Susan Mallery - Barefoot Season

Despite the tension between them and the seriousness of the moment, Carly laughed. “Seriously? You’re threatening me physically? You were in the army, not the CIA. You can’t kill me with a matchbook cover, so get over yourself. You’re moving about as fast as a woman in her late nineties and you’re obviously in pain. But this is so like you. Reacting without thinking. You’re still impulsive.”

“You’re still annoying.”

“Bitch.”

“Double bitch.” One corner of Michelle’s mouth twitched as if she were about to smile.

In that nanosecond, Carly felt the connection that had always been there. Then Michelle’s expression turned hard again.

“I still blame you and as far as I’m concerned you’re the enemy.”

“If that’s what it takes for you to sleep at night, go for it. I’m a single mother with a nine-year-old and sixteen hundred dollars in the bank. Making my life more difficult isn’t going to be much of a stretch, but sure. If you need to do that to feel important, I can’t stop you.”

Michelle’s jaw tightened. “Then it’s in your best interest to keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself.”

“All right.”

Michelle looked away. For a second it seemed that her shoulders slumped, that she was giving in to defeat. Carly waited, not sure if the weakness was real or a way to trick her. Before she could decide, the moment passed and she drew in a breath.

“The inn’s financial state is desperate,” Michelle began, then explained about the overdue mortgages and threat of foreclosure.

Because she needed one more thing to keep her up at night, Carly thought grimly, horrified and yet not even surprised by the news.

“She never said a word. Never hinted. Four months ago we were looking at catalogs of French linens.”

“Tell me you didn’t order any,” Michelle said.

“We didn’t. But we could have.” Carly looked around at the gift shop. “How could she have done this? Don’t bother answering. I’m just talking out loud. This is so her. So her.”

Anger joined disbelief and resignation. Anger that Brenda, who had seemed to care about Gabby, would have put the child in harm’s way.

Carly and Brenda had talked about the future so many times. How Carly would become a partner and then have financial security. The inn would never make her rich, but having money in the bank, a college fund for Gabby, the comfort of knowing she could afford a decent used car every six or seven years, would have been enough.

“I cared about her,” Carly murmured, more to herself. “I was there for her when she got sick.” She looked at Michelle. “I was there when she died.”

As expected, Michelle’s expression didn’t change.

“She screwed us both. Do you want to keep your job?”

“Yes.”

“I want to keep the inn. The bank has conditions. The loans have to be brought up-to-date. We have to maintain better than an eighty-five percent occupancy through the summer. That’s twenty-six rooms at any given time.”

Michelle hesitated. “There’s one more thing. They want you to commit to stay on.”

The words sank in slowly. “You can’t fire me?”

“You sound smug.”

“I’ve earned it.”

“How the hell do you figure that? I’m gone thirty seconds and you weasel your way in here, taking advantage of my mother, sucking this place dry.”

Carly glared at her. “That’s crap and you know it. I didn’t weasel my way into anything. I’ve worked my ass off here for practically no money. I work ten- or twelve-hour days, I take care of all the guests. Since I’ve been here, our repeat business is up sixty percent. Do you think they come back because your mother made them feel welcome? It was me.”

“Aren’t you a saint.”

Carly angled toward her. “I’m someone who was here, which is more than I can say for you.”

Color stained Michelle’s cheeks. “I was away defending your country. Getting shot at.”

“You were hiding. You didn’t have the courage to come back. You stayed away because it was easier.”

“What’s your excuse?” Michelle asked, not denying the words. “If everything was so difficult, if you had to work so hard, why didn’t you leave?”

“Because she told me I would get a piece of the inn. That I was earning my way into owning part of it.”

Michelle stared at her for several seconds. “It wasn’t hers to give,” she said quietly.

“I found that out recently.” That lie had been the hardest to handle.

“I told you the inn was mine. Before. When we were kids.”

“I thought you were bragging.”

“Maybe if you’d believed me, none of this would have happened.”

“What does that mean?” Carly demanded. “That the inn being in trouble was my fault? You’re not listening.”

In the background a bell tinkled. She turned and saw that all the customers had fled the store. So much for selling anything else this morning.

“I want you to stay on,” Michelle told her. “I’ll draw up a contract. It will give you job security.”

Something Carly could appreciate. “I want to stay in the owner’s suite. It’s the only home Gabby’s ever known.”

Michelle’s mouth twisted. “Fine.”

Carly desperately wanted to demand a raise, as well, but if the inn was in enough trouble that Michelle was willing to promise employment for a period of time, then there wasn’t going to be any extra cash for her. Still, she would work harder at saving. She would come up with a plan, and when her contract ended, she would be prepared.

“Thank you for taking care of Brenda. At the end.”

The words were as shocking as the news about the inn. Carly blinked. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m sure it was more meaningful for her than having me here. After all, you were the daughter of her heart, something she mentioned frequently in her emails.”

Serve and point, Carly thought grimly. Michelle had learned to go for the throat.

“I’m not going to apologize for taking care of someone who was dying,” she snapped. “Twist it however you want. I know what happened. But if it bugs you so much, maybe you should have come home. Or not left in the first place. Of course, you wouldn’t have had to run off and join the army if you hadn’t slept with my fiancé two days before the wedding. Considering you were my maid of honor, it was a bit of a shock for all of us.”

“For you, most of all,” Michelle said. “You knew what he was, what he’d done. Why did you marry him?”

“I was pregnant. I didn’t think I had much of a choice. I wanted to avoid being a single mother.” She gave a hollow laugh. “Not that it made a difference.”

She walked to the counter, then turned back. The distance seemed necessary. “Here’s the part I don’t get. You’re not even sorry you slept with him. You never once apologized. You were supposed to be my friend.”

“So were you.”

“What did I do?”

Michelle studied her for a long time. “Aside from having a convenient memory, nothing, I guess.”

She was obviously bitter about something, but Carly couldn’t figure what. She’d been the one betrayed by the two people she should have been able to trust. Talk about a convenient memory.

“I’m sorry my mother lied to you about the inn.”

Carly opened her mouth, then closed it. “All right,” she said cautiously, not sure she wasn’t being set up.

“I mean it. It was never hers and she used that to keep you around. Neither of us is surprised by that, but it’s still wrong.”

“Thank you.”

Michelle nodded.

“He left it to you in a trust?” Carly asked.

“Until I was twenty-five. Brenda kept running it after that. I would rather have had him than this,” she said, raising her glance to the ceiling. “He didn’t give me the option.”