The Country Guesthouse (Sullivan's Crossing #5)(4)

“You know I live in a barn,” Cal reminded Owen.

“My barn isn’t as fancy as your barn. It’s a shop. With a bed in it. But my house trumps your house.” Then he grinned.

“What do you do with all those bedrooms?” Sully asked.

“Nothing except when I rent it out. In a few years I might sell it. I don’t know. I like the location. And sometimes my sister and her kids come. Plus, I have friends...”

“You do?” Sully asked.

“Well, yeah. Some. Not too many. I don’t want too many. How many have you got?”

“About six,” Sully said, smiling. “And a town. Plus the Jones clan intermarried with some of my friends so now I have a big family, and I never saw that coming.”

“Neither did the Jones clan,” Cal said.

“Is your whole family here now?” Owen asked Cal.

“All but my parents and my sister Sedona—she’s still back east, but she turns up regularly for visits. Sierra and Connie are neighbors now. Dakota just took a teaching job right smack between Boulder and Timberlake, so we see him and Sid a lot. Sid’s brother and his wife live in town. It’s a complicated web. I could make you up a chart.”

“Is there going to be a test?” Owen asked. But he was thinking he had far fewer connections, and he wondered if they found him odd. But of course they found him odd—he was six foot five and thin, seen wandering around the trails with his backpack full of cameras and his giant dog named Romeo. His big house was full of unused bedrooms that he let strangers borrow. He explained away his solitary ways as a life of art when the truth was he was afraid of close relationships and he distracted himself with travel. Women hit on him a lot. They probably suspected he was rich. From time to time he let them catch him, just not for long. He was only a little rich. He made a very respectable living.

“If you met the right woman you could have a mess of kids,” Sully said.

“You think there’s any chance of that now?” Owen asked. “I’m forty-five and dull.”

“I didn’t know you were only forty-five,” Cal said, grinning.

“Another twenty years and you’ll be a cranky old man and fit right in,” Sully said. “Then again, I only met Helen about a year ago. I still can’t figure out what she sees in me.” Then he laughed wickedly.

Owen was crazy about Helen. She and Sully were living together. Helen wrote mystery novels that Sully said were filled with gore and dead bodies. He claimed to sleep with one eye open. Owen thought they were the cutest couple anywhere. “Maybe when I’m seventy, I’ll meet the right one. You’re a good example—if you can find a perfect woman, anyone can.”

“Well, good luck to you,” Sully said. “But that ain’t gonna help use all those bedrooms much by then.”

  The few weeks after finding her fiancé with her assistant turned into a complete nightmare for Hannah. She faced some very unpleasant and immediate chores: get Wyatt out of her house, hire some temporary admin help at the office and try to ignore the never-ending gossip about how Hannah came home from a business trip to find her fiancé and assistant knocking boots. Everyone but Hannah was quite entertained by the tantalizing story.

Hannah and Wyatt had been together for three years. They’d dated for a year, lived together for a year and been engaged for a year. Hannah was thirty-five; he was not her first boyfriend. He wasn’t her first fiancé, for that matter. She overheard one of the gossips say, “Maybe three’s the charm.”

She had to tell her friends who were supposed to be bridesmaids. Except Stephanie, who had also been a designated bridesmaid. That was irrelevant now, though Hannah did wonder if they were still seeing each other. Maybe Wyatt could marry her since he already had the tux ordered.

Hannah also had to cancel everything that had been reserved ahead of the wedding date—reception hall, caterer, photographer, flowers, band. The wedding was barely planned and yet there was all this detritus. The last time she’d broken up with a fiancé, they hadn’t gotten this far into the planning—all she’d had to do was give back the ring. Wyatt was not getting the ring back—she’d sell it to pay for a vacation for herself.

All that cleanup took a full week. She then called the Realtor in Colorado and booked the house near Sullivan’s Crossing for the first available two-week rental. She wanted a quiet, beautiful place to get her head together. It wouldn’t be available for several weeks, but that gave her something to look forward to. Spring in the Rockies.

And then, just as she was starting to feel like herself again, the world came to an end. Her college roommate and best friend, Erin Waters, was consoling her on the phone, telling her it wasn’t her fault, that no, she didn’t attract losers, that everything was going to work out for the best—and all the while she was coughing relentlessly.

“You are going to see a doctor about that, aren’t you?” Hannah asked.

“Absolutely,” Erin said. “I feel like shit. I’ve been trying to sleep it off. But I guess I need drugs. I can’t remember ever being this sick.”

“And is Noah all right?” Hannah asked, speaking of Erin’s five-year-old son.

“He’s fine. I’m giving him extra vitamin C just in case. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and he’ll be with Linda.” Linda was Noah’s regular babysitter, and Noah and Erin were very close to Linda and her family.