Holly hated making phone calls to inquire about individuals. She hated it when hiring personnel for the restaurant. She hated it now while trying to discover if she should rent her basement apartment to Jed Henning. It felt intrusive somehow. On one level, she knew it made sense. It was for safety and security reasons. She was protecting her finances and her property. But on another, it seemed a waste of time. After all, would anybody list a reference who would say something negative?
Nonetheless, she began with a cursory search on Facebook. The name Jed Henning brought up a number of prospects, none of them with profiles that matched her renter. A true investigator could probably find his footprint somewhere, but she wasn’t an investigator. She simply wanted a reliable renter. She reached for the application and dialed the first number, a man who shared the same last name as Jed.
* * *
Well before the end of her phone calls—all of them brief and all of them highly positive—she’d made up her mind. She would rent the apartment to Jed. Why wouldn’t she? His references confirmed his character and his financial stability. Plus he’d guaranteed her double the rent she’d requested for three months. He’d promised to pay two months of it up front. Her brain was already listing what she could do with that money.
Then again, was she making the right choice? What if he wasn’t at all who he appeared to be, who his references said he was? He seemed nice. But appearances could be deceiving. She knew that all too well.
Only, what choice did she have? She needed to rent the apartment, and he was the first applicant who met her requirements.
Jed answered her call on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Mr. Henning? Jed. This is Holly Stanford.”
“Yes. Hello.”
“The apartment is yours, if you still want to rent it on the terms we discussed.” Actually, they hadn’t truly discussed the terms. He’d made an offer and she hadn’t refused. But that seemed to be splitting hairs.
“Great. I’ll head over to the bank right now. Will you be at your place in about an hour or so?”
“Yes, I’ll be here.”
“Should I have the check made out to you?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” he repeated. “See you soon. And thanks. I’m grateful.”
It was nice of him to say so, Holly thought, but he couldn’t be more grateful than she was.
With the call ended, she set her phone on the kitchen counter and turned to look at the ancient stove. Replacing it was high on her list of priorities, right after paying her most pressing bills. And if she had a modern range, she would be able to do more baking at home. She missed those times of experimenting with a new idea for a special creation. The restaurant required management skills from her—management skills and money—when what she really wanted was to be wearing an apron and making sweet confections.
She sank onto a nearby kitchen stool, fighting a sudden urge to cry. Her world had been out of control for so very long. The broken engagement. The death of her dreams. And the debt. The crushing, smothering debt. Sometimes she wanted to throw up her hands and cry, “Forget it!” Sometimes she wanted to run away from everything, to hide from the whole world.
But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t run away. It wasn’t in her nature to cut and run—sometimes to her detriment. She’d held on to Nathan Estes, her ex-fiancé, long after she’d known, deep down, that he didn’t really love her. Long after she’d known he wasn’t the man she’d believed him to be. But she’d already said yes to the dress, and the invitations had been mailed, and so many friends had said how happy the two of them would be, how perfect they were together. So she’d held on, hoping for something that would never be. In the end, Nathan had left her. Not quite jilted her at the altar but close enough for the label to feel accurate.
Drawing a ragged breath, she looked around the kitchen and living room. She’d bought the house thinking it was where she and Nathan would make a home and eventually start a family. Thinking it would be where she would start her cake-baking business while Nathan ran Sweet Caroline’s, the restaurant once owned by her aunt and uncle. Looking back, she’d realized Nathan had already decided not to go through with the wedding even while he continued to encourage her to buy the house and update the restaurant. Otherwise, his name would have been on the home mortgage alongside hers. His name would have been next to hers on the bank loan for the restaurant remodel. Funny how his reasoning had made sense to her at the time.
“I’m an idiot. I was so swept away with the idea of romance that I was blind to what was right in front of me.” She covered her face with her hands, repeating words she’d said often over the past year. “I’ll never do that again. I’ll never put myself at risk that way again. So help me, I won’t. I won’t.”
She released a sigh. It wasn’t memories of Nathan that had her fighting tears. She’d come to terms with what she’d once felt for him. No, it was the fallout from their doomed relationship that continued to plague her, continued to make her feel stupid and foolish and afraid to trust. She understood it was the weight of responsibilities and debt that kept her emotions on edge. But understanding was different from controlling. It certainly didn’t make the problems all go away. She wished it could. Oh, how she wished it could.
* * *
Jed drove toward the apartment, his suitcases and a number of boxes in the back of the vehicle. The two suitcases had come with him from Tacoma. The boxes he’d picked up from one of his Idaho cousins. They contained Henning family photos and letters that had been left to his dad.
“Feel free to go through them while you’re in Boise,” his dad had said on the phone last night. “Maybe they’ll serve as a kind of reminder about what it means to be a family.”
The comment had angered Jed. Who was his dad to talk? Jed loved his parents. He loved his great-aunts and uncles and all the cousins. He loved his brother, too, despite everything. He knew what it meant to be a family. Sure, maybe he hadn’t spent much time with those closest to him in the past few years. Getting Laffriot off the ground had made for long days, long weeks, long months. He’d declined more than one invitation from his mom to come to dinner. He’d missed the last few Henning family reunions. But that didn’t mean he didn’t understand about family.
Maybe if he wasn’t always trying to clean up after his brother, he would have more time to spend with family. Had his dad thought of that?
He drew a deep breath, remembering the last time he’d been with his brother.
“When’re you going to grow up, Chris?”
“When are you going to stop riding me?”
“We’ve got obligations.”
“You’ve got obligations. Not me. I just work for you. Remember?”
“There’s no way you become a partner until you’ve earned it.”
“I’ve earned it. You just aren’t able to admit it.”
That had been the moment when Jed nearly threw a punch. That was also the moment he might have saved himself a world of trouble by admitting Chris was right. At least partially right. His younger brother didn’t know anything about running a successful company, and he didn’t have a lick of business sense. But creativity oozed out of his pores. He was a genius in many ways. He was also irresponsible, undependable, and a gambler.
If he would just . . .
An unexpected sense of shame washed over Jed. Sure, he could blame their argument that day on losing his temper, on being fed up with his brother’s careless actions. But there was more to it than one argument, one loss of temper. The anger and resentment had been welling up between them for years.
Holly Stanford’s house came into view, allowing Jed to push back the unpleasant thoughts for now. A few moments later, Jed pulled his rental car to the curb. For a short while he stared at the small stucco residence. He’d only come there that morning because of a letter at the top of one of those boxes behind him. It was a letter from Jed’s great-grandfather, Andrew Henning, to Jed’s grandfather, Andy Jr. In it Andrew had written about the apartment where he’d lived with Great-Grandmother Helen for a short while after their wedding in 1929. Andrew had included the apartment address in his story. Between that letter and the old family Bible now in Jed’s possession, curiosity had forced him to look up the residence on the internet. Seeing it still existed—a minor miracle considering how much Boise had grown over the past one hundred years—and discovering it wasn’t all that far from the hotel, he’d headed off to see it. Just from the outside. It hadn’t occurred to him he might have an opportunity to actually see the apartment itself. Let alone that it would be for rent—and that he would end up renting it. What on earth had possessed him to do it? He didn’t hate living in a hotel as much as he’d made it sound. And with any luck at all, he wouldn’t be in Boise more than a couple of weeks, let alone for three months.
Drawing a deep breath, he got out of the car and followed the walk to the front door. After ringing the doorbell, he took a step back. He didn’t have to wait long before the door opened. Holly’s eyes filled with a look of relief when she saw him, and he wondered if she’d thought he might not come after all.
“Ms. Stanford. Your tenant has arrived.”
“Come in. Please.” She pulled the door all the way open.
Jed stepped into the house. He glanced into the living room on his left. There was a sofa with matching easy chair and ottoman plus end tables. The upholstery was white with pink flowers, and for some reason, he thought it suited his new landlady. To his right was a kitchen and eating nook, neither of them what he would consider large. At home, his kitchen and dining room were enormous—unnecessary since he made little use of either one. A short hallway led to what he assumed were the bathroom and a couple of bedrooms.
“This is nice,” he said.
“Thanks.” She swept the adjoining room with her gaze. “I love it here.”
Jed saw a flicker of sadness in her eyes. Not contradicting her words, exactly, but there was pain connected to this house too. He wondered what was behind it.
He thought again of his own house. He felt no sentimental attachment to it, that was certain. Not like what Holly obviously felt for her home. He pushed away that thought while clearing his throat, then said, “I’ve got your cashier’s check.” He pulled it from his pocket and held it out to her. He saw relief fill her eyes a second time. His gut told him she hadn’t just wanted a renter. She’d needed one.
After drawing a breath, she set the check on the kitchen counter. “Here’s the key to the apartment, and this one is to the detached garage in back. Use the parking stall on the right for your car.” She dropped the key ring into his open hand.
“Thanks. Appreciate it.”
Holly gave a nod and took a step backward.
Jed took that as a cue to leave. “I’ll move my car around to the garage and get myself settled in.” He turned toward the door, then stopped and looked back. “Where’s the nearest grocery store?”
“About five blocks from here. Two blocks west and three blocks north.” She pointed as she spoke, indicating the two directions.
“Thanks.”
He whistled softly as he walked to the car, feeling better than he’d felt in months, although he wasn’t sure why.