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Boy, do I miss Anna this morning. She was a lackluster maid, and the obvious choice to let go when I had to downsize, but I still miss her half-ass efforts as I try to get all the rooms clean with only one other employee. At least Barb is a hard worker, but it’s a daunting task to clean eight rooms with the two of us trying to make it all happen between a.m. checkout and the p.m. check-in.
My cell phone rings, but I answer it as, “Sage Valley’s Best B&B,” since I forwarded the calls to my cell when I started cleaning.
“Hey, sis.”
I pause for a moment, ignoring the pile of takeout boxes perched precariously on the small table in front of me. My smile is genuine. “Jamie. Are you back yet?”
“Yep. Brewster and I arrived last night. Annie sure was a sight for sore eyes.”
I grin, imagining his petite wife, who is eight months pregnant with twins. She’d just begun to show when he last deployed. “Of course. How was your trip?”
“Okay. Brewster got a little anxious a time or two at the bus stops.”
“Poor pup. I’m glad you brought him with you. I like him better than you.” I giggle.
“All the women do, but that’s okay. Annie’s the only one I care about, and she likes me better than Brewster…barely,” he says with a feigned sigh. “I’m not calling just to socialize.”
“Good.” Taking a look around the disaster of a room, I don’t know how two guests staying two nights generated so much takeout between them. “I have work to do. Do you need something?”
“Yeah. A friend of mine got caught in a booking snafu. The hotel double-booked a room, and he got there second. Do you have a free room at the B&B?”
I pause, trying to remember the booking system’s calendar. I don’t remember which rooms are free, but I think there were blank spots for three of them. “Sure, but I don’t give discounts just because it’s a friend.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to. He’ll be in this afternoon. It’s—”
I shift just a bit to the right, and a cascading tower of Styrofoam boxes slide off the table and onto the floor. I groan as food spills out of them. No wonder there are so many. At least one of the guests must have disliked just about everything that came from the diner and kept ordering other food. What a waste.
“I’ll get the details when they check in. Sorry, Jamie, but I have to go.” I hang up the phone and tuck it in my pocket before trying to stop the foam mountain.
I’m not too successful and lose more time I don’t have trying to clean marinara sauce off the brown carpet. Thank goodness I didn’t go for the sophisticated white Layne suggested. She’s a professional designer, and I’m sure it would have looked great, but not with a long smear of marina sauce.
Someone would likely think there had been a murder in the room. The last thing my B&B needs is that kind of rumor. I’m already struggling to stay open. If the meager bookings I get dry up, I’ll be out my inheritance and the building, since I inherited it from the same aunt who left me the cash to turn it into a B&B. That would send Edna spinning in her grave and put me on the streets.
My folks would let me move back home, but I don’t want that. I like having my own space and freedom. I had lived with them until a few months ago, because who can afford to move out these days?
My bachelor’s degree in paleontology turned out to be pretty useless around here, or anywhere, without furthering my education. I didn’t have the money for a Master’s degree, so I came home in defeat and spent the last three years living with Mom and Dad while working various jobs in Sage Valley.
Edna’s gift is my best chance to make a real life for myself. I can’t blow it now. That knowledge is what helps me keep getting up each morning after five or six hours of sleep so I can work all day.
I almost hate it all sometimes, though having a B&B was once my aspiration. If it were more successful, and I weren’t so stressed, I’m sure I’d love living the dream. Right now, it’s just a massive headache, but I have too much invested in the concept to walk away.
I give myself the usual pep talk as I finish cleaning the takeout mess from room three. They were neat otherwise, so I can zoom through the rest of the cleaning. Changing the sheets takes the longest, and that’s because I picked crappy headboards, not realizing how difficult they would make it to tuck in the fitted sheets.
Once I finish with that room, I head to number five, since four and six remained un-booked last night. I see Barb heading into room seven, and I nod at her. This room isn’t too awful, and I meet Barb in the middle as we clean the shared bathroom between the rooms.
When we’re done, we both stretch for a minute.
“Do you need me to do anything else before I start washing the linens, Alexis?”
I shake my head and follow her to the closet where we keep the cleaning trolleys. There is a dumbwaiter system that we can use to transport them between floors, but since we’re down to just two maids now, counting me, we have enough carts to keep some on each floor of the B&B.
“You did rooms one, two, and three, right?” I’d sent her upstairs while I cleaned the suite on the main floor. It was the largest, catering to families, and typically took the longest to clean.
“Sure did.” She grimaces. “Other than the suite, they’re the most expensive rooms in this joint, so how come they seem to attract all the slobs? The guy in room two couldn’t walk three feet to dispose of his condom?” The older woman shakes her head in disapproval.
I know she’s around my mom’s age, but she looks a decade older. Her wrinkles have wrinkles, and I’m not sure if that’s because she’s been a maid all her life, or because she’s a chain-smoker when she isn’t at work. I hope it’s the latter, because if owning the B&B is going to age me like that, it might be another reason to regret having opened this albatross.
I feel guilty for the thought as I part from her and head downstairs to make sure the lobby is tidy. The B&B isn’t an albatross. It’s supposed to be a lifeline. It’s just dragging me down. Right now, it feels like an anchor on a sinking ship, not a dream.
I go into the kitchen and start baking chocolate chip cookies. They’re technically homemade, as advertised. I pay Layne’s sister, Cami, to make and freeze a dozen batches per week. All I have to do is thaw and bake them in the oven. They’re a big hit with customers, and she loves to bake. The last time I baked, the fire department came.
That sounds good if you picture the sexy firemen who pose shirtless while holding kittens. The guys and two women at the Sage Valley Volunteer Fire Department aren’t those kinds of firefighters.
Sure, they could pose with their shirts off, but it wouldn’t be any kind of fundraiser, because the copies wouldn’t sell. Even kittens can’t make most of them photogenic, with or without a shirt. No one wants to see fifty-four-year-old Burt from the fishing shop in only suspenders and Nomex pants, even with a fluffy cat or puppy.
The cookies smell wonderful, and I help myself to a couple as a late lunch. That’s another bad habit that I scold myself for even as I eat one cookie in two bites. Skipping meals and eating cookies instead is going to make my already curvy frame go way beyond lush to somewhere I don’t want to be. It’s just easy to grab the cookies instead of taking time to make or buy lunch.
With just the two of us working here, time for lunch is a luxury. I’m doing all kinds of tasks I didn’t expect to do on my own, including pressure-washing the parking lot and steaming the carpets in the lobby. I should have gone with the wood flooring Layne suggested, but I wanted the room to be homey and comforting when guests first walk in.
No, I should have gone with the tile they use in hospitals. It’s easy to clean, which is appreciated when you have a kid puking on the floor, which happens to me an hour or so later.
The family is early for check-in, but the room is ready, so I let them have their key without fuss. I wish I could think of a tactful way to suggest they give the kid a barf bag or bucket, but the eloquence of phrase to do so escapes me. I can only hope I don’t have a huge mess to clean up in room five when they depart after the Sage Valley Light Festival.
People start to arrive after that, and it gets busy fast. I look up at once point and see a gorgeous black man facing away from me. I can’t tell if his face is handsome, but his body sure is. He’s jacked like a bodybuilder, and even from this distance, I can see his butt is shapely in those tight jeans. I have a moment where I’d like to slip my hands into the back pockets and fondle that ass.
This is how pathetic I’ve become. I haven’t had a date since I started renovating Edna’s house. I haven’t had sex since months before that. I’m turning into a bitter husk of a woman, anxious to grope strangers to get an illicit thrill.
Yep, living the dream.
I have to look away from Mr. Hottie to do actual work again, and I don’t have time to look up and search for him until he’s next in line. I open my mouth to welcome him, but it just hangs open for a second as I absorb who the man is.
Jace Wilson.
My brother’s best friend.
My old crush.
The source of my deepest humiliation.
“What are you doing here?” I can’t help snapping the words in a cold tone.
He blinks, looking surprised. I guess I can’t blame him. He probably didn’t expect me to bite off his head after not speaking for a decade. I guess he thinks I’ve forgotten the prom incident. Or, even worse, he’s forgotten it. That idea makes me seethe.
Fat chance I’ve forgotten.
I cross my arms over my chest and give an exaggerated look at the line behind him, which isn’t really that long right now. “Well?”
“I need a room.”
I take great pleasure in not even looking at the computer when I say, “We’re sold out.” Yeah, I could use a warm body filling a room, but not his body—no matter how hot it is.
He tilts his head, and I notice his dark curls are shorn super close to his scalp. He’s still getting recruit haircuts though he must have a high enough rank not to go for the basic-training look these days. I can’t say it doesn’t suit him though. The short hair emphasizes the craggy lines and planes of his face.
He’s built like a rock, and his features are hewn like rock as well. He has a rough edge that I find appealing, even now. Dammit. I don’t want to find anything attractive about him. I sure don’t want to notice how warm his brown eyes are. Were they always that sparkly?
I know they were because I used to stare at them every chance I got. That was when I was pathetically and desperately in love with him. I’m definitely not that anymore.
Though I can’t deny the charge of being pathetic. The aforementioned dry spell that left me lusting after him hasn’t spontaneously resolved itself in the last ten minutes.
He’s frowning now. “Jamie called you. Said he took care of it, and you’re holding me a room.”
I almost curse but remember there’s a family behind Jace at the last moment. I manage a tight smile. “He didn’t mention the reservation was for you.”
His eyes narrow, and he appears confused. “Does that change the status of the reservation?”
Oh, I’m so tempted to tell him yes and invite him to get out, but common sense prevails. He’s bound to be in town for at least a few days, and that will help pay Barb’s salary, so I’m not forced to let go of my last maid. Plus, I did agree to put up Jamie’s friend. If only I’d given Jamie the chance to identify him.
I can’t change that now, so I struggle to find a polite tone. “Of course not. I didn’t get a chance to learn the guest’s name.” I take him through the check-in process and swipe his black Amex. Swanky for an airman, but I think he’s a pilot. He got his degree from the Air Force Academy and another online university so he could enter the commissioned officer program to become a pilot. I’m pretty sure that’s what Jamie said once when I was definitely not listening way too closely for information about Jace.
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