Читать книгу Suiteheart Of A Deal: Suiteheart Of A Deal / My Place Or Yours? - Wendy Etherington - Страница 10

“SURELY THERE MUST be some mistake! Could you…could you check again?”

Heart pounding, palms sweating, Rainey leaned forward in her chair and looked frantically at the file lying open on the polished rosewood desk. Several documents lay atop the open folder, stapled together with little blue paper corners. They looked awfully official.

Nate Frome of the firm of Wilson, Hutchinson, Frome sat on the other side of the desk. He was a tall, slender man with dark hair, the bland good looks of a television news anchor, and the brisk manner of a busy lawyer. Rainey guessed he was a few years older than she.

He nodded sympathetically. “I’m afraid there’s no mistake, Rainey. Your great aunt amended her will just six weeks ago. She was physically ill, but she wasn’t mentally incapacitated. The will is valid.”

Rainey slumped back in her chair, stunned beyond words. Half the Haven? How could Lilly have done that? How could she have left only half the inn to Rainey and the other half to some guy named Beckett Mahoney? Why, she hadn’t even left Rainey a controlling interest in the place. Instead she had doomed her to equal partnership with a total stranger. It wasn’t fair! Rainey had kept her part of their deal, but Lilly had reneged on hers. Why?

Fighting tears, she asked, “Who, pray tell, is Beckett Mahoney?”

From the look of mild disdain on his face, Rainey instantly got the impression that Nate knew this—this Mahoney person, and that he didn’t much care for him. And, furthermore, that there was a pretty good chance Rainey wasn’t going to care for him, either. A feeling of doom descended on her.

“Actually, he’s an old friend of mine, Rainey. We grew up together. Ah, well, maybe friend is too strong a word for…” Nate paused and cleared his throat. “He was a close friend of Lilly’s. He helped out around the Haven quite a bit, with repairs and that sort of thing. I think they played poker together once in a while. She was very fond of him.”

Rainey furrowed her brows. “Repairs? Is he some sort of handyman?” She envisioned an aging Mr. Fix-It, a stooped and arthritic grandfatherly type, shuffling around after Lilly with a tool kit in his hand. Terrific. Just what she needed.

“Ah, well, you might say that.” Nate chuckled. “Beck is certainly known to be, ah, quite handy.” Seeing the bewildered look on Rainey’s face, he adopted a more serious tone. “To be fair, Beck is actually a very accomplished man, Rainey. He’s licensed to fly small aircraft and gives lessons at the Springbank Airport near Calgary. He also gives ski lessons and volunteers for the Banff ski patrol. He’s a trained mountain guide and a pretty fair climber, too.”

A climber? “How old is Mr. Mahoney?”

“I believe Beck is thirty-two.”

Thirty-two. Well, that wasn’t so bad, really. At least he was only four years older than Rainey. Even so. An equal partner. She just plain didn’t want one. Arghhh! If sweet, funny, eccentric, Great-Aunt Lilly were alive, Rainey would kill her.

Nate gave her a warning look. “Rainey, you probably should know that Beck has a bit of a reputation with the ladies.”

Terrific, thought Rainey. We’ve swung all the way from handyman to ladies’ man. “What sort of reputation?”

“Ah, well, some of it is exaggerated, I’m sure, but let’s just say that Beck is well-known in these parts.”

Rainey leaned forward on her seat. “Define ‘parts.”’

“Calgary, Bragg Creek, Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, some parts of British Columbia, maybe even Washington State…”

She slumped back again. “Okay, I get the picture.”

While Rainey battled wildly mixed emotions—on the one hand she felt cheated; on the other hand she felt relieved—Nate casually added, “Oh, I forgot to mention, he’s also a licensed masseuse. Actually, he has a salon at the Haven.”

A masseuse? Wait a minute. Hadn’t the hustler in the dining room offered to give Rainey a massage? On the house? Surely…oh, no…surely Romeo wasn’t Beck Mahoney. Then again, he must be. He was about the right age. And how many masseuses could there be in a town the size of Bragg Creek?

“Nate,” Rainey asked with mounting dread, “is Beck Mahoney tall and blond?”

“He sure is. I take it you’ve met Beck?” His expression suggested that if Rainey had met the man, she would definitely remember him.

“I may have. I’m not sure.”

“Well, you’ll be meeting him shortly.” Nate glanced at his watch. “I asked him to join us at three-thirty. Your aunt said you would probably be a little upset, and that I should speak with you first.”

A little upset? While an astonished Nate looked on, Rainey threw back her head and laughed hysterically. Romeo as a business partner! It was too rich. She had just managed to get one hustler out of her life, and now she was going into business with another. Could things get any worse?

“MAN, OH MAN, what’s with this traffic,” Beck grumbled to himself as he cruised well below the speed limit along the Trans-Canada Highway between Bragg Creek and Banff. “Don’t these people know I’m late for an important date?”

Every summer, it was the same. Tourists and more tourists, clogging up the roadways of the Bow Valley Corridor, the steadily rising stretch of land that paralleled the Bow River west from Calgary, past Bragg Creek and Canmore, to the Rockies. But it was mid-September and most of them should have packed up and gone home by now. Obviously these road hogs didn’t know when to clear out.

Beck always looked forward to the lull between the summer tourists—the hikers and climbers and fishermen—and the droves of skiers who showed up in November when the region’s numerous ski hills opened for business. It gave him a welcome break from being nice to strangers from Winnipeg and Montreal and Denver and Dallas.

Normally he used the time to do a little fishing of his own, or to help Lilly with one of her pet projects. Last year he had lovingly restored the aqua-blue 1967 Ford Fairlane she had been smart enough to keep. He chuckled, recalling how his only reward for doing the work had been the privilege of chauffeuring her and her cackling, whiskey-addled cronies from one crazy appointment to another. Facials, makeovers, color charting sessions—they couldn’t get enough. Once, he had even taken them to see a psychic in Calgary. Imagine a bunch of eighty-year-olds consulting with a psychic. Now that was optimism.

With Lilly gone—gee, he was going to miss the darn girl!—he had no particular project in mind for this autumn break. Unless, of course…Speeding up to pass a sluggish camper van with Montana plates, his mind drifted to a pair of mesmerizing green eyes framed by a pert, pretty face and a crown of dark, silky hair. The mystery woman in the restaurant. What a babe.

Beck couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman worth taking a second look at. Sure he could have his pick of women anywhere in the corridor. But he’d never met one who looked quite like her, or sounded like her—ooh, that throaty, sexy voice—or who could dish it out and take it. She was in his head now, and he sensed it was going to be hard to get her out.

Who was she? There weren’t many single women hanging around the Haven. Maybe she was somebody’s mistress. Lots of secret lovers, some quite famous, appreciated Lilly’s legendary discretion.

Nah, somehow he didn’t think so. Not in this case. She was too fine to settle for second spot.

Maybe she was a new resident in town. Nah, that was even less likely. Tourist attractions aside, Bragg Creek was mostly a bedroom community for the families who preferred its Nordic beauty and small-town friendliness to the concrete hustle and bustle of Calgary. It didn’t attract too many singles—especially gorgeous single women.

And hey, what did it matter anyway? After that scene in the restaurant, he’d be lucky if Gorgeous Green Eyes didn’t cross the road to avoid him. Talk about making a bad first impression! Maybe he should do a little damage control—go back to the Haven later today and track her down. It was crazy, and probably pointless, but he was itching to tell her: Look, don’t take me too seriously, okay? It’s just that I need something to do until…

Yeah well, why bother? Once she found out about the money, she’d be no different than the others—salivating all over him every chance she got. He’d manage to keep it under wraps for a while, but sooner or later somebody would clue her in.

Dammit, he needed to fall in love with somebody for real and get married as soon as possible. The sooner he got married, the sooner he’d be able to get his hands on the second half of his trust fund. Then he could get a law degree and give his aching knees a rest. A man couldn’t give skiing lessons forever.

Three more years before they would cut the check. It seemed like an eternity.

Too bad about the babe with the shining eyes and the voluptuous curves. He had no trouble picturing himself married to her. He’d come home every night from his thriving practice in environmental law to find her wrapped in a white silk kimono, stoking the fire in his cottage, a snifter of brandy already poured for him. It made a nice picture.

What the hell, she probably knew about the money already. After all, she’d been in town for more than ten minutes.

As the corridor’s rolling foothills gradually gave way to the steely peaks of the Rockies, Beck marveled once again at the fact that Lilly had named him in her will. Man, what a shock. It hadn’t occurred to him for one second that she would leave him something. Oh, sure, he’d done some minor repair work around the Haven, and he’d given her more than a few foot massages over the years. But that didn’t amount to much. She had treated him like a son, and he’d been happy to help out an old lady with no kids of her own.

He’d also given her a lot of his hard-earned cash. What a poker player old Lilly had been! He had called her Poker Face Miller and she had nicknamed him Beck and Call.

What could she possibly have left him? He sure hoped it was the Fairlane.

“ANGELA, you sweet thing, you’re looking mighty fine today. Mighty fine indeed.”

Calmer now but still shaky, Rainey groaned and turned halfway around in her chair. The buttery voice behind her was unmistakable. Beck Mahoney, alias Romeo, alias Superstud, alias Mr. Insincerity, had burst into the reception area adjacent to Nate’s office and managed to get all of three steps into the room before finding a woman to charm.

Through the frosted glass between the two rooms, Rainey saw the blurred image of the flustered, middle-aged receptionist waving a hand in Beck’s direction. “Oh, get away with you, Beck Mahoney!” she admonished him with a girlish giggle. Beck grasped her hand in midair and planted a kiss on the back of it. “Angela, if I were twenty years older…”

Suddenly a group of boisterous young clerks appeared out of nowhere and began to ooh and ah over a preening Beck. “All hands on Beck!” a girlish voice shrieked, and they gathered around him like a pack of starstruck groupies.

“Beck, honey,” one cried with petulance, “you said you would call me and you didn’t!”

“You told me the same thing!” someone else whined.

“Girls, girls,” Beck drawled. “Patience. There’s plenty of me to go around. Speaking of which, who wants to climb the Galatea Trail and have a picnic at Mirror Lake on Sunday?”

“I do!” they all cried.

Gently pulling free from their clutches, he said, “Okay, well, I’ll definitely be taking one of you. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, so I won’t say who it’s going to be right now. If it’s you, you’ll know soon enough.”

Groaning good-naturedly, the young women dispersed. Beck burst into Nate’s office. “Nate, old boy,” he bellowed, “I see you’ve still got a license to practise. How can that—” spotting Rainey, he stopped dead in his tracks “—possibly be?” His gorgeous mouth fell open and his face turned beet red.

Rising to her feet, Rainey managed a tight smile. “Hello, Romeo. How’s the hunt going?”

“I…” His blush actually deepened another shade. Dripping sarcasm, she quipped, “Ooh, he blushes all the time. I like that in a man.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked with wide-eyed astonishment. “For that matter, who are you?”

Nate gestured between them. “Beck Mahoney, meet Rainey Miller. Though it seems you’ve already had the pleasure.”

The look of total bewilderment on Beck’s scarlet face gradually gave way to a sheepish grin. “Well, I’ll be. Gorgeous Green Eyes is Lilly Miller’s favorite niece. I was right. This is my lucky day.”

“In more ways than one,” Rainey said dryly. “As it turns out, you’re my new business partner.”

“Your new what?” His amber eyes darted from Rainey to Nate and back again. He waved a hand in the air. “Okay, you’ve lost me now.”

Nate motioned for them to sit down and then told a bugeyed Beck what he had just told Rainey—that he was half owner of the Honeymoon Haven, effective immediately. Beck looked like he didn’t know whether to jump for joy or jump out the second-floor window onto busy Banff Avenue.

Breaking a thick silence, he murmured to himself, “Half the Haven? Man, I would have been thrilled if she’d just left me her car.”

Nate rifled through the papers on his desk. “I believe she did leave you the Fairlane.”

Beck’s eyebrows shot up. “Half of it or all of it?”

Even the humorless lawyer had to laugh at that. “Every inch of it, Beck. I assure you.”

“Cool!” Shaking his head, Beck turned to Rainey. “But I don’t get it. Weren’t you supposed to inherit the inn? That’s what she told everybody.”

“Apparently she had second thoughts,” Rainey muttered.

“No kidding!”

For the next twenty minutes, Rainey stubbornly ignored Beck’s furtive glances while Nate went over the fine details of the will, coming finally to the section on special instructions.

“As you know,” he said to Rainey, “your aunt waived a memorial service. She stipulated instead that a party be held to commemorate her life, not her death. The party is to take place at the inn, as soon as you feel ready.”

Rainey nodded. It was a wonderful idea. Lilly had been a real live wire. Nothing short of a lively send-off would do. Beck nodded, too, and Rainey felt a stab of resentment. How dare he presume to…Ah, wait a minute. He was a full partner here, whether she liked it or not.

No sooner had that thought knocked her over than Nate threw her another curve. “Rainey,” he began cautiously, “Lilly made one additional request.” He paused and she tensed. Surely there wasn’t more bad news? “She asked that her apartment at the Haven be converted to a wedding chapel. Apparently it was always a dream of hers, but she never got around to it.”

“That’s right,” Beck said. “She talked about it often.”

Rainey gasped. “A wedding chapel! But where will I live?”

“Hey, did I mention that I own a beautiful cottage?” Beck joked.

Eyes blazing, she turned toward him. “Beck Mahoney, if I hear one more word about that cottage, I’ll scream!”

He held up both hands. “Gotcha. Not one word. I promise.”

“One more thing,” Nate added. “She asked that the party be held in the chapel. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because she never married.”

While Beck and Nate discussed the transfer of ownership, Rainey struggled to get her thoughts in order. Her mind was spinning. No, she didn’t want a partner. Yes, she was grateful for a partner. No, she didn’t want Beck Mahoney as a partner. Yes, she…Good grief, what did he know about running an inn? He was a ski bum, for heaven’s sake. A pilot. A masseuse. A playboy!

With a not-too-discreet glance at his watch, Nate indicated that the meeting was over. Rainey thanked him, grabbed her purse and hurried out. She was halfway to her rental car when Beck caught up to her.

“Hey, lady, wait just one minute!” He grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Don’t you think we should sit down and talk about this? I know you don’t think much of me, but the fact is that we’re partners now.”

“I didn’t ask for a partner!”

“I didn’t ask for one, either!”

“Yes, but…” Oh, darn. It was true. When you got right down to it, Beck was no more responsible for their predicament than she was. He was stunned, too. Obviously, Lilly hadn’t seen fit to tell him about this.

And, darn it all, as much as Rainey wanted to hate the guy, she just couldn’t. Underneath that phony charm, there was something faintly likable about him.

“Look,” she said softly. “I’m in shock, Beck. I need a little time to digest this. I expect you do, too.”

“You’ve got that right. Listen, why don’t we grab that dinner at the Steak Pit tonight? Talk things over. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be famished by seven o’clock.”

Rainey bit her lower lip. It was tempting. All she had eaten today was a salad at lunchtime, and she’d mostly picked at it. A juicy steak and a baked potato would really hit the spot. “Sure,” she muttered.

Romeo backed away, grinning. “Terrific! I’ll meet you there.”

Just then, an attractive, fire-breathing redhead burst through the throng of tourists across the street and shouted, “Beck Mahoney, you snake. You said you’d call!”