The rest of the guests came down in waves and the atmosphere lightened perceptibly. Evangeline didn’t stick around to chat with the guests and Kate was relieved to see her leave. She didn’t think her hostess skills were up to another round with that woman. Martha Stewart herself would have a hard time keeping a smile on her face with Evangeline around, she thought.
The dining room was full with talkative guests who were sipping their second cups of coffee and making plans for the day when Rick emerged from his bedroom.
“Good morning,” he said to the room at large. Kate was suddenly nervous. These were her closest friends; she hated to trick them. But it was too late. Rick made a beeline for her and wrapped an arm around her waist and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Good morning,” he said. His voice was intimate and husky and spoke volumes. Kate tried to ignore the knowing looks her friends were shooting her as she busied herself with cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Unfortunately there was nothing she could do about her traitorously rosy cheeks.
A little while later the group began to disperse. Kate had made sure that there were plenty of activities for her guests. She had arranged everything from movies at the old one-screen theater to apple picking. She wanted to be prepared for any weather and everyone’s preferences. Tony and Ellen had volunteered to give rides to anyone who wanted to go into town. They sorted themselves into small groups. Some went antique shopping with Ellen while Tony took the rest to the state park for a long hike. When both parties had left, Kate was left alone with Rick.
She carried a stack of dishes into the kitchen. Rick was right behind her. “Are you all right?” he asked after several moments of silence.
She flashed him a breezy smile. “Of course,” she said. Her voice was just a smidgen too perky. She winced at the false tone and tried again. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But you haven’t looked me in the eye since I walked in the room.”
She whirled around and looked him square in the eye. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” he said. He didn’t look as though he believed her but he didn’t argue. “In that case, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind continuing our little tour of town. There are still some locations I need to check out before the rest of the crew arrives.”
“Oh… uh,” Kate stammered. “I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?”
“I have so much to do here,” she said. “I have to clean the rooms and start preparing for lunch. I could call Shelley if you’d like. I’m sure she would love to give you a tour. She knows more about the history of this town than anyone. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind…” Kate knew she was babbling but she couldn’t stop herself. Rick had been walking towards her as she spoke and the closer he got the faster she talked. His hand on the side of her face put an end to her high pitched rambling.
“Why are you so nervous?”
Kate couldn’t think of an answer. She felt as though she were melting under his warm gaze. His eyes were heavy with sleep and she could feel the heat from his body warming her. She pulled away abruptly and turned to finish the dishes.
“I’m not nervous,” she said. “I just have things to do.”
“Are you having regrets?” he asked. “About our little charade?” Kate was caught off guard by the question but even more startling was what she heard in his voice. He sounded gruff, as though the words had come out unbidden. And she could have sworn he sounded hurt. And vulnerable. She turned around to face him. He was watching her intently, waiting for her answer.
He deserved the truth. “No,” she said. “I don’t regret it.” As certain she was that she would be hurt by the end of all this, she also knew she would never forget the way this man made her feel. Getting close to him, even for a short time, would be worth the pain. Even if her heart was left in shambles when he left, which she knew was inevitable.
He searched her face for a moment and when he realized that she was telling the truth he grinned like a child on Christmas. Kate couldn’t help but smile back. He took her face in his hands and tilted it so she was looking up at him as he moved directly in front of her. “Good,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “I’m glad you don’t regret it. Because I sure don’t.”
Kate could feel herself blushing but she made no attempt to pull away.
The sound of a car door slamming brought her back to reality with a start. She pulled back so quickly she nearly lost her balance. She would have if Rick hadn’t reached out and caught her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Kate nodded, feeling foolish. “I just, uh… I thought I heard someone.”
“Are you sure you’re not having second thoughts about our arrangement?”
Kate bristled at his condescending tone. “Our arrangement was that we would allow Evangeline to go on believing that we are…”
Rick raised a mocking brow.
“More than friends,” she continued in her best schoolmarm voice. “I did not agree to actually being–” Her voice faltered as he shifted closer to her, and his hands brushed against her thigh.
“More than friends?” he offered.
Kate flushed. She knew he was laughing at her but she was determined to stand her ground. She may have lost control of her senses every time he kissed her, but if there was any chance that she could save herself from losing her heart over this man than she would take it. If there was any chance of self-preservation it lay in keeping some distance between them. That would be easier said than done, she thought, as her rebellious hands itched to reach out and touch the hard muscles that she could just make out beneath his shirt.
“So what you’re saying is, you would prefer to keep this arrangement strictly platonic?”
“No… I mean, yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. Kate was annoyed at herself for feeling bereft when he moved away. A big part of her ached to close the distance between them and let him take her into his arms where it was warm and safe. But there was also a rational part of her brain that was struggling to be heard, the part that knew that if she allowed herself to indulge now, she would be setting herself up for a horrible fall. One from which she didn’t know if she could recover.
Rick looked confused and she couldn’t say that she blamed him. She must be giving out mixed signals left and right as her brain and her heart fought an endless battle.
Kate cleared her throat and willed herself to be strong. Good gracious, she thought, when had she turned into a hormonally challenged teenager? She hid behind her best professional demeanor. “What happened this morning and our, uh, time together… has been very nice—”
“Very nice?” he repeated. He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
Kate refused to be distracted. “Yes,” she said. “It’s been nice. Better than nice, in fact.”
“Oh, better than nice,” he mocked. “If you’re trying to keep my ego in check, you’ve succeeded.”
Kate ignored his teasing comments. “You are a paying customer and I don’t think it’s right for us to take it any further. It wouldn’t be appropriate. But I do want you to know how much I appreciate your business and everything you’re doing for me. I want you to know how much it means to me to have you here. Your presence is the best thing that could happen to this place.” She forced herself to stop babbling. What was it about his eyes that turned her into a blithering idiot?
“But you have your limits,” he said with a mocking grin.
Kate was flustered by the sudden closed off look in his eyes and the harshness of his tone. She was afraid she’d made him angry.
“I’m sorry,” she hedged. “I didn’t mean to—“
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I’m not going to force you into doing something you don’t want, so stop looking so worried.”
“I never thought—” He didn’t seem to hear her. He continued talking in that cold businesslike tone that gave her the chills. It was so far from the warm, intimate tone she had gotten accustomed to hearing. “Now that we’ve got that settled,” he said. “There is still the matter of my needing a tour of the locations we missed the other day. I would prefer it be you who takes me since you know where we’ve been and you seem to have a good sense of direction, which Shelley does not.”
Kate opened her mouth but he continued to speak authoritatively. “Besides,” he said. “The public exposure will be good for both of us. We both stand to gain from this little agreement of ours so I’d suggest you do your part.”
Kate swallowed the anger and hurt that his words brought up. He made it sound …he made it seems as though… She couldn’t even finish the thought. The idea was too hurtful. He must know that she was merely going along with his little scheme to help him out of a difficult situation. He was just trying to get back at her, she told herself. She had injured his ego by turning down his advances and now he was trying to make it sound as though she were using him instead of the other way around. She lifted her chin. “Mr. Salinger,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “I will finish the tour we started the other day. But not because of any of the reasons you mentioned.”
He raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“I’ll do it because you are my customer and I am committed to doing all that I can for my guests. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
She ignored his smirk as she turned to leave the kitchen.
****
When was he going to learn? Rick toweled himself off after he stepped out of the cold shower. He glanced at the clock. He had another half an hour before Kate would be finished cleaning the rooms and then they would be on their way. He felt a twinge of guilt at having strong armed her into assisting him when she already had so much work on her plate. It was too late to change his mind now though. She had already called Ellen and Tony with the change of plans. They were to bring the guests to Shelley’s for lunch after their outings and would return to the B&B afterward.
Forty-five minutes and one cold shower later, Rick couldn’t believe what he had done. Had he really pulled rank as her guest and insisted that she spend time with him? He sighed. Yes, he had. He rubbed the towel over his face and tried to erase the memory of her face when he’d acted like the kind of spoiled celebrity he hated. What had come over him? But he knew the answer to that. What had come over him was a bad case of infatuation. He was no better than a teenager. He groaned softly into the towel.
From his room he could hear her moving around as she cleaned the rooms on his floor. He replayed the scene in the kitchen. If there had been any doubt that she was using their arrangement to further her business, it was gone now. If he was honest with himself there had been a little while there, when he’d woken up and found Kate in the dining room looking flushed and beautiful… He had actually started to believe that there was something more between them than mere chemistry. And there was, he laughed to himself humorlessly. There was business. He threw the towel to the floor and pulled on a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. He couldn’t believe he had nearly let himself believe in another woman. After everything he had been through with Evangeline, was he really so shocked to discover that a woman was more interested in what he could do for her career than in him? He took several deep breaths to clear his mind. There was no point in going over it all again. And there was no point in comparing Kate with Evangeline either, he reminded himself. He had come to Kate with the proposition and at least she, unlike his beautiful ex, wasn’t pretending to love him to get what she wanted.
No, she was just looking out for herself and her business, he told himself. He was the one who had read too much into it. He forced himself to turn his attention to something else. Anything else.
A few minutes later there was a knock on his door. Kate was there with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her cheeks flushed. She had clearly rushed through her morning chores in order to drive him around town. Rick felt like a jerk. He thought about saying something to politely let her off the hook but she beat him to it.
“Ready for your tour?” She looked so cheerful and willing – the perfect hostess.
“Shall we take your car or mine?” he asked. He tried to mirror her pleasant, carefree demeanor. They were acting every bit the gracious hostess and grateful customer.
“I’ll drive my car,” she said. “That way you can feel free to take in the sights and take pictures without worrying about the road.”
“Sounds good.”
They climbed in to her old beaten up truck and she chattered incessantly as they drove into town. He was bombarded with a deluge of facts and stories about the town’s origins and founding families. The next hour passed that way. She would pause once in a while to ask for his preferences or suggestions but for the most part she led the way. They ventured further on this trip and to more remote locations. As lunchtime approached they were close to Harbor Valley, the next town over, so they decided to stop there for their lunch.
“I think you’ll like Harbor Valley,” Kate said as they followed the long winding road into town. “It’s a newer town than Rockville, but it still has a fascinating history. Do you know there was a battle there back in—”
“Kate.” His harsh voice surprised himself nearly as much as it did her. She glanced over at him warily, but he clamped his mouth shut and stared out the window and watched the tall trees whiz by. He didn’t know what he wanted to say. All he knew was he couldn’t stand her professional demeanor any longer. She was the picture of the perfect hostess. Her smile, her demeanor. But Rick knew her well enough to know that it was forced. Worse, it was impersonal. The kind of treatment one would expect from a pleasant stranger, not a woman who’d fallen asleep against his side and who had kissed him so passionately just hours before.
He glanced over and saw that she was biting her lower lip and he wished he had never opened his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I didn’t mean to cut you off like that. That was rude.”
“No, it’s okay,” Kate said, brushing off his apology with a wave of her hand.
“No, it’s not.”
They drove in tense silence until they reached the heart of town, which consisted of one main street that intersected with the road that they were driving. Harbor Valley was less like a town and more like a rest stop, Rick thought. Kate parked her truck on Main Street and they both climbed out.
“What did you have in mind for lunch?” she asked.
Rick looked around at the nearly deserted street. “What are my options?”
Kate looked as though she was trying not to grin as she pretended to take in all their options. “Let’s see, we’ve got the town diner or… the town diner.”
Rick pretended to ponder for a moment. “I vote for the town diner.”
“Excellent choice.”
They walked cross the street and Rick was relieved that the tension he’d felt in the truck had started to ease a bit. They helped themselves to a booth in the back of the small, run-down restaurant and were waited on by an older woman who looked like she had put her makeup on in the dark.
“What can I get for ya?” she asked. Her face was set in a scowl.
“I’ll take a cheeseburger with a side of fries,” Rick said. She turned to glare at Kate.
“Same for me, please.” The waitress, whose name tag read Esther, gave an unladylike sniff before heading back toward the kitchen.
The diner was nearly empty. The only other customer was an older man who sat at the end of the counter reading the paper and noisily slurping his soup. There was an awkward silence as they faced one other across the table. Kate avoided looking at him and focused on the straw wrapper in her hand that she was in the process of mangling.
Rick cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I forced you to drop everything and chauffeur me around town.” She looked up in surprise. “I know you’re very busy this weekend and—”
“It’s all right,” she interrupted. “I’m more than happy to rearrange my schedule for your convenience.”
Rick dropped his head into his hands. “Drop the happy hostess act,” he groaned. When he looked up, Kate looked flustered. The piece of paper in her hands had been torn into pieces.
“It’s not an act. I’m your hostess and you are my customer. My only paying customer and you deserve the same courtesy and respect I would give any other guest despite the fact—”
“That I acted like a jerk?” he finished with a grin.
She shifted in her seat. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” He reached across the table to stop her hands, which had moved on to shredding her napkin. She pulled away quickly as though he had hit her.
“Listen, Kate, I can’t stand celebrities who throw their weight around and expect people to drop everything for them. I’m sorry for the way I behaved earlier. I guess I just didn’t know how to act after everything that’s gone on between us.”
Bright red heat suffused her cheeks and he wondered if she realized how adorable she looked when she blushed.
“Despite what you may think, I don’t make a habit of kissing women or holding them while the sleep. I guess I hadn’t expected things to go back to business as usual as though there were nothing between us.”
She opened her mouth to protest but he wouldn’t let her speak.
“No, it’s okay. If that’s what you want, to keep a professional distance while I’m staying at the B&B, then I want you to know that I’m okay with that. I won’t try to pressure you into anything.”
“Thank you,” Kate said. Her voice was soft and her face unreadable. Thank you for what? Rick wondered. For apologizing? Or for keeping his distance?
“If you’ve changed your mind about pretending to be my girlfriend, I’ll understand completely.”
Kate looked surprised and she responded quickly. “It’s a bit late to turn back now, isn’t it?”
Rick shrugged. “I could tell Evangeline that things have ended.”
Kate gave an unladylike snort. “Evangeline is the least of my worries. You don’t know much about small towns if you think the entire town isn’t talking about our new relationship.”
Rick grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I didn’t really think this through. I mean, how this would affect your personal life.”
Kate shrugged. “That’s all right,” she said. “Maybe now they’ll stop their matchmaking attempts for a while.” Her sudden smile made his breath catch in his throat. “I suppose I should be thanking you for that.”
“Ah, so the good folks of Rockville are determined to find you a man,” Rick said. He tried to keep his voice even.
Kate narrowed her eyes and leaned forward as though she were going to let him in on a secret. “They’re merciless,” she whispered.
He laughed. “I suppose I can assume from your single status that they haven’t succeeded in their mission.
“Not yet.”
Not yet? That meant it was only a matter of time before some other man could claim her as his own and she would be off limits for good. He stopped himself from taking those thoughts any further.
“I find it hard to believe that a young, attractive woman like you hasn’t met anyone,” he said.
Kate raised an eyebrow. “Why?” she asked. “Do you really think that all young women are only looking for a man to take care of them?”
Rick looked horrified. “Of course not. Can you imagine what Sam would do to me if she thought her brother was sexist?”
Kate giggled at his look of horror.
“All I meant is that I find it hard to believe that men aren’t knocking down your door. I mean, there must have been one who passed your rigorous standards,” he teased. He managed to keep up a lighthearted attitude but inwardly he was screaming at himself to stop talking. He didn’t know why he was torturing himself like this but he couldn’t seem to stop.
Kate was eyeing him curiously but she answered easily enough. “I don’t have the time or energy to date much right now. The Rosalie Inn requires my full attention at the moment. That’s where my priorities lie.”
Rick absently stirred his coffee that the waitress placed in front of him. There it was again. She couldn’t be any more upfront with him if she tried. He may not like the fact that she was pretending to be his girlfriend for the fame and exposure but he couldn’t fault her for being deceptive. She was more than clear on what she wanted and how could he fault someone for being ambitious? He hadn’t gotten as far as he had by sitting on his heels, he reminded himself. He knew better than anyone that to get what you want, you had to take it. He should be applauding her for her business savvy, not judging her.
The waitress not so gently set their food in front of them, and he and Kate exchanged wry looks over their grease covered meals. “No wonder Shelley’s is always so full,” Rick murmured when the waitress was out of sight. “If this is her only competition…”
Kate laughed. “Don’t let Shelley hear you refer to this place as competition. She’s got a mean right hook.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes but Rick couldn’t stop thinking about their conversation. He knew he shouldn’t be so interested, but he couldn’t help himself. “Has there really never been anyone special in the picture? Any boyfriend, I mean?”
His blunt question clearly took her by surprise. She looked puzzled for a moment and he couldn’t blame her. He wished he could take the question back but it was too late. And, he had to admit to himself, he was dying to hear her answer.
Her cheeks turned bright pink and she seemed suddenly preoccupied with the fries on her plate. She shrugged. “I’m not totally inexperienced with men if that’s what you mean.”
Rick realized at once that she had misinterpreted his question. She thought he was mocking her. “That’s not what I meant,” he started.
“There was a boy,” she said. “A man.”
Rick’s jaw clenched. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone? But he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “What happened?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just curious, that’s all,” he lied. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too personal.”
She sighed heavily. “There’s no big story. He just wasn’t the man I thought he was, that’s all. I’m better off without him.”
Her voice was casual but the strained look in her eyes let on more than she knew, and Rick found himself fantasizing about what he would do if he ever met the man responsible for causing that pain.
“So now it’s ‘all business all the time’, huh?” he asked.
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I guess you could say that. But I’m not complaining. This B&B has meant the world to me. And it hasn’t all been work. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s amazing to see something that you’ve dreamed up become a reality, you know?” She laughed. “Look who I’m talking to. Of course, you know.”
He returned her smile. He did know. And seeing the excitement on her face, the eagerness in her eyes – he was reminded of himself when he first started out in the film business. He raised his coffee mug in a toast. “Here’s hoping the B&B is a triumphant success.”
She raised her soda and clinked his glass with a giggle. “And here’s to you and your business,” she said. “For getting The Rosalie Inn off to a good start.”
“I take it that means our little arrangement is still on?”
She looked confused for a moment but then she nodded resolutely.
He forced himself to laugh. Take what you want, he reminded himself. That had always been his philosophy. He should respect her strength and ambition. Using him for a leg up was not the same thing as Evangeline’s underhanded manipulation. He was struck by his own hypocrisy. Wasn’t he using pretenses to get what he wanted? To be closer to Kate? Hadn’t he used a bit of trickery to broach this arrangement in the first place?
A girl after his own heart, he thought. Maybe they could both get what they wanted out of this, he thought. The problem was, would he be able to walk away when business was finished?