The Next Always (45 page)

Beckett paused as he gave Dumbass a quick head rub. “We’ve still got trim to run, painting, punch-out.”

“Not up here.” Owen crossed to the first of their two suites, The Penthouse. “
This
is what I’m talking about.” He moved through, saw muted colored crystal lights, creamy trim, and the big splashy bath with its stunning tile work. He paused at the floating wall, nodded at the long counter and double vessel sinks, stepped over, scanned the large glass shower, the generous rain head, the body jets, turned toward the wide white tub.

“We could outfit this suite. Hope could move her stuff in across the hall. How about the Westley and Buttercup room?”

“It’s done. We hung the bathroom mirror and lights yesterday.”

“Then I’ll tell Hope to break out the mop, get this level shined up.” Though he trusted Ryder, he’d check the room himself. “She’s got the list of what goes where, so she can run down to Bast, tell them what to deliver up here.”

He made notes on his clipboard—shipment of towels and linens, purchase of light bulbs and so on. Behind his back, Beckett and Ryder exchanged looks.

“I guess we’re loading in.”

“I don’t know who
we
is,” Ryder corrected. “It’s not me or the crew. We’ve got to finish the damn place.”

“Don’t bitch at me.” Beckett held up his hands. “I’ve got to make the changes to the bakery project next door if we’re going to shift the crew from here to there without much of a lag.”

“I could use a lag,” Ryder muttered, but headed down behind Owen.

Owen paused at Elizabeth and Darcy, gave the propped-open door a study. “Beckett, you might want to talk to your pal, Lizzy. Make sure she keeps this door open and the terrace doors shut.”

“It is open. They are shut.”

“Now. She got a little peeved last night.”

Intrigued, Beckett lifted his brows. “Is that so?”

“I guess I had my personal close encounter. I did a walk-though last night, heard somebody up here. I figured it for one of you, messing with me. She thought I called her an asshole, and let me know she didn’t care for it.”

Beckett’s grin spread wide and quick. “She’s got a temper.”

“Tell me. We made up—I think. But in case she holds a grudge . . .”

“We’re done in here, too,” Ryder told him. “And in Titania and Oberon. We’ve got to run the crown molding and baseboard in Nick and Nora, and there’s some touch-ups in Eve and Roarke, and the bathroom ceiling light in there. It came in, finally, yesterday. Jane and Rochester in the back is full of boxes. Lamps, lamps, more lamps, shelves and God knows. But it’s punched out.

“I’ve got a list, too.” Ryder tapped his head while the dog walked over to sit at his side. “I just don’t have to write down every freaking thing in ten places.”

“Robe hooks, towel racks, TP dispensers,” Owen began.

“On the slate for today.”

“Mirrors, flatscreens, switch plate and outlet covers, door bumpers.”

“On the slate, Owen.”

“You’ve got the list of what goes where?”

“Nobody likes a nag, Sally.”

“Exit signs need to go up.” Owen continued working down his list as he walked to the Dining Room. “Wall sconces in here, and some touch-ups to the paint. The boxes we built for the fire extinguishers need to be painted and installed.”

“Once you shut up, I can get started.”

“Brochures, website, advertising, finalizing room rates, packages, room folders.”

“Not my job.”

“Exactly. Count your frigging blessings. How much longer for the revised plans on the bakery project?” Owen asked Beckett.

“I’ll have them to the permit office tomorrow morning.”

“Good deal.” He took out his phone, switched it to calendar. “Let’s nail it down. I’m going to tell Hope to open reservations for January fifteenth. We can have the grand-opening deal on the thirteenth, give it a day for putting it all back together. Then we’re up.”

“That’s less than a month,” Ryder complained.

“You know and Beck knows and I know that there’s less than two weeks of work left here. You’ll be done before Christmas. If we start the load-in this week, we’ll be done by the first of the year, and there’s no reason we won’t get the Use and Occupancy right after the holidays. That gives two weeks to fiddle and fuss, work out any kinks, with Hope living here.”

“I’m with Owen here. We’re sliding downhill now, Ry.”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Ryder shrugged. “It’s weird, maybe, just weird thinking about actually being done.”

“Cheer up,” Owen told him. “A place like this? We’re never going to be done.”

On his nod, Ryder heard the back door open, shut, the sound of heavy boots on tile. “We’ve got crew. Get your tools.”

OWEN KEPT BUSY,
and happy, running crown molding. He didn’t mind the regular interruptions to answer a call, return a text, read an email. His phone served as a tool to him as much as his nail gun. The building buzzed with activity, echoed with voices and Ryder’s job radio. It smelled of paint and fresh-cut wood, strong coffee. The combination said Montgomery Family Construction to him, and never failed to remind him of his father.

Everything he’d learned about carpentry and the building trade he’d learned from his father. Now, stepping off the ladder to study the work, he knew his father would be proud.

They’d taken the old building, with its sagging porches and broken windows, its scarred walls and broken floors, and transformed it into a jewel on the town square.

Beckett’s vision, he thought, their mother’s imagination and canny eye, Ryder’s sweat and skill, and his own focus on detail—combined with a solid crew—transformed what had been an idea batted around the kitchen table into a reality.

He set down his nail gun, rolled his shoulders as he turned around the room.

Yeah, his mother’s canny eye, he thought again. He could admit he’d balked at her scheme of pale aqua walls and chocolate brown ceiling—until he’d seen it finished. Glamour was the word of the day for Nick and Nora, and it reached its pinnacle in the bath. That same color scheme, including a wall of blue glass tiles contrasting with brown on brown, all sparkling under crystal lights. Chandelier in the john, he thought with a shake of his head. It sure as hell worked.

Nothing ordinary or hotel-like about it, he mused—not when Justine Montgomery took charge. He thought this room, with its Deco flair, might be his favorite.

His phone alarm told him it was time to start making some calls of his own.

He went out, then headed toward the back door for the porch as Luther worked on the rails leading down. Gritting his teeth, he jogged through the cold and bitter wind across the covered porch, down to ground level, then ducked in through Reception.

“Fucking A, it’s cold.” The radio blasted; nail guns thumped. And no way, he decided, would he try to do business with all this noise. He grabbed his jacket, his briefcase.

He ducked into The Lounge, where Beckett sat on the floor running trim.

“I’m heading over to Vesta.”

“It’s shy of ten. They’re not open.”

“Exactly. If you see Ry, tell him the crown’s up in N&N. Somebody needs to wood putty the nail holes and touch it up.”

“I don’t know where the hell he is.”

“No problem.”

As he started out, Owen pulled his phone off his belt, sent Ry a text. Outside, he hunched against the cold at the light, cursed the fact that traffic, such as it was, paced and spaced itself so he couldn’t make the dash across Main. He waited it out, his breath blowing icy clouds until the walk light flashed. He jogged diagonally, ignored the CLOSED sign on the glass front door of the restaurant, and pounded.

He saw lights on, but no movement. Once again he took out his phone, punched in Avery’s number from memory.

“Damn it, Owen, now I’ve got dough on my phone.”

“So you are in there. Open up before I get frostbite.”

“Damn it,” she said again, then cut him off. But seconds later he saw her, white bib apron over jeans and a black sweater shoved to her elbows. Her hair—what the hell color was it now? It struck him as very close to the bright new penny copper of the inn’s roof.

She’d started changing it a few months back, going with most everything but her natural Scot warrior queen red. She’d hacked it short, too, he recalled, though it had grown long enough again for her to yank it back in a tiny stub when she worked.

Her eyes, as bright a blue as her hair was copper, glared at him as she turned the locks.

“What do you want?” she demanded. “I’m in the middle of prep.”

“I just want the room and the quiet. You won’t even know I’m here.” He sidled in, just in case she tried to shut the door on him. “I can’t talk on the phone with all the noise across the street and I have to make some calls.”

She narrowed those blue eyes at his briefcase.

So he tried a winning smile. “Okay, maybe I have a little paperwork. I’ll sit at the counter. I’ll be very, very quiet.”

“Oh, all right. But don’t bother me.”

“Um, just before you go back? You wouldn’t happen to have any coffee?”

“No, I wouldn’t happen to have. I’m prepping dough, which is now on my new phone. I worked closing last night, and Franny called in sick at eight this morning. She sounded like somebody ran her larynx through a meat grinder. I had two waitstaff out with the same thing last night, which means I’ll probably be on from now until closing. Dave can’t work tonight because he’s getting a root canal at four. And I’ve got a bus tour coming it at twelve thirty.”

Because she’d snapped the words out in little whiplashes, Owen just nodded. “Okay.”

“Just . . .” She gestured toward the long counter. “Do whatever.

She rushed back to the kitchen on bright green Nikes.

He’d have offered to help, but he could tell she wasn’t in the mood. He knew her moods—he’d known her forever—and recognized harried, impatient and stressed.

She’d roll with it, he thought. She always did. The sassy little redhead from his childhood, the former Boonsboro High cheerleader—cocaptain with Beckett’s Clare—had become a hard-working restaurateur. Who made exceptional pizza.

She’d left a light, lemony scent behind her, along with a frisson of energy. He heard the faint thump and rattle of her work as he took a stool at the counter. He found it soothing, somewhat rhythmic.

He opened his briefcase, took out his iPad, his clipboard, unclipped his phone from his belt.

He made his calls, sent emails, texts, reworked his calendar, and calculated.

He steeped himself in the details, surfacing when a coffee mug slid under his nose.

He looked up into Avery’s pretty face.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to bother. I won’t be long.”

“Owen, you’ve already been here forty minutes.”

“Really? Lost track. You want me go?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Though she pressed a fist into the small of her back, she spoke easily now. “I’ve got it under control.”

He caught another scent and, glancing to the big stove, saw she’d put her sauces on.

The red hair, milk-white skin and dash of freckles might declare her Scot heritage, but her marinara was as gloriously Italian as an Armani suit.

He’d often wondered where she’d gotten the knack, and the drive, but both seemed as innate a part of her as her big, bold blue eyes.

Crouching, she opened the cooler under the counter for tubs, and began filling the toppings containers.

“Sorry about Franny.”

“Me, too. She’s really sick. And Dave’s miserable. He’s only coming in for a couple hours this afternoon because I’m so shorthanded. I hate asking him.”

He studied her face as she worked. Now that he really looked, he noted the pale purple shadows under her eyes.

“You look tired.”

She shot him a disgusted look over the tub of black olives she was holding. “Thanks. That’s what every girl loves to hear.” Then she shrugged. “I am tired. I thought I’d sleep in this morning. Franny would open, I’d come in about eleven thirty. Not much of a commute since I moved right upstairs. So I watched some Jimmy Fallon, finished a book I’ve been trying to squeeze out time to read all week. I didn’t go down until nearly two. Then Franny calls at eight. Six hours isn’t bad, unless you worked a double and you’re going to work another.”

“Bright side? Business is good.”

“I’ll think about bright side after the bus tour. Anyway, enough. How’s it going at the inn?”

“So good we’re going to start loading in the third floor tomorrow.”

“Loading in what?”

“Furniture, Avery.”

She set down the tub, goggled at him. “Seriously?
Seriously?
”

“The inspector’s going to take a look this afternoon, give us the go or no. I’m saying go because there’s no reason for no. I just talked to Hope. She’s going to start cleaning up there. My mother and my aunt are coming in—maybe are in already, since it’s going on eleven now—to pitch in.”