"That's my life you're describing, so you'd better stop there. Except my son chose a rat." Marion looked sad again. "Come to think of it, so did I."
"I'm sorry to hear that-" Christian stopped, puzzlement on his face. The ancient linen tablecloth that enveloped the trolley billowed like a poltergeist.
"John Jason, you come out of there," yelled his mother, pulling up the cloth. "No wonder I couldn't steer this thing."
A miniature Batman clutching a white rat rolled onto the carpet, scattering papers. With a yelp, Kezia lurched forward to save them and succeeded only in splattering coffee down her best white linen suit. Served her right for trying to look coolly austere for Christian's arrival.
"You should have left that rat at home, Batman." Christian grabbed the child's cape and swung him away from the few remaining stacks. "Hotel inspectors don't like them. I have to say, I'm not too fond of them myself."
"Roland lives here." John Jason's tone suggested Christian should know that. Kezia found herself crossing her arms defensively.
"The rat lives … here?"
Christian's shortbread was at just the right height. John Jason leaned forward to take a bite. "With me."
"You live here, too?"
"Me an' Mum an'-" in a singsong "-Roland an' Kezia."
"Normally he's in a cage." Kezia made a futile attempt to sound responsible.
Christian asked nicely, "What about the rat?"
"I COULDN'T SAY NO," argued Kezia.
"You have no problem saying no to me," Christian pointed out.
"They needed a home after the farm sold. I asked Muriel to take them in. It's temporary."
An unwelcome suspicion distracted Christian from the beguiling sway of Kezia's hips under the soft swish of silk-lined linen as he followed her down the narrow corridor. "Temporary." He picked a rational figure and doubled it. "So they've been here six weeks?"
"Here's your room." She stood aside to let him pass. "It's the honeymoon suite," she encouraged, urging him forward.
"God, we're talking months, aren't we?" Through the doorway Christian found just what he'd expected-more shabby gentility perfumed with bees-wax and mothballs. He dropped his bag and hauled the lace curtains back to throw light on the room's bones. "Quit hedging," he demanded. "Just how long have the Munsters been in residence?"
"Three months. The rat-four weeks."
Christian's attention, hijacked by the sight of an ancient iron-framed bed, snapped back to Kezia. "You approved the rat?"
"I bought him." Her brown eyes, lit with rueful humor, met his and he resisted an impulse to smile back. There would be no repeat of his weakness at the funeral.
"Why?" Making a mental note to buy rat poison at the first opportunity, Christian tested the bedsprings. The white linen coverlet was so thin it had the translucence of skimmed milk.
"John Jason was missing his dad, wetting the bed every night. I thought a pet might help. Except any pet for that boy needs a powerful survival instinct." Her rueful grin intensified. "Hence Roland."
Damn, he smiled before he could stop himself. Amazing that the intervening years hadn't wearied Kezia's philanthropy, more so that he still found it a turn-on. "Rats only leave sinking ships so I guess his presence is a good sign under the circumstances," he conceded, reluctantly discounting the rat poison. "But the rodent stays in the kid's room." An experimental bounce on the mattress evoked shrieks from the springs. "How the hell does anyone have sex in this bed?"
"It's been a while … " Kezia faltered and he watched the color heighten in her cheeks. So this unwelcome awareness was mutual " … a while since we had honeymooners staying. And the springs have only got worse because … only recently," she finished vaguely.
"Just how much rent are your strays paying?" From the financial accounts, Christian already knew the answer but he wanted her to acknowledge some culpability for this mess. It would give him the moral high ground, a position he found useful in business and avoided like the plague in his private life.
"If you think I'm going to fall on my sword because I helped out a friend, you're not smart enough to be useful," she said coolly. "And I can stop fighting the impulse to tell you to go to hell."
So the intervening years had put steel in that fragile backbone. Shame she hadn't had it when they were eighteen.
"Keep fighting it, I just got smarter." This time his smile was deliberate, the wattage turned high enough to melt all female resistance. "I won't underestimate you again, I promise."
Kezia snorted. "Christian, please remember that I knew you when you were a sixteen-year-old bagging up chicken shit at Old Man Norton's poultry farm."
"Kelly's Compost Activator. You know I've never bettered that profit margin. Four hundred percent return."
"Mostly spent on soap," Kezia reminded him, and for the first time their unspoken past lay lightly between them.
He decided to trust her with honesty. "We have to get these rooms back into inventory as quickly as possible. The bank must believe we can generate more income."
"So you expect me to evict Marion."
"Yes," he said dryly. "I like nothing better than to toss women and children out onto the street. If only it were snowing."
She sat beside him, hands clenched together in her coffee-splattered lap. "Sorry, I don't usually shoot at the cavalry."
"More like the Lone Ranger." Under her makeup he saw the blank weariness of grief. "We'll work around Marion until she finds a place. I can subsidize it." Impatiently he overrode her protest. "At least let my money solve someone's problem."
His frustration that it couldn't solve this one grew as he toured the upper floor. With his buyer's eye he could see the red-oak floors stripped of their threadbare carpet, fretwork restored by a craftsman's careful hand and the rooms dressed in lush fabrics and colors by one of his interior designers.
Instead, he and Kez would have to give the place yet another cosmetic overhaul with cheap fabrics, cheaper paint and their own inexpert labor. He'd funded himself through college as a builder's laborer and hated it. Thanks, Muriel.
"This is Nan-my room." Kezia opened the door adjacent to Christian's room. "It might work as a second honeymoon suite."
Christian blinked. Ruby-velvet drapes coiled around the mahogany frame of a massive four-poster, the bed made plump with white faux fur cushions. A crystal chandelier winked at its reflection in an ornate gilt mirror and a candy-striped couch with the curves of a languishing woman merged into matching wallpaper. "It's like a bordello in a spaghetti Western."
"Muriel's tastes were expensive but the results were generally cheap. I don't think she ever made the connection-" Kezia smiled "-and no one had the nerve to make it for her."
"Maybe it's a good thing she never had the money to redecorate."
"Actually she did." Kezia straightened a cushion that had fallen out of formation. "The bank told me yesterday that upgrading the hotel was the reason she gave them for re-mortgaging five years ago. As far as I can tell, only the foundations were reinforced-and this room decorated." She hugged herself in an unconscious gesture of comfort. "Needless to say, they're less than thrilled the place is still in disrepair."
Christian kept his face blank while he mastered his emotions. "Why didn't you call me with this last night?"
"You might not have come."
Her accuracy didn't bother him; the hope implied by her words did. "I'm not a miracle worker, Kez."
Her mouth softened into a wry smile. "There's your first miracle."
He raised a brow in enquiry.
"I just admitted I want your advice."
"No, the miracle would be if you took it." His gaze swept the outrageous room. "We could always add turning tricks to our business plan." She grew thoughtful enough to startle him. "It was a joke, Kez. You're not on the streets yet."
"Themed rooms would give us a point of difference with the romance market, perhaps tied in with local culture."
Now that was funny. "How about one called the Milking Parlor? Cowpat-brown carpet, hay in the mattress, Bovine Breath room freshener and milking cup light fixtures."
She gave him a look that reminded him forcibly of her grandmother. "I won't even dignify that with a reply. Shall we continue the tour?"