Room for Love (21 page)

“Oh. Well, that’s good, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Carrie reassured her cousin. “It really is. Now, let’s go save your fiance from your mother before he changes his mind.”

“Never happen,” Ruth said with what sounded like absolute surety. But she followed Carrie back into the bar all the same.

It was gone midnight before Ruth, Graeme, Patrick and Selena finally retired to their assigned bedrooms, well-fed and dosed up on champagne, wine and liquor. If nothing else, Carrie thought, it had given her an insight into how much to order for the bar.

And by tomorrow morning she should have the money to do so. Uncle Patrick had been in no fit state to write any sort of deposit check by the time his wife dragged him up the stairs to bed. He probably wouldn’t even enjoy the wonderful four-poster he’d been so determined to stay in.

Nate caught up with her at the foot of the stairs, his bowtie hanging loose around his neck and his tuxedo jacket long since abandoned. “It went well,” he said, his voice soft. He caught the sleeve of her suit, his fingers warm through the fabric. “Better than I’d imagined.”

Carrie smiled. “It did, didn’t it?”

“This is going to work.” Nate sounded so sure, so certain, that for a moment Carrie couldn’t help but believe him. “All of it. Even Anna.”

“We’ll see,” she said, ducking her head to hide her smile.

“Trust me.” Nate bent down and tucked a finger under her chin, pulling it up again. “You’ve done wonderful things here.”

Carrie felt her shoulders relax and drop, as Nate’s other hand came up to wrap around her waist. Maybe he’d kiss her again.
That would certainly help her get off to sleep.

They were silent, leaning against each other in the darkness of the empty lobby. “You all helped,” Carrie said eventually. “I wanted to do it on my own, but...”

“You don’t have to do everything alone,” Nate said, and his voice was so low and wonderfully resonant against her body, that Carrie found herself swaying forward closer and closer to him.

“I’m starting to realize that,” she whispered.

Nate lowered his head just enough for her to catch his warm eyes. Carrie blinked and moved her gaze to his lips. They really were very close.

But then, suddenly, they were pulling away, and Nate was letting go of her waist and saying, “Well, time for you to get to bed.”

Carrie nodded, and held on to the banister for balance as his hand dropped from her arm too. “Guess so.”

Nate smiled, warm and still close enough for her to see the faint lines at the corners of his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. And he was away, through the front door, back to his summerhouse and farther away from her.

Carrie stood at the bottom of the stairs and thought about following him. Except he hadn’t invited her, had he? And she needed to be there in the morning, when her guests came down for breakfast. And she still didn’t know why he hadn’t kissed her. It’s not like he hadn’t done it before.

With a sigh, Carrie turned and made her way up the stairs toward the attic, pausing at the top of the first flight to listen to Uncle Patrick snoring away in Cyb’s old four-poster bed.

She fell asleep in Nancy’s bed, still wondering why Nate hadn’t kissed her.

* * * *

The thought lingered until the following morning when, after inhaling one of Jacob’s substantial breakfasts, Patrick handed her the deposit check, and Carrie managed to forget all about Nate Green and his lips for almost half an hour.

In fact, until Izzie said, “We should celebrate!” Then, suddenly, all Carrie could think about was exactly how she would like to celebrate with a certain gardener.

“We could have a party,” Jacob suggested, passing through with an English muffin and scrambled eggs for Carrie. “You forgot to eat breakfast again,” he said, handing it to her. For all that she was supposed to be their boss, Carrie was starting to think she was really just there to be looked after.

“A party?” she asked between mouthfuls.

Jacob nodded. “A lock-in. Like Nancy used to have in the bar sometimes.”

All Carrie really remembered from Nancy’s lock-ins was being forbidden to come down from her room as a child while they went on. Still, she murmured a vague agreement all the same.

“Great!” Jacob said, obviously reading more into Carrie’s confirmation that she remembered such things than she’d actually intended. “I’ll bring my decks and play DJ. Georgia’s definitely with her mum tonight, for once, so I’m a free agent.”

“And I’ll let everyone know,” Izzie said, already reaching for the phone.

“Let everyone know what?” Moira asked, coming in from the gardens, muddy gloves in hand.

“About the party tonight, apparently,” Carrie said, with a smile. She could have stopped it if she’d wanted. But Izzie was right–they should celebrate. And why not with a party? Besides, some secret part of her whispered, with a proper party atmosphere and enough alcohol, maybe she could get up the courage to kiss Nate first.

* * * *

The bar of the Avalon Inn was, officially, rocking. Possibly literally for some of the occupants, Nate thought, looking around. Stan leaned rather heavily on the bar, even as Cyb grabbed at his arm and ordered him to come and dance. Nate wasn’t entirely up on the current top forty, and had no idea what music Jacob was playing, but he was pretty sure that Stan and Cyb couldn’t really waltz to it.

Izzie, Nate noticed, stood off by the window, watching Jacob as he worked his magic on the decks. Jacob, absorbed by the music, seemed totally unaware of the attention.

Nate sighed. At some point, someone was going to have to do something about those two. Possibly just lock them in a darkened room until Izzie had her wicked way with him and got Jacob under her thrall.

“Quite the celebration, isn’t it?” Carrie said, appearing beside him holding two glasses of white wine, one almost empty, one full. She handed him the full one. “You’ll probably need this.” Looking down at her strappy green dress, which tied between her breasts, Nate thought she was probably right. He’d only seen her in suit skirts and shirts since she’d arrived. The silky material sliding over her shoulders would take a lot more adjusting to.

“How long’s the party been going?” Nate asked, after taking a long sip of his wine. He needed to know how much catching up he had to do. And how drunk Carrie might already be.

Carrie shrugged. “A couple of hours. Your grandmother said she had to be in bed by midnight, so she wanted an early start. And everyone just sort of...joined in.”

“She’s a party animal, my gran.” Across the room, Nate could see Moira dancing with Cyb to the Rolling Stones. Obviously Jacob’s idea of classical music.

Carrie leaned against the wall beside him, her arm pressing against his and, for what must have been the hundredth time that day, Nate cursed himself for not kissing her the night before. But he’d known he wouldn’t want to stop at kissing and, even if she’d felt the same, she needed to focus on her guests. Of course, the guests were gone now...

“It’s a nice idea, though. Isn’t it?” Carrie looked up at him as she spoke, and her lips distracted him from answering for a moment. “The party, I mean.”

Nate cleared his throat, and looked back over the collection of drinking and dancing Seniors. “Great idea.” He couldn’t remember whose it had been, exactly, although it might even have been Carrie’s.

“I just wanted to do something to say thank you to them for all their help.” She bit her lower lip and Nate found he really couldn’t care less about anyone else in the room.

“I’m sure they appreciate it,” he managed, finally.

“I just hope they enjoy it.”

Nate looked out and saw Cyb and Moira dancing around Stan. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. As long as you laid on enough Campari, you should be fine.”

Carrie looked up at him again, and Nate felt his heart clunk to a stop at the look in her eyes. “Then you don’t think they’d notice if we disappeared for a little while?”

“Disappear?” The word almost choked him.

Carrie nodded. “There’s something I’ve been dying to do.” And with one last glance across the room, she grabbed his hand, surprising strength in her small grip, and dragged him through the door he’d just entered.

There weren’t many ways to interpret the fact she took him to the bridal suite, Nate thought. Carrie had giggled all the way up the stairs, something he’d never heard her do before. In fact, the Carrie he saw that evening was so totally unlike the one who had inhabited the Avalon for the last month, he didn’t know what to make of her.

She paused again in the open doorway, and Nate’s eye couldn’t help but be drawn to the huge double bed in the center of the room. This couldn’t possibly be what it appeared to be. Could it?

“There’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since I found you making this bed.” Carrie’s voice was low and too husky for a whisper. And her hand still curled around his.

Nate swallowed. Hard. “What’s that?”

Carrie gave him a wicked smile, dropped his hand and raced into the bridal suite. “Bounce on it,” she said, and leapt onto the mattress.

With a long, slow blink, Nate smiled. “That could be fun.” And considerably more comfortable than an awkward drunken seduction.

Grinning, Nate bounded up to join her, and missed seeing the pillow Carrie wielded until it was too late.

* * * *

Carrie smiled down at Nate where he lay in a pillow-felled heap on the oversized mattress. “Having fun yet?”

“You said bounce,” Nate answered, rubbing his forehead. “I think I’ve been lured here under false pretenses.”

Somewhere under the gentle hum of wine running through her veins, limbs and brain, Carrie knew leading Nate up to the inn’s most romantic room probably looked like false pretenses in itself, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Uncle Patrick had booked. Everything was going to be okay. And if she wanted to celebrate with a pillow fight, well, she was bloody well entitled. “Can’t take it, huh?”

Nate raised an eyebrow at her, then, without warning, shot out a hand and grabbed her calf, tugged her onto the mattress beside him and whacked a pillow into her middle. “Oh, I can take it.”

Carrie grabbed one of the tiny decorative pillows Cyb had scrounged up from somewhere and sewed extra ribbons on. It was too small and delicate to make any real impact, but she got some pleasure from whacking Nate on the head with it anyway.

They lay in silence for a moment, both breathing harder than Carrie thought their exertions really warranted. Perhaps she’d drunk more than she’d realized. It took surprising effort to concentrate on breathing, focus on slowing the in and out, the draw and release. But once she got the hang of it, it was really very peaceful.

“Have you fallen asleep?” Nate asked, not particularly quietly. “Because if you snore, I’m kicking you out.”

Carrie’s eyes flashed open, and she turned on her side to face him. He was clearly expecting just that response, as a lazy smile waited for her, spread across his face. “I don’t snore.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you offering to find out?” Carrie regretted the words even as she spoke them. Nate’s smile slipped, just a bit, and the inch of space he managed to create between them just by shifting his muscles felt like miles. “I’m sorry. I didn’t...”

“You’re drunk,” Nate said, looking away.

Carrie rolled her eyes. “I’ve had one and a half glasses of wine. I was drunker last time you kissed me. And anyway, that’s not the point.”

He seemed to have relaxed a bit at her words, Carrie realized. He even managed a small smile as he asked, “Do you remember the point?”

“I was joking.” Carrie poked him in the chest to emphasize her point. “Don’t worry, I didn’t drag you up here to sully your virtue or lead you astray.”

Nate shifted onto his side until he faced her, and when Carrie caught his gaze in the moonlight, she started to wonder if that wasn’t exactly why she’d brought him up there.

“So, why am I here?” Nate asked, so close now she could feel his breath on her face, warm and sweet from wine.

Downstairs, the pounding of the speakers had stopped, and Carrie could hear singing. No one would miss them any time soon, she was sure.

So she took her time, and considered her answer carefully, before finally admitting, “I’m not sure.”

Nate didn’t push her, didn’t ask more, and somehow his silence gave her the confidence to go on. “I just... I felt strange down there at the party. Not really a part of it, I suppose.”

“Peril of being the boss,” Nate suggested softly.

Carrie wrinkled her nose. “Maybe. But...I think it’s more than that.”

“You don’t think you belong here.” And, as simple as that, Nate expressed the secret fear Carrie had been trying to ignore, ever since Nancy left her the Avalon Inn.

“This is Nancy’s place. You’re all Nancy’s friends.”

“We’re your friends, too.” Nate rested his hand on her waist, his fingers long enough to almost reach around to her spine. The heat from his palm through the thin silk of her dress mesmerized her. “If you’ll have us.”

Carrie focused on the warmth spreading across her torso, and answered without over thinking, for once. “Because I’m Nancy’s granddaughter? Because I’m your boss? Or...”