Page 5
“How’d it go with the boiler?” Kelsey asked.
He saw uncertainty—maybe even fear—in her eyes whenever she spoke to him, could tell she didn’t trust him. He believed if he so much as lifted his hand, she’d flinch.
That put a sour taste at the back of his mouth. Maybe they’d never been the closest of siblings—actually, they didn’t even know each other that well—but he had never hurt her, had never physically harmed any woman. He hadn’t had a very pleasant relationship with her mother, but he’d been an adult when Suzanne married his father. Suzanne had no right involving herself in his affairs, and he’d let her know it, which was why he couldn’t believe she’d left him any kind of inheritance, let alone almost half the inn! Especially when her own daughter meant so much to her.
Why had Suzanne included him? Why hadn’t she left it all to Kelsey?
He was still scratching his head over that one, wasn’t entirely sure he could trust what Suzanne had done—including the motive behind it—any more than Kelsey trusted how he might react to the revelation. “Luckily, it wasn’t a gas leak or anything electrical,” he told her. “I got it working.”
Her eyes widened. “We have hot water again?”
Obviously she hadn’t expected him to be able to fix it. “We have hot water,” he confirmed. “All I had to do was clean the thermocouple, check the alignment and reset the pilot.”
“I didn’t realize you…you knew how to do that sort of stuff.”
“I didn’t. I checked the manual.”
“That boiler is so old I’m shocked we still have one.”
“You don’t. Not that I know of. I found it online.”
“Of course,” she said, her cheeks flushing a mottled red. “I—I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
“We’ve got some dry rot in the eaves on the unit I’m staying in that needs to be torn out and replaced, and a water stain coming through the ceiling of unit 10.”
“I’ve noticed the water stain. That’s why I never rent that unit,” she said. “It’s unusable. Thankfully, we haven’t been busy enough to need it.”
“Isn’t the whole idea to get busy enough to need it?” he asked.
“With time,” she replied. “Repairs cost money.”
“This one shouldn’t cost too much. I’m going up on the roof to figure out what the problem is. But the toolbox in the utility closet doesn’t have much more than a hammer in it. Where’re all the rest of the tools?”
She grimaced. “Our handyman stole everything he could get his hands on when he left town.”
Kanon rolled his eyes. “Nice.”
“Yeah. He wasn’t too happy when I let him go, but I had no choice. He was stealing from the guests.”
Kanon straightened. “Did you turn him in to the police?”
“No. I couldn’t prove it. All I could do was get rid of him before he could steal anything else.”
“But he got the tools.”
“I guess. I—I wasn’t aware.”
Kanon swallowed a sigh. His stepsister was sweet—didn’t seem to feel the anger toward him he’d expected when he showed up—but she wasn’t what he’d call a great manager. “He’s fortunate I wasn’t here when that happened. Anyway, I’m going over to the hardware store. How do I pay for what I need?”
When she hesitated, he said, “Kelsey, this is to improve the inn. It’s not a personal expense.”
“I get that. I’m not being stingy. It’s just…we have to be careful. Bills are piling up.”
“Fine. I’ll pick up the tab for now.” He had enough in savings that he didn’t need to worry about money, not for several months. “But I want to sit down with you and go over the books. We have to know where we’re at before we can figure out how to get somewhere better.”
He thought she might argue, insist that she had things well under control and didn’t welcome his input. After all, she’d been in charge of this place since her mother died, and even after he’d been notified of his inheritance, he’d dithered about it for several months.
But she didn’t say a word, which built his confidence that he might be able to make a difference around here. He could fight a lot of things—outside forces—but he definitely wasn’t willing to fight her. Life was too short; he wasn’t going to allow himself to be miserable in Hard Luck. He could easily have stayed in North Dakota, could’ve kept his old job, but he’d been vying for a big promotion he didn’t get, and there’d always been a small yet unquenchable flame inside him that yearned for home. Maybe it was because this was the place where his mother had left him, and even though she died of a drug overdose years ago, it had to do with feeling some sort of connection to her.
