Loe raamatut: «The Single Dad Next Door»

Chapter One

A car door slammed outside, jolting Maggie West awake.

Like tugging a quilt to cover her body on a cold morning, she yanked on the edge of her dream in an effort to fall back to sleep again. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to force herself to rest a little longer. Being the manager of the West Oaks Inn, she so rarely had the opportunity to stay in bed past five in the morning. Under normal circumstances, she’d be in the kitchen right now, whipping up her latest gourmet creation for her guests. But she currently had no guests despite many schools being on spring break.

Tomorrow morning there would be guests to feed, but she’d prepared their rooms last night. She’d still go over the rooms one last time today before people arrived tonight, but for once, her plan had been to stay under her covers for most of the morning.

So much for that idea.

Oh well, eight in the morning was sleeping in long enough for her. Maggie let her eyes adjust to the bright light streaming in through her lace curtains. Her room was a mishmash of antiques, country charm and hand-me-downs. And she liked it that way. The sheet of glass that covered the top of the hundred-year-old dresser near the closet had once been the top counter of a pharmacy. She often tried to picture the people who had leaned against that counter to look at what was inside the case. Had they been sick people buying leeches? Or children with their noses pressed into the glass begging for the penny candy inside?

That was the joy of old things. They told stories. Each piece held a history worth remembering. Half the furniture that filled the rooms in the inn were pieces she’d saved from the curbside—stuff others were going to throw away. People were so set on making things modern or redesigning perfectly functional homes. They lost sight of the wonder of remembering days long ago when life was slower. Safer. Better.

She rolled onto her side and stared at her nightstand. The old trunk set on its narrow end had belonged to her grandmother and still smelled like Gran’s lilac lotion whenever Maggie opened it up. On top of the makeshift nightstand rested her cherished family heirlooms—her father’s favorite timepiece, the brooch her mother had always worn to church, as well as a photo of her sister, Sarah. All people who had left the world—left her—far too early.

Now she’d have to find something of Ida’s to place there. Maggie rubbed her palm over the ache in her chest.

Seeing those belongings each morning made her feel a little less alone. She knew their owners were gone but cherished remembering them all the same.

“Why’d you have to go, Ida? Why?” Maggie sat up in bed and pressed her fingers against her eyes. Maggie had revisited that day a month ago a hundred times in her mind, wondering if there was some way she could have saved her elderly neighbor. But the doctor said the heart attack had been quick. Too quick. That nothing could have been done to change things.

Once again, Maggie had been powerless to help the people she loved. At least now there was no one left to fail.

Ida Ashby hadn’t been related to Maggie by blood, but the bond had been just as strong. For the past couple years Ida had been the only family she had left after Caleb, her late sister’s widower, had remarried.

She couldn’t focus on her losses anymore. Taking stock would only depress her. Maggie refused to let herself feel that way. Besides, thinking about Ida brought to light the fact that the very room she was lying in at the moment might no longer belong to her. Not that it belonged to her in a monetary sense, but Ida had let her stay in the residential portion of the inn even though Ida owned it. What if the new owner kicked her to the curb?

Stop. Thinking like that would lead to no good.

Flopping back onto the pillows, she tugged her blanket to her chin again and scrunched her eyes shut. She pulled back her dream—the one she’d had a thousand times since high school. Okay, she wasn’t asleep again—it was too late for that—but she could picture everything as if she were.

Wearing a white, flowing dress, she stood barefoot in a valley as an army of dark characters stalked toward her. Her dream self let out a scream. As usual, a man riding a white horse, brandishing a sword, appeared at the top of the hill. Turning his steed, he charged down the steep cliff and leaned over to effortlessly scoop Maggie up into his arms and carry her away from danger. Every inch of her felt alive. She was safe in the arms of her hero—her knight in shining armor.

Just like always, he rode with her to a field of wildflowers and then slowed his horse. Slipping down, he gathered her in his arms and set her on the cool earth. Maggie leaned forward to lift up his helmet, to offer him a kiss.

Outside the inn, another car door slammed.

“No! No!” Maggie moaned, releasing the pillow she was snuggling with. In the years the dream had reoccurred, not once had she seen the face of her rescuer. If only...

Maggie shook that thought away and finally shoved out of bed.

Prince Charming was never coming. For the first few years of her thirties, she’d joked that he was only lost along the way to finding her and—so like a man—wouldn’t ask for directions. But Maggie had long stopped repeating that line. It hurt knowing that not even a lost prince was coming, but there it was. She might as well get used to the imaginary man in the shiny helmet, because he would be the only champion she’d ever have.

Voices sounded outside. They were closer than people walking on the sidewalk, which meant she possibly had drive-by business and someone wanted to book one of the open rooms for tonight.

Shoving her blinds apart, she squinted out the window. No vehicles were parked in the small lot in front of the inn. But then, where?

Her vision narrowed in on a green Subaru wagon parked in front of the home next door—Ida Ashby’s cottage. The home had stayed empty since her funeral. No one at the wake had known whom she’d left her house to, and Maggie had been too afraid to ask—fearing that knowing would lead to her being evicted from the inn quicker. And that couldn’t happen.

She fisted her hands.

The old West Mansion should be hers. After all, Maggie was the only West left. As a member of the town’s founding family, she should have a right to the home. Even if she couldn’t afford the place. When she almost lost it, Ida had swooped in and saved her. Ida purchased the mansion and proposed the idea of a bed-and-breakfast, offering to let Maggie live in a portion that would be converted for residential use and run the place. Most people in Goose Harbor still thought Maggie owned the place, and Ida hadn’t minded them assuming that. With Maggie’s culinary background, it had been the perfect solution.

Would the new owner announce that she was basically a squatter? It would ruin her reputation in town. Poor Maggie. All her family is gone and she couldn’t even hang on to her inheritance.

Maggie hadn’t been invited to the reading of the will, but she knew Ida hadn’t left the inn to her. She’d been foolish to assume Ida would. Ida had family to give her things to—even if that family had never visited her. Even if Maggie had been the one to take care of Ida every day since Mr. Ashby had passed away. A lawyer showed up on Maggie’s doorstep a week after the funeral and told her she was allowed to stay...for now. That was it.

Real comforting.

Why hadn’t she been saving money for an event like this? With not much in her savings, she didn’t have many options if she was told to vacate the inn. If she hadn’t given her money...

She shook her head. Thinking of him wouldn’t help. It never did.

Her hair probably looked fearsome. Thirty-some odd years of life hadn’t been long enough to learn how to tame her curls. No matter. She would just pin it here and there and put on some jeans and head over to meet whoever was in Ida’s home. Perhaps they were just stopping in to check on the place. Or maybe they’d turn her out on the street the instant they met her.

On second thought...her bed still looked like a pretty good place to spend the day.

No. Be strong. Put on a brave face. Like always. Don’t let them see fear.

She needed to stop hiding.

She needed to see how bad her future was about to become.

* * *

Kellen Ashby couldn’t stop groaning.

When the lawyer contacted him to say he’d inherited all of his aunt’s belongings—including her home in the picturesque tourist town of Goose Harbor—he’d envisioned something grander than a cottage. Much grander. The squatty house with its low ceiling looked as though it belonged on the set of the movie The Hobbit. Rounded front door included. Thick vine plants snaked over the side of the house and up onto the roof. If he took a machete to those, would they grow right back? Being raised in Arizona and then living in Southern California gave him little experience when it came to vine tending. Or any sort of greenery, come to think of it.

What had he gotten himself into?

Kellen scrubbed his hand down his face.

Would moving to Michigan just be one more mistake in his life? First rejecting the upbringing and religion of his parents, and then leaving home with his band to tour. The parties.

He shook his head.

The groupies—at least the one. Cynthia. Trusting that she cared about him had been his biggest mistake. She’d wanted his money. Wanted the fame that was within the band’s grasp. But not him. And not their daughters, either.

How could a woman walk out on her children? He’d never understand that.

Yes, there was a lot of wrong in his past. But two years ago when he finally gave up trying to live up to the world’s standards and instead, gave himself over to God—the mistakes had been washed away.

Right?

He fisted his hands.

Goose Harbor wasn’t a mistake. It was a provision. Plain and simple. Aunt Ida had no reason to leave her possessions to him, so the events had to be what his brothers always called a God thing.

Honestly he couldn’t remember what Aunt Ida even looked like. A picture inside would hopefully solve that mystery for him. He’d met the woman twice in his life. Both of those times had been in his childhood before he took off from home right after his eighteenth birthday.

His three brothers had questioned why their aunt had left him everything and hadn’t mentioned them in the will. But Kellen had no answer for them. He hadn’t kept in touch with her. Hadn’t thought about her over the past twelve years. Not once.

Yet here he stood on her property—now his property.

“Dad! This place is so cool.” Skylar, his oldest, rushed past him and yanked open the door. Her light red, crooked pigtails bobbed as she darted inside. She peeked her head back out the door again. “Do you think the Seven Dwarves lived here? It looks like their home, doesn’t it? Like the pictures in my book. Don’t you think so, Ruthy?” Skylar grabbed hold of her younger sister’s chubby hand and gently led her inside.

Kellen took a deep breath. He could make the tiny cottage work. For them. He’d have to. For the good of his girls he’d do anything. After everything, they deserved a safe life—and more. He’d moved here for them. Left a high-paying job managing the elite Casa Bonita Restaurant in Los Angles for them.

No. That wasn’t true, either.

He needed the move—the change of pace and the time together that life in a small town would afford—just as much as they did.

Maybe more.

If he squinted and didn’t pay attention to the cracked drainpipes, the paint-chipped shutters, the overgrown trees with branches pressing against the home and the sixty-some-year-old original windows—sure, the place looked like a hidden fairy-tale house. The kind a secret princess might visit or run away to for safety. No wonder his daughters both stared at it in gap-mouthed wonder when he’d pulled up the drive. At ages five and three, they would see the cottage as a playhouse come to life.

The charm he’d imagined only a moment ago faded away upon entering.

His family couldn’t live here. Not in its current condition. Doilies covered every inch of the front room. It smelled like mothballs and as if someone had spilled tea on the carpet countless times. A mauve color covered what he could see of the walls, but he couldn’t see much of them for the amount of old belongings stacked so high. The kitchen was mustard yellow. Everywhere. Mustard-yellow appliances, counters, linoleum floor and painted walls. He tried to turn on the oven. It clicked, but the burner wouldn’t start.

So it doesn’t work, probably like 90 percent of everything in the house. Excellent.

He yanked at his hair.

Maybe the will hadn’t been a way of God providing. What if it had been a test? What if he’d failed?

Kellen clenched his teeth. What made his aunt think the place would be a good home for a young family of three? It would take him a weekend just to childproof the place, let alone bring it up to code. Electricians and plumbers cost money. Ida had left him her savings—and there was a lot there. But without knowing what type of revenue the West Oaks Inn brought, he didn’t want to start dipping into funds he might need to live on at some point.

“You have to lean your weight into the knob to get it to start.”

The voice came from the doorway of the kitchen. He turned around and raised his eyebrows to the owner of it.

A woman with vivid, pale blue eyes stood there. Her eyes were the exact shade of the snow-fed streams high up in the Rockies where his parents used to take the family hiking every summer. A clear, pure color. She wore little or no makeup, something he could unfortunately spot after being around women in LA who painted beauty products all over their faces. Her skin had a healthy glow without the stuff. She looked—dare he say?—real. Her hair, on the other hand... She could have a lifelong career as the stand-in for the person who played Mufasa in The Lion King musical.

Kellen cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

“To start the oven.” She sidestepped him and leaned her hip against the oven while she twisted the knob. The burner ignited. “You just have to lean into it at the right angle. You’ll get used to it.”

He shook his head. “I won’t have to.”

“Oh.” She laced her fingers together. “So you’re not staying long term? I was hoping to meet my new neighbor.”

“I’m kind of stuck here.” He glanced out the window over the sink, which looked out onto the overgrown weed forest of a backyard. “Well—this is home for us, for now. If you catch my drift. And my first order of business will be tossing this oven—along with the rest of these old appliances.” He ran his finger over the dust on the countertop. The whole room needed to be gutted.

She crossed her arms. “I take it you don’t want to be here, then?”

Kellen scrubbed his hand down his face. “I’m here. That’s what matters.”

“That oven matters, too. To Ida.”

He clicked the burner back off. “Ida’s dead. I’m pulling this out tonight and putting it on the curb. So, no offense, but I won’t ever need to learn how to lean just right.”

She gasped. “You can’t get rid of that oven.” The woman touched the fridge as if feeling for a heartbeat. “Henry bought all these matching appliances for Ida to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary. Ida cherished them and has taken the best care of them over the years. They were a gift of love.”

Kellen had met Uncle Henry all of once. He knew Henry had been the mayor of Goose Harbor for quite some time before he died. But that was really all he knew about his father’s oldest brother. The Ashby family had never been very close. Not with the age difference between the two brothers. Henry was sixteen years older than Kellen’s dad. No wonder they hadn’t kept in touch. Kellen’s family was close with his mom’s siblings growing up. Not the Ashbys.

“Well.” He shrugged. “It’s mine to get rid of, so...”

The woman shot him a glare.

His daughters pounded into the room.

Skylar—his little motormouth—ran right up to his knees and started tugging on his hand. “Outside there’s a cat with kittens living by the bushes. Can we keep them? Please, Dad? Please?”

Kellen lightly turned both his daughters around to face the woman in the room. “These are my girls. Skylar.” He placed his hand on her head. “And Ruthy.” His quiet three-year-old buried her chin into her chest and clutched his hand.

Disregarding the kitchen floor that badly needed to be mopped, the woman lowered herself to one knee to look the girls in the eye. “It’s wonderful to meet both of you. There haven’t been children living on this block in ages. You’ll have so much fun in town.”

“I don’t think I caught your name,” he said as he lifted Ruthy into his arms. Ruthy shoved her forehead against his shoulder.

“I’m Maggie. Maggie West.” She offered her hand and he shook it with the wrong hand because his right arm held his daughter.

Ah. Now it all made sense.

This was the woman named in his aunt’s will. What had the instructions said? That Kellen owned the inn but had to provide a place for Maggie West to live and let her continue working there.

He narrowed his eyes. Did she know she was protected in the will? The lawyer said that it would be up to Kellen to decide to tell her, but Ida might have told her when she drafted her legal paperwork. Or Maggie had suggested it to her. How much sway had the woman practiced over his aging aunt? Perhaps Maggie was a freeloader. Or had played on his aunt’s emotions in order to be taken care of by a rich woman with no kids.

Women were good at hiding their motives. Experts at displaying fabricated emotions. Cynthia had taught him that lesson all too well.

Kellen would have to keep an eye on Maggie West—figure her out as best he could, since he was stuck providing for her at the moment.

All the people he’d run across in the past twelve years had been fueled by greed or want of fame. If it was fame Maggie was after... No, she didn’t look as though she knew who he was. Maggie showed no signs of knowing that he’d once been a member of the rock band Snaggletooth Lions. So that—at least—was a small blessing.

He’d endured explaining to more than enough women that he signed away the rights to his royalties when he’d broken with the band. They all left the second they discovered he wasn’t rich and had no plans to pursue fame ever again. Not that he’d been famous. Not really. The Snaggletooth Lions signed their record deal and made it big a month after he left the band. But people who looked up the Snaggletooth Lions online knew about his early involvement—that he’d written most of their songs that filled the radio air these days.

“I’m Kellen Ashby.” He let go of her hand. “Ida’s nephew.”

Maggie tilted her head. “The one who’s a dentist?”

So Ida had bragged about his brothers and not him. He worked his jaw back and forth and swallowed hard. Why leave him the house, then? Easy. She’d pitied him. Like the rest of his family.

Poor Kellen—the prodigal. Walked away from the church. Kids out of wedlock. The washed-up band member. His daughters spend most of their life in day care while he works eighty hours a week at the restaurant to pay their bills. Why couldn’t he have turned out like his brothers? Like Bill or Tim or Craig?

He shook away his mother’s words as they jumbled around in his head. “No. I’m afraid that’s one of my far more successful older brothers. I have three to brag about if you want to hear their accolades sometime.”

“I see. Maybe another time.” Maggie took a step back. “Well. It was nice meeting all of you. I better get back over to the inn. You know where I am if you need anything or have questions about the house.”

He pursed his lips. No help from the woman named in Ida’s will would be needed. “I think we can figure things out just fine on our own. But thank you for the offer.”

She nodded, once, and left. Kellen watched her pick her way across the yard and enter the back door of the huge Victorian mansion next door.

“Can we keep the cats?” Ruthy finally spoke.

“You’ve always wanted a kitty, haven’t you?” He brushed her strawberry blonde bangs to the side and kissed her forehead.

Skylar bounced up and down beside him. “Our old landlord said no—but you’re the landlord now, Dad. Pleeeease.”

The past five years had been full of him saying no to Skylar asking for something. Or telling her to be quiet or settle down so she didn’t disturb the other people in the apartment complex they’d called home. He’d had to scold her so many times when she was just being a normal, excited kid. And shush her when she’d cried again and again, asking him why she didn’t have a mom.

A knot he didn’t realize was even there unwound from around his chest. For once he could say yes and let her enjoy a normal kid thing.

Holding tightly to Ruthy, Kellen got down on one knee. “No more landlords, sweetheart. This place is all ours. Go ahead and bring the kitties in, but keep them in your bedroom for now, okay? We’ll see how many there are and pick one or two to keep and find homes for the others.”

Ruthy couldn’t get out of his arms fast enough. She trailed her sister as they bolted outside.

Kellen straightened up and looked back across the yard to study the mansion next door. The mansion he owned. The mansion his family should be living in right now. Ida’s lawyer, Mr. Rowe, had shown him the inn’s floor plans, and the private section was especially large. Four bedrooms and ample living space. Of course, he’d have to see it before he could decide what to do.

His girls deserved a big place to wander around in. Room to play on the floors and a place big enough for those ugly plastic play kitchens to fit and corners that could house a box stage for puppet shows. After being a father who was never around, he now wanted to give them the perfect home to put down roots in.

He just needed to get a better handle on Maggie before he could decide how to shove her out of the inn.