Read Online Homecoming Reunion by Carolyne Aarsen - Free Book Online

said quietly looking away. Then, to her shock and dismay, she felt Garret’s hand touch her arm. It was the merest brush of his fingers on her sleeve but it seemed to scorch her skin through the material of her shirt.
    She jerked her arm back then chastised herself for her foolish overreaction. And when she saw Garret’s eyes harden as he pulled his hand back, she felt even more foolish.
    “I wanted to say sorry for my comment about your mother not running the inn anymore,” he said, pulling his hand away. “It was insensitive. I guess I was trying to say that things are different now and I’d like to move on.”
    Larissa sensed an underlying meaning to his words but as she held his gaze, she felt the tension between them even more keenly.
    “I’d like that too,” she said, keeping her own comment purposely ambiguous.
    “We’ll be working together for a while,” he added, his hair falling across his forehead as he dropped his head to one side. “May as well try to get along as best as we can. I mean, the past is past, right?”
    She gave another curt nod, and added a casual smile, wishing the action would create a corresponding emotion. She knew he was right, but why did his practical words create a lingering sense of desolation?

Chapter Five
    “D id you have a chance to look over my suggestions?” Emily asked as she slowly walked around the kitchen.
    Garret glanced down at the piece of paper he held in his hands and nodded. When he first saw the list of Emily’s “suggestions” he had struggled with both the extent and the cost.
    “I know it seems like a lot,” Emily said, as if he had spoken aloud, “But you said you wanted me to think of quality first so I did. I wanted to do this a few years ago, but Larissa said the money wasn’t there.”
    “Her father didn’t think it was,” Garret said, feeling the need to defend Larissa.
    “There are other reasons,” Emily said. Then without bothering to add to her ambiguous statement, she folded her slender arms over her stomach, glancing around the kitchen with the air of a woman who had just come back to find rodents taking up residence in her home. “Anyhow, this place is falling apart.”
    “It’s only been four years since you’ve been here. Surely it hasn’t gotten that bad,” Garret said, turning over the paper. Didn’t matter how many times he looked at it, the final number still made him gulp.
    Keep calm and carry on , he reminded himself. It’s an investment in the right part of the inn that will pay off in increased revenue.
    That is, if his other plans came together the way they hoped. He’d spent the past few days visiting various members of the Chamber of Commerce, stopping in at local businesses and drinking more coffee than was good for him. All this was in an effort to chase down some ideas he had for boosting business at the inn.
    “Shows how much you know about running a kitchen.” Emily walked around the butcher-block counter to the stove and leaned over it, looking up. “This fan is so gunked up with grease that we’ll need a new one. I doubt the filters have been changed. The refrigerator lost a seal and got mildew. The pots and pans needed replacing when I was still here so that’ll need to be done.” She shot him a challenging look. “I won’t cook in a lousy kitchen with substandard equipment.”
    As he faced down a very determined Emily, Garret felt a niggling of sympathy for Larissa’s situation four years ago. He had never seen this side of the cook when he and Larissa were stealing cookies from her cookie jar.
    But he swallowed his trepidation, ignoring the dollar signs plunging into a black hole in his mind. “I’d like to go ahead, but we need to finalize everything with Larissa.”
    Emily’s eyes narrowed and she planted her hands on her narrow hips. “That girl has always done what her daddy tells her, you know that,” she said, her dubious expression tweaking second thoughts in Garret’s mind. “I