Here Comes Trouble Page 0,119
if I’m not exactly thrilled with that idea. I mean, you’re right, it’s going to happen, but—”
He reached for her, but she took another step back, purely instinctive, and tried not to feel bad when hurt flashed across his handsome face.
“Kirby,” he said, “I don’t want to compete against you. I want to do this with you.”
She let that sink in for a second and then spoke from her heart. “I just want to run my own inn. I don’t want to run multiple properties or get back into any kind of—”
“Management companies will run the places. I don’t want to run them and you have a place to run. Your place. I just want the challenge of finding and reworking interesting old places, possibly designing my own as well. But I need your help with that. Or, I want your help with that.” He lifted his hand. “Yes, it means more places that offer guests a night’s stay, but trust me, you have the foot in the door there. You can only take so many guests and I’m offering houses, not rooms.”
“So you want me to run my inn and help you run…whatever it is you’re going to be doing? Brett—”
He stepped forward and tugged her arms from their crossed position. “Come here. Please,” he added when she dragged her feet a little.
“I don’t think as clearly when you have your hands on me.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “You’re on to my evil plan then.”
She couldn’t help it, her mouth twitched a little.
“Kirby, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, you know that.” He leaned down to make direct eye contact with her. “You do know that.”
“I want to know it,” she said.
“This is what I was thinking. The bulk of your business is fall and winter. I can only do what I do during spring and summer. I help you during your high season, and you help me during mine. I’ll use my off season to research, look at property, work on design ideas, and you can use your more relaxed guest booking times to help me finish the places off when I’m done. If you want to. No pressure.”
She laughed. “Right.”
He did smile. “Okay, maybe a little. It’s not something you have to decide in this exact instant. It’s a long ways off before I’m at that stage. I just…I want to share this with you. It’s partly because of you, because of this place, the mountains…I don’t know. It’s like a whole new beginning, what I’ve found here. I couldn’t imagine you not being part of it. You’re such a huge part of it already.”
So he was making a commitment. To Pennydash, anyway. Which put him in her world…permanently. Or at least for the immediate future. Far more of one than she thought she’d have with him. It was hard to let herself go and embrace that…she felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was almost too good to be true. And those things usually were.
“You’re still not sure of me, are you?” he asked.
“Are you of me?”
“I’m sure that when you commit to something, you do what you set out to do. I trust your word. I trust—yes, I trust you, Kirby. I know people.” Something flickered in his eyes then, and she wondered if he was thinking of his friend Dan. “I know enough to be comfortable with my decisions, anyway. Just think about it.”
“Okay, I will,” she said, knowing she had a hell of a lot more to think about than just whether or not she wanted in on his business venture.
“When do you plan to start?” she asked.
“It will depend on what the weather decides to do over the next few months. There’s a ton of preliminary work to be done before any actual work takes place. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy until spring.”
She debated for about five seconds before just blurting out the crux of what was holding her back. “Will you be doing this preliminary work here? Or are you going back to Vegas?”
“Here,” he said, clearly surprised at the question. “I meant what I said when I asked about me staying. I am staying, Kirby.”
She took a steadying breath. But her heart was already off to the races again. “What about home? Your friend Dan? Vanetta?”
“I tried to talk to Dan about it last night, see if he wanted in on the building phase, but…things there…” He trailed off, and the sadness and