At Home in Stone Creek

“Are you satisfied?” Melissa asked.

“Are you PMS-ing?” Ashley countered.

“I wish,” Melissa said.

Before Ashley could ask what she’d meant by that, Melissa hung up.

“She’s PMS-ing,” Ashley told Mrs. Wiggins, who was curling around her ankles and mewing, probably ready for her kitty kibble.

Hastily, Ashley took a shower, donned trim black woolen slacks and an ice-blue silk blouse, brushed and braided her hair, and went out into the hallway.

Jack’s door was closed—she was sure she’d left it open a crack the night before, in case he called out—so she rapped lightly with her knuckles.

“In,” he responded.

Ashley rolled her eyes and opened the door to peek inside the room. Jack was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back very straight. He needed a shave, and his eyes were clear when he turned his head to look at her.

“You’re better,” she said, surprised.

He gave a slanted grin. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Ashley felt her temper surge, but she wasn’t about to give Jack McCall the satisfaction of getting under her skin. Not today, when she’d just learned that she had twin nephews. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Bacon and eggs would be good.”

Ashley raised one eyebrow. He’d barely managed chicken soup the night before, and now he wanted a trucker’s breakfast? “You’ll make yourself sick,” she told him, hiking her chin up a notch.

“I’m already sick,” he pointed out. “And I still want bacon and eggs.”

“Well,” Ashley said, “there aren’t any. I usually have grapefruit or granola.”

“You serve paying guests health food?”

Ashley sucked in a breath, let it out slowly. She wasn’t about to admit, not to Jack McCall, at least, that she hadn’t had a guest, paying or otherwise, in way too long. “Some people,” she told him carefully, “care about good nutrition.”

“And some people want bacon and eggs.”

She sighed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“It’s the least you can do,” Jack wheedled, “since I’m paying triple for this room and the breakfast that’s supposed to come with the bed.”

“All right,” she said. “But I’ll have to go to the store, and that means you’ll have to wait.”

“Fine by me,” Jack replied lightly, extending his feet and wriggling his toes, his expression curious, as though he wasn’t sure they still worked. “I’ll be right here.” The wicked grin flashed again. “Get a move on, will you? I need to get my strength back.”

Ashley shut the door hard, drew another deep breath in the hallway, and started downstairs, careful not to trip over the gamboling Mrs. Wiggins.

Reaching the kitchen, she poured kibble for the kitten, cleaned and refilled the tiny water bowl, and gathered her coat, purse and car keys.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told the cat.

The temperature had dropped below freezing during the night, and the roads were sheeted in ice. Ashley’s trip to the supermarket took nearly forty-five minutes, the store was jammed, and by the time she got home, she was in a skillet-banging mood. She was an innkeeper, not a nurse. Why hadn’t she insisted that Tanner and Jeff take Jack to one of the hospitals in Flagstaff?

She built a fire on the kitchen hearth, hoping to cheer herself up a little—and take the chill out of her bones—then started a pot of coffee brewing. Next, she laid four strips of bacon in the seasoned cast-iron frying pan that had been Big John’s, tossed a couple of slices of bread into the toaster slots, and took a carton of eggs out of her canvas grocery bag.

She knew how Jack liked his eggs—over easy—just as she knew he took his coffee black and strong. It galled her plenty that she remembered those details—and a lot more.

Cooking angrily—so much for her motto that every recipe ought to be laced with love—Ashley nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard his voice behind her.

“Nice fire,” he said. “Very cozy.”

She whirled, openmouthed, and there he was, standing in the kitchen doorway, but leaning heavily on the jamb.

“What are you doing out of bed?” she asked, once the adrenaline rush had subsided.

Slowly, he made his way to the table, dragged back a chair and dropped into the seat. “I couldn’t take that wallpaper for another second,” he teased. “Too damn many roses and ribbons.”

Knowing that wallpaper was a stupid thing to be sensitive about, and sensitive just the same, Ashley opened a cupboard, took down a mug and filled it, even though the coffeemaker was still chortling through the brewing process. Set the mug down in front of him with a thump.

“Surely you’re not that touchy about your décor,” Jack said.

“Shut up,” Ashley told him.

His eyes twinkled. “Do you talk to all your guests that way?”

As so often happened around Jack, Ashley spoke without thinking first. “Only the ones who sneaked out of my bed in the middle of the night and disappeared for six months without a word.”

Jack frowned. “Have there been a lot of those?”

Jack McCall was the first—and only—man Ashley had ever slept with, but she’d be damned if she’d tell him so. After all, she realized, he hadn’t just broken her heart once—he’d done it twice. She’d been shy in high school, but the day she and Jack met, in her freshman year of college at the University of Arizona, her world had undergone a seismic shift.

They talked about getting married after Ashley finished school, had even looked at engagement rings. Jack had been a senior, and after graduation, he’d enlisted in the Navy. After a few letters and phone calls, he’d simply dropped out of her life.