The days fell into a pattern at Blackwood Inn. Before five o’clock in the morning, Lauren would slip from JC’s bed. Going to the family residence she would shower then dress for the day. She made her way to the kitchen to prepare pastry and breakfast for her guests and children. Most mornings JC would join in the family time before school, helping send the children off to the bus and giving the family dogs of romp before heading off to the ski slopes. He returned in time to collect the children from the bus. While Lauren prepared dinner, JC helped with snacks and homework.
Other guests thought JC was actually part of the Blackwood Inn. They didn’t hesitate to ask him if they needed something or had a special request. Instead of saying he was a guest as well, he nodded and passed the information to Lauren. If the lobby phone rang as he passed, he picked it up. If the great room fire needed more wood, he added logs. He served as host to the after ski set, making sure cookie platters were kept filled and the urns of hot beverages were kept filled.
“I am going to refund your money,” Lauren stated as JC carried in an empty tray of cookies into the kitchen and picked up a full one. “I should actually pay you.”
JC wiggled his eyebrows wickedly. “You do pay me, honey.” He mouthed ”every night” since the children were at the table eating their snack. At her blush of embarrassment, he touched her hand. “Don’t worry about the money.”
“But this is your vacation,” she protested.
“It is – a vacation from my daily routine.”
“Joshua—”
“Lauren.” Without further argument, JC carried the tray through the kitchen door.
“Mom, when will Grampa be back?” Sam asked.
Her father-in-law. Max Blackwood would know immediately something was up between Lauren and their helpful, handsome guest. She wondered at his reaction. Max had been saying for sometime not that Lauren needed to get on with her life. But she was certain an affair with a guest had not been what he’d been planning for her.
“Tomorrow.”
“Goodie!” Olivia enthused, clapping her hands.
“You won’t have to work so hard,” CJ stated. “Mr. Chasez helps but he can’t do a lot.”
“And he isn’t supposed to do be doing anything,” Lauren added.
“He likes us,” Olivia said. “He likes it here.”
‘And he likes sex with a woman who appreciated him like he invented it’, Lauren mused. It filled her with equal parts trepidation, eagerness, and fear. Each night Lauren would climb the stairs, her travel alarm in hand. JC would be waiting for her, sometimes impatient and rough, sometimes tender and sweet. It was a sort of excitement and physical pleasure she hadn’t even suspected existed outside of fiction. A thorough teacher and teasing playmate – she hadn’t known sex could be silly and fun. And there was an additional depth to their encounters that thrilled and frightened her. Once he left her life would become boring and static. Some of the color of her life would leave with him.
‘You dolt! You are falling in love with the man!’ she scolded herself.
Max. She needed her father-in-law to come back and make the foolish liaison more difficult. She needed a healthy dose of guilt and adult disapproval. “I can hardly wait.”
“May I help you?” JC asked as a big bear of a man with steel gray hair came in the front door.
He looked to be in his late fifties, fit and stern. He dropped his bags by the check in desk and leveled a dark gaze on the younger man. “I wasn’t aware Lauren was hiring help this year,” he said in a gruff voice that matched his outward appearance. “You’re kinda on the scrawny side.”
Ahh... This had to be Max Blackwood – He nearly made two of JC. “I’m not hired help. I’m Joshua Chasez, a guest.”
“Then why did you ask if you could help me?”
“Lauren is in the kitchen. I would get her if you were checking in. I was on my way out.”
Max studied the young man – and JC felt he had just been inspected for his suitability as a prospective mate for Lauren – and been dismissed.
“On your way then, Mister Chasez. See you at dinner.”
Grabbing his jacket from the family coat rack, JC noted the raised eyebrows of Max Blackwood. As he headed out the door, he wondered if would be welcomed at the family table now the patriarch had returned. His place and role at Blackwood Inn had just changed – and he found he didn’t like it one bit. He had become alpha male in just one short week. He had become host, homework checker and Lauren’s lover. Had he lost all of it?
“Grampa!” Olivia threw herself at her grandfather as she hurried off the school bus. She giggled as he picked her up and tossed her in the air as if she weighed nothing. He was big like her father had been – big and safe.
“How is my princess?” Max asked as he settled her on his hip in time to grab up Sam as well. “And my buckaroo?”
Olivia hugged his neck. “I missed you.”
“Me too!” Sam echoed.
CJ hung back a little, Jasper coming to his side. “Hi, Grampa.”
Setting the twins to their feet, Max swept his oldest grandchild up into a bear hug. Sometimes the boy forgot to be a child. “How’s my tiger?”
“Okay, Grampa.” CJ smiled. “How did you like Florida?”
“No snow. Gotta have snow.”
“We’ve had lots.”
“I see. The inn’s full.”
“Mom’s been real busy but Mister Chasez helps out.
Grey bushy eyebrows rose. “Mister Chasez?”
“He says he can’t cook his way out of a wet paper bag, but he helps us with homework and running towels and stuff.”
“Oh, really?” That was interesting; Lauren was never one to trust strangers with her children or guests.
“Where is he?” Olivia demanded. “He usually meets the bus.”
“Haven’t seen him since he left this morning.” Max put CJ down to herd the children up the walk. “Let’s go for a snack and you can tell me everything I’ve missed.”
JC didn’t know what his reception would be when he arrived from the slopes that afternoon. He hadn’t returned for the school bus purposely, not wanting to make things awkward for Lauren. He would however have to speak with her about his place – or rather her place in his bed. As luck would have it, she was setting up the great room for the guests’ pre-dinner snacks.
Looking up from arranging mugs, she saw him hang up his jacket and gave him a warm smile. “Did you have a good day?” she asked.
“I officially spend more time on my skis than on my butt,” he quipped.
“Glad to hear it.”
He went to her side. “Lauren, we need to talk.”
“I know.” She reached up to press a quick kiss on his lips. “But now isn’t good. The children are doing their homework in the kitchen—”
“Am I welcome in there? With your father-in-law here?”
“Max does the hosting duties and he eats dinner out here.”
“That doesn’t answer my questions.”
“The children are waiting for you. They’ve been asking where you were. And I do expect you at the dinner table.”
“Tonight—”
“I’ll be there when I can.”
JC felt a weight lift off his chest. He wasn’t being dumped.
“Want to tell me about the helpful Mister Chasez?” Max asked as Lauren lingered in the kitchen that evening. “Since when do guests help out with my grandchildren, eat in the kitchen, and run towels?”
Lauren folded some kitchen linens, avoiding her father-in-law’s eyes. “When he arrived he was our only guest.”
“That’s happened before.”
“The twins and Barney made a less than graceful beginning of his stay.” She recounted JC landing in the bushes with Barney’s help and how forgiving JC had been. “He’s been very nice and the kids like him.”
“I’m not blind Lauren. I see the way he looks at you – and the way you look at him.”
“He’s only here for a week or so more.”
“You deserve more.”
“Joshua isn’t offering more, Max. We agreed on that.”
“You’re sleeping with a stranger, Lauren. That just is not you.”
“Not like me? What am I like, Max?”
“You need permanence.”
“Well, right now, I am settling for being a woman a few hours a night. I can’t change my life. I’m a widow with three children, two dogs and an inn to run. I can’t offer him anymore either, Joshua accepts that.”
“Then he’s a fool.”
“He has a life elsewhere. He’s single and wealthy and handsome. He doesn’t need to settle for someone with so much baggage.”
Max squeezed her hand affectionately. “No one who wins your heart is settling Lauren. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I am being realistic, men like him don’t take on so much extra for a woman.”
“Have you asked him how he feels about it?”
“I don’t need to. I don’t want to. We promised this would last till the end of his stay.”
Max harrumphed. “I knew he looked scrawny. I didn’t think he looked stupid.”
JC’d had plenty of time to think by the time Lauren came to him that night. A lot needed to be discussed. Trouble was Lauren gave him no chance to talk. She dropped her robe and was on him almost immediately. She was eager and seductive. Words seemed insignificant at the moment. Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow they’d talk.