Into the Storm (Signal Bend #3)(30)
She sat where she was, rocking and watching Lilli collect Gia from the back seat. She was about…three months old now, and she’d calmed down a lot. She was a delicately pretty little thing, with dark hair and green eyes. As often as Lilli and Gia were around the inn, Shannon had managed never to hold her. She got passed around the kitchen, around the housekeeping staff, even Badger liked to give her a squeeze, when his hands were clean and he was allowed, but Shannon had successfully avoided it, without too many awkward acrobatics. Yet she watched.
Lilli came up the porch steps, smiling, and sat down in the rocker next to Shannon, setting Gia on her lap. “How you doing?”
It wasn’t the question Shannon was expecting, and it quickly dawned on her that Lilli knew about her and Show. Of course she did, even though she hadn’t been at the party. Isaac—and he wasn’t stupid. He knew whose room she’d been coming from. She put the pieces together: Isaac had known that Shannon had slept with Show. He must have known that Show was not in the clubhouse, so he therefore knew that he’d left her alone in his room. So her whole sordid story was no secret. Neither Isaac nor Lilli told tales, but she had no idea who else knew enough to put the whole thing together. The town gossip wouldn’t simply be that she’d f*cked Show. It would also be that he’d chucked her and left her to walk alone through the clubhouse in the morning.
Rocking hard, making the porch creak, she tried to force all that behind the door in her head. It didn’t want to fit. Lilli grabbed the arm of her rocker and stopped her frenetic motion. “Shannon. You okay?”
Shannon caught hold of herself and took a breath. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Unwinding her long hair from Gia’s little pink fist, Lilli said, “I know I’m a pain in your ass, but if you want to talk, I’m here.”
No. Even if she were inclined to bare her soul—and she wasn’t—Lilli was too close to Show. “No. If you want to talk about our incoming guests, I can update you on all that. We’re in good shape.”
Lilli shook her head. “I know. I’m not worried about that at all. I came to check on you. Stupid and intrusive of me, and I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re on an island. I’d say I know what it’s like to be the new kid around here, but I had it kind of lucky. Everybody saw me as attached to Isaac almost right away. But I know these people, and they’re quick to be polite but slow to be warm. Hey—why don’t you come out to our place for dinner again. Now that the diva is more even-tempered, it might even be relaxing.”
Shannon had been to their house for dinner a few times shortly after she’d been hired, but then Gia had come, and Lilli had been sick, and they’d had their hands full. She’d enjoyed those evenings. But she was suspicious. “Don’t try a setup thing, Lilli. No.”
“Jesus! No. Not my style. I’d never ambush anybody with that kind of crap. If someone did it to me, I’d…well, there might be bloodshed. I’m just asking you over for dinner. Isaac finally built the couch he promised me a year ago, so we even have a nice place for guests to sit. And we won’t talk about anything uncomfortable.”
Shannon smiled. “Okay. After Hollywood leaves, though.”
“Fair enough.” Lilli leaned back and settled a dozing Gia on her shoulder. “So tell me how Beth’s coping with the people who don’t eat food. That’s got to be hilarious.”
oOo
Lilli stayed for about half an hour, and they sat the whole time in the porch rockers and talked while Gia napped on her mom’s shoulder, sucking her fist. It was a nice break. And then Lilli left, leaving Shannon in full control of the inn, without even a wistful glance back. Finally, Lilli was handing over the reins and getting off the wagon.
The Hollywood guests came in around six o’clock, which was later than they’d planned but early enough that the heavy snacks Beth had prepared were still fresh and lovely, and with plenty of time for them to get settled and come down for drinks. They were all three of them Hollywood-pretty. Two writers: a woman, Harrie Beck, probably a few years younger than Shannon, so early thirties, petite and pretty, with long, blonde, perfectly blown-out hair; and a man, David Gordon, maybe forty or so, African American and very GQ stylish. And a photographer: Austin Montroy, also about forty, ruggedly handsome in a studied, California way. Sheesh. Did California have any normal-looking people, or did they screen for that at the border when they checked for contraband fruit?
Shannon checked them in and described the services. She handed them each a key—this was a B&B, old school, so no keycards—and tapped the bell, calling Steve, the bellboy and general gopher, to help them with their bags. Which would take a few trips, unless they helped themselves. These folks had not packed light.
Both Austin and David had been flirting with Shannon outrageously since they’d crossed the threshold, like it was some kind of competition between them. They were both successful and handsome, and it salved her badly scraped ego to play along. She wasn’t really interested, but that was beside the point. It was nice to have two handsome men fighting over her a little, even if it was their shtick—and she was sure it was.
Steve trotted in and collected several of their bags. They all three carried what they could. Only one bag was left—a medium-size, squarish black case, not a usual suitcase. Shannon figured, what the hell, she’d help out. She bent to pick up the case, but Austin stopped her, his hand on her back. “That’s okay, leave it.