8

      THE NEXT FRIDAY afternoon, Rainey sat at her desk, in a stupor. She was so tired she couldn’t find the energy to move the stray lock of hair dangling before her eyes. Every once in a while she blew at it, hoping it would vanish. Finally she grabbed a pair of scissors from the drawer and cut it off.

      After returning home from their hike on Sunday, Beck had insisted they dine out and go to a movie—a comedy Rainey had mostly slept through.

      On Monday night he dragged her, kicking and screaming, to a darts tournament in Calgary. There she drank two beers and passed out, facedown, on their table.

      On Tuesday night he took her to a hockey game at the Saddledome, where she lost her purse and spent two tedious hours searching for it.

      The next night he insisted they go shopping for skis, boots, bindings and poles. Rainey’s legs were so sore from the hike, the store clerk had to lift them and drop them into the boots.

      Last night he had the nerve to come home with two brand-new mountain bikes strapped to the trunk of the Fairlane. Rainey begged and pleaded with him to stash them in the shed, but he insisted a short ride would be good for her pain.

      In retrospect the hike up the Galatea Trail had been a cakewalk. The real nightmare had been the descent. Jumping from ledge to ledge. Landing hard on her sneakered feet. Bending and straightening her creaky knees. At least the pain was down to a dull ache now.

      Painkillers were useless. What she really needed was a kneecap transplant.

      She picked up the laundry services contract on her desk and examined the fine print at the bottom of its first page. She had a ton of paper work to do before heading home for the weekend, but concentration eluded her. It was partly the exhaustion, she knew, and partly the constant shuffling and scraping overhead. The crew Beck had hired to pack Lilly’s things and put them in storage was nothing if not noisy.

      Still, she couldn’t complain. Next week the wedding chapel conversion would begin. Now that would be noisy.

      It was also partly Beck. Something had to be done about the guy.

      “Mrs. Mahoney!”

      Startled out of her wits, Rainey tossed the laundry contract in the air and groaned as its half-dozen pages separated and flew off in different directions. Scowling, Freda Norman tromped into the room and began to collect them. Her previously gray hair, now midnight black, was a veritable explosion of red plastic bows. Combined with a new shade of bloodred lipstick, they made her look just like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Only crazier.

      Rainey closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know, Mrs. Norman, you can call me Rainey. I won’t be offended.”

      “I wouldn’t dream of it! The furnace for the west wing has quit again. I thought you should know.”

      “Is Beck around?”

      “No. He’s gone to Calgary to meet with those bankers.”

      Rainey cringed at the housekeeper’s vitriolic pronunciation of the word bankers. The inn was a hotbed of whispered speculation about the marriage—and, by extension, the money. One version of the story had Rainey as an evil vixen who had, from thousands of miles away, cleverly targeted poor, sweet Beck Mahoney as a sucker. Another labeled Beck as the villain, a lying, scheming rogue who had ruthlessly seduced poor, sweet Rainey Miller just to get his hands on the booty.

      It was amazing, she thought, how quickly gossip circulated in a small town, and how quickly people put their own spin on it. She hated it—hated having so much attention focused on her. She had enough to worry about.

      “How many suites in that wing are presently occupied?” she asked Mrs. Norman.

      “Only four.”

      “Okay, then. Let’s move those guests over to the east wing and give them free room service for the evening. And please advise the night clerk not to book anyone else into the west wing tonight.” She reached for the phone. “In the meantime, I’ll have the furnace people come by and look at it right away.”

      “Very good, Mrs. Mahoney.” With that, Baby Jane—ah, Mrs. Norman—turned smartly on her heel and disappeared. Rainey arranged for a service call, then tried to focus on the laundry contract again. It was a blur.

      Beck. What the devil was she going to do about him? He just couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. After their tense encounter with Francine Yates, Rainey had gone out of her way to avoid physical contact with him. But it was tough. They lived together. They worked together. They occupied the same space almost all the time.

      And, as much as she wanted to deny it, it wasn’t all Beck. Yes sir, a touch, a glance, it didn’t take much to get them both hot and bothered. They were fine at a distance, but the moment they got close, the air between them heated up like a blowtorch.

      Rainey knew that in her case it was lust fueled by loneliness. With Beck, of course, it was just plain old lust.

      Francine’s warning to watch her heart echoed in Rainey’s head a hundred times a day. It was sound advice, straight from the horse’s mouth. Take the advice! her brain urged. Ignore it! her hormones countered. Make love with the guy, just once, just to see what it would be like. You know you want to.