A Place to Call Home

Don’t hold on to your fears, Jessica had told her the day she’d left. Hold on to God instead.

Sometimes that was easier said than done, but Abby was trying. While Jessica had sent her off with a hug and words of encouragement, Alex had lectured her. Warned her that sharing her home with the guests was a far cry from simply handing them a keycard and leaving them to their own devices. No privacy, he’d told her. Your life won’t be your own.

If Abby hadn’t understood the underlying reason for the warning, she might have been tempted to tell him that her life had never felt like her own anyway. But after she’d turned it over to the Lord, the excitement over what He planned to do with it overrode her fears. Most of the time.

Lost in thought, Abby stared down at the bowl of ingredients, wondering if she’d added the right amount of flour. With a sigh, she dumped it back into the canister and began to measure it out again.

This time, she couldn’t hold Alex responsible for the dozens of biscuits cooling on wire racks around the kitchen. Or the reason she was so distracted today. This time, her new carpenter was to blame.

Quinn O’Halloran.

She’d seen him mask his dismay when he’d walked into the lodge that morning. Not that she could blame him. There was a lot of work left to accomplish.

The to-do list taped to the refrigerator filled one side of a piece of paper and half the other. Daniel’s absence had already put her behind schedule. Which was the reason she’d agreed, against her better judgment, to let Quinn stay in one of the cabins.

As long as the cabins were ready for the grand opening, everything else would work out. Abby had discovered she wasn’t ready to put guests in the main house right away. Years of having her privacy fiercely guarded had seeped into her personality in ways she hadn’t acknowledged until she’d moved out from under the protection of her family’s last name.

The rhythmic tap of a hammer paused for a moment and Abby couldn’t resist peeking out the window. Quinn had left after she’d shown him the rest of the cabins but returned a few hours later and went straight to work. True to his word, he’d started with the cabin windows. Most of the building materials had been delivered before Abby arrived in Mirror Lake and she’d shown Quinn the musty garage where everything was stored.

His progress—and that, she told herself sternly, was what she was checking on—gave her a renewed hope that she would be open for business right on schedule.

Something moved near Quinn’s feet and even from the distance separating them, Abby knew what it was. Mulligan. He’d whined at the door when Quinn’s truck had returned, preferring to nap in the great outdoors at the new carpenter’s feet than with her in the sunlit kitchen.

The traitor.

After removing the last batch of biscuits from the oven, Abby cleaned up the kitchen and then slipped out the back door, where she’d hung a load of sheets and towels on the line.

On warm afternoons, she preferred to put the sun to work instead of the industrial-sized dryer in the utility room. The Porter Hotels’ housekeeping staff would have shaken their heads at the extra work but Abby found pleasure in doing things the old-fashioned way.

As she approached the cabin where Quinn was working, two dogs streaked toward her. Mulligan barked several times, as if introducing her to the lively, buff-colored cocker spaniel that bounced at his side as if it had springs in its paws.

Abby braced herself for impact but the dog pulled up short at the last second and sat down, lifting one dainty paw for her to shake.

Charmed, Abby set the laundry basket down and dropped to her knees. “Aren’t you a little sweetheart? What’s your name?”

“Abby, Lady. Lady, Abby.” Quinn sauntered over, pushing the hammer into the leather tool belt that rode low on his narrow hips. He’d swapped the khaki pants he’d been wearing that morning for a pair of well-worn jeans. “We’re roommates, so I had to bring her along.”

Which meant that other than Lady, Quinn lived alone. For some reason Abby’s heart—totally on its own accord—lifted and performed a brief pirouette at the thought.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Abby sincerely hoped that wasn’t true. “I wasn’t thinking anything. But now that you mention it, Lady is…”

“She’s what?” Quinn’s eyes narrowed, as if he’d heard it before.

Not the type of dog Abby would have pictured riding shotgun in Quinn’s pickup.

“Beautiful.” Abby smiled as the spaniel tried to squirm into her lap. “Mulligan will love having company. If you ask him, I think he’d tell you that I’m pretty boring.”

Not with that smile.

Quinn slapped the thought away as soon as it surfaced.

Apparently his former life wasn’t as ingrained as he’d thought. Because he’d broken one of the cardinal rules of the trade. Don’t get personally involved with a client.

You tried that once, remember? Look where it got you.

Frustration surged through him. Because nothing, beginning with his first glimpse of Abby Porter, had gone the way he’d expected.

First, he got another earful from Faye when he’d stopped by the office on his way through town. Even though the appointment book had a lot of white space, she’d been suspicious from the moment Quinn had informed her that he would be temporarily filling in for Daniel Redstone. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Faye scolded him often enough about his tendency to micromanage the business, so his sudden decision to turn O’Halloran Security over to his part-time employees for two weeks had been out of character. The promise of a new air conditioner had finally appeased her, and he’d managed to escape.

Conscious of the time, Quinn had driven home, tossed some of his possessions into the back of the truck and boosted an ecstatic Lady into the passenger seat.

On the way back to the lodge, Alex had called him. Twice, because Quinn had ignored the phone the first time. He wanted to know why Quinn wasn’t with Abby. He wanted to know how work on the inn was progressing. And he wanted Quinn to give him updates—daily updates—on how his sister seemed to be handling the stress.

The last request had given Quinn the opportunity to educate Alex on the difference between providing personal security and spying. Porter hadn’t been happy with the lesson but Quinn knew he had to draw the line somewhere. Plus, Alex’s attitude toward Abby had rubbed Quinn the wrong way. It was true she didn’t seem like the type to take on a project as large as renovating an old former Bible camp but something in the determined set of Abby’s chin made Quinn wonder if she wasn’t up to the challenge.

Quinn had been tempted to tell Porter that, too, except he didn’t know how to say it without sounding as if he were getting emotionally involved. And because he didn’t do emotionally involved anymore, he’d simply cut the conversation short and decided he’d be screening his calls from now on.

There’d been no sign of Abby when he parked the truck in the driveway, but he’d heard her singing along with the music filtering through the open windows. Relief had poured through him. If Abby was inside, it meant that he could be outside. And Quinn welcomed the chance to clear his head.

It had worked. Up until the moment he spotted Abby walking across the yard, a laundry basket anchored against one hip. The sight of her felt like another kick to his solar plexus.

If possible, she looked even prettier than she had that morning.

Quinn tried not to notice the way the sunlight picked out the gold and platinum highlights in her hair. Or how the bright pink apron, fashioned to look like a slice of watermelon, accentuated her slender waist and the gentle curve of her hips.

“Have you had Lady since she was a puppy?” Abby asked, unaware that her smile scraped like sandpaper against Quinn’s already frayed nerves.

“I inherited her.”

“Inherited her?”

“My dad passed away last year. Lady belonged to him.”

Quinn didn’t bother to add that the dog had been another innocent victim of his father’s neglect. The day before the funeral, Quinn had followed a rusty chain anchored around the post of the deck to a box made of scrap wood underneath an oak tree in the backyard. He knelt down to look inside and was stunned to see a pair of bright but wary eyes staring back at him.

Quinn hadn’t known his father even owned a dog but it didn’t surprise him a bit that he hadn’t taken care of it. Mike O’Halloran’s legacy was one of abuse and neglect. He’d let his family splinter apart, his house practically fall down around his ears and his locksmith business slide to the verge of bankruptcy.

While Quinn debated whether he should try and lure the dog out or simply call animal control, Lady had taken charge of the situation. She’d sidled up to him, her coat matted and dirty, and politely lifted a paw for him to shake.

Quinn had picked her up, taken her into the house and fed her. Then he gave her a bath. That night, Lady staked a claim near his feet when he went to bed.

She’d been there ever since.

“I’m sorry about your father.” Abby rose to her feet and laid her hand on Quinn’s arm. It took all his self-control not to jerk away from her touch. “My parents died when I was fourteen. They were flying home from a convention in a friend’s twin-engine plane. There was some sort of mechanical failure…” Her voice trailed off, the memory—and the pain—as fresh in her eyes as if it had happened only the week before.

“You mentioned a brother. Alex. Do you have other siblings?” Quinn thrust his hands in his pockets, jostling her hand from his arm.