The Inn at Laurel Creek: Zoe & Daniel's Story Read online

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  Unfinished Business

  An Angela Panther MYSTERY

  "I laughed and I cried...and laughed...and cried...throughout the entire book! This book was so real (yes even with the heroine seeing her mother's ghost) and the emotion in it will stay with me for a long, long time!"

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  "It definitely touched a chord with anyone who has ever lost a loved one. The writing was strong and the dialogue -- which many people simply cannot write—was terrific."

  —Christie Giraud, editor, Editingpro.com

  "What a fantastic read! I couldn't put it down! I had to keep reading just to see what twist life was going throw out at Angela next!"

  —Chicklit Plus

  "The author has a great sense of humor, even about death, but when the story called for it, she was reverent and empathetic in the way her characters handled each other."

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  Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  The Inn at Laurel Creek

  Zoe & Daniel’s Story

  Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  Copyright

  November 2017

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

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  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  EPUB ASIN: B076XBGQ65

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  Our miracle continues everyday

  “You’re going to finish that book and enjoy yourself whether you want to or not,” the Inn’s owner, Lou Brinker insisted. “Stan, fetch her bags and bring them up to Serenity for me, will ya?” She offered me the sweetest of smiles, and if I hadn’t just traveled two hours longer than necessary because of a multi-car pile up on Interstate 85 in Atlanta, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but I did, and it warmed my heart. “You’ll just adore the Serenity Suite, Ms. Barrett. Why, it’s the best room in the Inn, that’s for sure.”

  “It sure is.” Stan Brinker adjusted the brown leather cowboy hat on his head and then tossed two of my bags over his hunched shoulders. He groaned from the effort.

  I leaned in and took the heaviest one from him. “Mr. Brinker, you don’t have to do that. I’ll take this one.”

  He removed his hat and placed it on the credenza in the foyer. “Now, Ms. Barrett, a gentleman never lets a lady carry her own bags.”

  Lou patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t you let him fool ya. We got ourselves a brand new pulley so he doesn’t carry a darned thing up those stairs.”

  Stan blushed. “I still carry a thing or two, but my back ain’t what it used to be. All those years on the farm done me in.”

  Lou rubbed her husband’s back. “It sure did, but if it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have this old house, and it’s a miracle worker, it is.” She led the way up the stairs, and to my suite.

  “She’s right about that.” Stan had dropped my bags on the pulley hidden behind a hallway door in the foyer and followed his wife.

  I did the same. “What do you mean, miracle worker?”

  “See them doors? Outside those is where the good ones happen.” Stan pointed to a set of white, freshly painted French doors swaying in the fall breeze. “Why we’ve had rock stars fall in love out there just as recent as last year.”

  “You’ve had rock stars stay here?”

  “Sure have. Got ourselves a famous one married here just last month.”

  “Is this where Bret Bennett got married?”

  “Sure is,” Stan said.

  Lou waited to unlock my suite, and we stepped through the French doors and onto the porch while Stan removed my bags from the pulley. “It gets a touch chilly up here at night, especially during the fall months like this, so you ought to wear a sweater, but if you play your cards right, you might just catch yourself a shooting star,” Lou said.

  “And this is the miracle spot right here. It’s where Ben, er, uh, Bret and Carly fell in love.” A touch of pink stained Stan’s cheeks again.

  Lou pinched his left cheek. “Ain’t he just the cutest old bug? Getting all romantic like that and blushin’. True love does that to him every time.”

  I hoped one day to have a love like that. A love like Stan and Lou, and Bret and Carly, sweet and kind and written in stone, not the kind I’d just run from that left me damaged and bitter and desperate to hide in the north Georgia mountains for a month to finish writing my romance novel. The romance novel I’d promised my publisher two months before but had yet to finish because my ex-boyfriend, Chad Hart, dumped me for my so-called best friend. True best friends didn’t steal their best friend’s boyfriends—especially ones in their thirties—so I’d been wrong to think Shannon Brennan—officially known as the stealing boyfriend beyotch formally known as Shannon—was ever my best friend.

  “Once you’re settled, you can sit out here and write. We have wireless wifi, and I’ll bring you my special sweet tea and cookies. It’s quiet and pretty, don’t you think?”

  Flower-barren azalea bushes and sugar maples with leaves just at the start of changing colors lined the front walk. The varying stages of color change, some yellow, a few orange and even less a burnt red, were a slow death for the vibrant green leaves of spring and summer. It reminded me of the last few months of my relationship with Chad and of what remained after the break up. The leaves represented my heart; they knew their time was short and that soon they’d fall from the thin strands of life they desperately clung to and crash to the ground, a damaged mess of brokenness, all but dead inside. “It’s beautiful. Writing out here will be perfect.”

  “She’s read all your books. Stays up well past her bedtime to finish ‘em, too.”

  Lou shoved Stan to the side. “You hush, now honey. We don’t want our guest feeling uncomfortable.”

  “It’s okay, really. I appreciate that. It pays the bills to have supportive fans.”

  “Well, if that’s true, then Lou here’s gonna be paying all them bills. She’s a reader, my wife.”

  “Stan Brinker, you’re making me madder than a wet hen. Unless you plan on sleeping in the shed, you better cut it out.”

  Stan’s posture stiffened, and he scooted back through the French doors and to the Serenity suite.

  Lou laughed. “I ought to be careful. I might just scare him to death one a these days.”

  When Stan unlocked the door to my room, I knew I’d just glimpsed Heaven. A moan even escaped my lips. “This is
beautiful.” My eyes darted to the antique copper claw-footed tub draped with tea light candles. I rushed to it. “And this…this is exactly what I need. I can already imagine a scene in my book with it.”

  “Oh lawd, we’re gonna be in a book.” Lou swatted her husband on the shoulder. “Heavens, I think I might faint.”

  Stan held his wife close and nuzzled his scruffy gray haired chin into her neck. “Now don’t you go and faint on me sweetheart, I can’t put you on that pulley, and I don’t got enough strength to carry you down those stairs. I’m too old to be doin’ that kinda thing.”

  I tried so hard not to laugh, but I just couldn’t help myself. Lou laughed also, and Stan’s belly giggled until he finally burst into a laugh loud enough to rival the likes of a shopping mall Santa. I wished I could pack the two of them in my suitcase and bring them home with me.

  It took a moment, but I realized I’d just smiled for the first time in weeks. “Thank you for that.”

  Lou squeezed my shoulder. “For what, sweetie?”

  “For the giggle. I most definitely needed that. It’s been a rough few weeks, and I don’t think I’ve had anything to laugh about in a while.”

  “You can’t see what your mind doesn’t want your heart to know,” Stan said. His eyes sparkled. “I guess you’re ready to laugh now.”

  “And that’s what we’re here for, to make your life better. For now though, we’re gonna skedaddle and let you get settled. Once you’re all unpacked, you let us know, and I’ll get you those cookies and sweet tea I told you about.

  I wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  She hugged me back, and I nearly cried from the flash of emotion rushing through me.

  Stan smiled. “You need anything, you just give me a holler, you hear?”

  I bent my head and wiped the tear away, hoping they didn’t notice. “Yes, sir.”

  He tipped his hat toward me. “Ma’am.”

  I nodded. “Cowboy.”

  * * *

  I didn’t write. I didn’t even attempt to summon my romantic muse because I didn’t want to force her into performing without having the chance to kick back and relax first. She and I both needed a day to adjust to our surroundings and get a feel for the place. I did drink Lou’s sweet iced tea, which was fabulous, and eat her infamous cookies, and wow, did they live up to their reputation. I spent most of my time outside those French doors, gazing into the north Georgia mountainside and wondering how I could fix the broken and damaged pieces of my shattered life.

  How I’d let Chad and Shannon ruin my self worth and crush my heart made no sense. Weakness and insecurity weren’t my thing. Strength and confidence, those were traits that occupied my soul, traits that been an inherent part of my genetic makeup until the break up, and I missed them desperately. I wanted, needed them back. I didn’t like the person I’d become, and I needed to find the real Zoe again, if she even existed anymore, and if I could figure out how.

  After dinner I poured myself a glass of champagne, a bottle Lou recommended from their specialty list, set up a fire in the fireplace in the room, and then filled the bathtub with hot water and vanilla scented bubble bath Lou said she’d made herself. It smelled so yummy I could have eaten it. I lit the candles, dimmed the lights, played an instrumental jazz playlist on Spotify and stepped into the tub.

  The bath, the bubbles, both from Lou’s bubble bath and the champagne, and the rest of the set up flooded my mind with memories of the last weekend trip Chad and I spent together on my thirty-first birthday, four months prior. We’d celebrated by spending the weekend at a quaint rental cabin in northern Tennessee, and even though it was June, it was a chilly night. We snuggled together in a black and red plaid blanket on the cabin deck and decided the temperature was perfect to cozy up, naked, in the hot tub. One thing led to another, and it was the best birthday sex I’d ever had.

  Only he was already with Shannon. I just didn’t know it. When I found out, and reminded Shannon about that weekend, she called it pity sex.

  Pity sex.

  I chugged the last of the champagne, the entire bottle emptied in only four glasses, dragged myself out of the tub, dried off and dropped onto the comfy bed. The soft, silky sheets welcomed me like they were my own, and I fell into a fit of tears. Crying and drinking never ended well for me, and I knew I’d feel like I’d been hit by a truck in the morning, but the only difference from the past few months was I’d be hung over. I’d been physically ill every day since they told me they’d fallen in love, so the headache was just the icing on that nasty tasting cake.

  * * *

  I glared at my blank computer screen. Ten chapters of love and agony…Ten chapters of a Hallmark movie with a PG 13 rating, and when I hit the turning point, the very defining moment when my character, Charisma Smythe—an independent, professional woman whose heart had been broken far too many times to count, but finally found true love in the arms of a cowboy, and someone she never imagined she’d be with—I couldn’t write her happily ever after. I couldn’t write it because I couldn’t imagine it. Happily ever after and love no longer existed, at least not in my world, not anymore.

  I’d already had breakfast. The perfect hangover recovery kind; fried eggs, buttered toast slathered with mixed fruit jelly, crispy bacon and skinny waffles, and nothing short of a carafe full of fully caffeinated coffee. I’d walked the grounds, and when I found the creek, I took my time wandering around it. I imagined where Bret and Carly had met, maybe even shared their first kiss. The news reported many of the details about their romance and how it all started at an Inn in north Georgia. Carly had been interviewed in a magazine and said they’d met by a creek, and she’d practically fallen in love with him the moment she met him.

  I wondered if I’d ever fall in love again. I doubted my heart could handle it. There were just too many what if’s.

  What if I fell in love and he didn’t love me back? What if I loved him and he didn’t love me as much as I loved him? What if my love wasn’t enough for him? What if I wasn’t enough?

  What if I stopped feeling sorry for myself and stopped letting Chad and Shannon dictate my self-worth and didn’t give them the satisfaction of determining my happiness and told them to take a hike and just be happy? Wouldn’t that be the best revenge? Yes, Zoe, it would. So why couldn’t I make that happen? I could, and I would, when my heart was ready. It just needed a little time to heal that was all.

  At least I hoped that was all.

  * * *

  It was after lunch, and I’d planted myself outside the French doors again, my laptop on my knees and a spiral notebook filled with book notes on the table next to me. Lou brought out an afternoon snack of sweet tea and cookies, and I’d wolfed down the cookies like I hadn’t eaten in months. In my twenties, when in the throes of break up angst, just the thought of food sent my stomach into hangover-like spins of despair, even threatening the reappearance of food from days past. When I’d hit my thirties though, a switch flipped, and instead of an internal organ-induced starvation diet, my body craved food, and it wasn’t particular about its food choice, either. It craved everything. I was like a pregnant woman without the actual pregnancy part. If I saw a man walking down the street with a chilidog loaded with extra onions and a splotch of mustard squeezed onto the top, he’d better hold onto it for dear life because this girl would snatch that sucker up before he’d even had a chance to take his first bite.

  I crumbled up another piece of notebook paper and tossed it onto the ground. That made seven. Seven pieces of discarded notes chucked to the floor, and just like pieces of my heart, useless and meaningless.

  If someone held a gun to my head and told me to write a happy ending or die, I’d ask for a priest to read me my last rites.

  I moved my laptop to the table and paced the length of the porch, back and forth.

  I needed to email my agent and tell her I shouldn’t write romance anymore, and that I should write teenage girl angst novels instead.
I’d nail that drama better than Judy Blume did back in the day, because that’s how I acted lately, all drama, all the time. Even I was sick of myself.

  I’d run to hide away in an Inn in the mountains with my tail between my legs. I’d used my novel as an excuse, blamed Chad and Shannon for breaking me, but the truth was, it wasn’t about them, it was about me.

  They loved, and I’d lost. How could I write a happily ever after kind of ending when that bitterness lived inside my soul?

  “Damn it Zoe, you can’t keep doing this. Get a grip.”

  “You always talk to yourself in the third person?”

  I turned around to a man leaning against the opened left French door. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and had a quirky, flirtatious, smirk where the right side of his mouth lifted a little. His head kind of tilted down and to the left, and his eyebrows pushed his forehead up so four lines wrinkled across it—four little, sexy lines. I wouldn’t notice him in a crowd or point him out as the most attractive, but something about him spoke directly to me loud and clear, and my heart skipped a beat. Apparently, it wasn’t as dead as I’d thought.

  “That makes you look old.”

  “What does?”

  “The way you push your eyebrows up like that.” I pointed to his forehead. “Gives you wrinkles.”

  He wiggled his brows and ran his fingers across the wrinkles. “That kind of thing happens when you’re my age, but thanks for pointing it out.”

  I checked my forehead. “Mine aren’t that bad yet, so you must be older than me.”

  “Wow, two insults in less than a minute. I bet you get a lot of dates.”

  Ouch.

  I rolled back my shoulders and neck and heard three pops. I desperately needed a massage. I picked up my laptop and sat back in the chair, hoping to get back to work and ignore the tall blond giving me the once over. “I’m a little too busy to worry about dating, so if you don’t mind…”