Yours, Mine...or Ours?

“Who the hell knows?” She rubbed her forehead. “Although, believe me, I’m not holding my breath. Promises…” Her mouth flattened. “Anybody can make a promise. Keeping it is something else entirely.”

As Rudy fought the temptation to ask her if she wanted a reconciliation, he realized, too late, that he’d inadvertently stripped away those calluses, leaving her tender and vulnerable and probably mad as hell at him. Feeling like an idiot, he touched her arm, making her jump.

“Hey,” he said, his voice thick. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m…” She sucked in a breath, shaking her head. “Here’s the thing—you can chug along for years, getting by, making do, on whatever scraps you can piece together. You learn to find contentment, even joy, in the small stuff, like your baby’s smile or a new lipstick. Hanging out with friends on the first really warm spring night. And little by little, you start to inch forward. Or at least, you think you are. Sure, life slings mud at you, but you either wipe it off or you get real good at ducking. Only then…”

One hand waved, like she was struggling for the words. “Only then, out of the blue, some totally unexpected opportunity comes along, and suddenly you’re thinking in terms of bigger. Better. More.”

She looked away, but not before he saw her eyes fill. “I know,” he said softly, and she blew up on him.

“You don’t know! You don’t know anything about it, or me, or what that sorry, run-down place represented! Not just to me, but to Doris, who loved that house like it was her child. Who thought of her guests like family, because they made her feel needed. Important. Like she mattered.”

Blinking, she faced front. “I never expected Doris to offer me the house. I always assumed it would go to her daughter. So when she said she wanted to leave it to me, you have no idea how…honored that made me feel. That she trusted me to make the most of her gift. I had such plans, Rudy,” she said softly. “Such wonderful plans.”

Frowning, Rudy tucked his sleeve into his palm and brushed her cheek, blotting a tear that had spilled over, her frustration mingling with his. “But even if Doris had left you the house, how would you have managed? You couldn’t really open it again, not yet. It needs too much work.”

She frowned at that last little bit of hot—now cold, probably—chocolate in the bottom of her cup, then swirled it around and drank it anyway, grimacing. “I was going to sell it, Rudy,” she said flatly, not looking at him. “Sell it and get the hell out of here, finish my education. Set aside a college fund for the boys. Buy a car with less than 150,000 miles on it. Doris and I used to talk about it all the time. That’s why I know she’d wanted me to have the house, to give me a shot at my dream, the same way the house had allowed her to live hers.”

If nothing else, all those years of being a cop had taught Rudy a thing or two about reading people, about picking up clues from their body language, how most people’s voices change when they’re not being straight with you. And right now, Violet Kildare was setting off alarms loud enough to hear in China.

“So,” he said, casually, “you never actually wanted to run the inn?”

“Run the inn?” She burst out laughing. “Heavens no! Believe me, my aspirations, such as they were, never included turning into Doris Hicks’s clone.”

“Oh. Well. I guess I must’ve misunderstood, then.” He squinted over at her. “Darla seemed to think you had a real thing for the house itself.”

Even in the darkened car, he saw her blush. “The house was only a means to an end,” she said into her empty cup, then slid her eyes to his, her lips barely curved. “It’s getting late. I need to get back before Betsy freaks.”

Rudy let their gazes mingle. “That mean you’re not accepting my offer?”

She tapped the cup’s rim once, twice, then leaned over to screw it into the cup holder under the radio. “Can I think about it for a couple of days? Until school starts again, day after tomorrow?”

Rudy started. “Day after tomorrow…? I thought school started on Monday?”

“Uh, no, since yesterday was New Year’s? As it is the only reason they don’t start back tomorrow is because of some in-service day or something.”

Oh, crap. That should go over big with a certain party. Why had he assumed he’d have at least a week before they had to deal with that particular trauma? “Yeah, sure,” he said over the Good going, Dad reverberating through his brain. “Since I imagine it’ll be a day or so before we have heat and utilities, anyway. Here.” He reached for his wallet again, extracting one of his old cards. For a second, he stared at the tiny, grainy photo of him in uniform, then handed her the card. “My cell number’s on there, in case you need it.”

Nodding, she took the card. “I’ll let you know, then.” She pushed open the door and climbed out, then looked back, obviously relieved that that was over. “Thanks again for the tip,” she said, her breath a cloud around her face, then disappeared.

“So what was that all about?” Bets asked the minute Violet walked back inside. The noise level had dropped dramatically in the past half hour, thanks to two-thirds of Betsy’s spawn being down for the count. Only little Trey was still awake, cuddled next to his mother in a new-two-brothers-ago blanket sleeper, thumb plugged in mouth as they finished up CSI. Quiet and immobile, the kid was actually cute.

Like most of Mulligan Falls’s residents, Bets already knew about Rudy being the inn’s new owner. If you wanted to keep your business private, hiring Linda Fairweather as your Realtor was a bad idea. That’s how Violet knew about Rudy’s paying cash for the inn. And that he’d bought it sight unseen. Nice guy, but definitely certifiable.

Wriggling out of her coat, Violet sat on the edge of Joey’s recliner, trying not to touch the upholstery with actual skin. Betsy wasn’t a horrible housekeeper, but the chair had weathered the five kids in Betsy’s family as well as her three. Not that Violet’s were neat freaks, God knew, but her friend’s boys truly saw the world as their canvas.

“Rudy offered me my old job,” she said, trying to finger comb her tangled curls. “When the inn’s ready to open again, I mean. Apparently he’s going to completely refurbish it. Until then, if I want, I could help with the rehab.” Intent on catching the end of her program, Betsy was only half listening. “He also said the apartment over the garage is ours, if I want it.”

At that, her friend’s head whipped around, plucked eyebrows arching up underneath spidery bangs. “You gonna take it?”

“I told him I’d think about it.” After several seconds of the Golden-Eyed Stare for which her friend was famous, Violet said, “You’ll have your house back in a couple of days.”

“Did I say anything?” Betsy said, one hand pressed to a chest that had once provoked envy in every girl in junior high and wistful lust in every boy. “Have I ever complained about you guys being here, even once? And if this doesn’t work out, you know you’re welcome to come back, anytime. For as long as you need.”

Translation: Betsy was going to miss the hundred fifty bucks a month Violet had been giving her toward the utilities and “wear-and-tear,” as she put it.

But Violet only reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Really, I don’t know how I would have made it through these last six months without you.” Because, if nothing else, Bets had given them a roof over their heads and something at least remotely resembling stability. Nothing to be sneezed at.

The credits came on, scrolling lickety-split over the promo for the next program. Noting that Trey had at last conked out, too, Betsy stabbed the remote, then shifted on the sofa, the baby’s head on her lap. A wicked grin stole across a living advertisement for twelve-hour lip gloss. Really, you could shellac floors with that stuff.

“I got a glimpse of that Rudy fella out the window,” Betsy said in a low voice. “He as good-looking up close as he is from a distance?”

Yeah, she’d known this was coming. Joey, God bless him, was more the teddy bear type—long armed, pudgy and slightly shaggy. Violet shrugged, thoughts of Rudy’s distinct lack of pudge setting off a few all-too-familiar tingles in several far-too-neglected places. “I s’pose. He’s no pretty boy, though. Everything’s where it should be, but nothing out of the ordinary.” Except the eyes, she thought, their laser brilliance burned into her brain. Betcha those eyes could get some women to do just about anything. “A big guy. Useta be a cop. In Springfield.”

“Mass?”

“Yeah.”

“A flatlander, huh?” Bets said, head propped in palm, still grinning, her other hand absently stroking little Trey’s damp hair back from his forehead as he slept. “So what made him chuck it all to move up here to Boonieville?”

“I have no idea,” Violet said, wobbling a little when she got to her feet. “But I’ll betcha dollars to doughnuts, he doesn’t stay.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because they never do,” Violet said simply.

“You did what?” Stacey shrilled a scant yard from Rudy’s ear two days later, on their first drive to her new school. And yeah, she’d definitely been pissed when she’d found out it started today, until Rudy pointed out that at least going to school got her out of wallpaper stripping detail.

Although bitterly cold, the morning was nothing short of spectacular. Cloudless, picture-puzzle blue sky. Sun streaming through bare-branched trees. Glittering patches of snow. Perfect. The juice was back on, heating oil was being delivered that afternoon, the phone people were promising tomorrow between one and five, and the Dumpster—delivered yesterday—was rapidly filling up with shreds of linoleum and dreary carpet and basically anything receiving at least two “Gross!” votes.

Violet hadn’t contacted him—yet—but she’d said not before today, anyway, so he was hopeful on that front.

Okay, maybe hopeful wasn’t exactly the right word. Anxious, maybe.

What the hell, he wasn’t some freaking dictionary. All he knew was, those big gray-green eyes and that pale skin and the way she smelled and her obviously bruised emotions were doing a real number on his head. If she said “yes” things were liable to get a lot more complicated than he needed right now.

Because, frankly, after sitting with her in his car the other night…well, Rudy wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to forgo female companionship. The kind of female companionship that some people—his eyes cut to his glowering daughter—might take exception to. But you know what? He’d cross that bridge when—and if—he came to it. For the first time since he could remember, more things were going his way than not, leaving him pretty much in a “bring it on” kind of mood.

Which is why, since he figured his daughter would appreciate a heads-up, he’d finally told Stace about his offering Violet the job. And the apartment. If she didn’t accept, it was no big deal. Right?

“Unknot your panties, Stace,” Rudy said mildly, his breath catching at the flash of red out of the corner of his eye, a cardinal and his wife out for breakfast. “This has nothing to do with your life.”

“How can you say that?” she said, appalled, and Rudy belatedly remembered that the life-impact Richter scale for teenagers (which his daughter was, in spirit if not yet in years) was a hundred times more sensitive than it was for other humans. “I mean, it’s bad enough we had to move here in the middle of the freaking winter—”

“Okay, first off, you don’t get to say freaking. Because I said so,” he added, and she clamped her mouth shut. “And we’ve been over this. We need to start fixing up the place now so I can start taking spring and summer bookings. Which might, if I’m lucky, tide me over long enough to replace the windows and the heating system. I didn’t really have a choice, Stace—”

“Of course you had a choice, Dad! Nobody forced you to buy the inn! Or leave Springfield! Or invite this woman we don’t even know to live with us—!”