Table of Contents
Review
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
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About the Author
Copyright
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Chapter One:
“Come on.” Sabrina Arnold usually didn’t grumble about the Ms. Fix-It jobs that came with running a bed and breakfast, but this bathroom had given her enough trouble to last a lifetime. She should’ve known she couldn’t replace a toilet by herself, but Bri couldn’t afford to pay a professional.
“Bolts set,” she recited, glancing at the paused YouTube video once more. “Wax ring warm and in place.” She repeated what the man in the video had said in her Plumber Tone, hoping to coax the porcelain to do what she wanted.
She rocked the toilet bowl back and forth, trying to get the wax ring to settle into the drainage hole. It wouldn’t go, almost like something was blocking—
“The towel.” She smeared her sweaty bangs away from her forehead. She’d followed the instructions for removing the old toilet the plumber in the video had detailed. Followed them precisely.
And that included stuffing a towel into the drainage hole to prevent the gases from escaping. She’d still smelled plenty, and none of it was pleasant.
She heaved the new toilet bowl off the bolts and examined the wax ring. Still intact. Her sigh of relief only lasted a few seconds as she reached for the towel in the drain. She pulled on it without success. A brief thought that she should be wearing gloves crossed her mind as she put her full weight into tugging the towel free.
It released, sending her sprawling backward into the wall. Only slightly panting, she said, “There you go. Good job.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or the sewer system.
“Oh—” Bri gagged at the now-escaping gases, abandoned the now-grimy towel, and reached for the toilet bowl. This time the wax ring settled right where it was supposed to, and Bri gave the bowl a pat of appreciation, the way she would an obedient dog. As she applied a generous amount of hand sanitizer all the way to her elbows, sense of pride swelled beneath her ribs—she’d just replaced a toilet by herself!
She reached for the space bar on her laptop. “Okay, next is….”
The phone rang at the reception desk. Bri abandoned the computer and hurried down the hall toward the front of the mansion house, unsure if the receptionist had come into work yet.
“Abbington House.” Bri answered the phone in her Professional Tone, one she much preferred over the various handyman tones she’d perfected these past couple of years.
“I’m inquiring about availability for October seventh,” a woman said.
“October seventh….” Bri clicked on the reservations and opened the calendar, though she knew October was wide open. Most guests didn’t book five months in advance, even though Abbington House boasted seven of the most charming rooms New Orleans had to offer. “How many nights?”
“We’d like to book the entire bed and breakfast for four nights,” she said. “We’re bringing our wedding party there, because I adore your gardens. I saw online you had an event planner on site. Is that right?”
Excitement bubbled beneath Bri’s skin, almost infecting her business demeanor. “I’m the event planner. My name is Bri Arnold. Would you like me to put together a proposal for our most popular packages? I can email them to you.” Bri had graduated a few years ago in hospitality management, but her true passion was rooted in planning events at her grandmother’s B&B. Weddings were her favorite, and the grin she’d been trying to suppress burst onto her face.
The soon-to-be guest confirmed she wanted to know about all the packages available.
“Let me get your name,” Bri said.
“Amanda Monroe.”
“The Amanda Monroe?” Bri’s practiced professionalism fled, her voice taking on the quality of Crazed Fan.
The singing sensation chuckled. “One and the same.” After spelling out her personal email address, Amanda said, “I look forward to hearing from you, Bri.”
“Look for something from me soon.” Bri managed to hang up without gushing further and sat staring into space, the jazzy and popular tune of Amanda Monroe’s number one hit, If He’s the One, bobbing through her mind.
She stared at the email address she’d written down using the same fingers that moments ago had been wrenching a rag out of a drainage hole. With similar effort, she pulled herself from the fantasy of planning, managing, and attending the pop star’s wedding and glanced at the clock.
Eleven-forty-five! Bri leapt from the stool behind the front desk and called down the hall to see if Yasmine was in the study-turned-office.
“Coming!” Yasmine, who usually took care of the behind-the-scenes paperwork for the B&B every morning before answering phones, took Bri’s spot on the stool, giving her friend a little wave. Bri returned the gesture before she stepped outside. The door stuck at the top, and she yanked to get it to close. They couldn’t afford to air condition the Louisiana heat and humidity.
Bri wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, already feeling frown lines as she glared toward the nearly finished construction only a few hundred yards down the beach.
Another bed and breakfast. This one much newer, with plumbing that surely didn’t clunk when someone flushed and windows that didn’t sit in warped wooden frames.
Nana said Abbington House had character and charm, but she’d started going blind ten years ago when she hit eighty. Bri had made improvements—such as the new toilet—as she could, but keeping up the gardens and interior always came before a major structural renovation.
Giddiness that the Amanda Monroe would be booking her wedding at Abbington almost convinced Bri to abandon her plan. But she’d been spying on the construction crew at the new B&B next door for two weeks now, and she knew they’d be at lunch for the next fifty minutes. Her opportunity to get inside and scope out the place wouldn’t last much longer, so she stepped onto the sidewalk and hurried toward the building. The gentle near-summer breeze from the Gulf of Mexico teased her hair on her right while the scent of living things painted her senses on her left. Abbington House faced a busy street because of its proximity to the beachfront, but the mansion house sat back far enough not to hear the noise. Her grounds merged into the parking lot of the new B&B, and Bri frowned when she noticed that a new sign had gone up that morning: Hammond House.
She almost rolled her eyes at the name. This box on the beach wasn’t a New Orleans tradition, a mansion house handed down through generations, and it certainly didn’t deserve the honor of even being called a house. It looked like a stunted high-rise building, all cold windows and black steel.
Bri worked to smooth the wrinkles from her forehead, unwilling to age prematurely because of a new establishment. There’d been a lot of rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina—Abbington had undergone its fair share of repairs—but never something so nearby, and nothing with such similar services. At least no one else had remodeled their mansion into a B&B, though there were plenty to be had along this stretch of beach.
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Birds rioted in her chest as she stepped up to the front door. She cupped her hands and pressed her nose to the dark glass, finding the interior of Hammond House nearly finished. The internal fowl turned into winged dinosaurs, flapping and gnashing and cawing.
With the signage in place, it seemed that the new B&B would be open in time for the summer season. Bri swallowed back the rising desperation, reminding herself that Abbington’s calendar for June had filled last week.
At least bankruptcy is a couple of months off.
Stop it, the rational side of her brain countered, in Nana’s voice. Eternally optimistic, Nana taught Bri not to fret today about what tomorrow might bring. But Nana didn’t pay the bills, didn’t deal with the guests, didn’t even know Hammond House had been built. Bri hadn’t had the heart to tell her grandmother, not wanting to worry the only family she had left.
She knew Nana had money too—enough to fix up the B&B. But Bri hadn’t told her about its problems. She wanted the House to support itself, not rely on extra money from outside sources.
With that thought, she pushed on the automatic door to get it to slide open, hoping it wasn’t locked. It was. She cocked her hip and glanced over her shoulder. A beachfront breeze lilted off the water, tousling her dark curls.
She secured them in a ponytail and headed for the corner of the building. She turned toward the service entrance she’d scoped out last week. Also locked.
Her frustration frothing, she explored the perimeter of the building, finally finding an entrance at the back, where a supply dock had been built.
She tried to ignore the pinching thought that everything about Hammond House was superior to Abbington, but it only grew louder as she crouched under the roll-up door and entered.
She crossed the huge industrial kitchen and stepped into the lobby. The marble pillars stopped her short. The breakfast nook. The sprawling restaurant. The granite countertop at check-in. Her eyes couldn’t drink in the magnificence of the space fast enough.
She thought of Abbington’s entrance, which was just a former living room that had been transformed into a lobby with hardwood, a shag rug, and a piece of department store furniture for a check-in counter.
The kitchen was large, but old, and certainly not industrial. The dining area sufficient to fit and feed the fifteen or twenty people they had when the house was full.
But this place….
Bri swallowed a sob.
Hammond House was more of a swanky hotel than a charming, small-town bed and breakfast. She seized onto the thought. Her guests would never come somewhere like this. Somewhere that felt so cookie-cutter, so sterile, so Big-Chain.
Shaking away her nerves and doubts, she headed down the hall where she found administration offices, a workout room, and the entrance to an indoor pool.
More amenities Abbington House didn’t have. Bri’s shoulders started to droop under the weight of the comparisons. Still, she marched up the stairs, hoping the rooms felt like a box of saltines, without flavor or excitement.
A placard next to the first door caught her attention. Garden Room.
With shaking fingers and a heart that felt heavy in her chest, Bri pushed against the door. She almost hoped it wouldn’t open.
Oh, but it did.
And it did not disappoint.
The wall to her immediate right depicted vibrant cherry trees, with a signpost that said St. Charles Avenue. The south wall was labeled Magazine Street. Roses, bushes, and vines covered the walls, as did a huge depiction of the famous George Washington Cable House. The stunning, white arches of the second story gaped like mouths, threatening to swallow her whole.
The entire Garden District of New Orleans had thrown up in the room, which also had a crisply made king-size bed, a high-definition television, a small kitchenette, and the latest in technological power strips.
Bri heard a moan, realizing seconds later that the sound of horror came from her own mouth. She cut it off and backed out of the room. The room that spewed New Orleans charm. The room that was anything but saltines, flavorless and unexciting.
She’d taken two steps down the hall toward the next room, her brain battling with itself about whether she really wanted to see what lay behind the closed door, when someone cleared his throat.
Heartbeat bouncing against the roof of her mouth, Bri spun. One hand came to her chest, the other splayed against the wall to keep her balance.
“Are you lost?” The man who stood before her seemed to be ten feet tall, wearing a pressed black suit, perfectly pointed collar triangles, and a pale purple tie.
“N-no,” Bri stammered.
He cocked his head, his dark hair catching the light from the window behind him. “Then what are you doing here?”
It seemed unfair that he could speak whole sentences and she couldn’t even remember her name.
“Nothing.”
“How did you get in?” He cocked his head, curious, not condemning.
Bri folded her arms at that question, unwilling to incriminate herself. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Never once in her weeks of espionage had she seen a Suit.
“I’ll go,” she said, rushing forward and pushing past him to the stairs.
He followed her, which meant she couldn’t very well retrace her steps to the receiving bay. He’d probably install a shiny padlock on the roll-up door to keep the likes of her out. Not that she’d be coming back.
She strode across the tiled floor toward the front entrance, her flip flops making sucking sounds in the cavernous space.
“You don’t have to go,” he said just before she reached the automatic door that didn’t actually slide open.
She turned back to him. “I don’t?”
A half-smile graced his mouth as he glanced around the hotel. Bri would not think of it as a bed and breakfast. It wasn’t a beautiful mansion house that had been transformed. It was a monstrosity on the beach.
“Do you like the place?” he asked.
“It’s fine, I guess.”
His focus came back to her, and she squirmed under the weight of it. “You didn’t like the Garden Room?”
“I liked it fine.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said fine.”
“So?”
He took a step toward her, and she backed into the dark glass of the entrance. It didn’t budge, not that she expected it to.
“What’s your name?”
With her brain on the fritz, she could only give him the truth. “Sabrina Arnold.”
“What were you doing here, Sabrina Arnold?” He said her name like he was cataloging it so he could put it on an arrest warrant later.. He leaned against one of the leather sofas in the lobby as if he didn’t have a care in the world. But the seriousness in his dark eyes spoke a different message.
“I was checking the place out, okay?” She hooked her thumb toward Abbington House. “I work at the bed and breakfast next door.” He didn’t need to know she owned it, or would, once Nana passed away.
A chuckle started low in his chest, a sound Bri found entirely too attractive.
Annoying, she corrected herself. He is entirely too annoying.
And attractive. The constant arguing in her brain caused a headache, and Bri pressed one thumb against her temple.
“How do we compare?” he asked.
“Book a room at Abbington, and find out yourself.”
“Or I could just sneak in when no one’s around.” His eyebrows rose in challenge, but that playful smile remained.
“I’ll show you myself right now.” Bri twisted her hips against the door behind her, desperate for the automatic door to slide already! It didn’t. How could she leave without losing more of her dignity?
The still nameless man approached, a few keys clinking together. “Well, Sabrina, I might just have to book a room at Abbington House so I can see how you do it.”
“We’re booked through June.” She couldn’t quite keep the pride from her voice as she move
d out of his way.
He nodded as he fitted a key into the lock. “I’m glad. Means the market is good for this kind of place.” He spoke with a quiet accent, one she couldn’t quite place.
“Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“Do you own Hammond House?” She’d read about the construction announcement in the New Orleans News, but couldn’t remember who owned it. Could’ve been one of those huge hotel conglomerates for all she knew.
He chuckled again, and being so close, the sound caused the hair on Bri’s arms to stand at attention. She wanted to smooth down the traitorous follicles.
“No,” he said. “I’m their lawyer.”
Panic pounded against her ribs. Or maybe that was her heart. Adrenaline? No matter what it was, it was screaming Get out! Get out now!
“Oh, well, nice to meet you….”
“Jason,” he supplied. “Jason Carter.” He slid the door all the way open for her, as if showing off how it could accommodate the largest of luggage carts.
“I won’t come in again, Jason.”
“Great. Then I won’t have to prosecute.” A half-grin accompanied the words, but it did little to settle the unrest in Bri’s stomach.
After another nod, Bri scampered back to Abbington House, irritated that her careful planning hadn’t foreseen that a handsome lawyer would make an unannounced visit to Hammond House while she was trespassing.
Chapter Two:
Carter Hammond watched as the leggy brunette flip-flopped her way back to Abbington House. He relocked the door and made it to the leather couch before he collapsed. His injured right leg shook, furious at him for standing for so long.
He couldn’t believe he’d given Sabrina Arnold a false name. Why hadn’t he just admitted to owning Hammond House? Why did he care what she thought of his bed and breakfast?
Carter sighed, the answer ever-present in his mind. He hadn’t told her who he was, because then he could fail and she wouldn’t know. That, and he cared entirely too much about what other people thought—especially his father. As Hammond House bore his name, and was Carter’s first solo business venture, he was desperate to make it successful. He’d do anything, in fact. Even lie to conceal his true identity from the pretty woman who’d trespassed.