Despite the worrisome matter of the hotel’s repairs, the days that followed were some of the sweetest days that Arabella had ever known.
Neither she nor Jay were heads of anything, which meant they had a vacation, forced or not.
They helped Louella harvest strawberries for half the day on Monday and spent the rest of the day in his barn loft bedroom making love.
On Tuesday, Jay talked Arabella into climbing inside the woefully tiny cockpit of a plane he rented.
They flew all the way to Houston—which wasn’t all that far admittedly—and had lunch with his parents. On the return flight to Rambling Rose, Arabella didn’t even remember to clutch her armrests in terror because she was so caught up with teasing Jay over the stories his mother had regaled her with over lunch. “You might have told me you were a child prodigy,” she said. Loudly, because it was the only way he could hear her over the noise of the engine propeller.
“I wasn’t a prodigy,” he said dismissively, and just as loudly.
“You won a piano competition when you were nine! Against people who were three times your age! And you graduated from college when you were twenty!”
He rolled his eyes and pointed at the checkerboard landscape beyond the windows. “There’s the barn.”
She looked out and sure enough, she could see the rooftop of his barn and the water wheel beside it.
“Can we fly over the hotel?”
In answer, the wings of the plane banked slightly.
She whooped nervously and closed her eyes to the sound of his laughter. But only briefly, because it was much too interesting seeing the land below.
On Wednesday, he got her up on Loretta’s back and with him on Waylon, they rode all over his grandmother’s property. Then he heated the water for the tub in the peach orchard and pretended to wash Arabella’s back even though he was a lot more interested in her front.
He admitted that he’d suspected, and now knew for certain, that that tub had always been big enough for two.
That evening, they had dinner at Provisions with Adam and Laurel. Stephanie, who was Callum’s sister and had acted as Larkin’s foster mom for a brief while, was watching the toddler with her husband for the evening.
By tacit agreement, they stayed away from the subject of the hotel. Instead, Adam and Jay talked beer brewing and Laurel and Arabella gossiped about the rest of her brothers—namely Josh and Brian who’d yet to find the loves of their lives as Kane, Brady and Adam had. The only thing she had a hard time doing was keeping Brady’s secret about Harper’s pregnancy.
But if he hadn’t told the rest of the family, it was obvious that she shouldn’t do so for him, no matter how badly she wanted to share that good news.
It was late when they all finally parted and much to Arabella’s disappointment, Jay drove her back to Brady’s house instead of his place.
She twirled her fingers down the front of his shirt when he walked her to the door. “Sure you don’t want to...you know.”
He laughed and caught her marauding fingers. “I definitely want to you know. But Brady already wants to strangle me for sleeping with his baby sister. You spent the night with me last night. And the night before. If he has any more stress about it, I’ll feel guilty for causing his stroke.”
“He’s as bad as our father,” she muttered, even though a part of her was charmed by Jay’s version of gallantry.
“Besides.” Jay kissed her chastely on the forehead. “We had the bathtub earlier today. And you still haven’t finished Oscar and Aaron’s story. You’ve left them locked in the back of a moving truck. I need to know that they end up okay.”
She caught his hand before he could step off the porch and pressed it to her cheek. “I hope you know I’m falling in love with you.” The words just wouldn’t be contained. Any more than the fullness in her heart could be.
The only light shining over them came from the porch light that Brady had left burning just exactly the way her father had always done when they’d been teenagers. It was just bright enough to be sure that any kissing that went on was visible to everyone up and down the block.
And it was also bright enough to see that Jay wasn’t returning her sentiment anytime soon. His brows were pulled together and the corners of his lips were turned down. “Bella—”
She steeled herself and kept her smile in place through sheer willpower. “I don’t expect you to say ditto, Jay. I just wanted you to know.” She braced her hands on his shoulders and went up on her toes to kiss his lips. “Oscar and Aaron are waiting.”
Then she quickly slipped inside the door and closed it behind her.
Her heart thudded heavily in her chest and she leaned her head back against the door.
A moment later, she heard the soft rumble of his truck engine as he drove away.
She exhaled and opened her arms for Murphy to jump up into them. The dog slathered her face in kisses. And if he tasted a few salty tears along the way, she knew she could trust him to keep her secret.
Jay stared blearily at the cop sitting across the table from him. He’d left Arabella at her brother’s house eight hours earlier and he hadn’t slept a wink in the minutes since.
Instead, he’d called Detective Teas and arranged to meet him at the police station at seven that morning.
“You wanted my confession,” he told Detective Teas hours later when he’d finished his story. They were sitting in the same interrogation room that Teas had used with Jay weeks ago. “And now you have it.”
Jay was pretty sure the cop didn’t look stunned very often, but he looked stunned now.
He flopped his chair forward onto all four legs and reached one arm out to flip the lock on the door he’d already closed.
“You’re Jett Carr,” he repeated. “The one my daughter’s been going around wearing a shirt that says she’d give it all up for Jett Carr. That Jett Carr.”
Jay grimaced. “You don’t have to rub it in, Detective.”
The cop pushed his chair back again, balancing it once more. Only this time, he lifted his legs and crossed them at the ankle over the corner of the table. He propped his hands behind his neck and a broad grin crossed his face. “Why the hell didn’t you just say so? And why now?”
Jay scrubbed his hands down his face. “Because I want to sleep at night without you hanging over my head.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but he didn’t figure the officer needed to know it was the trust in Arabella’s eyes that was driving him more. He pushed out of his chair. “I never even wanted to be Jett Carr.” He paced from one corner to the next. “But everyone insisted I needed a name with more...salability than just Jay Cross.”
“It’s a name,” Teas said on a laugh. “Who cares?”
“Everyone in Los Angeles.” Jay rubbed the back of his neck and for some reason, found himself telling the detective all about the ways and means that had gone into turning him from a college student with a side hustle playing piano and writing songs into a full-time guitar-strumming singer. It was as if once he’d started confessing, he couldn’t make himself stop. “I grew my hair. Grew a beard.” He rubbed his jaw, feeling the prickles of day-old stubble. “Trademark shades. Cowboy hat. And one day I looked in the mirror and didn’t even recognize myself. I was involved with a woman my family detested. Had a manager who cared more about booking the next gig than he did about the fact that I was losing my mind. Two record deals that barely made the needle jump. And then—” he spread his fingers “—poof. The label cut me loose. Tina followed the day after. My manager about a week after that.”
“But that video of yours is all over creation!”
Jay laughed wearily and paced around the room in the other direction. “And it’s ironic as hell, too. That was my sarcastic way of bidding it all adieu. Goodbye, LA. Goodbye, Jett Carr, whose skin I’d never fit, anyway. I recorded it on my damn phone for God’s sake. Never intended to even upload it, but you know cell phones these days. Once it’s got a setting, it’s got it forever, and the next thing I knew ‘Giving It All Up’ was all over the airwaves. Everybody and their mother’s brother suddenly wanted a piece of Jett Carr again and—” He shook his head. “I couldn’t take it. I escaped home to Texas but the only place that people really didn’t connect me to music at all was here in Rambling Rose.”
“Living in a barn out back of your grandma’s farmhouse.”
“It might’ve been a barn,” Jay muttered, “but I’ve put a little money into it over the years.”
“Because you knew you’d need an escape hatch sooner or later?”
He exhaled. “Maybe. Jett Carr did earn me money over time. I worked my ass off for it, too. But I never really cracked the ice until that video.”
“Well, hiding out after the fact seems like it was the best way you could have found to ensure even more interest in it. If you’d have just told me all this from the start, it would’ve saved the department a lot of time and money.”
Jay threw himself down on the chair he’d vacated. “If I make a donation to the policeman’s fund will that help?”
Teas smiled slightly. “How big a donation?”
Jay pulled out the checkbook he’d brought with him, because he’d figured one way or another he would be paying for the visit. He wrote out several digits and signed his name. His real name. He tore out the check and slid it across to the detective. “Will that do?”
Teas gave it a considering look and then nodded. “So if it’s not you tinkering with things over at Hotel Fortune, who do you think it is?”
Jay grimaced. “Who the hell knows? Someone who’s got a gripe against the Fortunes. The ones who built the place, I mean.” He couldn’t stand the thought that the vengeance might extend to Arabella.
“Yeah.” Teas scratched his chin. “Only thing is, we can’t seem to find anyone with a real gripe. That Callum fella and his brothers have done a lot of good things here in town. First they built that pediatric center. The veterinary clinic. Provisions has the best food in town. Took my wife to Roja and that’s gonna be just as good. Retail shops. A fancy spa where my wife is constantly begging me to send her. They’ve brought in new money. Created jobs.” He drummed his fingers against the table. “Even checked into that lady who went off the deep end a few years ago. Charlotte Robinson? Ex-wife of that Robinson Tech guy? Her permanent address is still the fancy sanitarium place she got checked into after she tried her hand and failed at kidnapping.”
Jay vaguely remembered his mother recounting the sensationalistic story several years back. But he’d been in California then and couldn’t have cared less about a bunch of people he’d never met, much less heard of.
“It’s gotta be an inside job. But the only one who didn’t have a good alibi has been you.”
“I still don’t have a good alibi,” he pointed out. “You just know now what I was doing in the years between insurance and showing up here.”
“You saying you tampered with the balcony?”
His lips thinned. “To what end?”
“Exactly.” Teas slapped his hand down on the table. “I just need one thing from you.” He flipped the pages on his yellow pad to one that was empty and sent it skidding across the surface toward Jay. He followed it with a pen from his lapel pocket. “Sign an autograph for my daughter. Her name is Keisha.”
Feeling relieved, bemused and pretty much spent, Jay picked up the pen and scrawled out his autograph.
To Keisha.
All the best.
Jett Carr.
Then he set down the pen and pushed to his feet.
Teas stood as well. He carefully pulled off the sheet of paper and folded it in fourths to tuck into his pocket. “What’re you going to do now?”
“About what?”
“Half the world’s still looking for you, bud.”
Jay unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Long as I can trust you not to out me now, they’ll just have to keep looking. Far as I’m concerned, Jett Carr’s dead and gone.”
“And Jay Cross is happy being a hotel trainee in small-town Texas?”
Arabella’s image danced in Jay’s mind. Without Teas in his rearview mirror, looking into her beautiful eyes would be a lot easier. “Happier than he’s got a right to be.”
Teas clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck with that, then. Just have t’say that I’ve learned one thing in all my years of police work. Secrets tend to come out.”
Another thing on which the detective and Jay’s grandmother would agree.
He pulled his hat down over his eyes as he walked out into the morning sunshine.
He was surprised at how much time had passed with the detective. But then he hadn’t intended to treat the meeting like the confessional it had become. He’d just planned to tell the cop the basics about his history in California, buy his silence if it became necessary and get on with his day.
Petunia’s flower shop was down the street and on the spur of the moment, Jay pulled over and parked in front. Inside, he picked a pot of geraniums off the shelf only because the small clay pot wore a pair of pink sunglasses above a pair of equally pink painted lips. Then he added another fern to his choice because he couldn’t seem to pass one without feeling he ought to buy it for his grandmother.
He’d inherited the habit from Herb. Because as many times as Jay had come to town with his grandfather to pay those parking tickets, when they drove back out to the farm, Jay had invariably been holding a potted fern on his lap.
He carried the pots over to Petunia where she was talking with her dad and set them on the counter. She gave him a smile, though she looked as if she’d had about as much sleep as he had. She rang up his selections on an old-fashioned cash register. “Heard about the trouble over at the hotel. How’re things coming along?”
He pulled several bills from his wallet and handed them to her. “As well as they can, from what I know.” Which, admittedly, wasn’t all that much. “Figured I’d drop by on my way back to my grandmother’s place just to check in.”
“Give them all my best. They sure could stand a bit of good luck, couldn’t they?”
Truer words. Jay looked at Norman. “Going to see you out at Mariana’s this Saturday, Norm?”
“What business is it of yours?” The old man nearly barked the words.
“My grandmother’s gonna have the last of her strawberry jam for the summer out there.” He smiled cautiously. “Figure the way you go through it, you’ll want to stock up while you can.”
The old man blinked. Then as if a lightbulb had come on, he nodded. “You tell Louella I’ll be there.”
Jay wished he could say that his grandmother would be there, too, but since she was still prohibited from getting anywhere near Mabel, he was already planning on manning the booth for her. He was also counting on Arabella to keep him company.
He pocketed the change that Petunia gave him and with the box she’d settled the plants into in hand, went out to his truck.
He’d just placed the box on the passenger-side floor when Petunia knocked on his window. He rolled it down. “Did I forget something?”
She shook her head. “No, I just wanted to explain about Dad. He hasn’t really been himself these days.”
Jay nodded, not really sure how to respond. “My grandmother’s already told me about the problem he has with his meds.”
She looked relieved. “I’m trying to find a solution for him, but he’s a determined old guy, you know? Independent as hell and the idea of having someone monitor anything he does is hard for him to swallow. The only person he tolerates these days is my nephew. I’m sorry if he sounded rude.”
“No worries.”
She reached in and squeezed his arm. “Louella’s always said what a good boy you are and she’s right.”
He actually felt his neck get hot. “Um—”
She laughed slightly. “Now I’ve gone and embarrassed you, which wasn’t my intention at all.” She stepped back onto the curb. “One of these days, buy Louella something besides a fern!” Then she disappeared inside her shop.
He looked down at the plant. “What’s wrong with a fern?”
It took only a few minutes to get to the hotel.
There was a sign posted on the front door that it was temporarily closed, but when he pulled it open, it wasn’t locked.
He went inside.
The lobby smelled vaguely musty but there were big fans positioned in every corner blowing air noisily across the floor. Baseboards were gone, and the lower portions of drywall had been cut away from the walls, leaving the studs exposed. Whatever repairs were going to be needed, they couldn’t even get started until everything was fully dried out.
The fans seemed to be the only occupants, though.
He looked into the office behind the registration desk but it was empty. So was the security office.
The elevators were locked on the first floor and he wandered past them, sticking his head around the door to Roja.
He earned a look from the group of Fortunes sitting at one of the tables.
Brady’s eyes narrowed when he spotted Jay. “What do you want, Cross?”
To marry your sister.
The words popped into his head, making Jay forget for a moment why he’d even walked in there in the first place.
Callum rose and walked toward him. “Something on your mind?”
Jay swallowed and focused on the older man’s face. It was a lot easier than the glaring one that Brady possessed. “I was just checking on how things were going. Insurance and all that.”
Callum’s brows rose. “You know about insurance?”
“I used to.” He looked past Callum to Wiley. He was a lawyer. Nothing showed in his expression. But Steven and his brother Dillon were contractors. Easier to read. “They’re denying the claim?”
Arabella’s other brother Kane, who’d been involved with the hotel from the start, was the only one who nodded. “Wiley’s been talking about filing a suit.”
“They’ll pay it if you’ll agree to a higher premium,” Jay said. “It’d be quicker and less expensive in the long run than a lawsuit.”
“That’s not news,” Brady snapped. “You know how much of a higher premium?”
Jay calculated a moment, then named a figure that had all of the men sitting back with surprise. He figured he was at least within a few thousand dollars of being on target.
“That’s oddly accurate,” Callum admitted. “Problem is, coming up with that much is a bit of a problem. It’s not as if it’s a onetime investment. Collectively, we can pitch in from our own pockets but—”
Wiley’s hands were fisted on top of the table. “But considering we don’t know who’s trying to sabotage the hotel in the first place, maybe it’s safer for everyone if we just cut our losses now. Nobody wants to throw good money after bad.”
No matter how many golden eggs those Fortunes had, Jay knew it couldn’t be all that easy increasing their investments to such a degree.
“The town needs this hotel,” Steven said quietly. Jay knew he was married to the mayor. “It’s coming to stand for everything that Rambling Rose is. Embraces the past. Welcomes the future.”
“Sounds straight from Ellie’s lips,” Dillon muttered.
“So what if it is?” Steven countered. “She’s right.”
Callum dropped his arm over Jay’s shoulder and showed him right back to the door. “I’ll trust you not to say anything about this before our staff meeting on Monday,” he said quietly.
Jay nodded and felt Brady Fortune’s eyes burning a hole into his spine as he left.
“Where’s Brady?” Arabella slid into her seat at the breakfast table and reached for the stack of toast in the center.
“Went to the hotel again.” Harper was nursing a cup of tea, looking vaguely green around the gills.
“You feeling okay?”
“Morning sickness,” she admitted. “Why does it have to hit now when Brady’s so worried about the hotel?”
“Maybe stress makes it worse.” Arabella could see the twins through the doorway to the living area. They were bouncing recklessly on the couch and the fact that Harper didn’t even seem to notice was enough to call for action. “Go back up to bed,” she urged. “Sleep as long as you want. I’ll keep the boys occupied today.”
“I was going to take them out to ride again with Laurel.”
“I’ll take them,” she promised.
“But you don’t know how to ride at all.”
“I know a little bit,” she assured primly. “Jay showed me. And I’m sure he’d be willing to come with us, anyway, if you’re so worried about my ability.”
“I know you’ll take care of the boys,” Harper said quickly, looking horrified that she might have implied otherwise.
Arabella reached over and gave her a quick squeeze. “Go back to bed. Or take a bath. Whatever.”
“Maybe I’ll just hug the porcelain goddess,” Harper muttered, but she got up looking grateful and left the room.
Arabella finished slathering Lou’s jam on her toast and shoved half of it in her mouth as she went into the living room. She snapped her fingers at Murphy who obediently slunk off the couch where he wasn’t allowed and then caught Toby around the waist mid-jump. She swallowed her mouthful and set him on the ground. “You know you’re not supposed to bounce on the couch.” She grabbed Tyler, too, and set him on the floor next to his brother.
“But—”
“No jumping on the couch!”
There were blocks scattered all over the floor. The Candy Land game they usually loved was upended in the corner, little pieces strewn about. Just looking at the mess made her actually long for the simplicity of cleaning a hotel room.
“Come on, guys. Let’s clean up and later after you’re dressed, I’ll take you out to see Auntie Laurel and her horses.”
“I want to watch TV,” Tyler groused.
“Yeah, and I want a million dollars,” she grumbled. Then she smiled and scrubbed her hand over his tousled hair. “Come on. Clean up and we’ll negotiate the matter of TV.” She knew that negotiating was something the boys were well-acquainted with, thanks to Harper.
Tyler halfheartedly tossed a block into the bucket where they belonged. “Harper’s sneaky. She gives us five minutes before bed, but we gotta only read together.”
Arabella laughed and went down onto her hands and knees alongside them. “The horror. Come on, we’ll all do it together.” Roving around, she gathered up a handful of blocks but before long, she was the only one cleaning up the mess on the floor, which proved her negotiating skills weren’t up to Harper’s level at all. Instead, Arabella was just a sucker for the boys.
At least the two eventually went upstairs and returned, suitably attired in mismatched shorts and T-shirts. Toby’s hair was damp so she was fairly certain he’d washed his face and Tyler had a smear of toothpaste on his shirt, so she felt confident he’d brushed his teeth.
Considering all of that to be ticks in the win column, she handed them the television remote. “Your channels only,” she warned. Brady had locked down their ability to unintentionally tune in to something too mature for them.
It usually meant that when Arabella actually felt like watching something on television, she was reduced to watching classic cartoons or kid-friendly videos on YouTube.
After a brief tussle for control of the remote, Tyler won and Arabella went back into the kitchen to have another piece of toast. It was cold by now, but the strawberry jam made up for it. She cleaned up the kitchen and realized she was humming along with the dreaded earworm song when it sounded from the other room.
She stuck her head into the living room, prepared to tell the kids to find another channel.
But they were standing there giggling and dancing the floss and she didn’t have the heart. Instead, she pulled her own cell phone out of her back pocket and without their knowledge started filming them.
She’d send it to her parents later. They’d love it.
The song had a heavy beat. Oddly gut-wrenching really in comparison to the lively steps the boys were doing. She glanced at the TV screen above the boys’ head.
The video was deliberately blurry in the way that some were. Sort of jerky, even. Focusing on the singer’s long fingers as he strummed his gleaming guitar while his unbuttoned shirt fluttered from an unseen breeze. Then on his bearded profile as he crooned to some invisible lover. “Giving it all up. Gonna be someone new.” His dark head dipped again, giving little more than a flash of dark sunglasses and a dip of his cowboy hat. “Never gonna trust again.” His deep voice curled over the words and despite herself, Arabella felt a tingle down her spine.
Hallie wasn’t exactly off-track, she decided. Jett Carr did have a sexy demeanor.
“Never gonna find someone like you.”
He strummed harder, his fingers working the strings faster, and without volition, Arabella’s feet carried her back into the living room. Closer to the television screen.
“You’re not s’posed to stand so close.” Tyler grabbed her hand and dragged her back two steps.
“Never gonna trust again, never gonna love again, never gonna find someone like you.” After the buildup, the singer trailed off, though the music continued on. He stood up from the stool where he’d been sitting and set his guitar down. Then he walked away, the wind fluttering the tails of his shirt madly around his shoulders. She saw a flash of a tattoo and then Jett Carr looked over his shoulder straight at the camera.
He pulled his glasses down his nose, and Jay’s distinctive green eyes stared straight at her. “Never find someone like you.”
His husky words trailed off and the video went black before switching to a violently colorful commercial for Frosted Fruity Flakes.
I think you should know that...
“You’re a liar, Jay Cross,” she said thickly.
Because there was no question in her mind that he and the singer were one and the same.
She’d know those green eyes anywhere.
“Why’s Jay a liar?” Tyler bounced onto the couch beside her, and then nearly fell over himself getting back off again when she looked at him.
“Here.” She handed him the remote control again. Tyler hooted and quickly punched buttons but she barely noticed. She was too busy punching buttons on her own phone.
Only as soon as Jay’s line started to ring, she chickened out and hung up again.
She was such a monumental fool.
How many times had she mentioned how much she detested that darned song? And he’d just...gone along!
Squelching a moan, she sank down onto the couch and didn’t even protest when Murphy jumped onto her lap. She held her phone above the dog’s head and opened a browser. She didn’t even have to finish typing in the words Jett Carr before the video she’d just watched popped to the top of her list on her phone.
She turned down the volume and watched the video all the way through.
Even though she knew.
“Never gonna trust again,” she whispered soundlessly. “Not even you.”