The Perfect Hope Read online

  She considered the narrow stairs, the grimy stairwell, the noise. Not that curious, she decided, and backed away.

  As she circled back around, two men—coated with gray dust, all but anonymous in their safety goggles, work gloves, and grimy faces, hauled out another load of what must have once been a wall. It landed in the Dumpster with a muffled thump.

  “Excuse me,” she began.

  She recognized Ryder by the way he turned his head, angled his body.

  He shoved up his goggles, aimed one of his mildly annoyed stares with those impatient green eyes. “You’re going to want to stay back.”

  “I can see that. It looks like you’re taking the building down to the shell.”

  “That’s about it. You need to stay clear.”

  “Yes, so you said.”

  “Need something?”

  “Actually, yes. I’m having a problem with some of the lights—the wall sconces. I thought if your electrician was here, he could—”

  “He left.” Ryder gave his helper a head jerk to send him back inside, then dragged off his safety goggles.

  Now he looked a little like a reverse raccoon, Hope thought, and couldn’t quite hold back the smile. “It’s dirty work.”

  “And a lot of it,” Ryder replied. “What kind of problem?”

  “They won’t stay on. They—”

  “Have you changed the bulbs?”

  She just stared at him. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Okay. Somebody will come check it out. Is that it?”

  “For the moment.”

  He gave her a nod, boosted himself back through the opening, and disappeared.

  “Thanks so much,” Hope muttered to empty air, and walked back to the inn.

  It usually lifted her mood, just walking inside. The way it looked, the way it smelled—especially now as Carolee’s chocolate chip cookies sweetened the air. But she strode straight into the kitchen, irked everywhere.

  “What is that man’s problem?”

  Carolee, face flushed from baking, slid a batch of cookies in the wall oven. “Which man, honey?”

  “Ryder Montgomery. Is rudeness his religion?”

  “He can be a little abrupt, especially when he’s working. Which is, I guess, almost always. What did he do?”

  “Nothing. He was just himself. You know how we’ve had those sconces keep burning out, or not coming on? I went over to tell him—or one of them, and drew him. He actually asked if I’d changed the bulbs. Do I look like a moron?”

  With a smile, Carolee held out a cookie. “No, but they did actually have a tenant once that reported a problem, and Ry went all the way over to find out the problem with the light was a burned-out bulb. The woman, and I guess she was a moron, was stunned to realize she had to change the lightbulb.”

  “Hmm.” Hope bit into the cookie. “Still.”

  “So what’s going on over there?”

  “Banging and crashing and a lot of crazed laughing.”

  “Demo. It’s fun.”

  “I suppose. I didn’t realize they were taking the whole place down to the bones. No great loss, but I didn’t realize.” And she fretted a little how the noise factor would affect her guests.

  “You should see the plans. I got a peek at them. It’s going to be wonderful.”

  “I don’t doubt it. They do good work.”

  “Justine’s already started looking at light fixtures and sinks.”

  The cookie, and Carolee, shifted Hope’s mood. “She’s in heaven.”

  “She’s going all modern and sleek and shiny. Lots of chrome, she said. It’s one look, you know, rather than a lot of them like here, but it’s still a lot to figure out. It’ll be fun to watch it all come together.”

  “It will.” Yes, it would, she realized. She hadn’t been in on the renovations here from the start. Now she’d see another building done from beginning to end. “I’m going to get some work done before check-in.”

  “I’m going to run to the market when the cookies are done. Anything you want to add to the list?”

  “I think we covered it. Thanks, Carolee.”

  “I love my job.”

  So did she, Hope thought as she settled into her office. One difficult Montgomery couldn’t spoil it.

  She checked her email, smiled at the thank-you note from a previous guest, wrote a memo to fulfill an upcoming guest’s request for a bottle of champagne to surprise his parents on their visit.

  She checked reservations—a full house for the weekend—reviewed her own personal calendar.

  When the florist arrived, she took the fresh arrangements upstairs to Titania and Oberon. Though she’d already done so, she did a last check of the room to make certain everything was perfect for the new guests.

  Following habit and routine, she went into The Library, checked the lights—her daily list included checking all lights and lamps for burned-out bulbs, thank you, Ryder Montgomery. Using her phone, she emailed herself when she found one, added a directive to bring up more coffee disks for The Library’s machine.

  She continued downstairs to run the same check on The Lounge, The Lobby, The Dining Room. Then she turned into the kitchen, and had to bite back a yelp when she spotted Ryder in the kitchen helping himself to the cookies.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” How did he move that quietly in those big, clunky boots?

  “I just got here. Good cookies.”

  “Carolee just baked them. She must still be at the market.”

  “Okay.”

  He just stood, eating his cookie, staring at her with his dog at his feet, grinning. The doggie grin led her to conclude he’d also enjoyed a cookie.

  The man had cleaned up—mostly. At least he hadn’t tracked demolition dust in with him.

  “Well. There’s one on two, and another on three.” She turned away, assuming he’d follow.

  “Anybody in the place?”

  “We have guests in W&B, but they’re out, and we have guests coming in for T&O. See, now it’s on.” She gestured toward the second wall sconce when they topped the stairs. “I was just up here, and it wasn’t.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Look, you can ask Carolee if you don’t believe me.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.”

  “You act like you don’t.” Fuming a little, she walked up to three. “There! It’s off, as you can see for yourself.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.” He went over, lifted off the globe, unscrewed the bulb. “Got a fresh one?”

  “I keep some in my apartment, but it’s not the bulb.”

  She pulled out a key, unlocked her apartment door.

  Ryder put a hand on it before it could close in his face. He stayed out of her space, but hey, he was right here. So he pushed the door all the way open, took a look inside.

  Neat and tidy, like the rest of the place. Smelled good, too—like the rest of the place. No clutter. Not a lot of girly fuss either, and he’d expected that. A lot of pillows on the sofa, but he knew few women who wouldn’t load a couch and bed with pillows. Strong colors, a couple of plants in pots, fat candles.

  She swung out of her kitchen, stopped short so he knew he’d given her another jolt. Then she held out the new bulb.

  He strolled down, screwed it in. It burned bright.

  “It’s not the bulb,” Hope insisted. “I put the other in this morning.”

  “Okay.”

  D.A. sat by Ryder’s feet, eyes on The Penthouse door. His tail wagged.

  “Don’t okay me. I’m telling you, it’s—There!” Her voice held a note of triumph as the bulb went dark. “It did it again. There has to be a short, or something wrong with the wiring.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? You just saw for yourself.” As she spoke, the door to The Penthouse eased open.

  Hope barely glanced back. Then it hit her. She smelled the honeysuckle, of course, but she’d gotten so used to it. “Why would she pla
y with the lights?”

  “How would I know?” His shoulders lifted as his thumbs hooked in his front pockets. “Maybe she’s bored. She’s been dead awhile. Or maybe she’s pissed at you.”

  “She is not. There’s no reason.” Hope started to close The Penthouse door, pushed it open instead. “There’s water running.”

  She clipped down the short hall into the big elaborate bathroom. Water ran into the double vessel sinks on the counter, in the generous jet tub, from the shower and body jets.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “Does this happen often?”

  “It’s a first. Come on, Lizzy,” she muttered, turning off the sink faucets. “I have guests coming.”

  Ryder opened the glass door, turned off the showerhead, the body jets.

  “I’m doing the research.” Impatient now, Hope turned off the tub. “I know Owen is, too, but it’s not exactly a snap to find someone named Billy who lived, we assume, during the nineteenth century.”

  “If your ghost is acting up, I can’t do anything about it.” Ryder swiped his wet hand on his jeans.

  “She’s not my ghost. It’s your building.”

  “She’s your ancestor.” With his habitual shrug, he went out, walked to the parlor door. He tried the knob, glanced back. “How about telling your great-great-whatever to cut it out.”

  “Cut what out?”

  He jiggled the knob again.

  “That’s just—” She nudged him aside, tried the knob herself. “This is ridiculous.” Out of patience entirely, Hope continued to rattle the knob. Then she threw up her hands, jabbed a finger at it. “Do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Take off the knob, or the whole door.”

  “With what?”

  She frowned, glanced down. “You don’t have your tools? Why don’t you have your tools? You always have your tools.”

  “It was a lightbulb.”

  Temper merged with just a touch of panic. “It wasn’t a lightbulb. I told you it wasn’t a lightbulb. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to sit down a minute.”

  “No!”

  At her near-shout, D.A. moseyed to a corner and curled into it. Out of the line of fire.

  “Don’t you dare sit on that chair. You’re not clean.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” But he went around the chair, opened the window. And considered the logistics of the roof.

  “Don’t go out there! What am I supposed to do when you fall?”

  “Call nine-one-one.”

  “No. Seriously, Ryder. Call one of your brothers, or the fire department, or—”

  “I’m not calling the fire department because the damn door won’t open.”

  She held up her hands, took a breath. Then sat down herself. “I’m just going to calm down.”

  “Good start.”

  “There’s no call to be snotty with me.” She pushed at her hair—and yes, the in-between length definitely annoyed. “I didn’t jam the door.”

  “Snotty?” It might’ve been a smirk, might’ve been a sneer, but it hit just between the two. “I’m being snotty?”

  “You take snotty to a new level. You don’t have to like me, and I keep out of your way as much as possible. But I run this inn, and damn well. Our paths have to cross occasionally. You could at least pretend to be polite.”

  Now he leaned back against the door. “I don’t pretend to be anything, and who says I don’t like you?”

  “You do. Every time you’re snotty.”

  “Maybe that’s my response to snooty.”

  “Snooty!” Sincerely insulted, she goggled at him. “I’m not snooty.”

  “You’ve got it down to a science. But that’s your deal.” He moved over, looked out the window again.

  “You’ve been rude to me since the first minute I met you. Right in this room, before it was a room.”

  She remembered the moment perfectly, the dizziness, the powerful surge inside her body, the way the light had seemed to burst around him.

  She didn’t want to think about it.

  Irritated, he turned around. “Maybe it had something to do with you looking at me like I’d punched you in the face.”

  “I did not. I just had a momentary … I don’t know.”

  “Maybe because you charge around on stilts.”

  “Seriously? Now you’re criticizing my shoes?”

  “Just commenting.”

  She made a sound in her throat that struck him as feral, leaped up, and banged a fist on the door. “Open this damn door!”

  “She’ll open it when she’s ready. You’re just going to hurt yourself.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.” She couldn’t say why his matter-of-fact reaction increased her own temper, and that hint of panic. “You—you don’t even use my name. It’s like you don’t know it.”

  “I know your name. Stop banging on the door. Hope. See, I know your name. Stop it.”

  He reached up, covered her fisted hand with his.

  And she felt it again, that surge, that strange dizziness. Cautiously, she braced against the door, turned her head to look at him.

  Close again, as they’d been on New Year’s. Close enough to see those gold flecks scattered across the green of his eyes. Close enough to see the heat, and the consideration in them.

  She didn’t think about leaning in, but her body did. To stop it, she pressed a hand on his chest. Was his heart a little unsteady? She thought it might be. Maybe she only hoped it, so she wouldn’t be alone.

  “She trapped Owen and Avery in E&D,” Hope remembered. “She wanted them to …” Kiss. To discover each other. “She’s a romantic.”

  Ryder stepped back, and the moment broke like glass. “Right now she’s a nuisance.”

  The window he’d opened closed quietly on its own.

  “I’d say she’s making a statement.” Calmer now, steadier as he seemed less so, Hope pushed at her hair. “Oh for God’s sake, Ryder, just kiss me. It won’t kill you, and then she’ll let us out of here.”

  “Maybe I don’t like having women—dead ones or live ones—maneuver me.”

  “Believe me, kissing you isn’t going to be the highlight of my day, but I have guests arriving any minute. Or.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m calling Owen.”

  “You’re not calling Owen.”

  She got him now. Having one of his brothers come over to let them out? Mortifying. Kissing her, she calculated, was the lesser of two evils. Amused, she smiled at him. “You can close your eyes and think of England.”

  “Funny.” He stepped over, braced a hand on either side of her head. “This is because I’ve wasted enough time, and I want a cold beer.”

  “Fine.”

  He leaned down, hovered a moment, a breath from her lips.

  Don’t think, she ordered herself. Don’t react. It’s nothing.

  It’s nothing.

  It was heat and light, and oh, that surge again from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. He didn’t touch her, but for that mouth against mouth, and she had to curl her hands at her sides to stop herself from reaching out. Grabbing on, dragging him in.

  She let herself slide, couldn’t resist it, as the kiss spun out.

  He’d meant to do no more than brush his lips to hers. As he might to a friend, an aunt, a plump middle-aged woman with a couple of grandkids.

  But he sank into it, too deep. The taste of her, the scent, the feel of her lips yielding to his.

  Not sweet, not sharp, but something mysteriously between. Something uniquely Hope.

  It—she—stirred him more than it should. More than he wanted.

  Stepping back from her cost brutal effort.

  He stared back at her for a beat, for two. Then she let out a breath, uncurled her hand, tried the knob.

  “There.” She opened the door. “It worked.”

  “Get moving before she changes her mind.”

  The minute they were in the hall
, he walked straight to the now cheerfully burning light, lifted the globe from the floor, fixed it on.

  “Done.” He stood where he was, gave her another long look.

  She started to speak, and the doorbell pealed.

  “My guests are here. I need to—”

  “I’ll go out the back.”

  She nodded, hurried downstairs.

  He listened to the clip of her heels on wood, let himself take a breath.

  “Don’t pull that crap again,” he said. With his dog faithfully at his heels, Ryder walked away, out of the scent of honeysuckle and Hope.

  CHAPTER THREE

  GRABBING PRIVATE TIME PRESENTED A CHALLENGE, BUT a woman needed the ear and input of her female friends. Hope grabbed what she could the next day in the window after preparing breakfast for guests and before Vesta opened.

  She dashed across Main Street a few minutes after ten, and straight into the restaurant. Clare and Avery already sat at a table, studying Avery’s potential wedding dress, again, on the iPad.

  “I brought muffins.” Hope dropped the little basket on the table, tossed back the cheerful red napkin. “Blueberry, still warm from the oven. Thanks for being here.”

  “You made it sound urgent.” Avery took a sniff, went mmm, grabbed a muffin.

  “It’s not urgent. It’s just a thing. I know you’re busy.”