Chapter 3

3

Abby Vanderguard clocked in on the employee time clock at the back of the inn with four minutes to spare. Her brother Will was such an asshole. He was mad at her again since she’d made him drive her to work. What else was he going to do with his stupid time? He was such an idiot, but her brother actually had gas money. And she cooked and cleaned for him too. He owed her something for that. Her dad had agreed when she’d told him. Will brought her to work to repay her, and then he was free to do whatever it was he did all the time.

She didn’t even know where Will got money from. Not since he’d quit his job with Tyler Contracting two months ago. He’d said he was too good to work for a loser like Martin Tyler. Abby didn’t think Martin was a loser, really. He just didn’t have a whole lot of money. He had some, but not like Calloway Grady or Brandt Barratt or anything. Martin was also seriously hot and had that really nice brand-new house and everything.

She’d considered Martin once, but they had argued a few times before. He had a temper and everything. And was really kind of rough around the edges. He scared her a little.

She preferred a more sophisticated kind of man than one who used a hammer for a living. She’d been trying for days last month to get Brandt Barratt to even look at her, but she had given up when she saw him kissing that stupid Meyra Talley in the lobby and holding her hand. Treating Meyra like a stupid princess or something.

Of course, Meyra was one of the Talleys . So much better than everyone else because their grandmother owned the inn and everything. Talleys got all the really good guys. They always had.

Meyra was stupid. All that girl could do was cook. She barely even talked at all, and mostly, she only wore the Talley Inn or Diner polo or T-shirts, and pulled her hair into ponytails, and that was it. Meyra rarely even bothered with makeup either.

What was so special about Meyra that got her a millionaire? Meyra and Brandt had almost died together just this week. Now they were talking about getting married and everything.

Meyra Talley and a millionaire? For real?

Abby didn’t understand it at all. She’d even asked Will why a guy like Brandt Barratt would want Meyra—and all he’d said was that Meyra was pretty and hot and would probably just do whatever a guy told her to do. Especially in bed and everything.

She’d gotten the impression that was what Will wanted from a girlfriend too. A pretty girl that would just lie there and do what Will told her to do and then give him all her money too. Pathetic.

Will was such a loser that he’d probably end up in jail someday. The way he always ran around with those losers in town that just kept getting in trouble. It was inevitable.

His friend Oliver was still in the hospital from when he’d tried to kill Chandler and Linsey Tyler and that cop Sage Tyler. Oliver had been burned really bad. Oliver would probably go to jail if he ever got out of the hospital.

Two other friends of Will’s had been arrested this week.

With that Judge Fisher guy. Everyone in town was talking about it. About how he had tried to kill Brandt and Meyra and everything.

Instead, Will’s friend Ashton had died. Brandt Barratt had killed him and everything. In self-defense. Abby had known Ashton his entire life. It was hard to believe he was dead and everything now.

There were a lot of bad things happening in Masterson. Abby was starting to get really afraid. First, it had been all of that stuff with her friend Braelyn’s cousins, the Rutherfords, and the drugs they were growing. And that weird war they had with Phil Tyler and his family.

Then it had been everything with her ex-boyfriend Desmond’s dad, Morris Preston, and now all of this with Ashton and Kurt. They had been Will’s closest friends for over a decade. Since he was in high school and everything. Everyone who knew them would know that.

Maybe…she should warn her brother not to be stupid or anything right now? Suggest he went to visit their mom’s sister in Iowa for a while?

She didn’t think Will would be like that, have anything to do with drugs or anything. But she was seven years older than Will. And since their mom had died fourteen years ago, he had really struggled. He’d just been a stupid kid in junior high back then. Maybe he had done something really stupid already? He was her younger brother. Didn’t she have like a responsibility to him somehow? She did not want him to be arrested.

And then she’d be all embarrassed, and her dad would be heartbroken, and she would have to find a way to fix everything all by herself. Like always.

Good old Abby, taking care of everyone else.

Tonight, when Will picked her up, she was going to ask him what he was involved in. And make sure her brother wasn’t doing anything stupid at all.

Abby hurried through her pre-shift routine. Most times, she was there fifteen minutes early, but Will had been running late.

He’d really been acting like a lunatic since Ashton had died. He wasn’t even planning to go to the funeral or anything. Ashton had been one of his best friends his whole life, and he wasn’t going to go to the funeral next week.

Abby didn’t understand that. If anything ever happened to Braelyn, or even Caitlyn, who was always kind of following Braelyn around, Abby would probably be devastated. Caitlyn was Braelyn’s cousin, and she was only a teenager. It was like having a little sister sometimes.

She and Braelyn had been best friends since junior high, for, like, fifteen years. Now that Caitlyn was there working at the inn with them, they kept an eye out for her too. That was what you did with your friends. You took care of them.

“Cutting it close today,” her shift supervisor, Lucy, said.

Abby hated Lucy nearly as much as she did the stupid blond bitch next to her. Dixie.

One of them.

Dixie Talley walked around like she thought her poop didn’t stink sometimes. Always telling people what to do, being the one in charge of the inn and everything. Dixie had it in for Abby. Probably because Abby was hotter, thinner, and far less of a bitch than Dixie could ever be. Dixie didn’t even have a boyfriend and hadn’t in, like, forever.

“My brother was running late. He was my ride. I’m sorry.” She knew how to handle herself with her bosses. Abby really needed the job at the inn. Her dad was counting on her salary to pay the bills. Will certainly wasn’t helping much at all. “I thought Dylan was going to be here tonight?”

Instead of Dixie. She hated working when Dixie was there just slightly less than she did when that little bitch Dylan was there.

Dylan got on Abby’s nerves constantly. Dylan wasn’t a boss or a supervisor or anything, even though she was a Talley. She never told Abby what to do, either. Not like Dixie did or anything. Dylan was just weird. Probably because she had been homeschooled, and everyone knew homeschooled kids were social idiots.

Even if they did think they were so hot because they were Talleys.

Dylan was just a fake one who had just sort of appeared when Dixie’s dad and mom had moved back to town with four more daughters. Now those daughters got all the good hours at the inn and the easy shifts and even got to live at the inn for free and be popular all the time.

Why wouldn’t they? Everyone knew the Talleys were rich. Meyra’s father had invested lots of money or something over, like, forty years. Apparently, so had Dixie and Dylan’s, long before he’d run away and everything. Money that had just sat there, untouched for more than twenty years.

Meyra’s dad had married that rich Dr. Masterson, who built the hospital. The Talleys had money everywhere. Dylan probably didn’t even need to work. None of them did. They just liked being where everyone could see them. Abby had figured them out before.

“Dylan…is off tonight,” Dixie said, looking at the third woman with them. Dusty, her younger sister. Dusty wasn’t too bad. She was going to marry Fletcher’s brother Ben very soon.

Abby had to get along with Dusty, no matter what. It was part of her plan.

For a better life.

Her father had said what Fletcher was doing at his ranch was going to pay off big time. Very soon. Her father kept up with all the ranching science magazines and things, even though they had lost their ranch when her mom had gotten so sick. And her dad had been drunk all those years after. There had been articles that had even mentioned Fletcher and his partner in Texas and what they were doing now. And that it was going to be making people lots of money soon.

Her dad said Fletcher would be one of those people. Her dad was talking about how the drones would change things for a lot of ranchers in the area. Abby didn’t care really—she just wanted Fletcher to be rich. It mattered.

“What?” Dusty asked, surprise right there on her face. Abby was always trying to be nice to Dusty and her best friend, Nikki. Nikki was Fletcher’s sister. For her plan to work, she really had to be nice to Nikki. Nikki was married to the man who was building that movie studio—Abby really needed to be nice to Nikki. “Where is she?”

The two sisters went into the back room to talk. Abby stepped closer to her computer monitor. She’d have to work the check-in desk for the next eight hours. The room mail slots were right behind her. They weren’t used much anymore, but they were hand-carved and a part of the inn’s tradition.

It really was a beautiful inn, and if she liked the Talleys any better, she might just like it there okay. Abby enjoyed seeing the guests and talking to them and feeling important. She stepped closer to the mail slots—they opened in the back of the front office in small openings big enough for letters.

Sometimes, she could hear what the people in the back room were saying. She listened now.

“Fletcher bet Dylan she couldn’t work a real job besides here for six months,” Dixie was saying now. “He said she couldn’t do it because the family was taking care of her, that she couldn’t take care of herself. That she’d rather proven that this week.”

“What? That idiot! Name one of us who wouldn’t have done exactly what Dylan did when she saw Meyra in trouble like that. We all would have done it. Fletcher would have too. I’m going to clobber him myself for how he treats her.” Dusty was really angry. She was quiet—she didn’t get angry that often. Not that Abby had ever noticed. But she was now.

“I have my theories about why he acts that way with her. They get within ten feet of each other, and it’s total fire. Anyway, she took him up on the bet. She’s…his housekeeper now. For six months. She moved out of here and in with Fletcher an hour ago.”

“Seriously? His housekeeper ? This is too good to be believed. How long do you think it’ll take?”

“I give it a month ,” Dixie said.

“Six weeks. She can be stubborn. And a bit clueless.”

“No kidding.”

What did they mean?

Abby just stood there as she listened.