Chapter Thirteen Reese
Thirteen
Reese
And now he was supposed to go downstairs and crush Grace’s dreams.
Christ.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. This shouldn’t bother him.
Business was business. He’d competed against hundreds of people over the years.
Some he’d liked, some he’d respected, all of whom had wanted the same properties he did.
You didn’t get sentimental about it. You made your play, you won or lost, and you moved on.
But AutumnDreams87 wasn’t just another competitor. She was…
What? A woman he’d never met? Someone he knew through messages on a screen? Someone who’d trusted him with her fears and her hopes and who he’d made come the other night through nothing but words and want?
Someone who was fighting for something that mattered to her the same way this inn mattered to him.
Because it did. Not because of money but because of that note scrawled in his dad’s journal.
He needed to access whatever was buried under this building.
Something that seemed to have haunted his dad, even if it meant tearing down some walls to find it.
But where was it buried?
He walked down the hallway. Margaret and Abe were in the main parlor with their guests, sharing storm stories. No one paid attention to Reese as he slipped past, heading deeper into the building.
The inn revealed itself slowly as he explored. Kitchen off the main restaurant: serious equipment, the kind that could handle a full house. Storage rooms, bathrooms, the usual maze of service areas that kept places like this running.
But it was in the back storage room that he found it.
A rug. Oriental and dusty, sitting in the middle of nowhere like it was covering something.
The pattern was faded—deep reds and golds that had seen better days—and the edges were frayed where they met the floorboards.
When he lifted it, he could see the floorboards underneath were different: older, set in a pattern that didn’t match the rest. Reese pulled the rug aside… but there was nothing there.
He heard footsteps and smoothed the rug back down just as Grace walked in. “Why are you kneeling down?” she asked, eyeing him with suspicion.
“Examining the floorboards,” Reese said, pretending to check the integrity of the wood. “Checking for water damage, rot, that kind of thing. Important to know what I’m getting myself into.”
“Getting yourself into? Bit sure of yourself.”
Reese stood up, brushing dust off his jeans. “Hard not to be when I win everything I aim for.”
Grace tilted her head, giving him a quizzical look. “You win everything? Wasn’t it a draw yesterday?”
Reese couldn’t help but feel a flash of anger. To him, a draw was a loss. “There’ll be no draw tonight. I’m a damn good cook. Let’s see what you’ve got, Sullivan.”
“What I’ve got?” Grace turned on her heel. “You’re the one who’s about to get schooled.”
Reese’s eyes tracing the curve of her butt in those fitted pants. Damn. Even walking away from him, she managed to look like a dare. Wolfish hunger tugged at him and he forced his jaw tight, dragging his eyes back up. This wasn’t supposed to be about wanting her. This was about beating her.
His phone rang then. Reese glanced at the screen, then called after Grace, “Go on without me, Sullivan. I’ll catch up.”
He waited until Grace left and then answered. “Ma.”
“Well, there he is!” his mother boomed, her Canadian accent broad and bright. “My globe-trotting boy. Did the deal close yet?”
“Not yet,” Reese muttered. “Bit of a snag.”
“Well, spit it out then.”
“Her name’s Grace Sullivan. Local. A waitress.”
“Oooooh, I love her already,” his mother crowed. “Waitresses get things done. They’ve got eyes in the backs of their heads, balance five plates at once and still smile when some dink sends back his steak.”
“Yeah, she’s fire, Ma. Doesn’t scare easy.”
“Good!” she barked. “About time someone made it difficult for you.”
“I’ll still get the place.”
“Oh, I know you will.”
Down the hall, Zach slouched by, all attitude. Reese’s gaze lingered. “She’s got a kid. Single mom, like you. The kid reminds me of me at that age.”
“Well, God help her,” his mother said with a laugh. “I had my hands full with you and you didn’t come with what kids have within reach now, like social media. What are you up to now?”
Reese shook his head, smiling. “About to do a cook-off. The owner of the inn insisted on it, another goddamn challenge.”
“A cook-off? You?” She roared with laughter. “Oh, I like these owners already. What you making? Don’t tell me you’re trying something fancy. If you say soufflé, I’m flying down there myself.”
“Was thinking beef steak—”
“No, no, no. Go with venison if they have it. Real Canadian meat. That’ll win ’em over faster than free Timbits.”
Reese exhaled, shaking his head. His mother, the only one who could out-alpha him and make him laugh at the same time.
“I better go, Ma.”
“Sure, you go win that cook-off, honey.”
“Will do.”
He hung up and headed down the hallway toward the kitchen. Margaret was standing with Tressa at the center island, surrounded by ingredients they’d laid out like a general preparing for battle. Grace was leaning against the fridge, arms crossed.
“Right,” Margaret said as he entered. “Twenty people to feed, including yourselves. You’ll each make ten dishes: full portions.
Each person gets to taste both dishes so they can make their judgments.
They won’t know which of you has baked it, so we can judge fairly.
” She gestured to the spread: vegetables from the garden, fresh herbs, a haunch of venison—perfect—chicken, bacon, fish, butter, cream, eggs, flour, autumn produce in abundance.
“Use what’s here,” Tressa said. “This is what you’d have to work with on any given night when the suppliers can’t get across.”
“Ten dishes,” Grace repeated, already moving toward the vegetables, her hands reaching for a butternut squash like she was greeting an old friend.
“And before either of you ask,” Margaret said, her tone brooking no argument, “I won’t stand for any nonsense about gluten-free this or dairy-free that.
If people have real allergies, that’s different, but I won’t have my kitchen turned into a restaurant with a menu longer than the Bible.
You cook good food, people eat it, and that’s what guests are told before they book. ”
Grace and Reese exchanged looks: the first moment of shared understanding since they’d arrived.
Looked like both of them had clocked the same issue, that the Blackwells’ approach might have worked in the 1980s, but in the 2020s, dietary restrictions were standard.
Something they’d both need to address if either of them took over this place.
Of course, neither said it out loud.
“Two hours,” Margaret said, checking her watch. “Dinner’s at six.”
Tressa poured some wine for them both. “I’ll be in the parlor if you need anything else,” she said.
“But she won’t be holding your hands, she’s got our other guests to tend to,” Margaret added. “This is your show.”
The two women left Grace and Reese standing on opposite sides of the kitchen island, ingredients between them like a battlefield.
Rolling up her sleeves, Grace set to work, pulling out pans, checking the oven temperature, her movements efficient.
Reese watched her for a beat—the way she handled a knife, the confidence in her movements despite the nerves he knew were underneath—then turned to his own station.
He hadn’t cooked for people in years. Usually he ate at restaurants or had food delivered or grabbed whatever was easiest. But his mother had taught him the basics and some of his most vivid memories were of their tiny kitchen, her patient hands showing him how to properly dice an onion, how to taste as you went, how to cook with love even when you were exhausted.
Show them what you’re made of, he imagined her whispering.
Reese reached for the venison, his hands remembering the weight of a good knife, the satisfaction of preparing something real.
Across the kitchen, Grace had already started her prep, her focus absolute.
Game on.