Beauty's Kiss by Jane Porter Read Free Book Online

door, but he stopped and turned to look back at his brother, and then somehow, just like that, his mother was there. Her ghost. He could feel her at the ranch... in the house, the barn... and her sadness haunted him.
    She should have had daughters.
    She should have had girls for company. Girls who’d bake with her or sew with her. Girls who’d laugh and giggle and talk to her. Listen to her.
    Men weren’t good at listening.
    He shook his head once, chasing away the past, and the memory of his mother who had loved The Graff. He hadn’t restored the hotel for her. That would be idiotic because she was gone. But she had been the one to make him understand that beauty was transformative, and there was value in beautiful things. “Sometimes we do things because we think it’s the right thing to do... even when everyone else tells you you’re wrong.”
    Dillon’s eyes, a tawny gold, narrowed. He studied his older brother a long moment. “Mom would want you to be smart.”
    “Too late,” Troy answered. “Looks like I’ve inherited her crazy.”
    Dillon’s eyes narrowed another fraction of an inch. “Mom wasn’t crazy.” He hesitated. “She wasn’t happy. But that’s different from crazy.”
    Troy said nothing. This was not a subject he liked discussing.
    “Mom and Dad had problems. But we were too young to sort out their marriage, and now it’s too late to do anything about it,” Dillon added. “But even if we had been older, it wasn’t our job to fix things—”
    “But if we had, maybe she’d still be here.”
    Dillon sighed. “I’m sorry you had to be the one that found her.”
    Troy shook his head. “Let’s not go there.”
    “But you do. Constantly.” Dillon’s voice hardened. “It’s time you let it go. There’s no point in torturing yourself, or ruining your future, over something that’s in the past.”
    “Are you talking about Mom or the hotel?”
    “Maybe both.”

Chapter Four
     

     
     
    Taylor was rattled by Louise’s news that Troy would be attending the Wedding Giveaway meeting tonight. She opened the heavy door to the masculine Crawford Room, the private board room off the library’s main reading room, wondering why Jane hadn’t bothered to tell her that Troy would be coming.
    Jane was supposed to be her friend. Her best friend in Marietta. And friends did not set friends up, much less with one’s gorgeous, popular, ridiculously successful ex.
    Most of the committee had already taken a seat at the board room table. Taylor’s gaze swept the room, seeing all the usual committee members: Paige Joffee from Main Street Diner, Sage Carrigan from Copper Mountain Chocolates, Risa Grant from SweetPeas florist, Tricia Thorpe from Marietta Travel, Jenny Thorpe, Tricia’s new sister-in-law, and McKenna Douglas from Big Sky Photography.
    McKenna lifted a hand, gesturing to Taylor.
    Taylor moved towards her, seeing McKenna in a new light. Taylor had known that beautiful McKenna Douglas was a single mom, and a talented photographer specializing in wedding photography, but until tonight Taylor had not known that the father of her little boy was Trey Sheenan, Troy’s twin. McKenna had never said anything, nor had anyone else. Maybe everyone else just knew. Or maybe folks here didn’t think it was important to share.
    Probably the latter.
    Just as no one else had ever mentioned to Taylor about the massacre on the Douglas Ranch seventeen years ago. McKenna’s parents and three of her brothers and sisters died in the home invasion.
    Taylor only found this out by chance, reading through old newspapers and magazines saved in the library’s vault. Taylor, a history buff, had been the one to discover that back in 1914 Marietta had sponsored a big Wedding Giveaway to draw attention to the re-opening of the Graff Hotel following the 1912 fire. She’d shared the news with Jane, who then came up with the idea of a one hundred year anniversary Wedding Giveaway, again highlighting the