Suiteheart Of A Deal: Suiteheart Of A Deal / My Place Or Yours?. Wendy Etherington

first installment of my trust. It’s all I have in the world, and I’m not risking it.”

      The kettle—a battered tin thing with a whistling spout—finally materialized. Rainey took it to the sink. Lost in thought, she absentmindedly filled it to overflowing, then poured the excess water down the drain and set it down on a burner.

      “The thing is,” Beck argued while she searched for tea bags, “we’ve got big trouble here. If we don’t bring this place up to snuff, we’ll go bankrupt.”

      “Hah! You mean I’ll go bankrupt. You’ll be no worse off than before, Beck. And besides, if we use your money, you’ll have more invested than I do. It will be your inn.”

      When he didn’t respond immediately, Rainey looked sharply at him. His expression had gone soft and dreamy again. Another zinger was coming. True to form, he murmured, “You know, I really like it when you say my name.”

      “Enough already!”

      “Okay, okay!”

      “You’re not listening to me, Beck.”

      “You can pay me back out of your share of the profits.”

      Arghhh! He had an answer for everything. He must have stayed up all night, working out the details.

      “What’s more,” he continued as she finally found the tea bags and dropped them into Lilly’s old ceramic tea pot, “after we convert this apartment into a wedding chapel, where are you going to live?”

      “I’ll get an apartment.”

      “There are no apartments in Bragg Creek, Rainey. You’d have to move to Calgary and commute. Have you seen the traffic on the Trans-Canada?”

      She sat down across from him, folded her arms and adopted a stubborn pout. “Then I’ll live in one of the suites here.” She was clutching at straws now, and she knew it.

      “Uh-huh, and how long do you think it will take for you to get sick of that? About a week, that’s how long.”

      The wall phone rang, startling them both. Grateful for the distraction, Rainey jumped up and grabbed it. “Hello!” she belted into the receiver.

      “Rainey?” an all-too-familiar voice tentatively asked. It was Trevor. Wonderful. Just what she needed.

      “Trevor,” she snapped. “I don’t have time for you right now.” Or tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that.

      “Rainey, I just want to talk to you for a few minutes—” he pleaded. “After you ran out like that—”

      “I didn’t run out, Trevor. I moved west. There’s a difference. I have to go now.”

      “We need to talk, Rainey. Clear the air…”

      Sighing impatiently, she glanced over her shoulder at Beck. He was watching her with wide eyes and thinly veiled curiosity. To Trevor, she roared, “There’s two thousand miles of air between us, and it’s all very clear to me! Goodbye!” She slammed the receiver down and sat down again, hard enough to bruise her tailbone.

      A moment later, Beck asked, very casually, “Ah, who’s Trevor?”

      “Nobody. Just an old boyfriend.” Oooh! How dare Trevor call her after what he had done! The nerve.

      Beck’s eyebrows shot up. “Your old boyfriends call you long-distance?” From his tone and body language, it was clear to Rainey that he was trying not to seem too interested, but failing miserably. An alarm bell sounded in her head. Her past was none of his business. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

      He nodded and waited. When it finally became clear that she really wasn’t going to say more, he cleared his throat. “Okay, then, back to us. Let’s look at our options.” He raised his right index finger in the air. “Option Number One. We do nothing. We continue running the Haven as is, until we go under.”

      “That’s not an option. That’s a disaster!” The kettle whistled. Rainey jumped up, moved it to a cold burner, and sat down again, forgetting to make the tea.

      “Okay, then. Option Number Two. We sell the inn, split the profits, if there are any, and go our separate ways.”

      She gasped. “No way! I’ve worked my whole life for this opportunity.”

      Beck nodded. “Right. And for me this is a terrific business deal. So what does that leave us with?”

      Rainey chewed on her lower lip and stared into space. Oh, darn. What did it leave them with? Nothing, that’s what. Good grief, what a mess! How could she marry a total stranger she had vowed just yesterday to avoid at any cost? It was utterly insane. Every instinct she had told her to grab her still unpacked bags and get out of there as quickly as possible. Forget she’d ever heard of the Honeymoon Haven and Bragg Creek and Beck Mahoney. But where would she go? Back to “Tronna” and Trevor?

      After a long silence, she sighed wearily and muttered, “Okay, tell me what you have in mind.”

      Excited, Beck leaned forward and gave her his thoughts. They would have Nate Frome draw up a prenuptial agreement. They would marry quietly and stay married only as long as necessary—six months, a year at the most. Then they would start to make noise about trouble in the marriage…

      “Well, at least that part will be true!”

      He ignored her sarcasm and continued. They would live in his cottage….

      “In separate bedrooms, of course.”

      “Of course,” he agreed a little too quickly.

      Rainey eyed him suspiciously. She smelled a rat.

      In the meantime, Beck concluded, they would renovate the Haven from top to bottom, step up their marketing efforts and reel in the profits. Simple.

      Energized by the sheer absurdity of the situation, Rainey rose and began to pace back and forth in the confined space. She felt like a wild animal caught in a trap. Something told her it just wasn’t going to be that simple. There would be all kinds of problems. Rules would have to be established. Scores of issues would have to be resolved. She struggled to mentally list them and consider each one separately.

      Okay, for one thing…Whirling around like a prosecutor about to pounce on a hostile witness, she demanded, “What if you meet somebody three months from now, who you really would like to marry? What then?”

      “I don’t think that will happen.” Beck’s eyes slid over her from head to toe and back again. Rainey involuntarily blushed. Darn it all, why did he have to do that? Why did he have to stir up so many mixed feelings in her? Like, dislike, amusement, exasperation, rage, sympathy, lust.

      Startled, she realized for the first time that she was, maybe, just maybe, a little attracted to the guy. Oh, what a dreadful thought! She pushed it away and tried to concentrate on the situation at hand.

      “Besides,” he added with a wry smile, “there’s nobody in this town I can trust with my heart, Rainey. With you, at least I would know that you only married me for my money.”

      Her jaw dropped. “Beck Mahoney, that is the craziest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

      He shrugged. “It’s a crazy situation.”

      Sighing, Rainey glanced out the window at the Haven’s half-full parking lot. It was a hazy day and the majestic blue spruce trees surrounding the lot had taken on a bluish-green hue. Something on the far side of the lot caught her eye. What the…? It was a man and a woman, scrambling into the back seat of a car. They looked suspiciously like Freda Norman and Hollis Harriman, but from this distance it was hard to tell. Why on earth would those two be jumping into a parked car together?

      A sense of defeat suddenly overwhelmed her and her shoulders slumped. All my life I’ve worked for this, she thought sadly. To run this inn, to live in this beautiful place, to be happy. Aren’t I entitled to a little happiness?