The Welcoming

couples.”
    “Couples with happy endings,” Troy reminded her, and got a slow, dreamy smile from his bride.
    “Like us. We want to thank you so much for making our wedding night so special. It was everything I wanted. Just perfect.”
    “That’s what we do here.”
    “But . . . we wondered. We know we’re supposed to check out soon . . .”
    “If you’d like a later checkout, I can arrange it,” Hope began.
    “Well, actually . . .”
    “We’re hoping we can stay another night.” Troy slid his arm around April’s shoulders, drew her close. “We really love it here. We were going to drive down into Virginia, just pick our spots as we went, but . . . We really like it right here. We’ll take any room that’s available, if there is one.”
    “We’d love to have you, and your room’s open tonight.”
    “Really?” April bounced on her toes. “Oh, this is better than perfect. Thank you.”
    “It’s our pleasure. I’m glad you’re enjoying your stay.”
    Happy guests made for happy innkeepers, Hope thought as she dashed upstairs for her bag. She dashed back down again, into her office to change the reservation, and, with the scents and voices behind her, hurried out the back through Reception.
    She skirted the side of the building, glancing across the street at Vesta. She knew Avery’s and Clare’s schedule nearly as well as her own. Avery would be prepping for opening this morning, and Clare should be back from her early doctor’s appointment.
    The sonogram. With luck, they’d know by now if Clare was carrying the girl she hoped for.
    As she waited for the walk signal at the corner, she looked down Main Street. Ryder Montgomery stood in front of the building Montgomery Family Contractors was currently rehabbing. Nearly done, she thought, and soon the town would have a bakery again.
    He wore jeans torn at the left knee and splattered with drips of paint or drywall compound or whatever else splattered on job sites. His tool belt hung low, like an old-time sheriff’s gunbelt—at least to her eye. Dark hair curled shaggily from under his ball cap. Sunglasses covered eyes she knew to be a gold-flecked green.
    He consulted with a couple of his crew, pointed up, circling a finger, shaking his head, all while he stood in that hip-shot way of his.
    Since a dull wash of primer currently covered the front of the building, she assumed they were discussing the finish colors.
    One of the crew let out a bray of laughter, and Ryder responded with a flash of grin and a shrug.
    The shrug, like the stance, was another habit of his, she mused.
    The Montgomery brothers were an attractive breed, but in her opinion her two friends had plucked the pick of the crop. She found Ryder a little surly, marginally unsociable.
    And, okay, sexy—in a primitive, rough-edged sort of way.
    Not her type; not remotely.
    As she started across the street a long, exaggerated wolf whistle shrilled out. Knowing it was a joke, she tipped her face back toward the bakery, added a smoldering smile, then sent a wave to Jake, one of the painters. He and the laborer beside him waved back.
    But not Ryder Montgomery, of course. He simply hooked his thumb in his pocket, watched her. Unsociable, she thought again. He couldn’t even stir himself for a casual wave.
    She accepted the slow kindling in her belly as the natural reaction of a healthy woman to a long, shaded stare delivered by a sexy—if surly—man.
    Particularly a woman who hadn’t had any serious male contact in—God—a year. A little more than a year. But who’s counting?
    Her own fault, her own choice, so why think about it?
    She reached the other side of Main Street, turned right toward the bookstore just as Clare stepped out onto its pretty covered porch.
    She waved again as Clare stood a moment, one hand on the baby bump under her breezy summer dress. Clare had her long, sunny hair pulled back in a tail, with blue-framed sunglasses softening the glare of the bold morning sun.
    “I was just coming over to check on you,” Hope called out.
    Clare held up her phone. “I was just texting you.” She slipped the phone back in her pocket, left her hand there a moment as she came down the steps to the sidewalk.
    “Well?” Hope scanned her friend’s face. “Everything good?”
    “Yeah. Good. We got back just a few minutes ago. Beckett . . .” She glanced over her shoulder. “He’s driving around to the back of the bakery. He’s got his