Crazy in Love (2 page)

“
What?”

Freya waved one hand in the air.
“Okay, fine, it wasn’t a heart attack,
per se
. It was a little angina and by the time I got to the hospital, they were already releasing him. You weren’t there, and when I asked him why, do you know what he told me?”

“
Wait a minute,” Flynn said. “He never called me. No one called me. Why didn’t anyone call me?”

“
He didn’t want you coming out from Southie at night,” Freya said.

The coffeemaker gurgled its death gurgle. The coffee was finally ready, but now the idea of getting out mugs was too much for Flynn. She stayed frozen where she was, feeling as though she
’d just been slapped.

“
I don’t know... how am I supposed to respond to that? I mean, this is where I live.”

Freya reached into her bag and pulled out a carefully
assembled report. Flynn walked over to her and took it, running her hand over the clear plastic cover that protected the title page, which had
The Goodhouse Arms: Scheintown, NY
printed on it in a fancy script font. “Great-aunt Esther died.”

Flynn blinked, still staring at the report in her hand.
“We had a Great-aunt Esther?”

“
Grandmother Daly’s sister.” Freya nodded toward the report. “She left us this inn.”

Flynn flipped through the pages, her eyes catching on pictures of tree-lined streets and a gazebo in the
middle of a rose garden, her mind able to digest only a couple of random phrases.
Picturesque Hudson Valley location…
locals refer to the town as “Shiny
”…
one of the oldest inns in the country… rich historic national treasure…
She closed it and dumped it on the counter. “What does this have to do with me?”

“
I want you to go.”

Flynn let the silence hang for a moment before asking for the clarification she was pretty sure she didn
’t want. “Go where?”

“
To the inn.”

“
Dead Aunt Esther’s inn?”

“
That’s the one.”

“
In upstate New York? Where they have cows and nature and no T?” Flynn paused for a moment, her head swimming. “What would I do there?”

“
Maintain a presence for a few weeks until we sell it.”

“
Maintain a presence
?
What does that even mean?”

“
It’s nothing really. Dad and I talked about it yesterday, and we decided that it would be the perfect way for you to get your feet wet in the company business. Besides, I leave for my spa week in Tucson tomorrow, and there’s no way in hell I’m missing that.”

“
Ah,” Flynn said, smiling sideways at her sister, “the true motivations come out.”

“
Look, you go there for two, three weeks max, and when you come back, you’ll have a desk and a real salary waiting for you at the office. It’s total win-win.”

Flynn tapped her fingertips on the counter.
“It was really just angina? What is that? I mean, should we be worried?”

“
We should… not make him worry.”

Flynn lowered her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek. Her whole life she
’d sworn to herself she’d never live off her father. She’d find her own way. She’d find a man that knocked her over and a job that she was passionate about and little woodland creatures would creep into her bedroom while she was at work and sew gowns for her. She sighed and glanced around her little apartment. Up until now, her lifestyle had seemed adventurous and romantic. Now, it just seemed selfish. Immature. Pointless.

“
So… Dad doesn’t know that this intervention is really about him, does he?”

“
Oh, it’s not just about him,” Freya said with a smile. “Your life
is
totally screwed up. I just figure, two birds, one stone.” Freya sighed. “Look. You broke up with your boyfriend. You quit your job. This apartment sucks. Will it kill you to just... try?”

Flynn met her sister
’s eyes and decided that no, it wouldn’t kill her. Maim, possibly, but not kill. “How much should I pack?”

Freya
’s s
m
i
l
e widened. “Enough for two weeks. Three weeks, max. All you have to do is go and make nice. Be a presence. Tell the staff we’re not selling so they don’t all freak out and run off before Dad closes the deal. It’s hell to sell an active business that doesn’t have a functional staff in place.”

“
Oh, God.” Flynn cringed. “You want me to
lie
to them?”

“
This is business, honey. Everybody lies.” Freya raised a defiant eyebrow. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Flynn cleaned up her expression.
“Like what?”

“
Like you just sold your soul to the devil.” Freya waved a dismissive hand in the air.
“
Fine.
If you have to, you can go ahead and tell them we haven’t made any decisions yet, but make them feel secure that they’ll keep their jobs no matter what or we’ll have a riot on our hands. A riot with no staff.”

Once again, Flynn found herself asking a question she was pretty sure she didn
’t want the answer to.
“
Will
they keep their jobs?”

“
We have no control over that. But even if the new owner brings in some of their own people, they’d be stupid not to keep most of the staff in place, so probably, yeah.” Freya patted Flynn’s hand. “It’s a total cakewalk. Trust me.”

Flynn smiled, hoping she looked confident. Or at least not scared to death.
“Sure. Sounds like fun.”

Freya slid off the bar stool.
“When you come back, we’ll ease you into things at the office. Who knows? You might even like it.”

Flynn walked Freya to the door, imagining herself having martini lunches with investors, referring to hotels and apartment buildings as
properties
, and going golfing at the country club to help Dad swing a deal.

She didn
’t think she’d like it. But she hadn’t liked being a secretary, either. Or an actress. Or a yarn shop clerk. Or any of the other seemingly endless list of things she’d tried.

If this kept Dad from worrying, then at least she
’d be accomplishing something that mattered, which was more than she could say about anything else she’d done in the past eight years.

Freya pulled her pack of cigarettes out of her pu
rse. “I have a hair appointment, but I’ll be back in an hour to get your measurements and order you some real clothes.”

“
What’s wrong with the clothes I’ve got?” Flynn said,
then followed Freya’s pointed gaze down to her sparkly pink top, and the chocolate-martini stain on her left boob. Flynn raised her head. “So, I’ll see you in an hour, then?”

Freya nodded and left. Flynn leaned against the door and took a deep breath. This would be good. This would be a fresh start. And if she didn
’t love it, if it wasn’t her passion, well so what? There was something to be said for responsibility. And security. And…

Her mind went blank as she realized that something momentous had just happened; she had finally run out of energy to rationalize. She pushed herself away from the door and headed down the hallway and into the bathroom. She opened the hot water tap and plugged the tub, then turned to the shelf next to the vanity to pull out a towel. It was slightly heavier than expected, but by the time it registered that something was on top of it, that
“something” had already bounced off the top of her head and landed on the floor. When she looked down, there it was: the second silver sandal, lying sideways next to the tub. Flynn sat down beside it, staring at it for a long while before saying, “Now, how the hell did you end up here?”

***

“And you see? Her
e?
I only have three radishes left
!”

For any other guy, sitting on an industrial kitchen counter at three in the morning while a crazy redhead waved a handful of radishes in his face might be unusual. For Jake Tucker, it was just another Sunday night.

“Don’t get me wrong, Merce,” he said, tucking the notepad and pen she’d stuffed into his hands onto a shelf behind the biggest bag of beans he’d ever seen in his life. “I find root vegetable crime as fascinating as the next guy,
but it’s officially an ungodly hour, and during those I have a strict policy that it’s either sex or sleeping. No exceptions.” He hopped off the counter. “’Night.”

“
Wait.” Mercy dumped the radishes and shut the refrigerator door, her eyes flashing desperation before she motioned to the metal shelves next to the stove, where she kept the pots and pans. “What about the hardware that went missing last spring, Jake? What, like a saucier just gets up and walks out of the kitchen on its own?”

He chose not to ask what a saucier was; it was beside the point, anyway.

“Look. I appreciate what you’re trying to do.”
Not really.
“Really. It’s only the tiniest bit emasculating, and considering who I’m dealing with, that’s saying a lot.” He gave her a small round of opera applause. “Yay you. Good night.”

He tried to leave, but she maneuvered around him and blocked his exit. She was a full-figured gal, his sister, but she could move like a snake.

“But the saucier...,” she started.

“
Give it up,” Jake said, trying to keep his voice low and serious. People didn’t take him seriously sometimes, and by people, he meant his sisters. “I don’t need it. Just because I’m not a cop anymore doesn’t mean my life is over.”

She gasped, her mouth forming a little round
O
of horror. “Of course it doesn’t!”

“
Good. So drop it. It’s no big deal.”

“
Of course it isn’t.”

Mercy clasped her hands together, and her face red
dened with the extreme effort of keeping her opinions to herself. Jake counted the beats internally.

One.

Two.

Three.

Mount Mercy burst. “Except it
is
a big deal. You loved being a cop. And you were good at it.”

“
If I was really good, I wouldn’t have gotten fired.” Jake moved toward the refrigerator. “You got anything to eat in here?”

“
If you’d just look at it from a different angle, I think you’d see there are other opportunities. For example, private investigations—”

“
Oh, yeah, that would work. Shiny has a population of 4,128. There’s no way—”

Mercy held up one finger.
“That’s 4,130. Janice Feingold had her twins yesterday.”

“
Well, unless the twins need a background check done on Janice—which, actually, I would advise, she’s got the shifty eye—it’s not enough people to support a private detective operation. So just let it go, will you?” He plucked three grapes off of a bunch and shut the door. “By the way, if the mystery of the missing grapes should come up, I’ve already solved it.”

Mercy gave him an attaboy punch on his shoulder.
“See how good you are?”

Oh, holy mother of all that is holy, Tucker women are impossible to crack. Even at three in the morning.

“I like the Goodhouse Arms. I like bartending. I like my life. Everything’s fine.”

“
Everything’s great!” Mercy’s head bobbed up and down in time with the rhythm of her fierce loyalty.

“
I’m”—he searched for a word that might make her back off—
“
fulfilled.
I’m in touch with my authentic self, and it hasn’t even made me go blind yet. I’m actually the most self-actualized man in America.” He popped a grape in his mouth. “Not that I know what self-actualized means, but I know you girls are all worked up about it, so that’s what I am. I’m better than that, actually. I’m happy.”

“
You
,”
she said, emphasizing each word with a gentle but still uncomfortable poke to his chest, “are
ecstatic.
”

“
Good. We agree. So knock it off, okay?”

She blinked, feigning innocence. The youngest of his four older sisters, Mercy could bat an eyelash like nobody
’s business. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“
I just finished seven hours behind the bar and you’re dragging me in here to talk about, what? Radishes? And sauciers? I mean, it was bad enough when you asked me to trail Derek, who is—”

Mercy held up one hand.
“He was acting strange.”

Jake raised his voice and continued over her.
“—possibly the most devoted husband in the history of the world.”