Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
TESSA
Holy shit. What had I just done?
Rushing around the island, I stopped in front of the woman who was in the middle of crying her eyes out and placed my hands on her arms, hunching down to meet her eyes. “Oh, God. Mrs. Dixon, are you all right?” That only made her cry harder.
Turning my panicked gaze to the two men in the room, I was shocked to see Bryce hanging his head in an attempt to hide his grin while his father rolled his eyes.
“She’s fine, darlin’,” Mr. Dixon informed me. “Don’t you worry about her. She gets a little high-strung from time to time. Best to just let it run its course.”
The woman’s head shot up all of a sudden, and she turned a murderous glare on her husband.
“I am not high-strung!” she clipped, the crying jag all but forgotten.
The older man let out a bark of laughter, his green eyes—the same green as Bryce’s—dancing with humor. “Woman, you’re probably the only person since Victorian times to still get the vapors.”
“Samuel Dixon! You stop telling lies. You’re going to make Tessa think I’m a crazy old loon!”
“If the shoe fits,” he muttered under his breath.
“You’d be smart to remember who cooks your food,” she warned. “All it takes is one internet search. Just one.”
“Internet searches are how people get caught, Mom,” Bryce added helpfully.
She arched a brow, and I suddenly knew where her son got that talent. “Then I guess I’ll have to go old school and hit up the public library when we get back home.”
“You know, dear, you’re not really makin’ a very good case to show Tessa here you aren’t twelve kinds of batshit crazy.”
For some reason, I found myself lifting a hand and interjecting into the hilarious domestic squabble unfolding in front of me. “Um, if I could make a suggestion?”
“What’s that, sweetie?” Mrs. Dixon asked, the venom gone from her eyes as she turned back to me.
“The ID Channel,” I told her. “Watch that. Those shows are the perfect guide on what not to do. And there’s no way of leaving a trail that will lead back to you.”
A slow, stunning smile pulled across her face. “Oh, Tessa. I think you and I are going to be the best of friends.”
After the bumpy start, things quickly picked up. Mrs. Dixon finished making breakfast, as we all sat in Bryce’s kitchen to dig into a heaping stack of pancakes and a huge pile of bacon.
At first, I’d wondered why she had cooked so much, but after a few minutes it became clear the woman new exactly what she was doing. Bryce and Mr. Dixon laid waste to the insane amount of food.
They asked about Hope House and how I liked working with the children there. It quickly became apparent Bryce had kept his family up to date on everything about me.
Halfway through breakfast, Bryce excused himself to make a phone call.
I stuck at the table with his folks, feeling surprisingly at ease as I talked about each of the kids I was in charge of.
“I just think what you’re doing is so honorable, Tessa.
How you and your team help those kids . . . it’s amazing.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dixon.”
“Please, call me Lily. And Bryce’s dad is Sam. No need to be so formal. We’re family, after all.”
I returned her smile, their easy acceptance warming me. “Well then, thank you, Lily.”
Bryce returned, bending at the waist and pressing a kiss to the top of my head before resuming his seat and digging back into his food.
“Are you allowed visitors at Hope House?” Lily asked, resting her elbow on the table and bracing her chin in her hand. “I’d love to see you in action and meet the kids, if that’s all right, of course.”
I polished off the last of my orange juice and put the glass back on the table before answering, “It shouldn’t be a problem. If you guys are planning to be in town a while, I can look at the calendar when I get to work later and call Bryce to set up a time.”
“That’s perfect!”
“And we’re having a Halloween Festival in town soon,” I added. “We’re setting up a haunted house, and some of the kids are going to be part of if. They’re really excited. You guys should come by.”
“Wouldn’t miss it, darlin’,” Sam said, his cheeks puffed out and full of pancakes.
“Speaking of the haunted house, me, Hunt and a couple other guys from Alpha Omega are in the middle of converting an old barn we’re usin’,” Bryce said to his dad. “Feel like gettin’ your hands dirty while you’re here, Pop?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” was his reply, which I took to mean yes, he’d be happy to get his hands dirty.
I took my last bite, stuffed to maximum capacity, as my phone rang from inside my purse on the kitchen island. I didn’t remember bringing it downstairs, or even coming into the kitchen before this morning, but there it was.
“Might wanna get that, beauty,” Bryce muttered after sucking back a swig of coffee. “Might be someone from work.”
Excusing myself from the table, I flipped open the little clutch and pulled my phone out.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Day? This is Teresa over at Valley Inn. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“No, not at all.”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but, um . . . well, we just got word that your room needs to be vacated.”
“Wait. What? Why?”
“Well, uh. It has to be, uh . . . fumigated! Yeah, that’s it. It needs to be fumigated.”
My forehead pulled into a deep frown. “Fumigated for what?”
“Um, well, I’m not really sure.” The woman on the other end of the line hemmed and hawed. “I was just told that your room needs to be cleared out.”
“Okay, well . . .” I blew out a sigh, trying to remain calm as I rubbed at my temple. “Could I move to a different room, maybe?”
“Sorry, but we’re all booked up,” she blurted, rapid-fire. “I guess a lot of people are in town for the festival. We don’t have anywhere we can move you. You’ll need to have your stuff out by Thursday.”
“Thursday?” I yelped. “That’s only two days away. How am I supposed to find somewhere else to stay by then?”
“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, ma’am, but if it helps, we’ll reimburse you for the remainder of the month you’ve already paid for.”
Then it dawned on me.
When I turned back to the table, Lily and Sam quickly jerked their heads forward, but they hadn’t been fast enough. All three of the Dixon’s had been listening in on my conversation.
“Just out of curiosity, Teresa,” I said, keeping my tone level and my eyes pinned to Bryce. “How come I haven’t been told about my room needing to be fumigated before now?”
“Well . . .” she was silent for a beat, almost like she as trying to remember what she’d been coached to say. “It, um . . . was unexpected.”
“Huh. Unexpected. That’s weird. And you said I had to be out by Thursday?”
“That’s right. Thursday. The . . . um, fumigator guy was very specific.”
I bet he was.
The phone call Bryce had to suddenly make in private in the middle of breakfast. My purse conveniently sitting on the counter. The day I had to be out conveniently falling on my only other day off this week. It all made perfect sense.
“Well, these things happen, I guess. Thanks for calling to let me know, Teresa.” I narrowed my eyes and glared at the man who was currently watching me unrepentantly. “You know, instead of waiting to see me in person. Good customer service.”
“Well, like I said, sorry again. Hope you enjoy the rest of your morning.” Then she hung up without another word.
I slowly lowered the phone to my side. “It’s the strangest thing,” I said conversationally. “All of the sudden, out of nowhere, my room at the inn has to be fumigated. And oddly enough, the place is completely booked up. For the first time since I’ve been there.”
“Wow, that is strange,” he replied calmly. “Guess there are lot of visitors in town for the festival.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what Teresa said.”
He shrugged and popped a piece of bacon into his mouth. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, so I turned my focus on his parents, who happened to be watching the exchange with rapt fascination. “Are you guys staying here while you’re in town?”
“We booked a room at the inn,” Sam answered.
“We must have gotten the last available one.” Lily pinned a sympathetic look on her face that was as unnatural as tits on a rooster. “Oh dear, that’s bad luck. It’s a good thing Bryce has all this space.”
“Isn’t it though?” I deadpanned, cutting my gaze back to my husband.
“I’d say the timin’ works out perfectly. Now instead of havin’ to take you around town to look at places, we can just use your day off to move you in here.”
“Bryce,” I growled, “what did you do?”
He scooted his chair back and picked up his now empty plate, an innocent expression on his face that I didn’t buy for a second. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“You called the inn earlier. You got them to kick me out so you could set this whole thing up.”
He set his plate in the sink before making his way toward me, cocky as could be. “You think so?”
“I know so. This has your name written all over it.”
With a big, shit-eating grin, he leaned forward and placed a kiss on my pursed lips before whispering, “Prove it.”