Sullivan (14 page)

"I've only known him two days," she whispered. "How can I accept this?"

"How can you refuse?" Rico asked, his voice as low as hers. "It is what the old man wants."

She looked up at Sin, silently questioning him. "Rico's right," he said. "Grady wants you to have this place. It's all he has to give, and he wants it to be yours."

"I don't deserve it."

"Grady thinks you do, and that's all that matters."

Make it a home
, he'd said. For her. For the children. And maybe for Sinclair Sullivan.

* * *

Grady died peacefully in the night, and arrangements were made for his funeral. Sullivan knew he couldn't leave now, not today, not while Eden was grieving for the man she barely knew.

She really thought she should've been able to save him, and felt as if she'd failed.

He found her in the kitchen, baking pies as if her very life depended on it. A delicious odor filled the air, the aroma of sugar and cinnamon wafting through the hotel. Here, in this room, the smell was intense.

When she saw him standing in the doorway, she lifted her head and pinned her eyes on him. "You're still here," she said softly. "I didn't know..."

"I thought I'd stay for the funeral," he explained.

She nodded and returned her attention to the pies she was fashioning, latticing crust across the top of what looked to be a dried apple pie. "What am I going to do with a hotel?" she asked. "Didn't Grady have any family? Any relations who are entitled to his property?"

"You don't want it?" Hell, maybe she'd already decided not to stay in Rock Creek. Owning the hotel would tie her here, make it impossible for her to leave.

"It's not that," she said softly. "I think the old place has quite a lot of potential."

Potential? It was a hulking, ugly monster of a building, and if Grady had ever made a profit off the place he hadn't shown it. "Well, Grady never married, that I know of, and if he had any family he didn't keep up with them. I think he was all alone."

Eden sniffled. "That's so sad."

"It was what he wanted," Sullivan said harshly.

She turned her back on him, and with a folded towel removed two pies from the oven before setting the new pies in their place.

"I should hate to live my life alone," she said when she turned to face him.

"I'm sure you won't."

No, Eden wouldn't live alone, not ever. Some smart man would snap her up, make her his wife, and they'd have a dozen kids. If she ever did find herself momentarily alone, she'd pick up a couple of strays, like Millie and Teddy.

And him, Sullivan realized with a sudden bout of painful clarity.

Damn, he was one of Eden Rourke's strays.

"I'm glad you're staying for the funeral," she said, stepping toward him. "Grady would appreciate it, I'm sure."

"Webberville can wait a day or two." A knot formed in his throat as Eden drew near. She was going to kiss him, or lay those delicate fingers on his arm, or look at him with those big blue eyes, and he would be a goner. A
stray!
She'd picked him up off the side of the road because he'd needed saving. If he'd been healthy and safe she wouldn't have looked at him twice.

He trained his gaze over her head. Hell yes, she'd rescued him as surely as she had those kids. She'd sucked him in neat and easy as you please, with dimples and blue eyes and a kiss that shook him to his soul and made him do very stupid things.

He should've seen the truth before this. He should've seen it from the beginning.

When Eden was so close he could feel and smell her in the air around him, he turned on his heel and bit out a quick good-bye.

* * *

The funeral was well attended. It looked as if everyone in town came out to say good-bye to Grady McClure.

Eden and the children stood together, but Sin seemed to make a point of standing as far away from her as possible. She would've liked to have him nearby, even if he didn't speak, even if he didn't outwardly comfort her. The way he looked at her, or more often
didn't
look at her, it was as if he'd already left.

The Reverend Clancy, a middle-aged man with lots of gray hair and a belly that attested to many good meals, delivered a graveside sermon that was full of hellfire and damnation. His words comforted her not at all. After the service was finished he made a point of telling her it wasn't proper for her to be living in the hotel with
those men,
and then he consoled her since she was so obviously distressed—managing to rake his hand across her bottom in the process. She had just about convinced herself it was a simple mistake when he reached past her to pat Teddy on the head and brushed the side of her breast in the process. And his wife stood just a few feet away! What kind of a preacher was he? Not a very good one, sad to say.

Most of the mourners went home after the graveside service, but several of Grady's closest friends and the residents of the hotel returned to the hotel dining room for the big meal Eden had prepared: pot roast and vegetables, cornbread with sweet butter, and dried apple pie. Lydia was not in attendance. On hearing that Grady had left the hotel to Eden, she'd shaken her head in disgust and walked out. No one had seen her since.

The schoolmaster, Mr. Reese, was in attendance with his wife, Mary, and their baby daughter. The Reeses were a lovely couple, handsome and happy even at this somber time. The way the teacher spoke to Sin and his friends, it was clear they knew one another well, which made her wonder if he also knew Jedidiah. Somehow she couldn't imagine her brother and the refined schoolmaster as friends, but then, she was learning that not everyone in Rock Creek was exactly who they appeared to be.

Mary Reese smiled sweetly as she bounced the baby and cooed and tried to eat a bite or two. Eden offered to take the baby for a moment and let the woman eat, since Mr. Reese and Sin had their heads together. Mary was reluctant at first, but then she handed the child to Eden.

Eden sat in a vacant chair and gently bounced the baby on her knee. The baby said goo and smiled and reached for Eden's nose, and suddenly everything was a little bit better. Not perfect, perhaps, not even wonderful. But better.

"I've been meaning to stop by," Mary said after taking a couple of bites. "I'm afraid between Georgia and James I barely have a free minute to socialize."

"James is Mr. Reese?"

Mary smiled, a happy smile full of secrets. "Just Reese, most of the time."

Eden bounced Georgia on her knee. "I hope you'll find an opportunity to come by one afternoon and get acquainted. I really haven't met anyone but the residents of the hotel, though I did briefly meet the shopkeeper's wife, Rose Sutton." The harried woman had been trying to keep her twin boys in line and help three customers at once. "Bless her heart," she added in a lowered voice.

"Poor Rose, she has her hands full," Mary said. Mary looked Eden square in the eye, unflinching and honest. This was a woman she could like, Eden decided. She had a good face, open and real, without artifice. "I wish Jo was still here," she said softly. "I miss her."

"Jo?"

"Josephine Clancy," Mary said in a lowered voice.

Eden unconsciously wrinkled her nose.

"Yes, the Reverend Clancy's daughter, though I have to point out that Jo is nothing like her father. Thank goodness," she added softly. "A few months ago the good reverend sent Jo to live with her aunt in Houston. That was right about the time he was married. For the third time," she said with a lift of her eyebrows. "I miss Jo terribly," she said, "but she's surely better off with her aunt than she was here, living with that odious father of hers."

They were dancing very close to gossip, and Eden felt almost uplifted. She really could make a home here, if she had friends and confidants like Mary Reese.

But before the conversation could turn truly juicy, the baby began to fidget. Georgia Reese wanted her mother.

Too soon the Reeses left for home, and only rowdy men filled the dining room. They ate and drank and talked in low voices that grew louder as time passed. Eden was now the only female in attendance, and since she had no appetite she didn't sit and try to eat. She walked around the dining room restlessly and made sure no one's plate was ever empty.

Again Sin was close by, but at the same time he kept his distance. He was never close enough to share a kind word, or maybe even hold her hand again. Of course he kept his distance. He was ready to leave, would probably ride away in the morning without so much as a glance back in her direction. She tried not to look at him, unless she had no choice.

The men told colorful stories about Grady and the hotel, and gradually the somber mood turned almost jovial. Glasses of whiskey were raised in the deceased's name, and by the time Eden carried the pies into the dining room, the gathering had the atmosphere of a party, not a funeral.

Cash told a story about his brief stay in the hotel and a run-in he'd had with Grady once, an unpleasant experience that was now humorous and touching. The shopkeeper Baxter Sutton, Rose's husband who owned and operated Rock Creek's general store, talked about how Grady had always tried to bargain down everything he bought. He seemed to remember their sometimes unpleasant encounters with great affection, now that Grady was gone.

Eden sliced the pie and began to serve, setting a piece before each man. Staying busy kept her from crying. Whether she felt like crying because of Sin or Grady, she wasn't entirely sure.

The men continued to talk, and a few of them picked at their pie. When she placed a plate before Baxter Sutton, he looked at it and grimaced.

"Is this dried apple pie? No, thanks," he said, waving a dismissive hand at the dessert. "I've had enough dried apple pie to last any two men a lifetime. Swore the last time I choked down a piece that I'd never eat it again."

He surely didn't mean the refusal as a personal insult, but Eden took it as such. It was all too much, and everything hit her at once. She hadn't been able to save Grady, she wasn't going to be able to keep Sin, Baxter Sutton hated her pie, and what was she going to do with this big old hotel?

She turned quickly away from Sutton, and tears sprung to her eyes.

The laughter in the room stopped with a suddenness that startled Eden. Rico, who sat at the table next to Sutton, rose smoothly and quickly, slipping a very large knife from a sheath at his waist and flipping it in his hand with incredible ease. He stepped around Eden and placed the blade at Sutton's throat.

"Eat the pie," he said softly.

Sutton's eyes got big as saucers. "Sure, sure," he muttered, careful not to move against the knife that was held casually and expertly at this throat.

"Rico, don't," Eden said softly. "It doesn't matter."

Rico raised dark eyes to her. He was deadly serious. "You made the pie, he is going to eat it."

Moving blindly, since he was unable to move his head without risking injury, Sutton picked up his fork and took a stab at the pie. He raised a small piece to his mouth and took a bite.

"It's good," he said shakily. "Great."

In a lightning-fast move, Rico removed the knife from Sutton's throat. With a satisfied smile on his face he reclaimed his seat to eat his own piece of pie. Eden only had to glance around to see that every man in the room was diligently eating their dessert. Every man but Cash, who stared at her with soulless dark eyes, and Sin, who looked at her with a half smile on his handsome face.

"It really is quite good," Sutton said, sounding as if he meant it.

A few other compliments filled the air, some sounding sincere, others prompted, she was sure, by Rico's unnecessary defense of her baking skills.

Going into the kitchen felt like escape. She closed the window against a sudden rush of cool air and began to clean up the mess she'd made fixing supper for all these men.

She was wiping down her worktable when she found the note, a single sheet of paper pinned to the cutting board with a long, thin-bladed knife. Chills danced down her spine as she read the large, crudely fashioned letters.

Get out of town while you still can.

With a great effort, she drew the knife from the cutting board and lifted the note to read it again. Was it a threat of some kind? A warning? She looked toward the window she had just closed and an unpleasant chill danced down her spine. The door that opened onto what had once been a vegetable garden was latched securely shut. Had someone climbed through the window and left this note for her?

She carried the note to the dining room, rereading it as she walked slowly. The mood of the men was jovial once again, the dried apple pie incident already forgotten. Eden didn't hear the laughter or the loud words, just a low, constant buzz, and in the crowded dining room she saw only one man.

"Sin?" she said softly, holding aloft the note.

Chapter 9

Sullivan's heart nearly stopped as he read the short note again, running his finger over the tear in the paper where the knife had pierced it. Leaving the others behind, he took Eden's arm and led her into the deserted hotel lobby. A single lantern burned on the front desk.