Читать книгу Suiteheart Of A Deal: Suiteheart Of A Deal / My Place Or Yours? - Wendy Etherington - Страница 12

“I’D RATHER HAVE a third eye in the middle of my forehead!” Rainey stormed into her apartment, Beck nipping at her heels.

“Oh, now that’s great!” he exclaimed as the door bounced off the wall and crashed into him. “You know, you’re not a very nice person, Rainey Miller. You’ve got a nasty streak!”

“Nasty streak?” Seething, she tromped ahead of him into the tiny kitchen with its scarred pine table and rustic appliances. “Give me a break! I don’t even know if I can work with you, and now you want to marry me? Forget it, buster!”

“Oh, now, wait just one minute there. My name’s not buster—though I’m starting to think it should be. And, hey, what would be so bad about being married to me? I’ll have you know that lots of women would kill for the chance. Hundreds. Thousands even!”

“I think you just answered your own question.”

“Oh, baloney! I like women. So sue me.”

Bristling, Rainey rummaged in the cupboards for the kettle. Tea. That was what she needed. A nice cup of tea. She had been in Bragg Creek all of twenty-four hours. So far, she had been cheated out of half her inheritance and been saddled with a crumbling, nearly bankrupt inn. She had lost her living quarters and acquired a flaky flirt of a business partner she didn’t want. And now she was being asked to marry the flake? Good grief—what was next?

“Just hear me out.” Beck plopped down at the table. “See, I have this trust fund. My grandfather left it to me when I was three. He set it up to be paid out in two installments. I got the first installment when I turned twenty-one, but I can’t touch the rest until I turn thirty-five or get married, whichever comes first.” He lowered his voice. “Rainey, there’s enough money in that fund to turn this place into a palace.”

“I don’t want to marry a—a playboy! I don’t want to marry anybody, at least not right now.” Darn it, where was the kettle? Surely Lilly and her “cronies” drank tea.

Beck threw his hands in the air. “Oh, c’mon, Rainey. Why do you think I’m such a hit with the ladies? I’ll tell you why. There isn’t one woman in this town, for that matter in this region—what the hell, make it the entire province—who doesn’t know about that trust fund.”

Arghhh! Despite her determination to blow off steam for as long as humanly possible, Rainey felt her resolve weakening. She fought the little smile that tugged at the corner of her lips, but in the end it won. Over her shoulder, she joked, “Are you saying they’re not after you just for your good looks and dazzling personality?”

He nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

She turned and confronted him. “But you flirt with all those women!” Good grief, she sounded like a jealous wife.

He shrugged. “It’s a pastime, nothing more. And you’re not listening to me. I’m not suggesting that we get married married—you know, with bridesmaids and babies and a minivan and all that junk….”

“Those things aren’t junk!”

His expression softened. “You’re right. They aren’t junk. I’d like babies myself, someday.”

Surprised by the warmth and sincerity of his tone, Rainey searched his eyes to determine if he was being serious or just goofing off, as usual. She saw nothing to suggest he wasn’t being completely honest.

“You would?” She couldn’t imagine Beck with a house full of kids. She couldn’t even imagine him married to just one woman. And yet…somehow she could.

“Yeah, I would,” he replied softly. Seeing the skepticism in her eyes, he heaved a sigh and insisted, “I really would, Rainey.”

Oh, no. It was happening again. She felt herself involuntarily melting, succumbing to his charm—for exactly as long as it took for him to flash her one of his “gotcha!” grins. Before she had time to react, he winked garishly. “If you don’t believe me, try me.”

So much for warm sentiment. “Not in this lifetime, buster. I’d rather have a giant wart on the end of my nose!”

His smirk rapidly vanishing, Beck opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out. For a moment, they just glared at one another. Then, despite the tension in the air, or maybe because of it, they both cracked up. Between howls, Beck cried, “Gee, Rainey, I don’t know if I could look at a big wart every day!” Rainey laughed until tears sprang to her eyes.

“Look,” he continued when their laughter finally petered out, “all I’m saying is, it would be the ideal solution to our problem.”

Still searching in the cluttered cupboards, Rainey shook her head. “There has to be another way, Beck. It’s—it’s too crazy. It’s too extreme.”

“Okay. What’s your solution?”

Well, okay, he had her there. Based on that list of urgent repairs, it was going to take a lot of money to fix up the inn. Rainey couldn’t ask her retired parents for that much cash, and all she had was her meager savings and the proceeds from the sale of her condo in Toronto—hardly enough money to buy a new furnace.

“We’ll borrow against your cottage,” she suggested with cheeky aplomb. Darn it, maybe there was no kettle. Who had a Ouija board but no kettle?

Beck threw back his head and howled. “Not a chance, lady! I bought that cottage with the first installment of my trust. It’s all I have in the world, and I’m not risking it.”

The kettle—a battered tin thing with a whistling spout—finally materialized. Rainey took it to the sink. Lost in thought, she absentmindedly filled it to overflowing, then poured the excess water down the drain and set it down on a burner.

“The thing is,” Beck argued while she searched for tea bags, “we’ve got big trouble here. If we don’t bring this place up to snuff, we’ll go bankrupt.”

“Hah! You mean I’ll go bankrupt. You’ll be no worse off than before, Beck. And besides, if we use your money, you’ll have more invested than I do. It will be your inn.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, Rainey looked sharply at him. His expression had gone soft and dreamy again. Another zinger was coming. True to form, he murmured, “You know, I really like it when you say my name.”

“Enough already!”

“Okay, okay!”

“You’re not listening to me, Beck.”

“You can pay me back out of your share of the profits.”

Arghhh! He had an answer for everything. He must have stayed up all night, working out the details.

“What’s more,” he continued as she finally found the tea bags and dropped them into Lilly’s old ceramic tea pot, “after we convert this apartment into a wedding chapel, where are you going to live?”

“I’ll get an apartment.”

“There are no apartments in Bragg Creek, Rainey. You’d have to move to Calgary and commute. Have you seen the traffic on the Trans-Canada?”

She sat down across from him, folded her arms and adopted a stubborn pout. “Then I’ll live in one of the suites here.” She was clutching at straws now, and she knew it.

“Uh-huh, and how long do you think it will take for you to get sick of that? About a week, that’s how long.”

The wall phone rang, startling them both. Grateful for the distraction, Rainey jumped up and grabbed it. “Hello!” she belted into the receiver.

“Rainey?” an all-too-familiar voice tentatively asked. It was Trevor. Wonderful. Just what she needed.

“Trevor,” she snapped. “I don’t have time for you right now.” Or tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that.

“Rainey, I just want to talk to you for a few minutes—” he pleaded. “After you ran out like that—”

“I didn’t run out, Trevor. I moved west. There’s a difference. I have to go now.”

“We need to talk, Rainey. Clear the air…”

Sighing impatiently, she glanced over her shoulder at Beck. He was watching her with wide eyes and thinly veiled curiosity. To Trevor, she roared, “There’s two thousand miles of air between us, and it’s all very clear to me! Goodbye!” She slammed the receiver down and sat down again, hard enough to bruise her tailbone.

A moment later, Beck asked, very casually, “Ah, who’s Trevor?”

“Nobody. Just an old boyfriend.” Oooh! How dare Trevor call her after what he had done! The nerve.

Beck’s eyebrows shot up. “Your old boyfriends call you long-distance?” From his tone and body language, it was clear to Rainey that he was trying not to seem too interested, but failing miserably. An alarm bell sounded in her head. Her past was none of his business. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He nodded and waited. When it finally became clear that she really wasn’t going to say more, he cleared his throat. “Okay, then, back to us. Let’s look at our options.” He raised his right index finger in the air. “Option Number One. We do nothing. We continue running the Haven as is, until we go under.”

“That’s not an option. That’s a disaster!” The kettle whistled. Rainey jumped up, moved it to a cold burner, and sat down again, forgetting to make the tea.

“Okay, then. Option Number Two. We sell the inn, split the profits, if there are any, and go our separate ways.”

She gasped. “No way! I’ve worked my whole life for this opportunity.”

Beck nodded. “Right. And for me this is a terrific business deal. So what does that leave us with?”

Rainey chewed on her lower lip and stared into space. Oh, darn. What did it leave them with? Nothing, that’s what. Good grief, what a mess! How could she marry a total stranger she had vowed just yesterday to avoid at any cost? It was utterly insane. Every instinct she had told her to grab her still unpacked bags and get out of there as quickly as possible. Forget she’d ever heard of the Honeymoon Haven and Bragg Creek and Beck Mahoney. But where would she go? Back to “Tronna” and Trevor?

After a long silence, she sighed wearily and muttered, “Okay, tell me what you have in mind.”

Excited, Beck leaned forward and gave her his thoughts. They would have Nate Frome draw up a prenuptial agreement. They would marry quietly and stay married only as long as necessary—six months, a year at the most. Then they would start to make noise about trouble in the marriage…

“Well, at least that part will be true!”

He ignored her sarcasm and continued. They would live in his cottage….

“In separate bedrooms, of course.”

“Of course,” he agreed a little too quickly.

Rainey eyed him suspiciously. She smelled a rat.

In the meantime, Beck concluded, they would renovate the Haven from top to bottom, step up their marketing efforts and reel in the profits. Simple.

Energized by the sheer absurdity of the situation, Rainey rose and began to pace back and forth in the confined space. She felt like a wild animal caught in a trap. Something told her it just wasn’t going to be that simple. There would be all kinds of problems. Rules would have to be established. Scores of issues would have to be resolved. She struggled to mentally list them and consider each one separately.

Okay, for one thing…Whirling around like a prosecutor about to pounce on a hostile witness, she demanded, “What if you meet somebody three months from now, who you really would like to marry? What then?”

“I don’t think that will happen.” Beck’s eyes slid over her from head to toe and back again. Rainey involuntarily blushed. Darn it all, why did he have to do that? Why did he have to stir up so many mixed feelings in her? Like, dislike, amusement, exasperation, rage, sympathy, lust.

Startled, she realized for the first time that she was, maybe, just maybe, a little attracted to the guy. Oh, what a dreadful thought! She pushed it away and tried to concentrate on the situation at hand.

“Besides,” he added with a wry smile, “there’s nobody in this town I can trust with my heart, Rainey. With you, at least I would know that you only married me for my money.”

Her jaw dropped. “Beck Mahoney, that is the craziest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He shrugged. “It’s a crazy situation.”

Sighing, Rainey glanced out the window at the Haven’s half-full parking lot. It was a hazy day and the majestic blue spruce trees surrounding the lot had taken on a bluish-green hue. Something on the far side of the lot caught her eye. What the…? It was a man and a woman, scrambling into the back seat of a car. They looked suspiciously like Freda Norman and Hollis Harriman, but from this distance it was hard to tell. Why on earth would those two be jumping into a parked car together?

A sense of defeat suddenly overwhelmed her and her shoulders slumped. All my life I’ve worked for this, she thought sadly. To run this inn, to live in this beautiful place, to be happy. Aren’t I entitled to a little happiness?

Oh, well, maybe the Rainey-gets-a-new-life program would just have to wait another year. Beck was right. They had no options.

She fixed a stern eye on him. “Okay, I’m not agreeing to anything just yet, but if we do get married—and I’m only saying if—everyone will have to be told that it’s strictly a business arrangement.”

Beck bared his dazzling white teeth in a grimace. “Ah, well, there might be a little problem with that.”

Yup. She was right. Problems already. “Really? Why?”

“Well, it’s my grandmother, see. She’d be horrified if she thought the marriage wasn’t real. From her standpoint it would violate the spirit of the trust. I think my grandfather meant for me to be happily married.”

Good grief. Rainey dropped her chin and looked at him the way she might look at a teenager who’d just tried teenage logic on her. “Call me crazy, Beck, but wouldn’t you be violating the spirit of the trust anyway? I mean, we’re not exactly smitten here, you know.”

The question caught him off guard and he hesitated. Alarm surged through Rainey like an electric jolt. Oh, no.

Surely he wasn’t attracted to her in a serious way. How could he be? They had just met yesterday.

A playful smile played across his luscious lips. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What are you really saying? That we have to pretend to be smitten, for your grandmother’s sake?”

“Yup, for hers and everybody else’s. This is a small town, Rainey. People talk.”

“That’s ludicrous. How are we supposed to keep that up?”

He helped himself to another full-length appraisal of her. “I don’t know about you, but I won’t have any trouble playing my part.” He glanced at her breasts. Licked his lips. Grinned like a monkey.

“Look, Beck,” she warned him with narrowed eyes, “you mustn’t get any ideas about me. I’m here to run an inn, nothing more. Understand?”

“Perfectly,” he agreed with all the sincerity of a snake oil salesman.

Ooh, he was maddening! How on earth was a woman supposed to know when this guy was being real?

“Besides,” Rainey added, regretting it almost immediately, “I’m…I’ve just been through…I’m a little vulnerable right now. You have to respect that.” Darn, now why did she go and say that? It was way more than he needed to know.

Beck’s eyes widened, but he had the sense not to press for an explanation. “Okay, I will,” he agreed solemnly.

What a bunch of bunk. The man was as phony as a three-dollar bill, and Rainey didn’t trust him as far as she could spit. Oops, what had become of the tea? She went to the stove and turned the burner on again. Beck rose and came up close behind her. Before she could turn around, he placed his hands flat on the countertop on either side of her and closed her in.

“What would be so bad about being married to me?” he murmured into her hair. “You might actually like it.”

His taut body was just inches away from hers, and Rainey felt the heat coming off it. He smelled like sandalwood again. What was it? Soap? Aftershave lotion? Intermingled with his own natural scent, it was heady stuff. A lonely woman could easily fall prey to Beck, she realized. It would be sooo easy.

But it wasn’t going to happen to her. No way. Loneliness had caused her to make one stupid choice. She couldn’t let it happen again. Especially here, where she had no escape route. What would she do—move to Vancouver? Sheesh, at this rate, she could end up in Japan.

Lips pursed, she peeled his right hand smartly off the counter and turned around. Bad move. He just replaced it and closed her in again, face-to-face this time. Before she could react, he leaned down and brought those tantalizing lips very close to hers.

Flustered and trembling, Rainey assumed he was going to kiss her again. He didn’t. Instead, he merely brushed his cheek against hers. His whiskers were bristly, his skin warm. His breath was hot on her face. In sheer defiance of her will to resist him, a wave of desire washed over Rainey and her lips parted in anticipation.

“It could be so good, Rainey,” he whispered as she fought a powerful urge to put her arms around him. He was so close, so gorgeous, so sexy. One little kiss. What was the harm, really? After all, they’d kissed once before and the world hadn’t ended.

Just as her fingertips made contact with his muscular sides, he abruptly pulled back. “Take a few days to think it over. Then get back to me.”

A slow burn crept up Rainey’s face and she flinched. How dare he treat her that way? Oh, what a fool she was! To think that…

Then, without so much as a backward glance, he strutted out of the apartment, whistling—so sure of himself that she wanted to scream.

Seconds later the kettle whistled, too. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she snapped.