Roan ran his hand down his face and sighed. This was not what he’d been hoping for. When he sat down to work on this, he’d been hoping to find that he had miscalculated and would be able to work it all out. Instead, he found more bills that he didn’t remember paying, and more vendors than he could expect to pay with the usual number of patrons his tavern hosted on a regular basis.
It all seemed rather hopeless, and he didn’t like hopeless.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he said to Beastie, who was sitting at his feet, staring up at him. “I feel like I should be better at this, but I’m not, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
It wasn’t a new problem. He’d first realized it was bad last winter, when he’d started trying to court Beatrice, the librarian. That hadn’t gone well, of course—who could ever learn to love the town beast? All it had done was convince everyone that a beast was all he was.
His grandparents had been a team—his grandfather doing the day-to-day running of the tavern, and his grandmother doing all the behind-the-scenes work, including the accounting.
He’d hoped that he could find that, too.
When Montgomery, the town’s trader who went back and forth to the capital city regularly, had mentioned that his daughter was one of the smartest in town, he’d thought she might be worth pursuing. He couldn’t afford a wife he couldn’t trust with his money or his tavern.
And getting her away from her drunk of a father also seemed like it might be appealing.
Montgomery had even started hinting—or saying outright—that he should court her.
But Beatrice had run off and married the lord who started her beloved library.
Roan didn’t begrudge her the happiness she’d found, but it had left him, once again, in the position of not knowing where to look for a wife who could put up with being married to him and his tavern.
And still losing money faster than he could earn it.
Beastie simply laid her head down on her paws and stared up at him with those big brown eyes that trusted him to do everything. Roan sighed. Beastie and Abigail were depending on him, and he had to figure this out for their sake.
Giving up was not an option.
“Yeah, we’ll figure it out, right, Beastie?” he asked, reaching down to scratch the top of her head.
She thumped her tail against the ground enthusiastically, and Roan smiled at her. At least somebody here loved him.
He frowned at himself. Where had that thought come from?
There was a rap at the door, and he said, “Come in,” his heart feeling lighter when he looked up at Abigail.
Somehow, she had become someone who could lift his spirits just by entering the room, and he wasn’t sure he liked that.
It sounded dangerously close to “love” territory.
Even when he’d been at the height of attempting to court Beatrice, he’d never been in love with her.
The last time he’d loved another human…well, it had ended a long time ago, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be that weak again.
But he could hardly tell her to leave, even if he wanted to.
“Is something wrong?” she asked as she approached with a tray that held a bowl of stew and a slice of bread that smelled divine.
“Maybe,” he admitted. “I’m not sure I can make these numbers work right.”
Better to admit to that than the fact that he was wrestling with his feelings.
“Can I help?” she asked as she slid the tray onto the table next to him. “I used to help my father when he had trouble making the numbers work.”
Roan glanced at her. “Really?”
“Of course,” she said. “Do you truly think I would lie about that?”
“No,” he said hastily. “You just surprise me with all your many areas of expertise.”
