“You deserve better.” I’d studiously returned to looking through the applications I’d received for the position of my manager.

I hadn’t gotten far when the inn phone rang.

“So you didn’t think your mother and father might want to know that you’ve been attacked in the inn?” my father’s voice had snapped down the line as soon as I answered.

Shit.

I’d put off informing my parents of the attack because I didn’t want to deal with the consequences. But it was wrong of me to keep it from them. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“So you should be,” Mom had said. “We had to hear from Jaclyn.”

The mayor. Mum’s best friend. Of course. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“We’re flying out,” Dad had said.

“No.” I loved my parents, I missed my parents, but the last thing I needed was the chaos they’d bring. It wasn’t my dad. It was my mom. She loved me, she was proud of me, but she also, like me, did not have a brain-to-mouth filter. She would go around the inn criticizing it because it was so different to her taste, and then she’d try “fixing” it. I did not need that stress on top of everything else. Moreover, my father was too insightful when it came to me. He’d take one look at me and know I was hurting over something or someone.

“Don’t do that,” I’d insisted. “I’m really fine and we’re handling it. Sheriff King is on it.”

“It isn’t up to you whether we come out there or not,” my mom had screeched.

“Dad, take me off speakerphone.”

“Don’t you dare, Aaron!”

There had been a clicking noise and then my father’s voice sounding softer, quieter. “I’m off speakerphone.”

“Aaron, that’s not fair!” I’d heard my mother yell in the background. She’d continued to yell, but it got more distant until it cut off entirely.

“I’m in my den,” Dad had explained. “You can speak freely.”

“I know Mom will be mad at me and you for cutting her out of this conversation but, Dad . . . you know I love her . . . but I can’t deal with Mom being here right now. I’m in the middle of dealing with the police about Devlin, I’m up to my eyeballs in applications for the manager position, and I’m still trying to work through things after Tom and I . . .”

“And your mother would complain about the changes you’ve made to the inn and try to fix things,” Dad had said on a sigh.

I’d smiled because I loved my father and I loved that he understood us all so well. “Yes. Exactly. It would be too much.”

“And what am I supposed to do? Just sit here in Florida and worry about my kid?”

“I’ll be fine. I have Jessica and Cooper watching out for me. I’ve got most of the town watching out for me. I am very lovable, you know.” I’d winced as soon as I said it because apparently I wasn’t so lovable to some folks.

“I wouldn’t feel right not coming out to you.”

“Let’s compromise. Let me get everything in order here. Just give me a few weeks and then if you still want to fly out here you can. It’s not that I don’t miss you. You know I do.”

“I know, Cherry.” He’d sighed. “Fine. I’ll give you a few weeks but if anything else happens that I don’t like, I’m coming out there whether you can handle your mother’s controlling behavior or not.”

We’d soon hung up, leaving the poor man to deal with the aftermath of cutting Mom out of the conversation, then I’d concentrated on those applications again. In fact I busied myself as much as possible, not giving myself time to think about anything else but the inn.

But the day I discovered Vaughn had crossed states possibly to get away from what happened between us, Sheriff King showed up at the inn with more crappy news.

“I’m sorry, Bailey. I can’t press any charges against Stu. I will keep an eye on things, however. And you let me know if the Devlins start harassing you.”

There weren’t enough words to describe the impotency I’d felt in that moment. The injustice. I wanted to track down Dana and Stu, slap her for being a traitor to womankind, and knee him devastatingly hard in the balls to save the world from the possibility of him reproducing.

I didn’t voice this or my disappointment. “And what about Jackson?”

King narrowed his eyes on me. “You leave all that to me.”

And on that rather attractively reassuring note (the man was potently masculine), the good sheriff had left me to brood.

You can imagine how I felt then, after suffering crappiness upon crappiness, when Rex strode into my inn that evening.

Rex McFarlane. As in, the Rex I’d called and humiliated by sharing my mortifying discovery of our respective lovers having sex. I’d meant to apologize to him but with everything else going on in my life, I’d forgotten. Horrible but true.

I was convinced my week was about to get crappier.

Bolstering myself, I’d walked over from where I was dusting the fireplace mantel in the inn reception area, to where he was staring at the little bell located at the check-in counter.

“Rex?”

He turned toward me.

And he smiled. “Bailey.”

Surprised by his congenial tone, I walked right up to him. “What are you doing here?”

This time his smile was sad as his dark brown eyes wandered over my face. I’d found Rex adorable when we first met because he reminded me of my teenage crush, Josh Hartnett. He was dark and tall like him, charming and cute. He was a very cute twenty-four-year-old young man.