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Mountain Sanctuary
Lenora Worth
MILLS & BOON
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To Valerie Hansen, my treasured Arkansas friend!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter One
Adam Callahan slanted his head sideways so he could read the crooked sign in front of him.
Sanctuary House Inn Bed-and-Breakfast. Established 1888. Underneath the faded etched letters, a handwritten message announced Under New Management. Instead of a No Vacancy sign, someone had written—in what looked a child’s scribblings—Lots Of Vacancies.
Well, he needed a bed and he needed breakfast. And this was apparently the last place in Hot Springs, Arkansas, that had both. Just his luck that he’d come rolling into town during some sort of art festival. Every hotel and bed-and-breakfast in Hot Springs and the surroundings areas of Lake Hamilton and Lake Catherine was booked solid for the next three days.
Except this one.
“Lots of vacancies,” Adam said out loud as he straightened his head, the tight muscles in his neck reminding him why he’d left New Orleans in the first place.
“I need to rest,” he said as he headed up the cracked, aged bricks of what once must have been a carriage drive. Looking up at the Gothic-like, Victorian-style turreted house with the peeling white paint and the broken green shutters, Adam wondered if he’d find any rest here. In the first light of an unforgiving yellow-gold dawn, the old house had the lost, forlorn look of a granny woman with dementia.
Adam could identify with that feeling. He’d been traveling all night and was bone weary. But he’d felt lost and forlorn for months now, his gut twisting with an emptiness that food couldn’t fill. He also felt as if he’d been wandering in the wilderness for forty days, confused and dazed, after all the anguish he’d seen in his ten years as a police officer in New Orleans.
But you resigned from the force, he reminded himself, his gaze taking in the dead blossoms on the geraniums sitting in cracked pots by the side entrance to the B and B. The once-red blooms looked as burned-out and lifeless as Adam felt right now. With automatic precision, he reached down and plucked a few of the dried-up red blooms. Then he caught himself and stopped. He just needed sleep. Lots of sleep.
He’d just put one booted foot on the lopsided wooden steps, when he heard weeping coming from the open window right next to the porch.
Startled, Adam pivoted off the porch steps to stare into the long, wide window. The sight he saw immediately caught his attention and made him forget he was tired and sleepy.
A petite woman with waist-length, flowing strawberry-blond hair stood at the aged butcher block table in the middle of the long, narrow kitchen, her hands covering her face as she leaned her head over and sobbed openly. The woman wore a flowery, gauzy dress covered by a smudged white apron that had so many ruffles they seemed to overpower both the dress and the woman wearing it. The smell of something burning caused Adam to glance from the distraught woman to the smoke coming out of the ancient six-burner stove sitting haphazardly against one wall. The woman seemed to be ignoring the smoke, but Adam saw a burned batch of what once must have been muffins spilled out on parchment paper on the messy butcher-block table. As he watched, the woman wiped at her eyes, then picked up one of the charred muffins and threw it across the kitchen, causing dishes to rattle in the wide, deep white porcelain sink.
Then she burst into tears again.
Which caused all of Adam’s ingrained protective instincts to kick into overdrive, even while the practical part of his brain warned him in flashing, glaring banners to just turn around and keep walking.
“Excuse me,” he heard himself saying into the window. “Uh, ma’am, could I possibly get a room?” Then, because he just couldn’t stop himself, he added, “And is there anything I can do to help you?”
The sound of his voice caused the woman to look up in surprise, her expression changing from disturbed to mortified as she glared at Adam through the window. “What?”
“I need a place to stay,” Adam said, his tone gentle now. “Can I come in?”
“Do you know how to make blueberry muffins?” the woman asked on a loud sniff, her daring expression telling him this might be the deal breaker.
“I sure do,” he said with a soft smile. “I happen to make the best blueberry muffins this side of the Mason-Dixon line.”
“You’re teasing me, right?” she asked, tossing her long wavy hair back over her shoulder, her brilliant green eyes flashing. “And, mister, I am in no mood to be teased this morning.”
“I’m not teasing,” Adam replied, determination making him want to win entry into this strange, intriguing house so he could find out what was the matter with this strange, intriguing woman. “I was a cook in the navy. And on the police force back in New Orleans, I was the unofficial designated cook for all of our get-togethers. I did all the cooking for the guys—” He stopped, remembering cookouts and crawfish boils back on the bayou. “I can make muffins,” he said, his tone turning blunt and businesslike as he shoved the memories away. “But first, you have to let me in. Oh, and you might want to check on whatever’s in the oven.”
At that, she let out a wail and rushed to the oven, then opened it to let out even more smoke. Shouting to Adam over her shoulder, she said, “C’mon on in. And hurry.”
Adam didn’t waste time getting there. He rushed up onto the side porch, found the door unlocked and entered, the big stained glass door squeaking his arrival.
A small boy wearing action-figure-embellished pajamas stood waiting for him, his hair the same thick strawberry-blond color of the woman’s. The boy slanted big hazel eyes underneath long bangs, then flapped his hands in the air. “Wow, am I glad to see you. This is the third batch she’s tried this morning, and most of our visitors have done left and gone to get a sausage biscuit out on the highway.”
Adam had to chuckle at the kid’s dead-serious expression. “And just who are you?”
“Kyle Watson Forsythe,” the boy said, extending a hand in a very grown-up manner. “I’m trying to help my mom. But she says this place is nothing but a big, ol’ money pit and she wishes she’d never in-hair-it-ted it in the first place.”
Adam wondered what else the kid, who looked to be around six or seven, had learned from his mama, but he refrained from asking that right now. “Show me the way to the kitchen, son,” he said in his best cop voice, his instincts on full alert.
The boy rubbed his nose, then pointed. “Down that hallway to the right.” He pointed again, his expression bordering on panic. “She thinks the stove is messed up.”
“Thanks.” Adam dropped his leather duffel bag onto the hardwood floor and stalked across the formal Victorian parlor toward the kitchen and the sobbing woman.
Stella’s head came up at the swishing of the swinging door, her mind numb with failure and a definite lack of faith. Everyone had assured her that running this place would be an ideal job for her since she was organized to a fault and had a good business head. They said the Sanctuary practically took care of itself. Well, they had all been somewhat misinformed. And she’d been gullible and crazy to think she could do this on her own. Wishing the older couple that had helped her mother hadn’t retired to Branson, Stella squared her shoulders and took a deep breath as she waited for the muffin man.
She’d take whatever help she could find, including help from a perfect stranger.
The man who came barreling into the kitchen seemed to fill the vast space with his very presence, causing Stella to inhale the leftover sob she’d been about to emit into the air. Wiping her eyes with one of the annoying frilly ruffles of her dead mother’s apron, Stella tried to focus on this interesting person who’d apparently come to her rescue.
He was tall, but not too tall. His hair was clipped and edged into brittle brown tufts across his forehead and around his ears. His eyes, wide and hesitant right now, were a rich grayish blue. But it was his face that held Stella’s attention. His face looked as worn and aged as the masculine tan wallpaper in her daddy’s study across the hallway. It was a face etched in hard living, all planes and angles, all rough male, muscular and scarred. This man, whoever he was, sure didn’t look like someone who could make blueberry muffins. More like he could take down a band of ragamuffins with one strong-armed swipe.
“Did you say the navy?” she asked, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, two tours of duty. Then ten years on the police force in New Orleans. I’m retired now.”
The way he said that made Stella think it might not have been a voluntary retirement. “Is it still bad from the storms down there?” she asked, not one for making small talk.
“As bad as things can get and then some, but I still love the place.” He opened the refrigerator and found the fresh blueberries, then grabbed a mixing bowl from the ones stacked along an open bottom shelf underneath the butcher block. “Flour?”
Stella pointed to the tin canister sitting on the counter. “I have the recipe—”
“Don’t need it. I have my own recipe.” He tapped his forehead. “Right here.”
She leaned across the counter. “That’s real nice, but do you have a way of fixing an oven that refuses to cook at the correct temperature? I’m pretty sure the thermostat has gone haywire.”
He opened the door of the oven. “I think I see the problem, but it’ll have to cool down before I can get in there and fix it. Do you have a microwave or a toaster oven?”
She nodded. “But—”
“I know how to make microwave muffins.”
“Amazing,” Stella said through a sniff. “Uh, what’s your name?”
“Adam,” he said, eyeballing flour into the bowl. “Adam Callahan. And you?”
“Stella Forsythe.”
“Nice to meet you, Stella.” Then he motioned with his head toward the refrigerator. “I need about two eggs.”
She managed to find him “about two” eggs and “about a half cup” of oil and several other ingredients he called for in precise order. Then she stood back and watched as he went to work, his gray gaze centered on the creamy mixture inside the big white bowl.
“Do you need the mixer?” she asked.
“Nope.” He floured the blueberries, then whipped them right into the mix, lifting an eyebrow toward her. “But I do need a clean muffin pan. One that works in the microwave.”
Stella scrambled to find a pan that wasn’t coated with burned muffin remains. “I have this plastic one I use in there. Should I grease it?”
“Yeah. Grease and a little flour all over.”
She did as he told her, glad the splotchy red patches she always got along her neck and throat whenever she was under emotional stress had seemed to settle down into just freckles now. She hated getting all splotchy, but today had been a triple splotchy day, and it wasn’t even 7:00 a.m. yet.
“I’d planned an egg casserole, too,” she told him as he put the muffins into the microwave. “But—”
“Give me the ingredients,” he told her, his hands on his hips, a wet, white dish towel with tiny daisies on its hem thrown across his broad shoulder.
Stella moved like a sleepwalker, gathering ham and eggs, cheese and bread, her thoughts running together mumbo jumbo. Lord, how did I get so lucky? she asked the heavens in a silent prayer of thanks. Dear God, did You finally hear my pleas? The smell of blueberry muffins answered her, sweet and plump and intoxicating.
In minutes, the man had created a big glass Pyrex dish full of the breakfast-casserole concoction, adding a sprinkle of nutmeg to the top to make it look pretty. After the muffins were done, he shoved that into the microwave, then he meticulously went about tidying up the kitchen, stopping here and there to grunt out questions to Stella.
“How old’s your boy?”
“Six.”
“How long you been in Hot Springs?”
“About two months.”
“What happened with the muffins this morning?”
“I don’t know how to cook very well and the oven doesn’t, either.”
“Why is this place such a mess?”
“Because of the oven. I got backed up with the first batch of muffins, so I tried another one. Things went downhill from there.”
About forty minutes and twenty questions later, the casserole bubbled its way to perfection. Announcing it almost done, he turned back to Stella. “How many?”
“How many what?”
“How many people are you expecting for breakfast?”
A little voice from the corner of the room shouted out. “We only got about four people waiting in the parlor, Mama. The rest left.”
Stella glanced over at her son. “Oh, Kylie, why are you still in your pajamas?” She’d told him to get dressed, but the boy had a mind of his own.
Kyle grinned, showing the gap where he’d lost two teeth. “I was just talking to everyone.”
The boy could talk, no doubt about that. “Run on up and get dressed and then you can eat. I’ll take care of our guests.” Since his father had died, Kyle somehow thought he had to be the man of the house. That realization brought more tears to her eyes, but Stella held this batch of sobs back for her son’s sake. “Thank you, honey, for entertaining our guests. You can tell them to meet us in the dining room. Breakfast will soon be served.”
“Did this man cook all that food?” Kyle asked, clearly impressed.
Stella sent a shy glance toward the big man washing dishes. “He sure did.”
“Sweet,” Kyle said, his eyes bright with unbridled delight. “I’m starving to death.” Then he looked back toward Stella, his big brown eyes breaking her heart with love. “Can I go get Papa?”
“Yes, go tell Papa to come and get it while it’s hot.”
Kyle grinned. “Ain’t he gonna be surprised?”
Stella smiled. Answering her son with an example of correct English, she said, “Yes, Papa certainly is going to be surprised. Not ain’t gonna.”
“Whatever,” Kyle said with kid practicality. “He ain’t gonna believe his eyes, that’s for sure.”
Stella shook her head, then tossed her hair back.
Adam eyed her over his shoulder. “He’s a handful, I reckon.”
“You can say that again.”
“What’s your husband do?”
“He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He’s probably better off that way. And I know we’re better off for it.”
Realizing the man was staring at her with such intensity it bordered on shock, Stella waved a hand in the air. “I shouldn’t have said that. Lawrence was a no-good, cheating, drinking vagrant who pretty much robbed me blind, but I guess he had a soul. Or at least I hope so, anyway, for Kyle’s sake. He had a bad wreck on I-30 one rainy Saturday night about a year ago. Wrapped his souped-up Mustang around a steel pole on an embankment. And that was that.”
“Is that why you moved here?”
“No.” She wondered just when he’d get enough and leave. Everybody usually did. “I moved here after my mother died last year. This was her house.” She shrugged. “I mean, she lived here, but somebody ran the place for her. She spent most of her time out back in the studio. She was…an artist.”
He nodded at that, his expression blank as he rinsed a now-scrubbed muffin pan. “And Papa?”
Well, the man didn’t miss a thing. Figured, him being a cop. Always aware of his surroundings, she reasoned. She knew how cops operated, since her dearly departed husband had several run-ins with the law over the years she’d been with him. “Papa is my daddy, Watson Clark. Everyone calls him Wally, though. My mother left him when I was ten, but they never divorced. After she died, I brought him here to live with us and help out. But he can’t do a whole lot. He has a lot of health problems.”
She finished wiping down the counter, then prepared the plates for the guests, careful to make sure each plate was distinctively different in style and pattern, just to mix things up. She’d read somewhere that it was okay to do that, and besides, she didn’t really care about proper etiquette at this point.
“Got any fruit?” Adam asked over her shoulder, causing her to almost drop a delicate blue-etched plate.
“In the refrigerator. Strawberries, I think. And maybe some grapes.”
“We’ll add a few bites to each serving,” Adam said, already digging through the stuffed refrigerator. “You need to clean this thing out.”
“I’ll get to it,” Stella said, thinking one day she’d get to every little thing around here. “Soon.”
“Let’s get in there and serve our guests,” Adam said, holding a silver tray full of food in his hands. “Got the coffee ready?”
“Yes, I do know how to make coffee at least.” Then she winced. “Well, you might want to test it before we take it out.”
“I think I just might.”
He grinned, then headed through the swinging doors to the dining room. Stella grabbed another tray of food, thinking she liked the way he’d said “serve our guests.”
Don’t be silly, she admonished as she served the pleasantly surprised guests who were loyal customers from past years, bless them. He’s just passing through. He just happened up when you were in a fix. He just happened up when you needed him the most. And he’ll be gone before you even miss him. But the sweet smell of those incredible blueberry muffins made Stella hope Adam Callahan wouldn’t be in too big of a hurry to keep moving.
Chapter Two
“So…can I get my room now?”
Adam stood in the kitchen with Stella, watching as she put away the last of the breakfast dishes. The meal had been a success. The older couple from Florida and the honeymooners from Texas had all raved about the breakfast, all four of them fascinated and in awe as they asked Stella over and over how she’d pulled it off.
“First breakfast we’ve had in two days that wasn’t either burned or raw,” Mr. Gilchrest said with a wink. “Stella, did you find a new cookbook somewhere?”
“No, just a new friend,” Stella told the senior citizen, her eyes glowing with pride while her father and her son looked on with that same pride.
“Are you gonna keep him?” Joyce Gilchrest asked, her hazel eyes full of curiosity as she gave Adam the once-over.
Stella laughed and tossed her incredible hair. “I’m sure gonna give him that room he came looking for, you can count on that. Adam has to be exhausted after whipping up this great breakfast so lickety-split.”
Joyce smiled over at Adam. “We’ve been coming here every spring for the last ten years. We miss Estelle, but we love Stella just about as much as we loved her mother. So we came back this year to lend her our support.”
“It’s mighty nice of you to be that loyal,” Adam said.
“We love it here,” Joyce replied. “I think you will, too. Don’t you think so, Wally?”
Wally Clark gave Adam a long appraising look that was part gratitude and part protectiveness. Stella’s father was a quiet man, unassuming and undemanding, but Adam sensed a steel-encased dignity behind the calm, stoic exterior.
“Hot Springs—you either love it or hate it,” Wally replied, his smile serene.
“I liked those muffins,” Kyle offered up, his big eyes solemn. “But not the burned ones.”
“Kylie, finish your breakfast,” Stella said, turning red in the face. But she sent her son a sweet smile, all the same.
The honeymooners sitting across the dining room cooed and grinned, obviously too in love to expect anyone else to have problems in this life. “It was good,” the pretty blonde said, smiling over at her doting husband. “But then, I can hardly remember any of the meals anyway. We’re having so much fun.”
“I sure remember ’em,” Mr. Gilchrest replied with a grimace. “Had indigestion to remind me.” He chuckled then nodded toward Stella. “But I have very high hopes for our Stella. She’s gonna turn this place into a showcase one day.”
Adam watched as Stella basked in the compliments. “This place has a lot of potential,” he said, sending her his own smile of confidence. “And so does the hostess.”
Stella waved a hand in the air in dismissal. “Okay, now, don’t go giving me a big head. I still got a lot to learn. And the first rule—hire good help.”
“Amen,” Mr. Gilchrest said, lifting his coffee cup.
They all laughed out loud at that, including Adam.
Now that everyone had been fed, and the guests had headed out to the festival, Stella bobbed her head in response to Adam’s question, her long hair cascading over her shoulder. “Papa’s putting fresh sheets on the downstairs bedroom right across from the parlor. It’s a smaller room near our private quarters, but it’s usually nice and quiet toward the front of the house. And we have a creditable library down there, too, if you like to read.”
Adam lifted his head. “And far enough away from the stove?” At her confused look, he added, “Smoke.”
“Funny.” Then she looked down at the now-polished and shining butcher-block counter. “I want to thank you, Adam. I don’t know what I would have done this morning if you hadn’t come along. I’m good at multitasking, so I usually have things under control, but I might have taken on too much with this place. I’m not normally so emotional, but well…it just all hit me at once this morning. A lot has gone wrong around here since I took over. But I’m determined to make it work.”
Adam could see that although she was pretty and petite, Stella Forsythe seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders. “You’re in a tough spot,” he said. “We just have to figure how to get you out of it.”
“If I knew what I was doing, that might help,” she said with a self-deprecating snort. “My mother left me this place, and at first, I saw it as a new beginning. I’d been living hand to mouth up in Little Rock, working odds jobs here and there just to keep Kyle fed and clothed.” She shrugged, started gathering up dish towels. “My mother and I weren’t exactly close. She left us when I was young and I never forgave her. So I was shocked when I found out I’d inherited this old place. Shocked and amazed.”
She glanced around, her green eyes lifting toward the high ceiling of the kitchen. “I used to dream of living here with her. I got to visit her during the summer, but I wanted to live here all the time, with both my parents. My dad did the best he could, working hard to raise me, sending me to school, cooking dinner for us at night, helping me with my homework. But…I guess I needed my mama, too. That’s why I was crying this morning. I needed my mama.”
Adam looked down at the aged wooden floor where the slant in the boards met in the middle of the big room with a soft sag. “That had to be tough. Why didn’t you live with her? I mean, fathers rarely win custody of a child.”
Stella let out a soft chuckle, then shook her head. “My family doesn’t go by the book on such things. They never divorced, never consulted any lawyers. They just kind of agreed that I’d stay with Daddy. You see, he was the more solid of the two.” She started walking toward the little laundry room just off the kitchen. “My mother’s only passion was her art. She could paint a pretty picture, but she didn’t have a pretty life.”
Adam didn’t question her anymore. She looked drained, washed out, defeated. “Uh…I guess I’ll go get a shower and some sleep.” At her nod, he stopped. “Stella, maybe we could negotiate an arrangement of sorts.”
She lifted her slanted brows. “What kind of arrangement?”
The question was asked with a not-so-subtle suspicion, as if she’d made arrangements before and lived to regret them.
“In exchange for room and board, I could help out around here for a while. Fix things up, cook. I’m good at things like that—you know, fixing up, cleaning up and cooking.”
Adam hated the plea in his voice, but he didn’t want to leave the Sanctuary Inn just yet. Something about the needy old house had captivated him. Or maybe it was something about the need he saw in the woman standing beside him that had captivated him. Besides, he wasn’t intent on going anyplace in a hurry. He’d come here to get as far away as possible from his past and his old life. Why not stay awhile and just…rest?
Stella looked at him as if he might be crazy, her eyes going wide, her mouth opening and then closing. “You’d be willing to do all that just for a place to sleep?”
“Sure. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not destitute. But I am on a budget, being retired and all. And it’d just be until I can find…until I can decide what to do next.”
She stood with her foot propped against the partially open door to the laundry room, the bundle of towels in her hands. “I’ll have to discuss it with Papa and Kyle, but I think we might be able to work something out. I mean, if you can make meals like the one you made this morning and help me get this place back into shape, well, who am I to turn you away?”
“I can fix that oven, too,” he reminded her. “Easy.”
“Then you’ve got a job.” She named her terms. “Room and board—and a weekly salary—I insist on paying you for your time and trouble.” She told him what the last maintenance man got paid. “Is that reasonable?”
“More than reasonable. Thank you,” Adam said, no other words available. It had been a long time since anyone had just accepted him. But then, he figured Stella had just about reached the end of the road, same as he had. “I’m going to my room now. I guess I’ll see you later.”
“Yes, later,” she said, her expression puzzled and questioning. She turned to head into the laundry room, then whirled back around. “Adam?”
“Hmm?”
“Why are you here?”
Adam braced one hand on the swinging door opposite her, wondering how to answer that very loaded question. “It’s the first place I saw that had a vacancy,” he said. “Seemed like a good place to lay my head.” And before she could question him again, he turned and went through the swinging door, the swish, swish of it moving behind him, sending little currents of air chasing at his retreating back.
Stella went about the business of getting all the linens washed. This work she didn’t mind so much. This work had meaning. Washing away the old, bringing out the fresh and clean. She liked to fold the sheets and towels just out of the dryer, the smell of sunshine and tropical breezes making her put her nose to the crisp white linens.
At least her mother had had the good sense to buy nice linens. Or maybe it had been Mrs. Ebard. Mrs. Ebard and her husband had managed the Sanctuary up until the day Stella had taken over. Tired and old and cranky, the married couple couldn’t wait to leave and be done with the falling-down old house. Stella remembered Louise Ebard’s words to her the day she’d called to tell Stella that Estelle Forsythe had died.
“She just went to sleep and never woke up. Heart attack. At fifty-five. And her a little skinny thing, at that. ’Course, it might have been the smoking and drinking or the late nights out in that studio, who knows.” After much sniffing and crying, Mrs. Ebard had added, “She wanted you to have the inn, honey. Told me long ago—that’s in her will. But I have to tell you, things are bad here. It’s a bit run-down. We don’t get many visitors except the ones that have been coming here for years. Just the regulars or the occasional traveler who can’t find anything better. I still cook and Ralph works on the yard and house, but we can’t keep at this anymore. It’s just bad.”
“Really bad,” Stella said now, hearing the sound of her son’s laughter out in the back garden. Her daddy was out there with Kyle, trying to clip the wisteria back before it took over the studio. Her mother had loved wisteria. But as beautiful as the purple, scented blossoms were this time of year, Stella knew even wisteria, left untamed, eventually suffocated everything in its path. The same way her mother had filled a room and suffocated everyone and everything in it, taking over, demanding, manipulating, the sweet scent of her perfume mixed with the charcoal smell of cigarettes wafting through the air until Stella would almost choke with the pain and grief of not measuring up, of not understanding that her mother was both brilliant and a bit mad.
“Flighty.” That’s what her father had called his Estelle. Flighty and scatterbrained and tormented and talented. Not a woman made for maternal instincts, not a woman made to stay with one man. Not a woman to want her only daughter to bother her when she was working. One simple, hardworking man and one small, scared little girl, left behind, with only the scent of wisteria to comfort them.
And yet, they’d both willingly come here to the home where the woman they’d loved had lived alone amongst strangers. And died alone, all of her guests gone. Maybe they were each hoping to catch a bit of Estelle’s elusive spirit, to be near the places she’d been near, to touch the things she’d touched.
Stella hoped her father tamed that wisteria vine, once and for all. And she had to wonder for the hundredth time why she’d even bothered coming here. Did she want to be reminded of all that her mother had given up in order to have her freedom, her art? Did she want to be here so she could remember, or had she brought her son and her father here to start over, to forget?
