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Grant
“Why the hell didn’t she tell me?” Grant was pacing like a caged animal, hissing when he wanted to scream. The kitchen was too exposed. She might be listening.
“She was busy going into surgery, maybe,” Kelli said in a calm voice. “Don’t blame this on Jessica. She had a lot going on.”
“But she loves this place. It’s her life. Shit, it’s even her home. Where will she go?” Grant knew that Kelli couldn’t answer all his questions but his mind was exploding with them, and with his sister still recovering after her back surgery, there was no way he could pester her.
“She didn’t even tell you she was selling?” Kelli queried. Grant shook his head, his shoulders slumping. “I thought you knew, Grant. I figured you at least knew who Stevie Jurran was. I thought everyone knew who Stevie Jurran was. What rock have you crawled out from under?”
“You know I am trying to get off the grid for a while, Kelli. For god’s sake, I thought Stevie was a man.”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, nope is right. She is definitely all woman.” Grant had been able to think of little else than the plush curves of the woman, and the fact that she was there to destroy his sister’s life. He couldn’t reconcile the two, although he had been trying for the better part of an hour. “Have you seen her? Yowza.”
“Only on the covers of magazines, but I am looking forward to it.”
“I thought I would need a pacemaker. She’s stunning. Feminine as hell and still strong. How does a woman manage to do that?” Grant looked to Kelli, buried under an oversized t-shirt, Capri leggings, flip flops, her graying hair scraped into a messy ponytail and realized she had no answers. Stevie Jurran and Kelli Moss were two different species.
Remembering the affect the woman had on him, Grant took a few deep breaths and considered counting backwards from 100 in Latin or reciting the periodic table. He needed to do something to control his lust. It had been instantaneous and in the subsequent forty minutes it had barely subsided.
“I can’t wait to see her,” Kelli was saying, returning Grant to the current conversation. “I wish Bijoux wasn’t buying the B&B, but otherwise, it’s like having a big celebrity in the house.”
“She’s the daughter, right? The one famous for partying?”
“Was famous for partying. According to “Entertainment Tonight” she is trying to prove to her dad that she can take over the business someday.”
A substantial whistle slid between Grant’s lips at that news. “Even I know that is a big deal. Bijoux must be the second or third largest hotel chain in the world,” he speculated. “She’s pretty young to run all that.”
“Second,” Kelli confirmed. “She was engaged to Thomas Elliott of the Elliott Group and he was set to take over everything until she caught him in bed with a chambermaid.”
“Really?” Grant was all ears. “What a cliché.”
“Seriously, Grant? Don’t you know anything? There was speculation that he was only with Stevie for the position and the cheating kind of confirmed that. Everyone expected her to jet off to some spa to recover quietly but not Stevie Jurran. She stepped up and announced to the world that she was wanted the job and she was going to get it before she turned 35.”
“How long until she turns 35?” Grant couldn’t have prevented himself from asking if he tried.
“Three years. She had to go from party girl to exec in three years. That’s a huge leap for her.”
“What did Daddy say?” Grant had a moment realizing he was gossiping about a guest in the B&B, which was strictly frowned upon in the personnel manual, but this woman had captured his interest and he wanted – he needed – to know more.
“Daddy must have been impressed, because he gave her a series of tasks to prove she could do the job,” the back-up innkeeper explained. “So far she has tackled catering and events – she was a natural at that. Then she opened their new 5-star hotel in Dubai. Last year she was project manager for the new construction in San Francisco and now she has acquisitions. That’s where we come in. The luxury chain is buying luxury B&Bs, sixteen of them to be precise. We are one of them.”
“Impressive. I would have guessed the woman upstairs was under 30 and have never worried about more than where to find a great new pair of shoes. My bad. That’s quite a list of accomplishments for someone that young.”
“It’s in her blood, don’t forget. She watched daddy run the business her whole life. And she did get an Cornell education in hospitality and business,” Kelli explained. What didn’t this woman know about Stevie? Grant felt like a country bumpkin by comparison.
“But why would my sister sell? I don’t understand that part at all. And why wouldn’t she say anything to me?”
“Money, I suspect, and lots of it. Bijoux can afford to be generous. They will keep Jess on as manager if she passes muster. Same job, less stress. Made sense to me, although I was surprised when she told me it was in the works. As to why didn’t she tell you? Maybe because your plate was already full?”
Grant turned his back on Kelli, unable to handle the pity in her eyes. She was spot on. His plate had been full indeed. It had been more than he could handle, and Jessica had read him right – he would have been no help to her.
He had finally been clawing his way back to life after losing his wife to someone he had considered a friend. He had spent almost a year extracting that knife from his back. He had left her in their Gold Coast apartment, moving into a crummy studio in the suburbs away from everyone and everything he knew and couldn’t face.
He might have bounced back from the divorce lawyers and financial setbacks of the huge settlement if he had not suddenly and inexplicably lost a patient that he was unaccountably attached to. It had pushed him over an edge. Now he had moved to Evanston, taken a sabbatical from surgery and dropped off the grid.
A year of walks along the lakefront, long bike rides and part-time inn keeping had started the healing process. Burying his head in the classics and joining the library book club helped him out of his shell. Attending local theater productions and lectures at nearby Northwestern University pulled him back among the living.
He had graduated in the last three months to a full-fledged member of the community, attending weekend farmers’ markets, city council meetings, and running into people he knew everywhere he went. Grant was weighing the option of returning to the hospital, but he didn’t want to lose this newly discovered and healthier balance. Teaching still tickled at the corners of his mind as an alternative, but at 39 he struggled with the giving up his dream of pediatric neurosurgery surgery that he had pursued his entire life.
Life off the grid, hard exercise, small activities and true friends were a radical change from his previous life of sixteen-hour days on his feet performing cutting edge surgery and holding life in his hands. It was an even greater change from nights of expensive dinners at the latest new restaurant, or fundraisers for the Children's Hospital and the other causes he supported. He didn’t miss that life – tuxedos and phony friendships, but in the wee hours of the morning, just before the sun streamed into his uncurtained windows, he would admit that he missed the challenge the work presented, and the feel of a warm, soft woman in his arms when he slept.
A woman like Stevie Jurran. Don’t go there, Grant. She might have been in your league a year ago, but you are not living that life ever again.
Taking a deep breath, Grant shook off his thoughts and headed to the sink to wash the breakfast dishes. This was his life now.