Mr. Imperfect(14)

"How much, Don?" Her voice came out harsh and Kezia dropped it to a whisper. "Please. Just tell me how much."

His grip on her hand grew painful. "One hundred and fifty thousand  dollars. That's core debt with penalty and interest included."

"Oh, my God." Kezia stared at Christian, becoming conscious of how much  she was revealing, then leaned back in her chair. Across the street the  fruit and flower shop was a splash of vibrant color.                       
       
           



       

Plump Mrs. McKlosky came out of the shop with a bucket of purple irises  and pink peonies. Seeing Kezia, she gave a cheery wave. For twenty-five  years she'd supplied the hotel with fresh produce and flowers. Kezia's  throat tightened. "Poor Mrs. McKlosky," she said, and knew it as an  admission of defeat.

Christian laid a hand on her arm. "No one could have worked harder to save this place."

She couldn't look at him and maintain her composure so she stared blindly at Mrs. McKlosky. "We're beat, though, aren't we?"

"I'm sorry, babe."

Kezia hoisted herself up, feeling like an old woman. "I'm going to lie down for an hour. Then I'll tell the staff."

"Would you like me to do it?"

"No, it should come from me." Don's old face was drawn and anxious, and  she bent to kiss his forehead. "I'm one tough broad. Don't worry about  me." At the doorway self-preservation kicked in. She turned back.  "Christian?"

He was watching her, all arrogance gone, and she steeled herself. "That  other matter. I hadn't changed my mind so a goodbye wouldn't have made  any difference."

For a moment an indefinable emotion flickered in his eyes. "Thanks for telling me."

Kezia nodded and turned away. She had told the truth-just not all of it. That would have been vindictive.



A ROW OF EMPTY GLASSES between them, Christian and Kezia sat at the  dimly lit bar, oblivious to the curious stares of late-night patrons.  They were mostly grizzled farmers who insisted on buying Kezia another  drink she clearly didn't need "for your loss." Their nods to Christian  mixed sociability with "watch your step with our girl." He'd got used to  it.

One of the biggest shocks in coming back had been discovering most of  his peers gone. Left were the old, the young, eternal optimists like  Kezia, and the hopeless, tied to their land by debt. At the center,  socially and economically, was the Waterview Hotel.

Depressed, Christian took another swig of his beer and wondered if he  should try to stop Kez from drinking any more. She plainly wasn't used  to alcohol, but he was in complete sympathy with her desire to soften  the edges of a day from hell. Not one to shirk unpleasantness, she had  spent the afternoon with the tax department signing over ownership of  the hotel. It was already up for sale.

Kezia picked up her glass and took a ladylike sip. Christian removed the  beer mat still clinging to the base. "At least I have my teaching to  fall back on," she said, "though I'll probably have to leave the area."  There were no vacancies at her old school.

Christian tried to play along with her determined cheerfulness. "Meanwhile you've got your town council position."

"And my community projects."

"And your campanology."

She looked up sharply, saw he intended no irony and relaxed.

"All I've lost is a roof over my head. I'll just stay in a motel until I know where I'll end up working."

Christian nodded, unable to hide his pity.

"I'm not pretending this isn't devastating, but I refuse to fall apart,"  Kezia told him firmly, waving her forgotten drink. "From now on, my cup  is half full, not half empty." Then she noticed her glass was in fact  nearly empty and signaled for the bartender.

"Coffee," Christian told Davie before she could open her mouth.

Kezia had been about to order coffee, longed for coffee, but allowing  Christian to take charge now would be fatal. "A Bloody Mary, please, and  if you look to Christian for confirmation, Davie, I'll fire you."

The twenty-one-year-old kept his eyes on hers. "Okay, Kezia."

She bit her tongue, resolving to make it up to Davie with some baking  when she'd resettled. If she remembered right, peanut brownies were his  favorite.

"Will the motel have an oven?" she asked Christian, then laughed, both  at his perplexity and at the absurdity of expecting a millionaire to  know such a thing. He'd probably never been in a motel in his life … . Oh,  boy. The drink arrived and Kezia took a gulp, trying to quench the fire  burning her face, the fire within. Instead the alcohol inflamed her  memories, all of them slick, hot and wantonly abandoned.

"Small oven," he said, and she looked at him blankly. "Big bed."

He spoke the last softly, dragging it out like every sigh of pleasure  he'd won from her. Kezia put down her Bloody Mary, reached for a jug of  ice water and poured a glass. Drained it. He was tormenting her  deliberately. Well, two could play this game.

"Is it hard?" she asked throatily, and waited until his eyes widened. "I do so hate a soft mattress."                       
       
           



       

That surprised a laugh out of him. "Is there still a wayward streak in that pillar of the community?"

"I may have led a sheltered life compared to you-actually I can't think  of a single person who hasn't-but I'm not unworldly. You think of rural  life as entombment."

"And you never have." His tone was neutral but she sensed an accusation.

Alcohol made her brave. "I didn't go with you fourteen years ago because I was scared."

His expression changed to the one she hated-that of the world-weary  cynic. "You were right not to trust me. Look how I turned out."

"That's not what I meant," she persisted. "You were so intense, so  fearless." She struggled to find the right words. "So sure about what  you wanted." And didn't want.

"I don't do intensity anymore. A man lasts so much longer without it."  His intonation gave the words a sexual connotation but Kezia knew he was  trying to steer the conversation into safer channels.

She let him. "You couldn't burn me now, Christian, even if you tried."  She refilled her glass with ice water, looked up and fell into his eyes,  shimmering with male heat.

Casually he took the glass, already forgotten. "No?"

Ignoring the thumping of her heart, Kezia held his gaze. She was  thirty-two and in charge of this conversation even if her emotional  responses were still eighteen.

"These days," she said carelessly, "I might just burn you."

"You could try."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to get naked. "I got over you, Christian," she said instead. And almost meant it.

"Me, too. So there's no reason to rehash the past, is there?" To Kezia's  surprise he reached out a hand. After a brief hesitation, she took it.  "We have enough to deal with."

"I have enough to deal with," she corrected, and withdrew her hand to  reinforce an independence she didn't feel. "Your work here is done."

"Are you counting that as one of your blessings?"

"That would be ungrateful," she said, and he laughed.

"I'll take that as a yes, then."

Yes. Go before I care. "I figure I'll leave most things for the new owner. A clean break is probably best."

In his mind's eye Christian saw her walking past the hotel every day,  swinging her arms a little more briskly, giving it a cursory glance,  catching people's eye so she could say brightly, "Hi, how are you? I'm  fine!" Being brave.

He drained his glass, signaled Davie for another, hating this feeling of  helplessness. If you weren't dead, Muriel, I'd wring your neck.

The old woman had put too much faith in his ability. Kezia's theory-that  Muriel wanted to throw them together-he'd already dismissed.

Only a sentimental fool would chance everything on love, and Muriel had  never been that. Stubbornly independent maybe, but no fool. Her  granddaughter had inherited her independence in spades so why was he  reluctant to leave her like this?

Maybe because he'd suffered few failures in his adult life, and every damn one of them involved Kezia Rose.

But he could do something for her. He slid an envelope along the bar. "This is for you."

She opened it. Inside were hundred dollar bills-lots of them. "What's this?"

"Your commission for helping me close that multimillion-dollar deal yesterday."

Snorting, she pushed it away. "I'm not a pity case yet."

He pushed it back. "Pity has nothing to do with it. Like you said yesterday, I owe you."

"Okay, let's be realistic. Give me a hundred bucks toward a new church  bell." She removed one bill and tried to pass him the envelope.