The Single Dad Next Door

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Skylar was at the door before Maggie got up from her seat. “You always smell like cinnamon.”

“Thanks.” Maggie grimaced at Mrs. Rowe. “I think.”

Mrs. Rowe yawned. She wore the same outfit she had on yesterday, meaning she had yet to be back home since the bee-sting incident and probably needed a break.

Maggie offered her hand to Ruthy, who shyly took it. “Diane, you can head home. Let Kellen know I have the girls entertained here and he can give a call whenever he feels up to having them come back home. They’re welcome here all day if he’d like to rest. Let him know that, okay?”

Diane Rowe mouthed Thank you and headed back toward the cottage.

Maggie continued into the kitchen and helped both the girls into aprons, folding the fabric over and tying the waist part under their armpits just like the way her mother used to do with her. “Who wants to help me make some brownies?”

“I do!”

“Me!”

“Know what, Miss Maggie?”

Maggie smiled down at Skylar, smoothing her hand over the girl’s hair. “What, sweetheart?”

“We picked the kittens we’re going to keep. A black one and an orange one.”

“The black one had white paws!” Ruthy chimed in.

Skylar nodded. “We’re naming them Pete and Repeat. Isn’t that silly?”

Maggie laughed along with them and promised to visit the kitties soon. “Now, let’s have some fun.” Maggie handed out spoons and cranked the volume on the local Christian radio station to high. Both girls started singing along. Their smiles were infectious.

If Maggie was going to get kicked out of the inn by their father anyway, she could still make a few fun memories with the two sweet little girls. Her eviction wasn’t their fault. All they knew was that their daddy could have died last night. Maggie would do whatever she could to erase the memory of their fear. Brownies were a good start.

* * *

Kellen winced on the way over to the inn.

He’d forgotten how sore an EpiPen shot could make his leg. The bruise it left was nothing short of impressive. Besides the soreness, he felt fine, though, so he needed to continue with getting things in order before Skylar started school on Monday. Mrs. Rowe had offered to watch Ruthy during the workday for the next month until he was settled and could decide if she’d stay around the inn with Kellen during the day or if he’d sign her up for formal day care.

First on the list, he needed to assess the business at the West Oaks Inn. Kellen didn’t want to. Not after Maggie had been so great last night. She’d stayed with him at the hospital. Refilled his water jug whenever it got down to the halfway mark and gone on a mission to find him trail mix from a vending machine located on a different level of the hospital. She’d seemed to thrive off of taking care of someone.

Or she was doing her best to get on his good side now that she knew he owned the mansion.

He almost wished he hadn’t told her. It would have been useful to study her a little longer and be able to decide if she was out to get something from his aunt or if she was what she appeared to be—a caring and passionate person who enjoyed serving others.

Kellen would probably never get to know the honest answer now. What did it matter? His track record at assessing people’s characters wasn’t all that great to begin with. Why start trying now?

He couldn’t put off seeing the ledgers and making choices concerning the inn any longer. He had to plan the best moves to provide for his family. If the inn was working in an efficient manner as he hoped, he could leave it be.

If her reaction to him gutting Ida’s home was any indication, change and Maggie didn’t go well together. He hoped the bed-and-breakfast worked like a well-oiled machine. If not, he’d have to make some changes whether or not Maggie West approved.

Back when his friend had offered him the restaurant-manager position at Casa Bonita as a favor, Kellen didn’t know how he would handle the pressure of such a different job. Lead guitar and singer of a rock band versus managing a five-star restaurant—talk about different worlds. But then, it hadn’t been such a stretch in retrospect. Long hours. Late nights. Lots of time on his feet.

During the Snaggletooth Lions’ early days, Kellen had been the one to schedule their tours, meet with marketing professionals and interview agents. Managing was already like second nature to him by the time he left the band. Good thing his friend had believed in him enough to hand over Casa Bonita. How would he have provided for his daughters if that job hadn’t fallen into his lap?

Kellen ran his hand through his hair.

God had provided. All along, even when Kellen wasn’t being faithful—God was there. Just as He was now. God had worked through Ida to provide a new life for his girls and him. A way out of the busy existence that had become the norm in LA. In Goose Harbor he’d have more time with the girls. He didn’t want them to be in day care eleven hours a day ever again.

As he neared, music filtered out the open kitchen windows with his girls’ laughter sprinkled in for good measure.

He tapped on the back door and waited for an answer. They couldn’t hear him. Kellen cracked open the door and couldn’t help the grin on his face.

Maggie, Skylar and Ruthy danced around the kitchen singing into spatulas. The kitchen looked as though a cookie factory had exploded inside it—mid mixing. Flour painted every surface, and chocolate chips littered the large island counter.

He loved seeing his daughters having a good time, but who paid for the flour and sugar and eggs that had been spilled everywhere? Perhaps he was mean-hearted to think about the bottom line, as Maggie had alluded to the other day. But was the waste Maggie’s goods or was she used to Ida footing the bill on everything and didn’t care what got spilled?

“Daddy!” Skylar spotted him first.

Maggie blushed profusely and set down her spatula. “I said just to call when you were ready for them.”

“I don’t have your number.” He hollered over the music. Kellen eyed the radio.

Maggie read his mind and turned the music down. “The number to the inn is on the internet. You could have looked it up.”

“I came to see the office.”

Skylar flashed a toothy grin. “We’re making brownies, Daddy. From scratch.”

“I can see that.” He cupped her head and dropped a kiss on her hair as he walked past.

Maggie twisted a dishrag in her hands. “The office for the inn?”

“That’s the only one I think is here.”

“It’s a mess.” She wiped the countertop with the rag but only succeeded in spreading the flour.

Kellen raised his eyebrows. “That sort of thing seems to be going around.”

She moved to block the hallway. “Why don’t you let me clean the office first? Come back next week.”

“The inn is my responsibility now.” Clearly the office was down the hallway. Kellen eased closer. “I’d rather have a look-see and get started on coming up with the best plan of action for moving forward.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Plan of action?”

“Just point me in the right direction.”

“Okay.” She pointed to the right. “It’s through the hall. Second door on the left. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Kellen stopped to hug both of his girls before heading to the office. The wooden floor creaked with every step. Was the whole house like that? Guests wouldn’t enjoy or return to a place with floors that creaked like mad. He’d have to walk the whole place with a pad of paper and a pen and document everything that needed to be updated.

He opened the door to the office, and his mouth dropped open.

Paper stacked a foot tall covered the floor except for a small walkway that led to the desk. And what was the point of a desk if he couldn’t even see the surface of it? Kellen entered the room and turned in a slow circle. If this signaled how Maggie kept—or didn’t keep—records, the inn was in worse shape than he’d thought.

He laced his fingers together around the back of his neck.

He’d manage. Didn’t he always? Casa Bonita had been a wreck, too, when his buddy hired Kellen to manage the restaurant. He knew nothing about the restaurant business when he started that job, and now Casa Bonita had one of the best revenue streams in the greater LA area.

Kellen would figure out the bed-and-breakfast industry, too.

Maggie peeked into the room. “I got the girls settled down in my living room with fresh brownies and a Disney movie. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine. Thanks for taking care of them this morning. It sounded like they were having a lot of fun.”

“Anytime. Seriously. They’re a blast to have around.”

“On that note.” Kellen took two steps toward her, which in the small room brought them within a stride of each other. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life last night.”

Maggie toed the floor. “You wouldn’t have been stung if I had gone and talked to you like you asked.”

“Who knows? The past isn’t worth worrying about or reliving. I say, keep moving forward without thinking about the could haves or should haves. You know?”

“Some of the past is worth reliving.”

And that was really the crux that divided Kellen and Maggie. She wanted to stay connected to the past. So much that, for what he’d seen of the inn so far, she filled every nook and cranny with half-broken antique junk. Whereas Kellen wanted to leave the past as it was. Reliving his past meant seeing every mistake he’d made over and over again. No, thanks. He’d rather focus on the future. On who he could become instead of the man he once was.

Keep moving forward.

“Yes.” He pressed his palms together and touched the tips of his fingers to his chin. “Take, for example, when you decided to start piling up all these documents—why don’t we relive that moment right now?”

“Are you going to get rid of me?” Her voice dropped so low he had to lean forward to hear her.

“No.” He answered honestly but decided to leave out the fact that even if he wanted to he couldn’t fire her. “But I am about to change every single aspect of this inn. I hope you’re ready for that.”

The fire blazing in her eyes said she’d never be ready.

Too bad.

Chapter Four (#ulink_9961414a-c4fa-5635-80c8-19dad1ce476c)

Maggie rooted through her dresser for a pair of jeans that weren’t completely worn out or stained from one too many cooking accidents. But finding something nice to wear had suddenly become the most difficult task in the world. How long had it been since she bought new clothes?

She ran her fingers down the sleeve of a sweater hanging in her closet. The hole in the elbow had been there when the garment belonged to her mother. Bunching the fabric, she rubbed it on her cheek. Soft. Comforting. Sensible. What clothes should be. What her entire wardrobe consisted of. Her clothes suited her, or at least had always seemed to.

Until now.

Today everything screamed rumpled, overlooked and dull. Had she really been walking around looking like that for the past ten or more years? How depressing. What must the people in town think? Probably the truth. There goes Maggie, all alone. So sad.

Not that it mattered. Clothes and looks shouldn’t—didn’t—matter. Right?

She let out a huff of hot air. Surely her friends Paige or Shelby could have told her. Someone who cared should have staged an intervention. But perhaps no one cared—not really. Not enough. Maggie always found herself in the position of rescuing, comforting and encouraging. Very rarely did her friendships go the other way around. She’d never thought about that until now.

Maggie fisted her hands.

The floorboard on the top stair of the grand staircase in the lobby creaked. Even from her bedroom in the private portion of the inn, she could hear it. It creaked again. And again. Kellen must be rocking back and forth on the step—trying to figure out how much replacing and refinishing the wood was going to cost him.

Just like every day in the past week, he’d been holed up in the inn’s office already when she got up to make breakfast for the guests. Then today after the last elderly couple checked out and the inn was empty, he’d set off with a ruler, a pad of paper and his phone. Said he had to assess the place. Whatever that meant.

After yanking a pair of dark-wash jeans from the bottom of the stack, she shook them out—they were so stiff from rarely being put on.

Sarah, her younger sister, had purchased the dressier jeans as a present for Maggie’s birthday almost three years ago. At the time, Maggie had told her sister that she was going to return them, but she hadn’t been able to do so after losing Sarah soon after that.

Maggie slipped them on and found a lightweight shirt without too many wrinkles to go on top—it was a shirt she normally saved for greeting new guests at check-in. But Maggie needed to look respectable—if only to give her the confidence boost she needed to ask Kellen for money. Anything to help her case.

On her way out the door she peeked in her mirror, adjusting the clip in her hair after she smoothed down wayward strands. With a deep breath, she stepped into the hallway. As she walked, she traced her fingers along the wall. The feel of the slight embossing of the wallpaper breathed strength into her veins. This was her home. She’d been born here. Took her first steps as a child in the grand entrance. Used to race her sister down the stairs by sliding on the banister. The mansion that made the West Oaks Inn had been in her family’s possession since the founding of Goose Harbor, and while it had been changed when it was first converted into an inn, most of the original character had been saved.

Well—not possession. Maggie had lost the title of owner five years ago. When she’d run out of funds. When her mother passed away, she’d left everything to both Maggie and Sarah, but after Sarah married Caleb she’d chosen to hand over everything to Maggie. Sarah said she and Caleb had enough to manage with starting a nonprofit; they couldn’t afford to help pay for the mansion’s expenses, as well. That left Maggie to pay all the bills, but her job as a cook at a local diner hadn’t brought in enough income. Expenses on the mansion ate into the savings like ants in a picnic basket. And the savings hadn’t amounted to the great West fortune that they were known for. Not after using it to pay for so many medical expenses for her grandmother and mother toward the end. Experimental treatments weren’t covered by insurance.

Thankfully Ida had offered to purchase the house and let the rest of town believe that Maggie still owned it. Converting the old home into a bed-and-breakfast had been Ida’s idea, as well. Think, Magpie. Just think. A ready income right from the mansion. Ida and her husband had possessed the ability to see possibilities and hope when no one else did. Whether it be in relation to business, government or matters of the heart.

Prior experience told Maggie that the ache in her chest would last for the rest of her life. Ida hadn’t been a blood relation, but she had been as close as family. And now she was gone. Just like everyone else important to her. At least now there was no one left to lose.