Falling for the Innkeeper
Chapter One

Copyright @ 2020 Meghann Whistler

Jonathan Masters pulled up in front of The Sea Glass Inn, turned off his GPS and sighed. How had he gotten himself into this? He really didn’t want to intrude on a single mother and her young daughter right at dinnertime.

A sixth-year associate at Meyers, Suben & Roe, the top corporate law firm in Boston, Jonathan had left work early to the sleepy Cape Cod town of Wychmere Bay to take care of some new business. This little inn wasn’t the new business, of course, but if he could ensure that Carberry Hotels acquired this prime piece of beachfront property, there was a good shot that the luxury hotel chain would hire Jonathan’s firm for all its legal needs.

And if Jonathan wanted to make partner, as his mentor, Mike Roe, had told him just a few nights ago, he needed to prove he was a closer.

“You’re smart, Masters,” Mike had said, “and a hard worker, but frankly, if that’s all you’ve got, you’re a dime a dozen.”

Although Jonathan generally took criticism well, that had hurt. In his experience, hard work always paid off. It’s what had earned him a scholarship to and what had gotten him into Harvard Law. The idea that it might not be enough to get him a partnership was simply…unacceptable.

So, if Mike wanted him to bring in new business, Jonathan would bring in new business. Maybe he wasn’t particularly slick or practiced at glad-handing, but if that’s what it would take to earn a partnership, he’d learn. He had to.

He stepped out of the car and looked at the little inn. It was two stories high with gray cedar shingles, black window shutters and a hand-painted sign with its name—The Sea Glass Inn—hanging from a wooden post out front. In other words, quintessential Cape Cod.

The inn’s location couldn’t be better. It sat at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, nestled behind the dunes of a sweeping, white-sand beach on Nantucket Sound. Rosebushes grew haphazardly around the split rail cedar fence that surrounded the property. In the distance, a flash of green light shone from the lighthouse at the mouth of the nearby harbor. The sound of the surf crashing against the sand was soothing. Aside from a few walks around Boston Harbor in his rare free time, Jonathan had never spent much time by the sea.

He adjusted his tie and cuff links, the expensive ones he wore when he wanted to impress. Not that he expected a single mother to even notice his wardrobe. But it was like his battle armor. Look the part, play the part. Get. It. Done.

There were lights on inside the inn, which was a good sign. He left his suitcase in the car, took a deep breath, walked up the brick-lined path to the front door and knocked.

Almost immediately, the door swung open onto a deserted sitting room with a unique sea glass chandelier, and Jonathan was baffled for a split second until he glanced down and saw a dark-haired slip of a girl with a mischievous smile and gigantic green eyes. She was wearing white tights with purple stars, a pink tutu and—of all things—an itty-bitty Red Sox jersey. Plus, she was holding a couple of crumpled twenty-dollar bills in her hand.

Her big eyes went bigger as she focused on his face. “You’re not the pizza man,” she said, her words betraying just a tiny hint of a lisp.

“Nope.” He grinned and crouched down so he was eye level with her. “Not the pizza man.” He peered into the room behind her. “Is your mom around?”

“Emma, honey!” a woman called out, pushing her way through a set of swinging doors into the room. “I told you not to—” She stopped abruptly when she caught sight of Jonathan.

Although he was certain they’d never met—he’d have remembered a face like hers—the sense of familiarity he felt upon looking into her soft green eyes was jarring. Her clear, heart-shaped face was framed by thick dark hair that tumbled over her shoulders and down her back in waves. She was slender and dressed casually in jeans and a Red Sox sweatshirt. Although she had hardly a lick of makeup on her face, he was still almost dazzled by how beautiful she was.

He gave his head a small shake—don’t be an idiot!—straightened up and offered his hand. “Hi, I’m Jonathan Masters with Meyers, Suben & Roe. I spoke with your mother, Eleanor, earlier about staying here for a few days while we work out the terms of the deal.”

“You spoke with my mother…about a deal…?” The green-eyed beauty made no move to come closer and shake his hand.

Oh, man, Jonathan thought ruefully. He’d gotten the sense during his meeting with Eleanor Lessoway, this woman’s mother, that Eleanor might be a little flaky—rich, but flaky—but this was taking flakiness to new heights. He wasn’t just intruding on this woman and her daughter; he was ambushing them. And he didn’t like it one bit.

 “Mommy, he’s wearing clothes like Daddy’s!” The little girl’s voice was filled with excitement.

“Emma, shh.” The woman stepped forward and put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go in the dining room with Aunt Chloe?”

“But he looks just like Daddy!” The girl peered up at Jonathan. “Do you know my dad?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think so, kiddo.”

She pushed her lower lip out in a clear pout. It was adorable, and he had to fight to keep a straight face.

“Go in the dining room with Aunt Chloe,” her mom ordered, giving her a gentle push in the right direction. After one last piteous look at Jonathan, the girl scampered off.

The woman shot Jonathan an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. Her father wears suits. She only sees him a couple times a year on video chat.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled at her, hoping to put her at ease. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Laura.”

“Laura,” he repeated. “It’s nice to meet you, Laura.” This time, when he held out his hand, she shook it, her soft hand warm and delicate in his. He was struck again by how beautiful she was.

“So, you spoke with my mother? About some kind of deal?”

“Just a small legal matter,” he said, once again trying to ease her mind.

“A legal matter?” Laura repeated. “Is this about the will?”

Jonathan knew that Eleanor and her daughter had just inherited The Sea Glass Inn from Eleanor’s recently deceased mother, but he hadn’t actually seen a copy of the will. He and Eleanor had simply talked about what kind of offer Carberry Hotels might be prepared to make on the property. “Nothing like that. I have a client—a potential client—who’s interested in buying this place.”

“You’re a real estate agent?” She sounded skeptical.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Worse. A lawyer.”

Her gaze frosted over. “This inn’s not for sale.”

“Your mother led me to believe otherwise. She invited me to stay for a few days while we work out the terms of the deal.”

Laura threw her hands in the air. “She’s not even here! She’s still in Boston!”

A second woman, a short, sloe-eyed blonde in ripped jeans and a polka-dot blouse, poked her head into the room. “What’s going on out here?”

“Nothing,” Laura said. “Mr. Masters was just leaving.”

“What? No, I—”

But Laura’s hands were on his shoulders, and she literally pushed him out the door. “Sorry we can’t help you,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “Goodbye.”

***

Laura paced on the inn’s back patio, oblivious to the sun as it sank low over the sea behind her, her cell phone held tightly to her ear. “I don’t understand why you sent a lawyer here, Mom. It’s not like we can sell before we fulfill the stipulation set out in Gram’s will.”

“Oh, darling,” her mother said dismissively. “Those are just pesky details.”

Laura bit back a sigh. “It’s not just details, Mom. Besides, I thought you didn’t even want to stay for the whole summer. I thought you wanted to go straight back to Hong Kong.”

Laura’s parents had lived in Hong Kong for eleven years, ever since Laura was fourteen and was “just the right age for boarding school,” and her mother had the whole expatriate thing down pat. Her parents lived in a sprawling, four-bedroom apartment with a sweeping view of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor, and they ate out every single night. They had a live-in housekeeper who cooked them a full English breakfast every morning and threw together gourmet salads for her mother’s lunch. When Laura’s two sisters were younger, they’d also employed live-in nannies for each girl.

Although her father had originally accepted a two-year job contract, her parents loved their lifestyle over there so much that Laura wasn’t sure they were ever coming back.

Which was all the more reason for her to convince her mother to stay at The Sea Glass Inn until Labor Day so they could meet Gram’s crazy stipulation that the two of them run the inn together for a full summer. If they met that condition, the inn would be theirs, and Laura would have a shot at keeping Gram’s legacy alive. If they didn’t, it would go to Wychmere Community Church, which her grandmother had attended faithfully for the last forty-odd years.

The Sea Glass Inn was the only home Emma had ever known. It was practically the only real home Laura had known, also. It was where she’d spent her holidays and summers during boarding school and her first two years of college, before she’d dropped out after marrying Conrad Walker.

It was also where she’d lived ever since her divorce.

The thought of losing The Sea Glass Inn made her sick to her stomach—even if it had become a bit of a money pit since the big Nor’easter that had hit Cape Cod last year.

“I did, darling,” her mother responded airily to Laura’s question about returning to Hong Kong. “I do want to get back to your father as soon as humanly possible. But this is Carberry Hotels we’re talking about. If anything could change my mind about fulfilling your grandmother’s ludicrous stipulation, it would be Carberry Hotels.”

Laura watched as a flock of sandpipers ran across the wet sand down by the waves. “What’s the big deal about Carberry Hotels?”

Her mother gasped. “Don’t you read the paper, darling? Carberry Hotels is one of the top luxury hotel brands in the world. This isn’t a measly million or two we’re talking about. This offer promises to be significant. The least you can do is show the man the kind of hospitality is known for.”

Laura shook her head in disbelief, although she knew her mother couldn’t see her. Until Gram’s funeral last week, Eleanor hadn’t visited The Sea Glass Inn once since she’d deposited Laura on the steps of her boarding school and hopped on a plane to Hong Kong eleven years earlier. She had no idea what kind of hospitality was on offer at the inn these days.

“Why aren’t you here to entertain him?” Laura demanded.

“Oh,” her mother said flippantly, “I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston for a few days to catch up with some old friends. You can handle it, can’t you, darling? Just show him around a little, and let him know what a fantastic deal Carberry Hotels would be getting if they decide to move forward with the inn.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell her mother that no, she wouldn’t handle it, she didn’t want to sell the inn to anyone, let alone a luxury hotel chain that would be sure to bulldoze it, when she realized that if her mother wanted to sell, it meant she’d have to stay for the summer. Which would give Laura a lot more time to convince the woman to let her take over the inn.

“Okay, Mom,” she said. “I’ll handle it.”

“Good girl, darling. Good girl.”

The wind gusted, and the long grass waved wildly on the dunes. Laura remembered playing hide-and-seek on this beach with her sisters when they were little, waiting to hear the tinny music of the ice cream truck as it rolled into the parking lot at the top of the rickety wooden boardwalk. She remembered catching sand crabs and carrying them around in buckets. She remembered sifting through seaweed to collect sea glass, and daring her sisters to touch the remains of washed-up horseshoe crabs.

She turned away from the beach and surveyed the outside of the building. After her divorce, she and Emma had moved in to help her grandmother with some of the more physically and mentally taxing aspects of running the inn.

At twenty rooms, it was bigger than a bed-and-breakfast, but it had the same kind of appeal. Clean and cozy rooms, a sunny dining room where guests enjoyed their continental breakfast, and a spacious parlor where guests shared stories after a day spent exploring the dunes, walking out on the jetty or lolling around on Sand Street Beach.

The inn did good business during the summer, but it was open only three and a half months out of the year. Even if they had an extremely profitable summer, Laura doubted they’d make enough money to pay for all the repairs that were necessary since last year’s Nor’easter—especially the repairs to the roof.

Trying to figure out how to keep the inn from falling apart without going bankrupt in the process was keeping her up at night. But the thought of losing it altogether, which she hadn’t even considered a possibility until she and her mother had met with the executor of her grandmother’s estate last week, was the stuff of nightmares.

She went inside to the dining room, which featured a wood-beamed ceiling and framed nautical posters on the walls, and found her friend Chloe sitting at the end of one of the long communal tables, eating pizza with Emma.

“He still out there?” Laura asked, gesturing to the filmy white curtains covering the windows that faced the street. Last she’d checked, Jonathan Masters’s car—a black BMW—had been parked out front, and he’d been pacing up and down the street, phone at his ear.

Chloe nodded. “Still there.”

Laura sighed. “Great. That’s just great.”

“What’d your mom say?”        

“Apparently Carberry Hotels wants the inn, and they’re prepared to make us a ‘significant’ offer.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?” Chloe asked, responding to Laura’s less-than-enthusiastic tone. “At least then you’d get some money out of the whole thing, right? If your mom leaves and the inn goes to the church, you get nothing.”

“I don’t want money,” Laura insisted. “I want to keep Gram’s legacy alive. I want Emma to be able to stay in the only home she’s ever known. I want to do something with my life, build something for our future.”

Emma finished her pizza and, for the umpteenth time that day, started singing her favorite song. “Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony…”

Laura used a baby wipe to clean tomato sauce off her daughter’s face and added a surprise ending. “Stuck a feather in his cap and called it spaghetti!”

Emma giggled helplessly, shaking her head. “No, Mom! Not spaghetti!”

“Oh, lasagna, right? Stuck a feather in his cap and called it lasagna!”

Emma let her head roll back so she was looking at the ceiling. “No, no, no, Mom! You’re so silly! Not lasagna! Macaroni! He called it macaroni!”

“I’m silly? You’re silly!” She tickled Emma and made her squeal in delight. “Come on, honey, do you want to watch a cartoon?”

“Yeah!”

Laura took her into the parlor and cued up a kids’ show on the TV. She propped the swinging door open and went back into the dining room with Chloe.

“She told me the lawyer looks like her dad,” Chloe said.

Laura snorted. “Well, it’s not like she has the best idea of what the man looks like, anyway. Five minutes of video chatting on Christmas and her birthday is hardly enough for a four-year-old to have a clear mental picture of her father.”

Chloe scrunched her nose in disgust. “I’m sorry, but I never liked him.”

“Sadly, that makes one of us.”

Chloe leaned forward and placed her hand on Laura’s forearm. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I knew he wasn’t that committed to church. I knew he was very ambitious. I should have realized that our priorities weren’t aligned. I shouldn’t have let him talk me into getting married so fast.”

She’d heard that women gravitated to men who were like their fathers, and that had definitely been true in her case. Her father was the managing director of the Hong Kong division of a global management consulting firm. All through her childhood, he’d worked at least eighty hours a week and rarely taken time off. The fact that Conrad had been similarly driven should have been a huge red flag, and yet she’d been smitten almost from the moment they met, and had married him a mere six months later.

“Hindsight, right?” Chloe asked.

Laura shrugged. “I learned my lesson. I’m never getting involved with a guy like that again.”

“Okay, but are you going to get involved with any guy again? It’s been almost five years, Laura. You know your grandmother would be doing cartwheels up there if you found someone nice…”

“I have more important things to think about than dating, Chlo.”

“I know, but you’re not going to meet anyone if you don’t put yourself out there. Let me set up a profile for you on that Christian dating site—”

Laura arched a brow. “Because you’ve had such stunning success with it?”

Chloe laughed. She’d been on more bad dates than anyone they knew. “At least I’m trying.”

“If it was just me, maybe,” Laura said, shrugging. “But I’ve got Emma to think about…”

“So no to dating apps. But I could set you up with one of friends—”

Laura shook her head. “I already know all your brother’s friends, and I’m just not ready right now. My heart wouldn’t be in it.”

Chloe gave a long-suffering sigh. “Fine.” She narrowed her eyes and shook her finger at Laura. “But don’t think I’m going to drop the subject forever. You’re too young to give up on love. And Emma needs a good male role model in her life.”

As if on cue, her daughter called out, “Mom! The show’s over!” At the same time, there was a knock at the door.

“You mind getting Emma ready for bed?” Laura asked.

“Of course not,” Chloe answered.

Chloe took Emma upstairs, and Laura opened the door for Jonathan Masters.

This time, he was carrying a suitcase.

He was probably six or seven years older than she was and five or six inches taller, with dark hair, dark eyes and a runner’s build. He had gel in his hair—just enough to keep it in place—and cuff links in his sleeves. His black suit, like the black car parked at the curb, looked expensive, and his red tie, which was slightly askew, highlighted two spots of high color on his cheeks.

It was late in the day, so he had a bit of a five o’clock shadow going on, and just the very faintest hint of a cleft in his chin. He was very good-looking, if you liked that clean-cut, corporate kind of look.

Which Laura did. A lot.

Much to her chagrin.

“So, hello again,” she said, not sure if she sounded awkward or sarcastic. In light of his kind eyes and easy smile, she wasn’t sure which she’d prefer. “We’re not normally open for guests this time of year, but please, by all means, come in.”

She’d expected him to look smug when she let him back in, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked almost…relieved.

He stepped into the parlor and glanced around. “Where’s your mini me?”

“Emma? She’s getting ready for bed.”

He looked at his watch, not his phone, and Laura’s estimation of him crept up a notch. She liked people who weren’t always glued to their cell phones. “It’s seven thirty.”

She raised an eyebrow. “She’s four.”

“So, not a night owl?”

She laughed at his wry tone. He grinned. She wished he wasn’t quite such a good-looking man. It was distracting, and she didn’t need any distractions in her life right now. Not when she had to figure out how to convince her mother to stay for the summer without signing the inn over to Carberry Hotels.

Remembering her manners—which she actually did have, despite the fact that barely an hour ago she’d literally pushed this guy out the door—she asked, “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Leftover pizza?”

His eyes lit up. “You have pizza?”

“Sure.” She nodded for him to sit on one of the light blue couches in the parlor. “We have cheese or—wait for it—cheese.”

He laughed. “I guess I’ll take cheese.”

She retrieved a few slices for him from one of the inn’s three fridges and microwaved them. She gave him his pizza, Chloe came down and said her goodbyes, then Laura went upstairs to say good-night to Emma. From the second floor, she could overhear the sounds of Chloe and Jonathan talking, although she couldn’t make out any of the words.

When she came back to the parlor, Chloe was gone and Jonathan was standing up, examining a newspaper clipping that was framed and propped up on the mantel.

“My grandfather,” she said. “He was a Korean War vet.”

He inclined his head. “Respect.”

She nodded and sat on the couch opposite from his, wondering how he saw the space. She loved this room. She’d helped her grandmother remodel and redecorate it shortly after Emma was born.

They’d knocked out the back wall and replaced it with huge plate glass windows on either side of a sliding glass door that opened onto a wraparound porch, where guests could sit and watch the sun set over the ocean. Then they’d painted the remaining walls a creamy blue, fixed a seascape over the fireplace and found a battered treasure chest that they filled with sea glass, which the children staying at the inn could add to or take from as they pleased.

She and her grandmother had made the sea glass chandelier in the entryway themselves, painstakingly hand-wiring hundreds of pieces collected over Laura’s lifetime. It had taken them two years to finish it. The only thing she took more pride in than that chandelier was her daughter.

Jonathan sat, took his last bite of pizza and nodded to the TV, where Emma’s cartoon was paused, a sea of smiling animal superheroes staring out at them. “What are we watching? The animal channel?”

Laura laughed. “Yeah, their new animated programming.”

His lips quirked into an easy smile. “Must-see TV.”

“You don’t have kids, do you?”

He held up his left hand and wiggled his bare ring finger. “Nope. Not married, either.” Then he glanced at her ring finger. “I take it there’s no Mr. Laura hiding under the eaves?”

“Lessoway,” she said. “And no, I went back to my maiden name after the divorce.”

“You look too young to be divorced.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “And you look too old not to be married.”

He laughed and held a hand to his heart as though he’d been shot. “Oh, walked right into that one, didn’t I? Sorry. None of my business.”

She shrugged, but she was smiling. “It’s fine. I’m not offended.”

“So, this cartoon your daughter was watching. Let me guess. Animal superheroes trying to convince kids to save the environment?”

She shook her head. “Actually, it’s a Bible-based show.”

“Ah,” he said. “Interesting.”

There was something in his tone that gave her pause. She slanted a glance at him. “You’re not a Christian?”

He laughed. “I am on Christmas and Easter.”

“Oh.” She felt a twinge of disappointment, although she wasn’t sure why. “Right.”

“I take it you are? A Christian, I mean.”

She nodded. “My grandmother’s influence.”

He blinked, the relaxed, teasing manner gone. “Ah, well, that’s…nice.”

In Laura’s experience, young professionals tended to shy away from any mention of faith, as though spirituality might be contagious. Laura knew the truth, though. Before she’d found her faith as a teenager, she’d been a mess: a good girl who’d been abandoned by her own family, a good girl who hadn’t been good enough. She thanked God every day that her grandmother’s church community had embraced her and helped her see the truth of her identity as a child of God.

She looked at the man sitting across from her and smiled gently. “Nice doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

When she saw that he was at a loss for how to reply, she took pity on him, gave her hands a brisk clap, stood up and said, “Let me show you to your room.”

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