The Inn at Dead Man's Point (2 page)

He walked outside with her and they stood on the porch. “I don’t know how long Mattie had been on the floor when I found her. I was in California for a few days on business, just got back yesterday.”

“What kind of business?”

“I’m an architect. My brother runs the California division of
Max and Company
, so I took him a few house plans for a retirement community they’re building.”

A slow smile tugged at her lips. “You’re kidding! An architect?”

A little face peeked out the car window, and Jenna walked out to open the car door for Katie. She was a little shy with strangers, but when she spotted the black cat walking out the door behind Al, she squealed, “Kitty,” and ran right up to pet the cat.

“Careful,” Al said. “That one is a little feisty. Sit down on the porch and talk to her. Let her come up to you, and don’t try to pick her up.”

Katie plunked her little behind on the porch by Al’s feet and called the kitty, and a minute later, the cat was rubbing against Katie’s arm and purring. Katie looked up at Al and gave him an adoring smile.

Al followed Jenna inside. “Do you think Mattie will be able to live here again?”

“Not without someone to take care of her. I’ll give it a try for awhile, but I don’t know how long I can stay. She’s...” Jenna sighed. “She’s impossible at times.”

Jenna walked into Mattie’s bedroom, pulled a tote off the closet shelf, and packed a few things to take to the hospital. “This place is filthy.” If she had the money, she’d hire a cleaning crew.

“I’ll take care of my rooms upstairs,” said Al.

Jenna stuffed Aunt Mattie’s bathrobe in the top of the tote. “She’s renting rooms?”

“No, I bought the place.”

Jenna dropped the tote and gaped at him. “
Bought?
But I thought... She can’t sell the inn. My parents owned half of it, and my uncle said it would belong to me someday.”

“Mattie had the legal right to sell it. I had a title search done and checked it out with my attorney. The county was about to auction the place off for back taxes.”

“You took advantage of an old woman?”

“I did her a favor by buying it, so she’d have a place to live.”

He waved his hand around. “Look around you. The furnace filter hadn’t been changed in years, there’s at least one leak in the roof, and the house has more dust than Arizona. There were things growing in the refrigerator, and I doubt Mattie could see well enough to tell if something was fit to eat or not. She has no business driving, yet she’s buying her own groceries and getting herself to the doctor and drug store. She’s been trying to take care of herself on next to nothing, and judging from the stack of overdue bills on the kitchen counter, she’s about to have the power turned off.”

Jenna walked into the kitchen and thumbed through the bills.

“She has the money to pay them now, but I don’t think she can see well enough to write the checks. I was going to offer to help her find a companion.”

Jenna leaned on the kitchen bar and rubbed her temples. Aunt Mattie never said she needed help, and she never mentioned selling the inn. She knew Jenna intended to return here someday. Feeling defeated, she dropped her hands to the counter. “Fine.” She shoved the tote bag into his hands. “
You
can take this to the hospital,
you
can bring her home, and
you
can take care of her.”

He plopped the bag on the counter. “That wasn’t part of our deal. If she can’t take care of herself, she has to hire someone to help her. If she can’t find someone to help her, she goes to a nursing home and I get full possession of the inn.”

“You’re not taking possession of
my
inn.” She grabbed the tote and walked out the door. “Come on, Katie. We’re going back to the hospital, and then we’re finding an attorney.”

Al watched Jenna strap her child into the backseat of her car and drive away. She was angry with him for buying the inn, when she should be angry at Mattie for selling it without talking with her first.

Jenna Madison was the last person he expected to see here. He had no idea she was related to Mattie. She was pretty in high school, and she was even prettier now. Her blond hair was shorter, but she still had a great figure. He used to dream about touching her body. Now he didn’t even want to look at her. He wondered if she was still with Brian Baxter. Brian was a dirt bag and she wasn’t much better in high school. Maybe she’d grown up and moved on, but he couldn’t count on it.

He’d both loved and hated Jenna in high school, and he loathed her sometimes boyfriend and the crowd they hung around with. In the ninth grade, she was a nice enough girl, but as she moved into Brian Baxter’s group, she started stepping on people and doing hurtful things to please her new friends. He didn’t want her here, but how could he keep her out? She was Mattie’s niece, and Mattie needed her.

One step at a time. Maybe the doctor wouldn’t let Mattie come home. Maybe Jenna wouldn’t want to stay with her. And maybe he was fooling himself. Jenna was not only moving in, she was hiring an attorney to fight him for the inn.

He’d been delaying the move until he got the roof repaired, but if he didn’t claim his space now, Jenna could lock him out. He didn’t want to fight her for possession, but he would if necessary.
He
owned the inn now, and she’d better get that straight in her head.

He needed to move soon anyway. Since his nephew and his girlfriend moved into Ma’s house, where Al had been living since college, home wasn’t a nice place to be. Vincent’s girlfriend listened to hard rock day and night, which must have caused brain damage, because DeeDee was dumb as a post. She was built, but it was a small trade-off. Al liked sex as much as the next man, but he wanted more than sex from his women. He wanted intelligence and good taste. His nephew obviously had different standards.

He spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning his rooms upstairs and washing sheets and towels before he went home to pack. He’d move in today, and tomorrow he’d move his office. He’d be settled and back to work before Mattie came home from the hospital.

If
she ever came home.

He had his doubts.

<>

After another brief visit to the hospital, Jenna drove home to Seattle. Brian sat outside her apartment in his new SUV, and from the look on his face, he was not happy. He got out and slammed the door. “Where in the hell have you been? Katie was supposed to be with me this afternoon.”

She released Katie from her car seat and unlocked the apartment door. “Family emergency.”

“You don’t have any family except... Did the old witch finally kick the bucket?”

After shooting him a look meant to wither, she took Katie inside. He followed. “What do you want, Brian?”

“Dinner with my daughter.”

“She’s tired and fussy, and this is not a good time for her to be around your girlfriend and her little monster.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Now she understood his foul temper.

“I’ll just stay here tonight.”

“No you won’t.”

Instead of leaving, he sat down and pulled Katie into his lap. A second later, he lifted her off. “She’s wet.”

“There was a traffic jam in Fife and we didn’t make it to the rest stop in time.” She reached for Katie’s hand. “Come on, honey. We’ll have a nice warm bath and then make something to eat.”

“Mommy, can I have a kitty?”

Jenna glanced at Brian and then walked into the bathroom with Katie. “We’ll talk about it after Daddy leaves.”

Brian stood in the bathroom doorway. “Daddy isn’t leaving.”

She knew what he wanted, and she wasn’t interested. Brian lived with one woman after another, and between women, he always ended up on her doorstep. She hadn’t slept with him since she got pregnant with Katie, and she didn’t intend to sleep with him again. “Yes, Daddy is leaving.”

“I’ll order a pizza,” he said, and then disappeared.

What did she have to do, throw him out? Still, she couldn’t pass up free food. The money this month was a little skimpy, to say the least. Her rent was already two weeks overdue, and she’d used the last of her child support money for Katie’s pre-school fees.

Without a job, she had no excuse for not moving back to the inn to help Aunt Mattie. But she dreaded it. Mattie Worthington wasn’t easy to live with before, and now that Uncle Charlie was gone, she’d be even more impossible.

<>

After she took her daughter to pre-school the next morning, Jenna made several phone calls to find an attorney who would help her get the inn back. According to Al Donatelli, Aunt Mattie had the legal right to sell the inn, but how could that be? If Jenna’s parents put money into the inn – and she knew they had – why wasn’t her name put on the deed when her parents died? The one thing Jenna had held onto over the years was that the inn would someday belong to her.

It shouldn’t matter so much, since she hadn’t lived at the inn for so many years, but it did. In some ways, it felt like she’d lost her family all over again. They’d bought into the inn, and now they were gone, Uncle Charlie was gone. And the inn was gone.

The only attorney interested in taking the case wanted a five thousand dollar retainer. Two others advised her to offer to buy it from the current owner, as if that was likely to happen.

Brian showed up an hour later. He wasn’t working, as usual, but with him it was by choice. His parents supported him between jobs, which was most of the time. They were the ones who paid the child support, because Brian spent his money on other things, like clothes and cars and women.

“Did your girlfriend take you back, Brian?”

“I don’t want her back. Why can’t I move in with you?”

Because she didn’t want him. If not for Katie, she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. “You want to live here? Fine. You can move in tomorrow. I have to move out to the inn for a few weeks.”

“No.”

“Yes. Aunt Mattie broke her arm, and I have to take care of her.”

“Hire someone.”

She itched to wrap her hands around his neck and shake some sense into that empty head. “With
what
, Brian? I know money has never been an issue for you, but for me, it’s work or do without.” She shoved a box into his hands. “You can help me pack.”

“Come on, Jenna. Be reasonable.”

“Either help or get out of my way.”

He grumbled, but he helped her pack.

<>

Jenna picked Katie up from pre-school and took a load of boxes out to the inn. Brian followed with more boxes in his SUV.

There were four men on the roof of the inn, prying off the old shingles and tossing them over the side. She opened the car door and stepped out.

Brian walked over and asked, “Who’s paying for this?”

“Not me. The boxes go upstairs, if we can get to the door.”

A man stepped onto a ladder and backed down to the porch roof. He had a great looking ass, wide shoulders, and strong arms. He stepped off the ladder and turned to face her. “Jenna, I didn’t expect you today.”

Brian gaped. “Al Donatelli?”

“I hope you’re not planning to move in, Brian.”

“He’s not,” Jenna said.

Brian stared at Al. “What in the hell are you doing up there?”

“Replacing the roof. Watch your step and keep Katie inside.” He unhooked a water jug from his belt and took a drink. His long legs were covered with faded denim and knee pads, and he wore a tool belt slung low around his waist. Strong muscles rippled under his T-shirt. The more Jenna saw of this guy, the better he looked. But if he remembered the awful way she and her friends had treated him in high school, he wouldn’t have anything to do with her now.

Jenna carried Katie through the debris and into the house.

Brian followed with a big box. He wrinkled his nose. “This place is a dump.”

Yes, it was. She should have moved back when Katie was a baby. If she had, she could have gotten the inn running again, paid the taxes, and taken care of these repairs herself. Now it was too late.

Alessandro Donatelli owned
her
inn.

Chapter Two

A
s Jenna and Brian picked their way through the old pieces of roofing to carry in boxes, Al called down to them. “The two clean rooms upstairs are mine.” He’d slept here last night, but he didn’t have his office moved yet because the men in his family showed up to help him tear off the old roof. Since he couldn’t turn down free labor, he changed his plans. It was just as well that they get the work done before Mattie came home from the hospital. The noise would probably drive her crazy.