Page 30 of The Accidental Innkeeper

Except when I’d driven past Hugh’s Garage this morning on my way here, her Jetta had been parked right out front. Still there, which meant she hadn’t gone anywhere. She was still at the inn.

I didn’t know why that mattered. It shouldn’t have. She wasn’t my responsibility. She was a temporary disruption, a woman with baggage, literal and otherwise, standing in the middle of a mess she didn’t understand yet.

I worked with houses. With problems you could measure, fix, and control.

People were different. Women were different.

I turned back to the drywall, mentally ticking off the next steps. Paint. Trim. Floors. Schedule. Budget. Stick to the plan.

And stop thinking about a damn woman who smelled like dust, sweat, and stubbornness, yet somehow still managed to get under my skin. I didn’t have time for distractions. I had a schedule to keep. Schedules slipped. Costs went up. That was bad business.

I exhaled through my nose and headed toward the door.

Work first. Always. I couldn’t fuck this up.

My phone rang as I stepped outside, and I pulled it out of my pocket.

The name Dottie Goodwin flashed on the screen. I stared at her name for half a second like maybe if I ignored it long enough, she’d get bored and call someone else. Dottie didn’t get bored. Dottie escalated and then offered to make you eggs benedict.

I thought of hanging up, but then I slid my thumb across the screen. “Hey, Dottie.”

“Alex!” Her voice came through bright and loud, like she’d been waiting beside the phone with a stopwatch. “Good, you picked up.”

Tim and the painting crew looked up at me at the same time, grinning. I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. “I’m working,” I said because if you didn’t establish boundaries with Dottie right away, she’d move into your life and start reorganizing your organs by energy level.

“I know,” she said cheerfully. “I can hear it. All that… construction-y sound. Anyway, I need you. The Inn needs you.”

Fuck. I closed my eyes briefly. “That’s not how this works.”

“It is today,” she replied, completely unfazed. “Edna always had you fix things. The inn’s waking up. Come look.”

I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead at the gravel drive, the trucks, the crew moving equipment like normal life still existed.

“The inn is waking up,” I repeated slowly. “Like it took a nap, and now it’s cranky.”

“It is cranky,” said Dottie. “And it’s also loud. Really loud.”

My jaw tightened. “Dottie, I’m in the middle of a job.”

“And Sarah is in the middle of an inn,” she shot back. “Which is worse. She needs help. Have you met her yet? Edna’s niece? She’s pretty, you know. And I didn’t see a ring on her finger.”

I exhaled slowly. I’d clocked the missing ring the second she waved her hands around. Didn’t mean I cared. Didn’t mean I was interested. And it definitely didn’t mean I was getting involved.

I glanced over my shoulder through the open doorway at the living room. Tim was talking with the painters. Everything was on schedule. Nothing was on fire.

“I’m not the inn’s handyman,” I said.

Dottie snorted. “You’ve been the inn’s handyman since you were twenty-two and Edna hit you with her cane for suggesting she replace the guttering.”

“That was one time.”

“That was three times,” Dottie corrected. “And you deserved it because you said ‘guttering’ like a man who doesn’t know the difference between a gutter and a downspout.”

I swallowed a laugh. Dottie was a lot of things, but she didn’t miss details. I’d been twenty-two and full of opinions back then. I didn’t know shit. Thought I knew construction because I owned a tool belt. Edna saw straight through it. Sharp old woman. Mean, too.

“I’m not going over there,” I said because saying it out loud felt important. Official. Final.

Dottie didn’t even pause. “Yes, you are.”