JENNIE

The thud of footsteps climbing the loft's staircase and the soft knock that followed were becoming my favorite sounds. She might only come up to hold Leo, but every time Lisa showed at my door in the middle of the night, it was like a warm hug.

It had been a long time since I'd been hugged.

She came right inside, toeing off her shoes before stealing a crying Leo from my arms. A flash of pain crossed her face, like she'd gotten a papercut. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I swore I saw it each time she held Leo. It was gone in an instant as Lisa set out on her regular path across the room.

"What's the problem tonight, boss?" That smooth, deep voice was as comforting to me as it was my son.

"Sorry we woke you up."

She turned at the wall and frowned. Lisa, I'd learned, wasn't a fan of my apologies.

I made them regardless.

"Rest, Jennie." She nodded toward the bed, but I went to the couch, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders.

In the past month, I'd spent twelve nights on this couch, watching as the most beautiful person I'd ever laid eyes on carried my son. Twelve nights, and my crush on Lisa Manoban was as strong as the coffee I made each morning in my new maker.

The weather had shifted and October's cold night temperatures meant there was no need to leave the window open. How Lisa heard Leo cry from her house, I wasn't sure, but I hadn't mustered the nerve to ask. Whatever, however, she knew, I was simply grateful for the reprieve.

And for a little time alone with someone almost too good to be true.

"Was he like this last night?" Lisa asked.

"No. He only cried for a bottle but after I fed him, he went right back to sleep."

"Progress. Just keep growing and we'll get through this." Lisa put Leo on her broad shoulder, exactly where my son preferred to be.

Maybe it was because Lisa had such a big shoulder to sleep on. Maybe it was her smell or her voice or the easy cadence of her swagger. My son preferred Lisa's chest to mine.

My son was no fool.

I was as enchanted as my baby.

Lisa was wearing gray sweats tonight that pooled at her feet. She had on a white sleeveless T-shirt, her tattoos on display.

"What do your tattoos mean?" I asked.

It had been on the tip of my tongue for weeks. My curiosity about Lisa was as insatiable as it was dangerous. The more I learned, the harder I crushed.

"The eagle is my favorite bird." She nodded to her left side and the feathered wings curled around her biceps. The face of the fierce creature was as haunting as it was beautiful.

Lisa passed the couch, shifting to show me her right side. The blue-white nightlights I'd added to the loft illuminated the black lines and circles on her skin. "These are planets. I have one on my shoulder blade that's an outline of Mars. Not that I'm into astronomy. They represent our horses. Dad bought eight horses years ago and Rosie named them all after the planets. Mars is mine."

"Do you go riding often?"

"Not as much as I'd like. I keep him at the ranch so he can have company. I try to take him out once a month or so."

My horse's name had been Lady. She'd pranced around like one too. My sister and I had both taken riding lessons as kids because at the time, it had been the popular extracurricular activity for New York socialites. Then one of Mom's friends had called the activity antiquated, refusing to send her own daughters. A week later, my parents had sold Lady and I'd been forced to endure piano lessons instead.

"You ever ride before?" she asked.

"Not for a long time."

She didn't offer to take me out on Mars. I wouldn't have accepted.

This, these dark nights, were all I'd let myself have of Lisa.

Leo was making progress and before long, these visits would stop. We'd return to being her temporary tenants. I'd be her coworker, rarely crossing her path. And someday, I'd move on. When that day came, I needed my heart intact. My whole heart.

Leo's crying began to ebb, shifting from a broken string of screams to a whine between hitched breaths.

"There we go," Lisa murmured, her hand splayed on the baby's back. The broad shoulder, the hum of our conversation, worked like a charm on Leo every time.

"Shouldn't it be me who makes him stop crying?" The admission slipped from my lips before I could stop it. Guilt and shame clouded my voice. It should be me, shouldn't it? Leo was mine.

"You are." Lisa paused in front of me, towering over me with my tiny son in her massive arms. "You let me in the door, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Maybe motherhood wasn't always being the person your child leaned on, but finding the person they needed when you weren't enough. For Leo's sake, for him to get some rest, I'd set aside my pride and let Lisa step in to help.

The woman who actually earned her strong arms for real hugs would be a lucky, lucky girl. I snuggled deeper into my blanket, curling my legs beneath me as I followed Lisa's every step.

Exhaustion was a constant companion to my waking moments. The only reason I was able to keep my eyes open was because the picture of Lisa and Leo was one I didn't want to miss. It was the reason I chose the couch over snuggling into bed.

Watching them together was a dream. A fantasy of a different life had I made better choices.

Leo had stopped crying and was moments away from sleep. This interlude was nearly over. For my son's sake, I was grateful. For mine . . .

It would be difficult to close the door behind Lisa when she left.

A yawn stretched my lips and I waved it off. "Sorry."

"Now you're apologizing for yawning?" She shot me a grin as she passed the couch.

"My father once scolded me for yawning during a meeting. I apologized then and haven't stopped since."

It was the first time I'd mentioned my father aloud. For over a month, I'd kept my past locked away. I'd dodged questions about my family and the reasons why I'd moved across the country. Sleep deprivation had caused my walls to drop.

Or maybe it was just Lisa. She shared freely. She made me want to do the same.

"Seriously?" she asked.

I shrugged.

"You don't talk about your family."

"I don't talk about much."

"This is true." The corner of her mouth turned up. "Where are your parents?"

I sighed, sinking deeper into the couch. "I figured you'd ask eventually. But I haven't figured out how to answer that question yet."

"It's a simple question, Jennie."

"Then the simple answer is New York."

"What's the complicated answer?"

"The truth makes my family seem . . . ugly." As frustrated as I was with them, I didn't want strangers to think they were bad people. They were who they were. Distant. Self-absorbed. Proud. They were the product of their surroundings and extreme, selfish wealth.

Once, I hadn't been all that different. Maybe they were ugly. But their awful actions had been the catalyst to my change. Because of them, I would be a better person. Despite them.

Lisa walked to the door, pausing beside her discarded tennis shoes. "Better let me be the judge."

I glanced to the clock on the microwave. "This isn't really a conversation for two oh seven in the morning."

She crossed the room, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch with my son asleep on her chest. "Are they less ugly during the day?"

"No," I whispered. "My father never held Leo. You're the only one to ever carry her in your arms."

A crease formed between her eyebrows. "Did he . . ."

"Die? No. He's very much alive. My parents, my dad in particular, doesn't approve of my choices. He sets the tone for our family, and when I refused to do things his way, he disowned me. My mother, my sister and my brother followed suit. Though it doesn't really matter because I disowned them too."

Lisa studied my face. "What do you mean, they disowned you?"

"I worked for my dad. He fired me. I was living in one of their Manhattan townhouses. Leo was four weeks old when his attorney served me my thirty-day eviction notice. My grandparents set up trust funds for each of their grandchildren but required my father be the conservator until we turned thirty. I went in to take out some money so I could move and Dad denied the bank from granting me any withdrawals. He left me with nothing but the money I had in my own bank account and my final paycheck."

"Are you fucking serious? Why?"

"He wants to know who Leo's father is. I refuse to tell him. I refuse to tell anyone." There was a hidden warning in my tone, that if Lisa asked, I'd deny her an answer. "Dad didn't like being told that it was none of his business. But there's a reason why no one knows who Leo's father is. I plan to keep it that way."

Lisa leaned forward, her hold on Leo tightening. "Is there something I need to know?"

"No. He's gone from my life."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite." I had a signed document to prove it. "My dad thought he'd call my bluff. That if he made my life hard enough, I'd tell him everything he wanted to know. That he could continue to pull my strings and I'd dance as one of his little puppets. I'm twenty-five, not sixteen. My decisions are my own. My secrets are my own."

Lisa leaned into the couch, shaking her head. "You're right. I'm not really liking your family at the moment."

"My father isn't used to being told no. He owns a hotel conglomerate. And he runs his family as heavy-handedly as he does his business."

"A hotel?" Lisa's eyebrows arched. "Which one?"

"Kim Hotels."

"No shit?" She huffed a laugh. "After culinary school, I worked in San Francisco. The restaurant was in a Kim Hotel."

I blinked. "Really?"

"Small world."

"That it is." And I knew exactly which restaurant she was talking about too.

I'd been to San Francisco numerous times, always staying at the hotel. Had Lisa been the one to cook my meals? It wouldn't surprise me. It had been a favorite place to eat.

Lisa studied my profile. "Kim Hotels is not a small company."

"No, it is not."

It was a privately owned multimillion-dollar business. The real estate holdings alone were worth a fortune.

And I'd traded my thirty-million-dollar trust fund for a fourteen-dollar-per-hour housekeeping job.

Maybe it had been a reckless decision driven by betrayal. We didn't have much in Quincy.

But we were free.

"You're cleaning toilets," Lisa said.

I raised my chin. "There's nothing wrong with cleaning toilets."

"No, there isn't." She gave me a small nod. "What did you do before you came here? You worked for Kim?"

"I was a marketing executive for the company. My brother is being groomed to take over for my father, but my sister and I grew up knowing we'd always have jobs with the company. We were expected to work there. I started the day after I graduated from college."

"Where did you go to school?"

"I have a degree in sociology from Princeton. Not exactly useful, but it was interesting."

Lisa was silent for a long moment, then she laughed. "Princeton. Why did you choose to work at The Rosie? Why not find something that paid more?"

"Hotels are what I've always known." And though I probably could have found a cushy resort and worked my way into a general manager position, Dad had required his executives, including his daughters, to sign a ten-year noncompete.

"It seemed like the easy choice," I said. "Not that the work is easy. It's the hardest job I've ever had. But with so many other changes, I wanted the familiarity of a hotel. Even if I've never cleaned a room in my life."

She blinked. "Seriously? You've never cleaned before this?"

"I had a maid," I admitted. "I watched a lot of videos on YouTube before I started."

"Well . . . according to Rosie, you're doing a hell of a job."

"Thank you." I was glad it was dark so she wouldn't see me blush. "I won't be a housekeeper forever, but I was never given the chance to choose my own path. When I'm ready, I'll find something that pays more. That leans on my education. There aren't a ton of opportunities in a small town, but I'll keep my eye out. For now, I like where I'm at."

"You could have picked any other town."

I shook my head. "I chose Quincy."

This town was mine.

It was hard to explain how I'd become so attached to this place in such a short time. But every time I drove down Main, it felt more and more like home. Every time I went to the grocery store and my favorite cashier—Maxine—complimented me on having such an adorable baby, I felt my heart settle. Every time I walked into The Rosie, I felt like I belonged.

"My parents would hate it here." I smiled.

"Part of its appeal?"

"At first." I dropped my gaze to my lap. "I know how all of this sounds. It's part of the reason why I haven't told anyone. Poor little rich girl gives up her fortune, moves to Montana, and lives paycheck to paycheck all because she was sick and tired of her father ordering her around."

Saying it aloud made me cringe.

"I didn't turn my life upside down to spite anyone. I did it for Leo. Because I believe in my heart of hearts, this is a better life. Even if it's hard. Even if we're alone." We'd been alone since the beginning.

"Would they have made your life miserable in New York?" Lisa asked.

"They would have controlled it. They would have ripped the decisions out of my hands, especially when it came to Leo." He would have had a nanny and been shipped away to boarding school at age ten. "I don't want to live by someone else's rule simply because he pulls the strings with my money."

"I can appreciate that. So what happens when you turn thirty? When he's not in charge of your trust fund?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I'm not going to hold out hope that the money will be there. I expect my father to find a way to take it himself. Probably buy another hotel in another city."

"Can he do that? Is it legal?"

I lifted a shoulder. "I always have the option to fight. To hire an attorney and go after it. In a few years, maybe I'll feel differently, but at the moment, I don't want any part of it. I had enough money saved up to buy my car. Once I get ahead, I'll see what my options are for buying a house. Right now, it's more important for me to count on myself than anyone else. My family was supposed to be there for me, but on the first-worst day of my life, they let me down. So I've let them go."

Her forehead furrowed. "You keep track of your worst days?"

"It's silly, but yes."

"What was the first?"

I gave her a sad smile. "The day I had Leo. It was also the first-best day of my life."

"I get why it was the best day." She splayed her fingers across Leo's back. For whatever reason, she didn't seem ready to put the baby in her crib. Lisa simply held her, ensuring that my son slept. "Why was it the first-worst day too?"

"Because I was alone. My brother and father are cut from the same cloth so I hadn't expected much from them, but I thought my mom would at least show at the hospital for the birth of her first grandchild. Maybe my sister. But they all ignored my calls and didn't respond to my texts. I was in labor for seventeen hours."

The crying. The pain. The exhaustion.

That was the day Old Jennie had died. Because she'd realized that the life she'd lived was so shallow that not a single person had come to simply hold her hand. No family. No friends.

"The epidural didn't work," I said. "The doctors finally told me that I had to have an emergency C-section. I woke up a day later after almost dying from a postpartum hemorrhage."

"Fuck," Lisa muttered.

"Leo was healthy. That was all that mattered. We camped in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and when they sent us home, I was already planning an exit from the city. When Dad called to tell me that I had to move out, I simply escalated my departure date."

Thankfully, he hadn't fired me until after Leo was born. Or maybe I'd quit. Considering I'd resigned and he'd fired me during the same phone conversation while I'd been in a hospital bed, I wasn't exactly sure how Human Resources had processed that one. All I cared about was that my insurance had still been active, so it had covered my medical bills.

Dad must have thought that after Leo was born, I'd change my mind. That I'd bend to his iron will. Maybe had he shown up at the hospital, I would have.

"I chose Quincy. I applied at the inn. I bought the Volvo, and after Roseann offered me a job, I started searching for rentals here. When I couldn't find one after a week of looking . . . well, here I am."

"Here you are." There was something in her voice. A fondness where irritation had once been.

Lisa and I sat on the couch, eyes locked through the dark.

Now she had my story, or most of it. Some pieces were mine and mine alone. One day, they might be Leo's but that was a worry for the future.

There were pieces to my tale I loathed. Parts of the story where I'd failed. But mostly, I was beginning to feel . . . proud.

Coming to Quincy had been the right decision.

"You'd better get some sleep." Lisa stood from the couch in one fluid movement, taking Leo to his crib. Lisa laid him down, brushing the hair away from his forehead, then stood and walked to the door where I waited to see her out.

"Thank you." Like I always apologized when she knocked, I thanked her before she left.

Lisa bent to pull on her shoes, then she stood tall and nodded, reaching for the door's handle. But she paused before stepping outside and into the night. She turned to me, a tower at over six feet tall. In my bare feet, I was only five four.

"You're not alone. Not anymore."

I opened my mouth but no words came out. She was hugging me again, holding me so tight with those invisible arms that I couldn't speak.

Lisa lifted her hand to my cheek and tucked an errant lock of hair behind my ear. Just one brush of her fingertips and every nerve ending in my body sparked. My breath hitched.

"Good night, Jennie." Then she was gone, closing the door behind her as she retreated to her house.

A smile ghosted my lips. "Good night, Lisa."