“Would you really have fought that guy?”
He shrugged. “Not unless I had to.”
“No one’s ever fought for me. It was always just Dad, my brother, and me. Dylan’s three years older. He left as soon as he got out of high school. Then Dad died.”
She took a long swallow of beer. “At least I had Uncle Charlie. Now he’s gone, too.”
Cain fought an urge to tell her she could always count on him. He barely knew her, and yet he felt strangely protective. Maybe she reminded him of the sweet girl she had been in high school.
Jenny looked at him and smiled. “I think I’m going to like working for you.”
Cain lifted his glass in approval and took a drink. He had wondered if hiring Jenny Spencer was a good idea. After tonight, he had no doubt.
Tuesday couldn’t come too soon.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS LATE. AHEAVY RAIN HAD BEGUN TO FALL OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS. A noise in the hallway intruded into Jenny’s sleep, footsteps and whispering voices. Her eyes cracked open. It took a moment for her to remember she wasn’t at home. She was spending the night in the Copper Star.
She did that occasionally when the weather was bad or the saloon had enough customers to stay open till two a.m., as it had tonight. The rowdy crowd had been enjoying the entertainment and spending plenty of money, always good.
Jenny had closed the bar and headed up to a room she’d kept unrented in the old section, knowing tonight would be a long one.
The footsteps continued down the hall, moving almost silently past her room. Her heart rate kicked up as she glanced at the clock on the nightstand.Three-forty-five a. m.Who would be out this late in Jerome when the entire town was closed up?
She remembered Mrs. Friedman talking about the footsteps she had heard in the hallat an ungodly hour.It was certainly an ungodly hour now.
Her heart tripped faster. She strained to hear more. She had heard stories from guests about ghosts making all sorts of noises, footsteps when no one was there, whispered voices of invisible people. She didn’t like the idea there could actually be spirits in the building, though half the town believed the stories.
Tossing aside the covers, Jenny grabbed her jeans and yanked them on under her sleep-tee, then crept across the room to the door. She took a deep breath, pulled it open, and peered out into the hall. She didn’t really believe in ghosts.
Did she?
The sound of voices reached her. Quietly slipping into the hall, she listened, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. All the rooms were rented tonight except the one she was staying in.
The whispering drifted toward her, raising goose bumps on her skin. A man’s voice, then the raw, sexy laughter of a woman, coming from farther down the hall. Jenny summoned her courage and tiptoed toward the sound.
The whispers became clearer when she reached room 7. A man had rented the room, she recalled, dark-haired, medium build, a little silver at his temples. He was only paying for a single, and he had sneaked the woman into his room.
Relief trickled through her, along with a shot of embarrassment. Not a ghost. Nothing to be afraid of. Just a guy trying to get lucky.
Not her, she thought glumly, as she turned and headed back to her own room down the hall. She’d been divorced for two years, separated from Richard for a year before that, and they hadn’t really been together well before then. All in all, her marriage had been a complete and utter failure.
Jenny reminded herself she had a new life now. She was a business owner. Whatever it took, she was going to make that business a success.
Slipping quietly back into her room, Jenny closed the door, shucked her jeans, and returned to bed. As she drifted toward sleep, she thought of the man she had spent the evening with, Cain Barrett.
Barrett was as tall as the biker, and at least a hundred-eighty-five, maybe two-hundred pounds. He’d been a match for the big biker, but if trouble had started, it would have been five to one. She liked the way he’d handled himself, not hotheaded, not provocative, but confident. She had a pretty good feeling his subtle threat was real. Cain Barrett didn’t look like the type to back down from anything.
She smiled.Not even a ghost.
Her smile slowly faded. Since Mrs. Friedman had checked out, two more guests had complained about hearing voices in the middle of the night. The voices purportedly were actually in their room. One guest said she’d seen an object lift off the dresser and tumble onto the carpet.
Jenny had no idea if any of the stories were true, but both rooms were located in the new wing of the hotel.
You’re just being paranoid, she thought.This town is full of stories about ghosts, always has been.
Jenny closed her eyes, but half an hour passed before she finally fell asleep. She forgot about ghosts, big handsome men coming to her aid, and pretty much everything else.
