Suiteheart Of A Deal

Between bites of the delicious, perfectly cooked food, they talked about the repairs that needed to be done, and about the vacancy problem. Rainey commented that an inn like the Haven should be fully booked all year round. Some fresh marketing strategies would have to be developed.

“You know, you’re right about that,” Beck said. “I don’t know much about marketing, but just for starters, don’t you think the name Honeymoon Haven is a little dated? I mean, it’s kind of corny, isn’t it?”

Pleasantly surprised, Rainey nodded. That very thought had occurred to her just this morning. Obviously there was more to Beck than just dazzling good looks and a beautiful body and a simmering sexiness that could reduce a woman to mush in two seconds flat. Maybe, just maybe, this partnership thing was going to work out after all.

Then again, maybe not. Time would tell.

When the meal was over, Beck ordered two brandys for them, then sat back and searched Rainey’s eyes. She returned his soul-searching gaze and the air grew thick around them. Finally he ventured, “So, ah, I guess this business partnership thing sort of rules out other kinds of partnership, huh?” He gave her a look of such hangdog disappointment that Rainey nearly laughed. Instead, she replied, “I don’t get involved with colleagues, Beck.” Or with hustlers like you.

“Hmmm.” He tilted his brandy snifter from right to left so that the gold liquid, so much like his eyes, sloshed gently from side to side. “Maybe you should buy me out,” he murmured in the soft, seductive tone he had obviously mastered. “Then I can devote myself to trying to get you into bed. Seems like way more fun than running an inn.”

Rainey was instantly grateful for the dim lighting; it concealed the hot blush that spread up through her skin like wildfire. It wasn’t hard to imagine making love with Beck. On the contrary…But it was out of the question. Working with Trevor after their breakup had been a miserable experience, but at least she had been able to get away from him by climbing on a plane and coming west. How would she get away from this guy?

Because as surely as he was drop-dead gorgeous, Beck Mahoney would break her heart. He had said it himself: A tiger can’t change its stripes.

“Don’t you ever quit, Beck?” she asked with a weary sigh.

“I guess not. Maybe I am hopeless.”

It was time for ground rule number two. “Beck, I think we need to do more than stop flirting. For the sake of the partnership, I think we should agree to keep our business and personal lives separate.”

For a second, he looked devastated. As usual, he recovered at the speed of sound. “Well, that’ll be tough in Bragg Creek, Rainey. It’s a small town. Everybody’s in bed with everybody else, so to speak.”

Rainey laughed. After Toronto, small-town life was definitely going to take some getting used to.

On the way to her car, she informed him of the meeting tomorrow morning with Hollis Harriman, and warned him not to be late. If there was one thing she couldn’t tolerate, it was tardiness. He accepted the warning with a lazy shrug. She sensed he had something else on his mind.

Sure enough, as she searched for her keys, he ventured, “So, I guess we can rule out that massage too, huh?” He chuckled.

“It was never going to happen, Beck.”

“Okay, then, how about a simple handshake to seal our partnership?”

“Of course.” Rainey grasped the keys in her left hand and stuck her right hand out. Beck ignored it. Instead, he gently cupped the back of her head with one hand, leaned down and lightly touched his soft lips to hers.

“Beck Mahoney!” she cried when he pulled away, grinning like a frat boy who had just got to first base. “Didn’t you hear a word I said in there?”

“Hey, lady, that’s how we shake hands in Bragg Creek. You should see what happens when we hug!”

On the drive home, all Rainey could think about was how right she had been about him. He was delicious.

“TWO HUNDRED thousand dollars!” Rainey and Beck shrieked in unison.

Eyes flaring, Rainey motioned for Beck to close the door leading to the lobby, and he quickly complied. The reservations clerks working just outside the Haven’s administrative office didn’t need to hear this; they were jumpy enough. The place was abuzz with gossip about the new owners, and the air was thick with tension.

“Ah, that’s right,” Hollis Harriman confirmed with a violent twitch of his right eye. “That’s what she borrowed.”

Rainey stared across the meeting table at him, dumb-founded. In his midsixties, Hollis was a tall, perilously thin man with a few wisps of gray hair lacquered and stretched across a shiny skull. He had a funny little heart-shaped mouth and blue eyes so light they looked like the surface of a swimming pool. In addition to the twitch, he had a tremor in his left hand and whenever he stood his right knee buckled.

For the better part of two hours he had painstakingly gone over the Haven’s books with them. Now they were poring over a list of things Lilly had cheekily labeled Extraordinary Expenses. Hah! They were extraordinary, all right. Hot air balloon rides. Helicopter tours over the mountains. The trips Beck had mentioned last night.

A mind-boggling item at the bottom of the first page caught Rainey’s eye. “An aromatherapist?” she cried. “On retainer?” No sooner had that bowled her over than she spotted another doozy. “Please,” she said to Beck, “tell me she didn’t hire a psychic to conduct a seance.”

“‘Fraid I can’t do that,” he replied. “I think they were trying to call up the spirit of her dead father.”

Rainey groaned. “I can’t believe she wrote these things off as business expenses!”

“Oh, she definitely had a talent for numbers,” Hollis declared with a twitch and a tremor. He chuckled nervously. To Rainey he seemed perpetually anxious, as if disaster were lurking around every corner. Of course, it might just be these darned books.

She looked at Beck. Ever since that silly kiss, she had found it unnerving to make full eye contact with him. Whenever their eyes did meet, he did something goofy—like wink at her, or raise his eyebrows several times very quickly. Oh, what a mistake that darned kiss was!

Still, she was grateful for him this morning. How on earth would she deal with all this stuff by herself?

Reading her thoughts, Beck stepped in and asked for the bottom line. Hollis explained that while the inn wasn’t exactly bankrupt, it was barely breaking even. Occupancy was down to fifty percent, even in peak season, and the loan payments were eating up what little profits could be made. Not only that, major repairs needed to be carried out. He handed Beck a list of critical items. To Rainey he said, “Frankly, the staff are starting to be concerned about their jobs. They hear things.”

“No one’s going to lose their job,” she declared with fierce determination. “But where on earth will we get the money to do the repairs? We can’t borrow any more, and there’s no cash on reserve.” She bit her lower lip and began to pace back and forth.

A grin slowly spread across Beck’s face, and a frustrated Rainey wondered if he’d lost his mind. There was nothing funny about any of this. First of all, he had been fifteen minutes late for the meeting—fifteen minutes. Secondly, he had so far showed precious little interest in their situation. He was going to have to buck up, start taking things just a little more seriously.

“I know where we can get it,” he murmured like a boy who knew where secret treasure was buried. He smiled politely at Hollis. “Would you kindly excuse us for just a moment?”

After Hollis shuffled out of the room, knee buckling slightly, a still-grinning Beck turned to Rainey. “I have an idea, but you won’t like it.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, but you have to promise me that you’ll stay calm.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Beck. What is it?”

He leaned forward and whispered, “I think we should get married.”

4

“I’D RATHER HAVE a third eye in the middle of my forehead!” Rainey stormed into her apartment, Beck nipping at her heels.

“Oh, now that’s great!” he exclaimed as the door bounced off the wall and crashed into him. “You know, you’re not a very nice person, Rainey Miller. You’ve got a nasty streak!”

“Nasty streak?” Seething, she tromped ahead of him into the tiny kitchen with its scarred pine table and rustic appliances. “Give me a break! I don’t even know if I can work with you, and now you want to marry me? Forget it, buster!”

“Oh, now, wait just one minute there. My name’s not buster—though I’m starting to think it should be. And, hey, what would be so bad about being married to me? I’ll have you know that lots of women would kill for the chance. Hundreds. Thousands even!”

“I think you just answered your own question.”

“Oh, baloney! I like women. So sue me.”

Bristling, Rainey rummaged in the cupboards for the kettle. Tea. That was what she needed. A nice cup of tea. She had been in Bragg Creek all of twenty-four hours. So far, she had been cheated out of half her inheritance and been saddled with a crumbling, nearly bankrupt inn. She had lost her living quarters and acquired a flaky flirt of a business partner she didn’t want. And now she was being asked to marry the flake? Good grief—what was next?

“Just hear me out.” Beck plopped down at the table. “See, I have this trust fund. My grandfather left it to me when I was three. He set it up to be paid out in two installments. I got the first installment when I turned twenty-one, but I can’t touch the rest until I turn thirty-five or get married, whichever comes first.” He lowered his voice. “Rainey, there’s enough money in that fund to turn this place into a palace.”

“I don’t want to marry a—a playboy! I don’t want to marry anybody, at least not right now.” Darn it, where was the kettle? Surely Lilly and her “cronies” drank tea.

Beck threw his hands in the air. “Oh, c’mon, Rainey. Why do you think I’m such a hit with the ladies? I’ll tell you why. There isn’t one woman in this town, for that matter in this region—what the hell, make it the entire province—who doesn’t know about that trust fund.”

Arghhh! Despite her determination to blow off steam for as long as humanly possible, Rainey felt her resolve weakening. She fought the little smile that tugged at the corner of her lips, but in the end it won. Over her shoulder, she joked, “Are you saying they’re not after you just for your good looks and dazzling personality?”

He nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

She turned and confronted him. “But you flirt with all those women!” Good grief, she sounded like a jealous wife.

He shrugged. “It’s a pastime, nothing more. And you’re not listening to me. I’m not suggesting that we get married married—you know, with bridesmaids and babies and a minivan and all that junk….”

“Those things aren’t junk!”

His expression softened. “You’re right. They aren’t junk. I’d like babies myself, someday.”

Surprised by the warmth and sincerity of his tone, Rainey searched his eyes to determine if he was being serious or just goofing off, as usual. She saw nothing to suggest he wasn’t being completely honest.

“You would?” She couldn’t imagine Beck with a house full of kids. She couldn’t even imagine him married to just one woman. And yet…somehow she could.

“Yeah, I would,” he replied softly. Seeing the skepticism in her eyes, he heaved a sigh and insisted, “I really would, Rainey.”

Oh, no. It was happening again. She felt herself involuntarily melting, succumbing to his charm—for exactly as long as it took for him to flash her one of his “gotcha!” grins. Before she had time to react, he winked garishly. “If you don’t believe me, try me.”

So much for warm sentiment. “Not in this lifetime, buster. I’d rather have a giant wart on the end of my nose!”

His smirk rapidly vanishing, Beck opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out. For a moment, they just glared at one another. Then, despite the tension in the air, or maybe because of it, they both cracked up. Between howls, Beck cried, “Gee, Rainey, I don’t know if I could look at a big wart every day!” Rainey laughed until tears sprang to her eyes.

“Look,” he continued when their laughter finally petered out, “all I’m saying is, it would be the ideal solution to our problem.”

Still searching in the cluttered cupboards, Rainey shook her head. “There has to be another way, Beck. It’s—it’s too crazy. It’s too extreme.”

“Okay. What’s your solution?”

Well, okay, he had her there. Based on that list of urgent repairs, it was going to take a lot of money to fix up the inn. Rainey couldn’t ask her retired parents for that much cash, and all she had was her meager savings and the proceeds from the sale of her condo in Toronto—hardly enough money to buy a new furnace.

“We’ll borrow against your cottage,” she suggested with cheeky aplomb. Darn it, maybe there was no kettle. Who had a Ouija board but no kettle?

Beck threw back his head and howled. “Not a chance, lady! I bought that cottage with the first installment of my trust. It’s all I have in the world, and I’m not risking it.”

The kettle—a battered tin thing with a whistling spout—finally materialized. Rainey took it to the sink. Lost in thought, she absentmindedly filled it to overflowing, then poured the excess water down the drain and set it down on a burner.

“The thing is,” Beck argued while she searched for tea bags, “we’ve got big trouble here. If we don’t bring this place up to snuff, we’ll go bankrupt.”

“Hah! You mean I’ll go bankrupt. You’ll be no worse off than before, Beck. And besides, if we use your money, you’ll have more invested than I do. It will be your inn.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, Rainey looked sharply at him. His expression had gone soft and dreamy again. Another zinger was coming. True to form, he murmured, “You know, I really like it when you say my name.”

“Enough already!”

“Okay, okay!”

“You’re not listening to me, Beck.”

“You can pay me back out of your share of the profits.”

Arghhh! He had an answer for everything. He must have stayed up all night, working out the details.

“What’s more,” he continued as she finally found the tea bags and dropped them into Lilly’s old ceramic tea pot, “after we convert this apartment into a wedding chapel, where are you going to live?”

“I’ll get an apartment.”

“There are no apartments in Bragg Creek, Rainey. You’d have to move to Calgary and commute. Have you seen the traffic on the Trans-Canada?”

She sat down across from him, folded her arms and adopted a stubborn pout. “Then I’ll live in one of the suites here.” She was clutching at straws now, and she knew it.

“Uh-huh, and how long do you think it will take for you to get sick of that? About a week, that’s how long.”

The wall phone rang, startling them both. Grateful for the distraction, Rainey jumped up and grabbed it. “Hello!” she belted into the receiver.

“Rainey?” an all-too-familiar voice tentatively asked. It was Trevor. Wonderful. Just what she needed.

“Trevor,” she snapped. “I don’t have time for you right now.” Or tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that.

“Rainey, I just want to talk to you for a few minutes—” he pleaded. “After you ran out like that—”

“I didn’t run out, Trevor. I moved west. There’s a difference. I have to go now.”

“We need to talk, Rainey. Clear the air…”

Sighing impatiently, she glanced over her shoulder at Beck. He was watching her with wide eyes and thinly veiled curiosity. To Trevor, she roared, “There’s two thousand miles of air between us, and it’s all very clear to me! Goodbye!” She slammed the receiver down and sat down again, hard enough to bruise her tailbone.

A moment later, Beck asked, very casually, “Ah, who’s Trevor?”

“Nobody. Just an old boyfriend.” Oooh! How dare Trevor call her after what he had done! The nerve.

Beck’s eyebrows shot up. “Your old boyfriends call you long-distance?” From his tone and body language, it was clear to Rainey that he was trying not to seem too interested, but failing miserably. An alarm bell sounded in her head. Her past was none of his business. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He nodded and waited. When it finally became clear that she really wasn’t going to say more, he cleared his throat. “Okay, then, back to us. Let’s look at our options.” He raised his right index finger in the air. “Option Number One. We do nothing. We continue running the Haven as is, until we go under.”

“That’s not an option. That’s a disaster!” The kettle whistled. Rainey jumped up, moved it to a cold burner, and sat down again, forgetting to make the tea.

“Okay, then. Option Number Two. We sell the inn, split the profits, if there are any, and go our separate ways.”

She gasped. “No way! I’ve worked my whole life for this opportunity.”

Beck nodded. “Right. And for me this is a terrific business deal. So what does that leave us with?”

Rainey chewed on her lower lip and stared into space. Oh, darn. What did it leave them with? Nothing, that’s what. Good grief, what a mess! How could she marry a total stranger she had vowed just yesterday to avoid at any cost? It was utterly insane. Every instinct she had told her to grab her still unpacked bags and get out of there as quickly as possible. Forget she’d ever heard of the Honeymoon Haven and Bragg Creek and Beck Mahoney. But where would she go? Back to “Tronna” and Trevor?

After a long silence, she sighed wearily and muttered, “Okay, tell me what you have in mind.”

Excited, Beck leaned forward and gave her his thoughts. They would have Nate Frome draw up a prenuptial agreement. They would marry quietly and stay married only as long as necessary—six months, a year at the most. Then they would start to make noise about trouble in the marriage…

“Well, at least that part will be true!”

He ignored her sarcasm and continued. They would live in his cottage….

“In separate bedrooms, of course.”

“Of course,” he agreed a little too quickly.

Rainey eyed him suspiciously. She smelled a rat.

In the meantime, Beck concluded, they would renovate the Haven from top to bottom, step up their marketing efforts and reel in the profits. Simple.

Energized by the sheer absurdity of the situation, Rainey rose and began to pace back and forth in the confined space. She felt like a wild animal caught in a trap. Something told her it just wasn’t going to be that simple. There would be all kinds of problems. Rules would have to be established. Scores of issues would have to be resolved. She struggled to mentally list them and consider each one separately.

Okay, for one thing…Whirling around like a prosecutor about to pounce on a hostile witness, she demanded, “What if you meet somebody three months from now, who you really would like to marry? What then?”

“I don’t think that will happen.” Beck’s eyes slid over her from head to toe and back again. Rainey involuntarily blushed. Darn it all, why did he have to do that? Why did he have to stir up so many mixed feelings in her? Like, dislike, amusement, exasperation, rage, sympathy, lust.

Startled, she realized for the first time that she was, maybe, just maybe, a little attracted to the guy. Oh, what a dreadful thought! She pushed it away and tried to concentrate on the situation at hand.

“Besides,” he added with a wry smile, “there’s nobody in this town I can trust with my heart, Rainey. With you, at least I would know that you only married me for my money.”

Her jaw dropped. “Beck Mahoney, that is the craziest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He shrugged. “It’s a crazy situation.”

Sighing, Rainey glanced out the window at the Haven’s half-full parking lot. It was a hazy day and the majestic blue spruce trees surrounding the lot had taken on a bluish-green hue. Something on the far side of the lot caught her eye. What the…? It was a man and a woman, scrambling into the back seat of a car. They looked suspiciously like Freda Norman and Hollis Harriman, but from this distance it was hard to tell. Why on earth would those two be jumping into a parked car together?

A sense of defeat suddenly overwhelmed her and her shoulders slumped. All my life I’ve worked for this, she thought sadly. To run this inn, to live in this beautiful place, to be happy. Aren’t I entitled to a little happiness?

Oh, well, maybe the Rainey-gets-a-new-life program would just have to wait another year. Beck was right. They had no options.

She fixed a stern eye on him. “Okay, I’m not agreeing to anything just yet, but if we do get married—and I’m only saying if—everyone will have to be told that it’s strictly a business arrangement.”

Beck bared his dazzling white teeth in a grimace. “Ah, well, there might be a little problem with that.”

Yup. She was right. Problems already. “Really? Why?”

“Well, it’s my grandmother, see. She’d be horrified if she thought the marriage wasn’t real. From her standpoint it would violate the spirit of the trust. I think my grandfather meant for me to be happily married.”

Good grief. Rainey dropped her chin and looked at him the way she might look at a teenager who’d just tried teenage logic on her. “Call me crazy, Beck, but wouldn’t you be violating the spirit of the trust anyway? I mean, we’re not exactly smitten here, you know.”

The question caught him off guard and he hesitated. Alarm surged through Rainey like an electric jolt. Oh, no.

Surely he wasn’t attracted to her in a serious way. How could he be? They had just met yesterday.

A playful smile played across his luscious lips. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What are you really saying? That we have to pretend to be smitten, for your grandmother’s sake?”

“Yup, for hers and everybody else’s. This is a small town, Rainey. People talk.”

“That’s ludicrous. How are we supposed to keep that up?”

He helped himself to another full-length appraisal of her. “I don’t know about you, but I won’t have any trouble playing my part.” He glanced at her breasts. Licked his lips. Grinned like a monkey.

“Look, Beck,” she warned him with narrowed eyes, “you mustn’t get any ideas about me. I’m here to run an inn, nothing more. Understand?”

“Perfectly,” he agreed with all the sincerity of a snake oil salesman.

Ooh, he was maddening! How on earth was a woman supposed to know when this guy was being real?

“Besides,” Rainey added, regretting it almost immediately, “I’m…I’ve just been through…I’m a little vulnerable right now. You have to respect that.” Darn, now why did she go and say that? It was way more than he needed to know.

Beck’s eyes widened, but he had the sense not to press for an explanation. “Okay, I will,” he agreed solemnly.

What a bunch of bunk. The man was as phony as a three-dollar bill, and Rainey didn’t trust him as far as she could spit. Oops, what had become of the tea? She went to the stove and turned the burner on again. Beck rose and came up close behind her. Before she could turn around, he placed his hands flat on the countertop on either side of her and closed her in.

“What would be so bad about being married to me?” he murmured into her hair. “You might actually like it.”

His taut body was just inches away from hers, and Rainey felt the heat coming off it. He smelled like sandalwood again. What was it? Soap? Aftershave lotion? Intermingled with his own natural scent, it was heady stuff. A lonely woman could easily fall prey to Beck, she realized. It would be sooo easy.

But it wasn’t going to happen to her. No way. Loneliness had caused her to make one stupid choice. She couldn’t let it happen again. Especially here, where she had no escape route. What would she do—move to Vancouver? Sheesh, at this rate, she could end up in Japan.

Lips pursed, she peeled his right hand smartly off the counter and turned around. Bad move. He just replaced it and closed her in again, face-to-face this time. Before she could react, he leaned down and brought those tantalizing lips very close to hers.