The Heart of Christmas by Brenda Novak Read Free Book Online Page A

muscle-bound giants also helped foster client confidence.
    Still...
    “I don’t want any loose cannons on my team.” Besides the moral implications of having someone use a firearm without sufficient provocation, there were liability issues. Rex preferred to avoid both. “Set up a second interview with Peter for when I get back next week—say, Friday?”
    “You think you might be back
that
soon?”
    “Yes. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
    Lips pursed, she slipped the checks he’d signed into a file and put them in her oversize bag. “We definitely need you. You’re what makes us successful.”
    “I’ll be back soon.”
    “The question is...will you be safe?”
    He nodded to placate her, but he hadn’t been safe in years.
    * * *
    Brent Taylor didn’t have much luggage. A leather satchel lay open on the bed. From what Eve could tell without digging through it, he’d packed jeans, T-shirts and at least one sweatshirt.
    The bed was made, as she’d known it would be. The shower was damp. She also found wet towels in the bathroom, where she could smell his deodorant and the shampoo she provided for her guests.
    Now that she was here, she felt silly taking careful note of such mundane things—the same things she saw when she cleaned other clients’ rooms. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to learn or why any of it would matter. If he hadn’t been so secretive and standoffish, she probably wouldn’t have bothered.
    There was nothing that revealed a great deal about him, but a few clues gave her more information than she’d had. The type of pan used for prospecting sat on his nightstand. That told her what he was likely doing in Gold Country. On the small desk by the window overlooking the backyard was a laptop, and on the Little Mary’s writing pad by the phone, he’d jotted down some names and numbers.
    He wrote like a typical guy, she decided. He printed, but it wasn’t particularly legible. The name Jason Frick topped the short list. His area code suggested he was from the Bay Area, which was just a couple of hours away. She recognized it because so many of her patrons came from there.
    Was Frick a friend of Mr. Taylor’s, or a business associate? The other names were male, too, also from the Bay Area. Peter Viselli and Dom Chandler—although Dom’s name was crossed out.
    Eve “accidentally” ran her finger over the mouse section of the laptop while dusting, hoping his screensaver would dissolve into whatever he’d been working on, but it didn’t. The demand for a password popped up instead.
    She didn’t protect her own computers with a password, even the one she worked on here at the B and B. But there was hardly any crime in Whiskey Creek, and
she
had nothing to hide.
    So who was this Mr. Taylor?
    Obviously someone who lived in the city.
    Knowing she didn’t have long before Cheyenne or Deb came to find her—or Brent Taylor returned—she replaced his towels and minicontainers of soap, shampoo and conditioner and threw away the ones he’d used. Then she ran a vacuum over the carpet.
    When she was finished, she could hear Deb speaking to some guests in the hall. The usual morning sounds made her feel a bit embarrassed for poking around Mr. Taylor’s room. Had she crossed the line? Was she acting like a stalker?
    She really needed to get a life, she told herself, and, for the first time ever, considered hiring someone to run the inn for a few months so she could try something else before settling down for good and letting her life harden like cement.
    Maybe last night was a sign that she needed to broaden her horizons, embrace change, try new things.
    Maybe if she didn’t, she’d regret it later. Cheyenne would be having her baby soon. It wasn’t as if they’d get to work together after that, anyway. Or at least not for a while—
    “Hey.”
    Eve jumped and turned to see the very person she’d been thinking about standing at the door. “What are you doing up here?” she