeping here?” she muttered, and took another drink.

“
Well…” Jake chuckled, hoping she was kidding. “Because he’s dead. But I find the dead to be a really depressing topic. Hey, let’s talk money.”

“
Or, hey, let’s not.”

“
We don’t make much here.”

She raised a brow at him.
“
That’s
your hard sell?”

“
Esther liked to pay her people well, and that ate into the profit margin a bit. But you see, this place is about more than profits.”

“
More than profits?”

“
More than profits. It’s about history. And legacy. And the Goodhouse name, which may not mean much to you because you don’t carry it, but it’s still in your blood.”

He waited, not speaking again until she smiled, which, he was glad to note, didn
’t take too long.

Hell. This might just work.

“Flynn, it’s a great place. And we do a decent business. Esther got along just fine. So can you. Why don’t you just give it a try? Stay for, say, a year. Run the place. If it doesn’t work, you can always sell then.”

She bolted upright.
“A year? Are you kidding? I’m not staying the night.”

Wow. He
really
sucked at this.

She looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged and downed the rest of the drink.

“It’s been a long day,” she said, sliding the glass to him to refill. “I should be sleeping right now, but I can’t because, as it turns out, I’ve got a roommate.”

Jake felt a bristle at the idea, but covered with a laugh.
“Well. That was quick.”

She blinked.
“What?” Her eyes widened, and then she smacked at his arm. “Oh, God. No. Who could I possibly have seduced between now and when you dropped me off this afternoon?”

“
I’d believe it,” Jake said. Flynn met his eye.

“
You say that like it’s a compliment.”

“
It was.”

Flynn opened her mouth, then closed it, then waved her hand in the air.
“Okay. Whatever. Anyway. I was talking about Esther. Esther’s my roommate.”

“
Mmmmm, don’t think so,” he said, smiling lightly. “We may not be up on all the latest things here in Shiny, but we have hopped on the bury-the-dead bandwagon.”

“
I don’t mean her
body.
A body I can deal with. I’m talking about her”—she waved her hands around in the
air, as if trying to conjure the word—
“
spirit.
”
She downed another gulp of her drink, then shook her head. “I think she moved the cows.”

Jake gently pulled the glass from Flynn
’s fingers. “Maybe we’re done with this.”

She whipped her eyes up to his and then narrowed them dangerously. Jake drew back in a self-protective instinct.

“Look,” she said, her voice low and serious, “let’s get a few things straight here. I’m not some ditzy, spoiled Daddy’s girl who can’t think for herself or put in a hard day’s work. And I’m not crazy, either. I dreamed about Aunt Esther, and okay,
fine,
maybe she didn’t move the cows, but it creeped me out, and that’s a completely sane response. Now, I’m here to do a job, and I’m gonna do it, and that’s that. So don’t charm me, don’t condescend to me, and if you value your hand—”

In a flash, she snatched her glass back; Jake was impressed that she did it without spilling a drop.

“—do not
ever
take my drink away again, okay?” Their eyes connected, and Jake felt everything go still. Flynn Daly was just plain odd. Alternately combative and congenial, pretty and prickly. She had this weird effect of shifting gravity when she walked in a room, making him feel perpetually off balance in her presence, and there was something about her that occasionally snuck up and dope-slapped him in the back of the head.

He liked her, much more than he thought he would. Not enough to stop him from using her to get to Gordon
Chase…

She raised her eyes to his, and a suspicious look flashed through them.

“What?” She swiped at her face. “Do I have something on my nose?”

Jake smiled and jerked his chin up toward the clock.
“It’s closing time. One
a.m.”

“
I don’t think so. I own the place.” She took a swig from her dr
ink
and set it down on the bar. “From now on, we’re open until I’m done drinking.”

“
Fine,” he said. “But you’ll have to take that up with the town board. They make the rules, and right now, we’re in violation of the law.”

Her eyes met his, and behind her tough expression, he could see the vulnerability there. She was scared. Somehow, though he didn
’t think it was possible, that made him like her even more.

He smiled and nudged the glass toward her with his finger.
“Take it with you. It’s your glass now anyway.”

“
Great. Can I get a room, too?”

“
I don’t
kn
ow. The desk is closed.”

“
The desk is closed? This is a
hotel.
What if someone needs something? Like, to get a room?”

Jake shrugged.
“I don’t know what to tell you. The desk closes at six. And I don’t know which rooms are available. Annabelle has this… system. It’s weird. It involves tarot cards and an abacus and a trained monkey—”

“
She has a
system
? What, you don’t have computers?”

Jake grinned, amused that she took the joke
literally. “Yeah, we have computers. But it’s this weird program Annabelle’s, like, uncle or cousin or something wrote. It’s linked with the bookkeeping, and the last time I tried to reserve a room for someone, twelve thousand dollars went missing from the books and it was kinda bloody.
Annabelle put a password on it and she’s the only one who can get in.”

Flynn stared at him.
“We’ve got one person doing reservations for this entire inn?”

“
The inn is historic, but not typically overbooked. Winters, we don’t even use the west wing. Most of the money comes from the bar and restaurant, which are top quality, highly rated, and well worth keeping to the lucky person who inherits them.”

She didn
’t look impressed. “So that’s a long way of saying…?”

“
Yes. We’ve got one person handling reservations for the entire inn.”

“
Great.” Flynn downed the last of her drink and pushed off her bar stool. “Fine. Okay. Whatever. I’m an adult. There’s no reason I can’t go back to the cottage and just deal with my dead roommate.” She looked at him, tucked a strand of wild caramel hair behind her ear. “It
was
just a dream, right?”

He couldn
’t help but smile. For some reason, the weirder she got, the more he liked her. “Yeah. It was just a dream.”

She took a step toward the door, then turned around, nibbling on the edge of her lip.
“What if she starts talking to me again?”

“
Talk back?”

“
Oh, right. What would I say? ‘Bummer you’re dead, I hear the white light rocks, go find it’?”

“
I don’t know,” he said, holding her gaze. “You could start with the ditzy Daddy’s-girl thing. It’s effective material.”

Flynn cocked her head to the side, as if deciding how to take that, then finally allowed a small smile.

Jake smiled back. “Give me ten minutes to close up here and I’ll walk you back.”

“
Oh, thank you.” She released her breath and her shoulders slumped in relief as she sat back on the bar stool. Jake chuckled and tossed the bar rag into the bucket of bleach water by his feet. This was working out better than he’d ever thought.

He was going to have to be careful around that smile, though. It knocked him over every time.

Four

F
lynn rubbed the towel over her wet hair and took a deep breath of the sweet morning air coming in through the window. The bedroom, not half as creepy now as it had been last night, was aglow in the tree-filtered rays of the autumn sun, and Flynn felt much more confident than she had the day before. She gave her damp hair one final rub and tossed the towel on the rocking chair, which she’d turned around to face the corner the night before. She was pretty sure the visitation from Esther had been her imagination, but there was nothing wrong with sending a message, was there?

She turned and checked herself out in the big standing mirror in the
corner. Her jeans were a bit wrinkly, but her oversized cable-knit sweater hung low enough to cover most of it, and since the professional wardrobe Freya’d ordered wasn’t in yet, it would just have to do.

Flynn worked on pulling a stray piece of ya
rn into her sweater as she walked out into the living room. Her eyes registered the two male legs sticking off the edge of Aunt Esther’s prim little love seat, but her brain took a moment to catch up. When it did, she jumped back and screamed, then put her hand over her pounding heart as she gripped the wall for support. Tucker let out a startled bellow of his own and jumped up off the sofa, landing squarely on his feet.

“
Oh, my God,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “How drunk was I last night?”

“
Hmmm?” He looked at her blankly for a moment, then his eyes widened. “Oh. No. Not very. But… um.” He yawned and shook his head quickly. “Yeah. Remember the whole ghost thing?”

Flynn recalled clutching the back of his jacket in her fist like it was a tether rope on a rock wall as she made him open the front door for her.

“Yeah. Little bit.”

“
Well, you seemed kind of freaked. I thought I’d just sit here until you fell asleep. You know. Make sure you were okay.” He ran his hand through his hair. It didn’t do much good. “Guess I must have passed out.”

Flynn watched him standing there with his hair sticking up and couldn
’t help but smile. She lowered her hand from her chest and took a deep breath.

“
Thank you. That was sweet.”

“
What can I say? I’m a sweet guy.” He grimaced, rubbed his neck, and nodded to indicate the tiny sofa. “Wow. I had no idea Nazis made love seats.”

Flynn laughed before she could stop herself, then tried to tighten up her expression when he looked up.

“Can I... uh... make you some coffee?”

“
Yeah,” he said, smiling. “That’d be nice.”

His smile looked better this morning than it had yesterday. So did he, even with the rough shadow that was claiming his jawline, and the fact that he was rumpled from head to foot and his hair was shooting out in a thousand different directions. He was
... cute.

Cute.
Good God. She hadn’t thought of a guy as
cute
since the ninth grade.

She smiled.
“I’ll just go make some coffee, then.”

Tucker nodded, but then waved his hand in the air to stop her.
“Actually, forget it. Esther didn’t have a coffeemaker.”

Flynn felt a tinge of horror strike her heart.
“She didn’t? Oh, how sad.”

“
Well, it’s not the last ten
min
utes of
Old Yeller,
but sure.”

Flynn let out a little laugh, which was followed by a toe-scuffing silence. She wasn
’t sure how to deal with Jake Tucker. They were clearly from different worlds. He was her employee, technically, but he was also the closest thing to a friend that she had so far in Scheintown. Still, seeing him this early in the morning was strangely intimate, especially considering she’d known him for less than twenty-four hours.

So many reasons to feel awkward,
she thought.
How to choose just one?

“
Well,” she said, “I guess they’ll have coffee at the inn, then? Maybe we could go there?”

He looked at her for a moment, then shrugged.
“Well—”

“
I mean,” she said quickly, holding her hands up to stop him before he could misread her and think she was asking him out, “unless you want to go home and get
some real sleep. Which, of course, you do because you’re a bartender and this has to be crazy early for you.”

“
Actually,” he said, the edges of his lips twitching up in a smile, “I think coffee would be nice. There’s kind of something I want to talk to you about, anyway.”

She watched him warily.
“Does it have to do with whether or not I’m selling this place?”

“
A little. Maybe.” He let out a long breath, and something in him seemed to tense up. “There’s this guy. Local businessman. He’s probably going to contact you today, and I just wanted to warn you about him.”

“
Warn me?”

“
Yes. He’s… uh… he’s not a good guy. You need to watch your step around him.”

Flynn wanted to laugh, but Tucker didn
’t look like he was joking.

“
And what exactly do you think this man is going to do to me?”

The line of his mouth went flat, and there wasn
’t the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes. “Just don’t trust him.”

For the first time since she
’d met him, Jake Tucker was actually dead serious. It was a little unsettling.

“
I don’t understand,” she said. “I just got here. What would this guy want with me?”

“
It’s not you he wants,” Jake said. “It’s the inn. He wants you to sell the inn.”

Flynn allowed her annoyance to seep into her laugh.
“I knew it. This is what all that ‘this place is so great, don’t sell it’ stuff was about? It’s about you wanting to stick it to this guy, right?”

“
No.” Tucker took a step toward her. “This is a great
place, and you shouldn’t sell it. But this guy has an agenda—”

Flynn had to laugh at that.
“Pot calling the kettle, sounds like.”

“
Look, I just…” He sighed heavily, and turned plaintive eyes on her. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“
Funny,” she said, “because I think this actually has very little to do with me.”

Tucker opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Flynn kept her eyes on his.

“Gee. I wonder who that is?” she said flatly.

Tucker cleared his throat nervously.
“Hey, mind if I use the bathroom?”

“
Sure, go right ahead,” she said, but he had already disappeared through the bathroom door before the words were out.

Okaaaaay.
She went to the front door and pulled it open.

“
Good morning. Flynn Daly, I presume?”

The first thing she saw were the teeth, smiling at her so brightly that she swore she could hear that little
tink
sound like in the toothpaste commercials.

Next, she caught the eyes. Blue and crystalline.

Then the suit. Armani.

Finally, the hair. Black, naturally shiny, and graying just a touch at the temples.

This was possibly the most classically-handsome, well-groomed man she’d ever seen in her life. How the hell did a guy like that end up in a place like Scheintown?

Or more specifically, on her doorstep in a place like Scheintown?

“Good morning,” he said again, a little louder. He held
out his hand. “My name is Gordon Chase. I hope you don’t mind me dropping in on you so early in the morning, but Annabelle told me you’d be out here and I wanted to introduce myself.”

“
Hi.” Flynn shook his hand, which was big and strong and warm and softer than a baby’s bottom.
He must manicure twice a day.
“I’m Flynn Daly.”

His smile
tinked
at her again. “I know. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much.”

“
Really?” she said. “From whom?”

His smile faded into an expression of sincere concern, and he covered their joined hands with
his free one. “I was so sorry to hear about Esther’s passing. Your great-aunt was a treasure in this community, and she’ll be sorely missed.”

Hard to miss her if she won
’t go away.
“Yes, she sure will.”

He finally released her hands, digging his own into his pockets in an affected boyish manner, which put Flynn instantly on her guard. Anyone who
’d muss an Armani line to appear boyish was not to be trusted.

“
Anyway, I’m the president of the Historical Preservation Society, and I was hoping you’d let me treat you to breakfast this morning. I think we’d have so much to talk about.”

Tink.

“Actually, right this minute isn’t that great for me…” Flynn started, but was interrupted by what had to be the world’s loudest toilet flushing. If there was any doubt in her mind that Gordon Chase was the man Tucker had been warning her against, it was gone.

Meanwhile, Gordon Chase
’s eyebrows rose an easy quarter inch.

“
Oh,” he said, a look of confusion washing over his face for a moment. “I see. Well.”
Tink.
“Maybe some other time. Are you free for lunch, perhaps?”

“
Oh, sure, why not?” Flynn said, just as an incredibly loud and unmistakably male belch emanated from her bedroom. She acted as if she hadn’t heard it. “Why don’t I meet you in the lobby at noon?”

Gordon
’s smile faltered, then widened. “Perfect. I’ll see you at noon.”

The second the door was shut, Tucker emerged from the bathroom, without even the slightest look of contrition on his face. He was amazing. She just wanted to sit and watch
him
for a while, like a zoo animal.

“
Ready for that coffee?” he asked brightly.

“
As soon as you tell me what that performance was all about.”

He had the nerve to look surprised.
“Performance? Oh, you mean the...” He trailed off, the picture of delicacy. “Sorry about that. Must have been the enchiladas I had for dinner last night.”

Flynn watched him for a moment.
“That was Gordon Chase. At the door.”

Tucker nodded, and his face looked uncharacteristically tense.
“I figured.”

“
Yeah, I figured you figured. I didn’t appreciate the soundtrack, by the way.”

“
Hey, sorry, I was just—”

“
I don’t care what you were
just,”
Flynn said, advancing on him. “I don’t care what your agenda is, or what Gordon Chase’s agenda is. I came here to do a job, and
I’m going to do it. And I won’t be target practice in whatever little pissing contest you’ve got going on with
him.
Are we clear?”

Tucker let out a hard sigh.
“I’m just trying to look out for you.”

Flynn put her hand on her forehead and sighed.
“At any point in our association have I ever asked you to look out for me?”

He smiled smugly.
“You mean, aside from last night when you needed a bodyguard to protect you from your dead aunt?”

Flynn clenched her teeth until they hurt, her emotions evenly split between anger and embarrassment. Tucker lowered his head a bit until his face was in her eye line,
his
expression infuriatingly playful.

“
One toke over the line, huh?”

“
You know what?” She grabbed a fistful of his sleeve and guided him toward the door. “Go.”

“
Because I did think about not pointing the ghost thing out, but you really left yourself wide open.”

“
Goodbye, Tucker.”

He shrugged out of her grip as they reached the door, then turned to face her.
“So… what? Rain check on the coffee, then?”

“
You still have your job,” she said, trying to keep any hint of amusement out of her voice, although it was hard not to smile a little. “Maybe now’s a good time to take stock. Count your blessings.”

“
Okay. But just to let you know, firing me would be a huge mistake,” he said, leaning against the door. “I’m very popular here. Everyone loves me. It’d be hell on morale.”

She yanked the door open, knocking him slightly off balance as she did.
“I’ll take that under advisement.”

He sighed.
“Okay. Fine. Just...” His eyes met hers, and once again, they were serious. “Just watch your step with Chase, okay? I’m not sure he’s not dangerous.”