Crazy in Love (Blue Lake #3)(13)

“Shut it, Lucy.” Rachael strode into the hall, scooped up the bedding and went downstairs. “I told you, he’s a guest…a guest who happens to be really hot.”

They laughed all the way to the laundry room at the back of the inn. After Rachael tossed the bedding into the wash, she grabbed a broom, dustpan, and a handful of dusting rags. Lucy stole the broom from Rachael’s hand and followed her back upstairs.

“Where you joking before?” Lucy said, sweeping down the hall as Rachael dusted pictures. “About skipping out on the concert?”

“It’s not my thing. I don’t even like his kind of music.”

“It’s a free dinner, Rachael, a night you don’t have to cook. To top it off, you don’t even have an excuse since you don’t have any other guests to cook for.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Rachael’s stomach turned. “I don’t have a single excuse.”

She hadn’t thought about it, but this might’ve been the first Friday night in the last year that she didn’t have to be home by five o’clock to start cooking dinner. The thought of getting out of the house was enticing.

Rachael pulled an extra set of sheets out of the hall closet and went into Cole’s room to remake his bed. She tightened the sheets down, and spread a quilt over the top. When that was finished, she started dusting the tops of the dressers and the posts on the bed. Lucy moved into Cole’s room, sweeping the hardwood for dust bunnies.

“Exactly what did he say about dinner?” Rachael wondered aloud.

“He said he wanted to show you his appreciation for letting him check in early last night.”


As Rachael’s thoughts whirled, her movements slowed.

“Do you think you’ll still go?” Rachael asked, hesitating.

Why did it matter? Why did the idea of leaving Cole and Lucy alone rub her the wrong way?

“Hell yes I’m going!” Lucy squealed. “You think I’d miss a chance like this? If you really don’t want to go, I’m going to ask if I can bring Rhonda instead.”

“Rhonda?”

She was a friend of theirs, sweet as pie, and more beautiful than the models who graced the covers of magazines on the grocery store shelves. Rachael imagined Rhonda, Lucy, and Cole together at a private dinner, just the three of them. He’d probably serenade them with some stupid rock song and wink at each of them the way he winked at her. They’d fall for it, obviously, because he was hot and rich and come on, who wouldn’t?

“Wait a second,” Lucy said, whacking Rachael in the backside with the broom. “Is this about Joey? Do you guys still have a date this weekend?”

“Damn it!” Smacking her head on the bedpost, Rachael flopped onto the bed. “I totally forgot. I told him I’d let him know which day this weekend worked best.”

Joey Brackett had lived in town his whole life as Rachael had. He worked at the Blue Lake Fire Department and was drop-dead gorgeous. He had a broad chest, humongous biceps and big, rough hands. He had the kind of body that made a woman want to burn down her house simply so he’d carry her out. Each time one of them was single, the other was taken. It’d gone round and round like that since high school. When they reunited at the old movie theatre on Main Street last weekend, they realized they were both single. Completely unattached.

“If you haven’t told Joey a day, you can still go to dinner with us!” Lucy smacked Rachael with the floppy part of the broom again, this time across the knees. “Go out with Joey tonight and you can go out with us tomorrow!”