Seaview Inn (10 page)

“That’s wonderful,” Grandma Jenny said enthusiastically. “Good work, Kelsey.”

Hannah bit back the sharp comment that was on the tip of her tongue. Fighting to keep her temper in check, she asked quietly, “Why are you taking reservations, Kelsey?”

“It’s an inn,” she said matter-of-factly. “Renting rooms is what keeps us in business. People are thrilled to hear we haven’t closed for good. It’s really great, Mom. I heard so many wonderful stories this morning! People were telling me about how many years they’ve come here and how they look forward to it. You should have heard them.”

“Whose idea was it to start calling people?”

Kelsey gave her a defiant look. “Mine. Grandma said you hadn’t done anything about sending out an announcement about the reopening, so I decided to start making calls to some of the regulars.”

“Exactly when were the two of you planning to tell me about this?” she asked, not sure whether she was more furious that she’d been left out of the loop or that it was happening at all. How could they sell the place if it was filled to capacity? Or would that actually turn out to be a selling point? Maybe she was looking at this the wrong way.

“You know now,” Grandma Jenny said with a touch of
defiance. “I’ve said all along I wanted to get this place reopened as soon as possible. You were the one dragging your feet.”

“Because you can’t manage this place on your own,” Hannah said, then caught the expression on Kelsey’s face. A sense of dread settled in her stomach. “Go back inside, Kelsey. I need to speak to your great-grandmother.”

Kelsey plopped down in a chair next to Grandma Jenny’s. “No. This concerns me, too.”

“Why on earth do you think that?” Hannah asked, again assailed by the feeling that she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Because I’m going to stay here and help Grandma Jenny keep the inn running,” Kelsey said flatly.

“Over my dead body,” Hannah said, her temper coming to a boil. She dropped the paint brush back into the bucket and marched up to the porch, scowling at the pair of them. Then she focused her attention on her grandmother. “What were you thinking putting such a ridiculous idea into her head? She needs to go back to Stanford, and the sooner the better.”

“That’s not what she wants to do,” Grandma Jenny replied, her tone gentle. “Listen to her, Hannah. She wants to stay here, at least until the baby is born.”

“And then what? Waste the rest of her life in this nothing little town?”

“I like Seaview Key,” Kelsey protested. “And I want to stay here, at least for now, so that’s what I’m going to do. I know you don’t like it, Mom, and I’m sorry, but it’s not your decision.”

“We had a deal,” Hannah argued, even though she knew the battle was lost. Kelsey was so strong-willed that any arguments would only solidify her resolve.

“I think our deal pretty much went up in smoke the day I found out I was pregnant,” Kelsey said.

“Plenty of young women manage to attend classes while they’re pregnant,” Hannah said.

“I could probably drag myself around to my classes and maybe even pass them,” Kelsey agreed. “But you’ve forgotten about the rest. Jeff wants to get married. He’ll be in my face every single day and it will only get worse the closer I get to my due date. I can’t deal with that kind of pressure, plus school. The one thing the doctor warned me about was stressing out. It’s not good for me or the baby.”

She stood up and looked Hannah in the eye. “Please, Mom, don’t fight me on this. It’s what I want, and in the end, I know it’s for the best. This will give me the time I need to make a decision that’s right for everyone—the baby, Jeff and me.”

“Kelsey, staying here isn’t the answer. You and Jeff should be working through this together.”

“We can’t,” Kelsey said simply. “I know what will happen. I’ll have a couple of bad days and he’ll be right there, ready to make everything okay and I’ll cave in because it’s easier than dealing with all this alone. That’s no way to start a marriage, not if I want it to last.”

“Listen to how wise she’s being, Hannah,” Grandma Jenny chimed in. “You should be proud of her.”

“I think you planted this idea in her head,” Hannah accused her grandmother heatedly. They’d ganged up on her and she hated it. “You know I want to sell Seaview Inn, so you’ve enlisted Kelsey to help you keep it open. You’ve been determined to fight me on this and now you’ve found the perfect way.”

“Mom, that’s not fair,” Kelsey said. “This was
my
decision. I came to Grandma Jenny with the idea of staying.
In fact, I had to talk her into it, so don’t blame her for any of this. I’m the one who screwed up and let you down.”

Before Hannah could think of a single argument to convince Kelsey to go back to California, the girl was gone. Hannah sank into the chair Kelsey had vacated.

“This is wrong!” she said angrily. “It is so wrong.”

“Not if it’s what she wants,” her grandmother said, her tone calm and reasonable. “You heard her, Hannah. She needs time to think, and what better place to do that than here?”

“She’s barely twenty. She doesn’t know what she wants.”

“I think she does.” Jenny regarded Hannah sympathetically. “I know how hard this is for you. Don’t you think it killed your mother and me to have you announce that you wanted to move away from here and have nothing more to do with Seaview Key or the inn? But we let you go, didn’t we? And we did it with grace. Don’t you think Kelsey deserves the same consideration from you?”

Hannah eventually sat back in defeat. “Okay, you’re right, I know you are. But how can I support this decision when it’s going to ruin her life?”

“Because it’s her life to ruin, her mistake to make,” her grandmother suggested. “And who knows? She could prove you wrong. And it’s not as if she’s giving up college forever. She put a time limit on it, just until she has the baby. By then, she may hate this place as much as you do and be ready to go back to school. Or she may have found that this is where she wants to spend the rest of her life.”

“I still think this works out awfully conveniently for you,” Hannah muttered.

“Perhaps so, but I swear to you I had no part in planting the idea in her head. She was the one who
came to me. Kelsey is a young woman who knows her own mind. You of all people should know that. You taught her well.”

“Right now, I’m not feeling as if that’s quite the compliment you meant it to be.”

“It’s going to work out. You’ll see. Maybe you should focus on your own life and stop worrying so much about what will happen next with Kelsey.”

“My life is just fine,” Hannah protested, uttering the lie with total conviction.

“Really?” Grandma Jenny said, her skepticism as plain as Hannah’s had been earlier. “Here’s the way I see it. I know you must have a follow-up doctor’s appointment soon and you must be scared to death. Who could blame you after the way things went with your mother? And I know you’re not nearly as happy with your job as you want everyone to believe. You’re successful, but you’re at the beck and call of too many people. You have absolutely no time to enjoy your success. And I know that deep down inside, you wonder sometimes if you’re truly living whatever time might be left to you.”

Tears stung Hannah’s eyes at the assessment. She’d had no idea Grandma Jenny could read her so well. Obviously she was stronger and more astute than ever. The problem was, Hannah wasn’t ready to deal with any of it. These days her biggest accomplishment was putting one foot in front of the other and getting through each day.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“You should. Burdens are always lighter when they’re shared. Listen to me, Hannah,” she said, then waited until Hannah turned to face her. “Not dealing with your fears, not doing whatever you can to reach for the things that make you happy, those are the real
mistakes we make in life. And when our time comes, whenever that is, it’s the things we didn’t do that we regret the most.”

“Do you have regrets?” she asked, because she didn’t want to focus on her own.

“Only one, that your grandfather and I didn’t find the time to take that cruise we’d been promising ourselves we’d take. We were always too busy and then it was too late.”

“I never wanted to take a cruise,” Hannah said.

“But what do you want to do that you haven’t done?”

She thought about it for several minutes, then choked back a sob. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to dream, she didn’t even have one. How pitiful was that?

Even though she hadn’t spoken, her grandmother gave her a commiserating look. “Take a page from your daughter’s book. Use the time you’re down here to think about it. Make some lists. Set some priorities. You had dreams once. You’ll have them again, if you stop crowding them out with all the must-dos that aren’t half as important as we make them out to be.”

“You think so?” she asked, torn between hope and disbelief.

“I
know
so,” her grandmother said. “Now, I’m going in to fix us all some lunch. Why don’t you track down Luke and tell him it’ll be ready in a half hour?”

“Luke Stevens is not my dream,” she said, because she thought she ought to.

Grandma Jenny smiled. “He was once,” she said complacently. “Fate, karma, whatever you want to call it, has brought both of you here. Second chances don’t come along every day, Hannah. You need to seize them when they do.”

That said, she went inside and left Hannah with way
too much to think about, including the fact that her grandmother was happier and more alive than ever now that her beloved inn was going to stay open.

A
fter her grandmother had gone inside, Hannah stayed where she was, immobilized by the sense that her life was spinning even further out of control. Despite Grandma Jenny’s bracing talk that she could change things by making lists and prioritizing, she had a feeling she was incapable of getting any of it right. Just look at how badly she was bungling things with her daughter and her grandmother.

How had this happened to her? From the moment she’d been old enough to know her own mind, she’d set goals and met them. Heck, she’d
exceeded
most of them. She’d overcome every single obstacle that had been thrown in her path.

Determined to go to an out-of-state school, she’d won a scholarship that had allowed her to go to Columbia in New York City. Barely out of college and only recently married, she’d found herself pregnant. She’d had Kelsey and still stayed on her career track, though the difficulty she’d had was just one of the reasons she was so worried about what lay ahead for her daughter.

When her husband had left for the third and final time after two roller-coaster years, she’d tightened the reins on her spending and managed to stay in the co-op apartment
they’d bought together. She’d taken on freelance work to get the money she needed to put Kelsey in the best private schools in the city and start her college fund. For all of those years, she’d known exactly what she needed to do and how to accomplish it.

Now, suddenly, she was at a loss. She was losing ground at work because of her absences. Her friendship with Dave and her years of hard work could only carry her for so long. She couldn’t control what was happening to her daughter. She couldn’t control what was happening inside her own body. And all of it scared the daylights out of her. Grandma Jenny was right about that.

Admitting to the fear didn’t accomplish one darn thing as far as she could tell. She needed solutions, but not a single one came to mind.

“You’re looking gloomy,” Luke said, coming around the side of the house wearing a pair of well-worn jeans and nothing else. His broad shoulders, already starting to tan, were speckled with chips of the old white paint he’d been scraping off the inn. He looked sexy and way too appealing.

“It’s been a challenging morning,” she said. “Lunch should be ready any minute. I was supposed to let you know a little while ago.”

“And yet you didn’t,” he said, climbing the steps to take a seat beside her, his body heat radiating to encompass her. She could barely resist the urge to lean into all that masculinity and draw on his strength. “What’s going on? Is there something you want to talk about?”

Hannah had no idea where to begin. “Kelsey’s decided she wants to stay here and help Gran run the inn.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” he said.

She frowned at him. “It’s a horrible idea.”

“Why? Because it’s not what you want for her? Or what you had planned for your grandmother?”

She winced. “Okay, yes, that’s part of it. I’m afraid she’ll never go back to college and that Gran will make herself sick trying to keep up with this place.”

“Kids always do better when they know what they want and where they’re going,” he suggested. “
We
did.”

Hannah saw the parallel he was trying to draw. It was the same one Grandma Jenny had alluded to, that she herself had gone her own way. “Okay, you’re right, but until now Kelsey had other things planned. When she was a little kid and came to work with me, she loved sitting with the graphic designers. By the time she turned ten, she could lay out a brochure that was as good as anything the pros did.”

“That’s what she was studying? Graphic design?”

Hannah nodded. “She has real talent, Luke. She could have a job at my firm the day after graduation. That’s not just a proud mother talking. My boss has told her that.”

“Maybe it’s too easy,” he said. “If she’s been doing it since she was a kid, maybe she’s bored with it and needs a new challenge. Or maybe what she needs now is just some breathing room. Being pregnant when she wasn’t expecting it is more than enough to justify taking some time to reexamine things. Do you honestly want her to leap into a marriage she might regret or to waste money taking classes that no longer challenge or excite her?”

Hannah scowled. “Why do you have to be so darn reasonable?”

“It’s a knack,” he retorted. “It’s
her
life, Hannah. Not yours. She’s not your little girl anymore. She’s a grown woman. You can’t make her choices for her, not about this
any more than you could keep her from getting pregnant in the first place.”

“Are you this calm and rational about your own problems?”

He smiled ruefully. “Of course not.”

“Then let me have a crack at fixing something for you so I don’t feel totally inept.”

“I’m not fixing anything for you,” he countered. “Just trying to give you another perspective.” He stood up and held out a hand. “Now, let’s go inside and have some lunch. You’ll feel better. If you’re very good, I’ll take you into town afterward for ice cream.”

“You’re bribing me to leave my daughter in peace?”

“Maybe I’m just bribing you to spend some time with me,” he said.

Since she hadn’t had a better offer all day, she gave in and put her hand in his as she stood. “Ice cream sounds good. As hot as it is, though, wouldn’t you rather have an ice-cold beer?”

“And miss the chance to watch you run your tongue over a scoop of ice cream? No way.”

She saw the amusement dancing in his eyes. “You’re flirting, Luke. Stop it!”

“No, I’m taking your mind off your troubles. There’s a difference.”

Maybe there was, she thought, but whatever he was doing, whatever his intention was, the result was a jittery sensation she had absolutely no idea how to handle. It was just one more thing to be added to the growing list of complications in her life.

Kelsey watched her mom warily all during lunch, waiting for another lecture about what a mistake she was
making by staying in Seaview. She was ready once more to tell her to butt out, but her mom was oddly quiet. Luke and Grandma Jenny were the only ones talking.

“I’ll have most of the old paint scraped off by the end of the day tomorrow,” Luke said. “Then I’ll put on the primer.”

“What about the turquoise?” Grandma Jenny asked. “I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like.”

“Me, too,” Kelsey said, casting a defiant look at her mother.

“We’re dealing with old wood. It needs this primer,” Luke said. “Otherwise, the boards will just soak up the paint. You won’t be happy with the results.”

“But you
will
be able to finish before opening day, won’t you?” Grandma Jenny asked worriedly.

“You told me two weeks,” he said. “Is that still the plan?”

Kelsey nodded. “Our first guests aren’t due until March the first. I tried to give you a little bit of a cushion.”

“Then we’ll definitely be ready by then,” he said. “Is the painting the only thing you need me to do?”

“What about those side steps, Grandma Jenny?” Kelsey asked. “A couple of them are loose. And I think the beach entrance where people hang their towels could use a fresh coat of paint. Maybe the floor could be painted the same color as the outside of the inn. The wood is pretty worn from all the sand that’s been tracked through there. What do you think?”

Her great-grandmother regarded her with surprise. “I think that’s a very good idea. Have you been making notes on what needs to be done around here?”

Kelsey shrugged. “Sure. That’s part of my job, isn’t it? We want everything to look great when people come back.”

She noticed her mom frowning, but was grateful she didn’t say anything. Another fight about this was point
less. And it was fun taking a fresh look at the inn and coming up with ideas to make it more appealing. None of the things on her list would cost much, either.

“I’m impressed,” Grandma Jenny said. “Any other thoughts?”

“Do you have special menus and recipes? Should we look at those? Maybe I should practice some of them so I can help in the kitchen. I’m not a bad cook.” She glanced at her mother. “Mom always hated cooking, so if I wanted to avoid having takeout night after night, I had to have meals ready when she got home.”

“I didn’t hate to cook,” her mom protested. “I just never had time to do it right.”

“There you go,” Kelsey said. “You’re a perfectionist about everything.”

“If you’re going to fix a decent meal for people, it requires more than the right ingredients,” her grandmother said, taking her mom’s side for once. “There’s no point in doing it if you’re just going to slap something together and put it on the table.”

“Hey, everything I fixed was edible!”

“Well, most of it,” her mom said with a smile. “There was that roast you charred to a cinder. And a couple of batches of biscuits that could have been used to build a house.”

“Very funny,” Kelsey grumbled, but she grinned back.

“Well, none of that matters, anyway,” Grandma Jenny said, waving off Kelsey’s culinary disasters. “I have someone who comes in to help with the cooking, but you do need to call her and let her know we’re reopening. Last time I checked Merilee hadn’t found another job. Her name and number are posted by the phone in the kitchen.”

“Great,” Kelsey said, checking that off the list she’d
tucked into her pocket earlier. “I’ll call as soon as we’re finished with lunch.”

“I love it that you’re so eager,” Grandma Jenny said. “But don’t overdo it. You have to think about the baby. You’ll need some rest every day. Working around here can be demanding.”

Her mother’s gaze snapped up at that. “Something you never would have admitted before you got Kelsey involved. You just waved me off when I said it was too much for you to handle.”

“I never said I was going to run this place alone,” Grandma Jenny retorted. “That was your assumption. I always knew I’d need help.”

“You just thought it would be from me,” Hannah said.

“I hoped it might be,” Grandma Jenny admitted. “But I had a contingency plan. There are plenty of people in this town in need of work.”

Kelsey watched her mom clamp her mouth shut, then push her plate away.

“I’m going for a walk,” she announced. “Luke, are you coming?”

He winked at Kelsey and Grandma Jenny, then followed her mom from the dining room.

“Well, that went well,” Grandma Jenny said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Kelsey stared at her. “You could have cut the tension with a knife. Aside from making a couple of jokes about my cooking, it’s pretty obvious that Mom is not happy about any of this.”

“No, but she’s trying to accept it. She didn’t say half the things I expected her to.”

“I suppose not,” Kelsey said. “Do you think that’s Luke’s influence?”

“He does seem to have a calming effect on her.” She grinned wickedly. “Or some other effect altogether.”

“Grandma Jenny!”

“Hey, I knew the score about these things long before you were born, young lady.”

Kelsey leaped up and gave her an impulsive hug. “Have I mentioned how much I love you and how glad I am that I’m here with you?”

“You can never say a thing like that too much. It goes both ways, too. Everything’s going to work out with you and your mother. You’ll see. She’ll come around.”

Kelsey glanced outside and saw her mom crossing the street toward the beach with Luke. “I hope so. She needs something good to happen in her life, so she’s not worrying about her health and me so much.”

“She will always worry about you, Kelsey. And she’s right to be concerned about her health, too. Neither of those things means that there can’t be something wonderful right around the corner.”

Kelsey grinned. “Or in a room right down the hall.”

Hannah was stalking down the beach at a pace that would have exhausted a drill sergeant. Luke’s leg was already aching from climbing up and down a ladder all morning, so he gave up trying to keep up with her. When she eventually realized she’d left him behind, she turned, gave him a chagrined look and came back.

“Sorry. I guess I was trying to literally run away from my thoughts.”

“Doesn’t work, does it?”

“Not very well.” She settled in beside him, then gave him an odd look. “You’re limping. Are you okay?”

“Just a little overtired, that’s all.”

She stopped in her tracks. “Explain. Are you sick? Should you even be doing all that painting?”

Luke wanted to kick himself for opening this particular can of worms, but he doubted he could lift his leg high enough. “I’m not sick,” he said, determined to minimize it to avoid her pity. “It’s nothing. I just have a bum leg.”

“Then you have no business going up and down a ladder all day. What were you thinking letting my grandmother talk you into that?”

He loved that Hannah was so quick to jump to his defense. Or maybe, he thought, she wanted one more thing she could blame her grandmother for. He wasn’t going to be the cause of any more friction on that front. “Cool your jets, Hannah. She didn’t talk me into anything. I need the exercise and I like being useful.”

“What happened to your leg?”

“An accident,” he said. “Stop looking at me like that. I’ve done rehab. I’ve been released. I’m perfectly capable of painting the inn.”

“You should have said something. At least we could have
driven
into town.”

“Are you kidding? There was no way I’d want you behind the wheel of a car in the mood you were in.”

She grinned, her expression rueful. “Okay, I’m being a pain. I get that. I will be on my best behavior for the rest of the afternoon. Do you want to sit for a while? Go back home?”

“I told you I want ice cream. Let’s just slow down the pace.”

They walked along at a more leisurely pace for a few minutes. Eventually she turned to him. “How did the accident happen?”

Luke debated keeping the details to himself, but what
was the point? His tour in Iraq might have been a bone of contention in his marriage, but he was proud of having served. There were men walking today because he’d been there to see that their injuries were properly treated.