Page 3 of Rumor Has It

Not only that, I don’t set foot in the kitchen when everyone else is prepping holiday meals. I won’t even go in search of a roll of toilet paper. One false move and the lines between my personal life and my job blur.

I huff. Like I have a life compared to the characters in the books I hunker down and read.

I’m the least traveled of my generation, and I feel like one of the few who hasn’t found their other half. Not that I’m not whole. I love what I do. I enjoy meeting interesting people, who tell me about their travels and talk to me about my favorite thing: food.

“We’ll let ourselves in,” Gatlin says. “Any room in particular?”

“If it’s privacy your guy wants, I’d suggest a vineyard view,” I sound like the least enthusiastic booking agent ever.

“I’ll set him up in the center suite. My mom always said you could hear everything between her room and Gran’s. I mean, your room.” Gatlin tacks on as an afterthought.

Ew.

Everyone who stays at the inn has more sex than I do. A few solitary hours into my well-deserved time off, I don’t appreciate the reminder.

I scrub my hand over my face and close my eyes. “Lucky for me, we’ve got better insulation now.”

“I owe you—”

I nod into the receiver, following it up with a “yup” because Gatlin can’t see me.

“Concert tickets. Front row. Including backstage passes. Anything. It’s your choice.”

“I choose to go back to sleep, Gatlin. Be quiet when y’all come in.”

?????

There are twenty mornings each year when not getting dressed before going downstairs is an option for me. Give or take a day. Every other one, I’m showered, dressed, and have set the coffee pot percolating for our guests by five a.m. After filling the dining room carafes with coffee and hot water for tea for any rare early birds, I whip up a batch of my signature scratch-baked banana nut muffins.

Today is one of those blissful mornings when I’m not up to my elbows in batter while everyone else is still snoozing away, and it makes my lousy night forgettable.

Having slept as long as I want, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stretch. Then I bend and toss the book that fell on the floor back onto my rumpled sheets.

I’m no longer a bed maker. A perk of my job is on-demand housekeeping. The cleaning staff gets the holidays off as well—along with the overnight concierge. This means no hospital corners until after the New Year. Which is also just fine by me. No one really understands vacationers waltzing in and out of the place where you live. I can’t be messy or leave anything lying around. If I’m seen at home, the guests expect I’m on duty and want me to drop everything and cater to their needs.

I pad down the staircase and into the kitchen in my pajamas. Again, this likely means zip to anyone else, but when you can’t wear whatever you want in your own home, let alone consider walking to the coffee pot braless, it’s significant.

I’m so relaxed I catch a whiff of my forthcoming dark roast, not processing that I can already smell it. Rounding the corner, I realize my mistake too late.

“Holy crap!” I jump back, covering my ample chest with a splayed palm.

A man ducking into the fridge startles, smacking the top of his head on a shelf. “Goddamn it!” he yells.

He reaches back to rub the sore spot as he straightens. That’s when I realize he’s shirtless. My eyes wander from his left pec to his bicep and forearm. They slide down his neck and he covers his… is that a four-pack? A six-pack? All my brain registers is the V at his hips and I’m gawking at the fine hair that starts a very happy trail.

“Lemme guess, you’re Cassidy.” He extends the hand he used to massage his head for me to shake.

The rough gravel of his voice has my attention snapping to his face.

Those expressive brown eyes have given women come-hither looks since he was a teenager. I’m also certain his stylist highlighted and coiffed his always rumpled sandy brown hair with intent. One glance at this man and all you can think about is the bedroom.

“You’re… You’re, you’re Isaiah Roomer,” I say in wonderment.

One of my uncles has a wall full of music award statues and another played professional football. However, you can knock me over with a feather thattheIsaiah Roomer, country superstar, is standing barefoot in my kitchen in nothing but a pair of low-slung jeans.

The reclusive singer is the last person I considered Gatlin would’ve called about. Isaiah’s wife died in July. He’s made no comment other than an initial request for privacy. When Isaiah refused to appear in public for months, the media grew bored with speculating. By the end of the summer, entertainment news moved on.

Seriously, the only better gift any red-blooded woman would want underneath the Christmas tree is Isaiah Roomer wearing nothing but a big red... Bow.

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