Me and Mr. Jones (Heartbreak Hotel Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  ME AND MR JONES

  Also Available

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Excerpt – ALMOST WONDERFUL

  Christie Ridgway’s Book List

  About the Author

  ME AND MR JONES

  Heartbreak Hotel Book 2

  By Christie Ridgway

  Also Available

  Our Last First Kiss (Heartbreak Hotel Book 1)

  Me and Mr. Jones (Heartbreak Hotel Book 2)

  My Quickie Wedding (Heartbreak Hotel Book 3), Coming soon!

  Almost Wonderful (Almost Book 1)

  Almost Always (Almost Book 2)

  Almost Everything (Almost Book 3)

  Almost Paradise (Almost Book 4)

  Take Me Tender (Billionaire’s Beach Book 1)

  Take Me Forever (Billionaire’s Beach Book 2)

  Take Me Home (Billionaire’s Beach Book 3)

  The Scandal (Billionaire’s Beach Book 4)

  The Seduction (Billionaire’s Beach Book 5)

  The Secret (Billionaire’s Beach Book 6)

  One Look (One & Only Book 1)

  One Kiss (One & Only Book 2)

  One Night (One & Only Book 3)

  One Love (One & Only Book 4)

  Light My Fire (Rock Royalty Book 1)

  Love Her Madly (Rock Royalty Book 2)

  Break on Through (Rock Royalty Book 3)

  Touch Me (Rock Royalty Book 4)

  Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5)

  Wild Child (Rock Royalty Book 6)

  Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7)

  Love Me Two Times (Rock Royalty Book 8)

  Make Him Wild (Intoxicating Book 1)

  Make Him Want (Intoxicating Book 2)

  Make Him Stay (Intoxicating Book 3)

  ME AND MR JONES

  Welcome to the famed resort, The Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach, where newlyweds come to honeymoon, where anniversary couples celebrate milestones, and where broken hearts find a place to heal.

  Jilted bride Audra Montgomery wants to reset her life at the famed resort, The Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach. A good girl for far too long, Audra has penned a list of must-do experiences she’s sure will change her. When the hotel’s maintenance guy, a “Mr. Jones,” knocks on her door, she wonders if the sexy handyman might just come in handy when enacting some of the spicier items on her agenda.

  Kane Hathaway, general manager of the resort, didn’t set out to deceive his guest when he performed a minor repair. But it’s freeing to imagine life without the responsibilities of the family business. Then there’s the whole “Heartbreak Hotel” designation—cynical Kane doesn’t believe for a minute that a stay on site can heal the wounds left by bad romance. But every moment in Audra’s company sparkles with magic—can this be love?

  ME AND MR JONES

  Heartbreak Hotel Book 2

  © Copyright 2018 Christie Ridgway

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  ISBN: 9781939286437

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Chapter 1

  When Kane Hathaway had been cursed four years ago, he’d never expected the act to inflict upon him a day like this one—a tennis court inexplicably flooded, an elderly but elusive guest shuffling around the resort grounds wearing nothing but terry slippers embroidered with “The Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach,” and a wonky reservation system that had a crazy hair up its automated ass. Suddenly, it kept attempting to book famous cartoon characters into the best bungalows on Christmas Day, 2046.

  He suppressed the urge to snatch up the desktop nameplate listing him as “General Manager” and throw it out the window. God, it was tempting to throw in the towel altogether. Then move on to…what?

  “Kane?” The note of concern in his sister’s voice made him shove a hand down his face to wipe away his frustrated expression.

  “What do you need?” he asked her. Maybe it would be good to get out from behind his desk. He was the general manager, after all. His goddamn last name was on the place and surely that should inspire him to action. But the truth was, he hadn’t cared much about anything, including the family hospitality business, in a long while.

  “I don’t actually need you to do anything,” Amber said. Dressed in the front office uniform of dark slacks and crisp white blouse, she looked calm and capable. Flipping the sleek tail of her dark gold hair behind her shoulder, she frowned at him. “Staff is on it, of course. I just thought I should report on the current crises of the day.”

  “Right.” Kane glanced at the paper files open before him and the spreadsheet glowing on his computer screen and rubbed at a throb of pain between his eyebrows. Numbers, more numbers, and wandering naked guests. Nothing new.

  “Are you okay? You don’t look so great,” Amber said.

  “Just feeling my age,” he muttered.

  She smiled, a little sister gleeful to poke at her big brother. “Oh yeah, the big thirty-one looms, doesn’t it?”

  Along with his personal deadline. He’d given himself his thirtieth year to figure things out, to determine whether he should remain on the Hathaway corporate ladder. To make matters weightier, he’d been offered the position of Director of West Coast Operations—still based out of Santa Barbara but overseeing all the Hathaway properties from Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to Vancouver, Washington.

  You didn’t accept a job like that unless you were willing to make a real commitment.

  As the issuer of curses had pointed out, hissing it like a snake, he sucked at commitment.

  “Hello?” Amber said, tilting her head. “Kane? Are you still with me?”

  He attempted shaking off his crap mood. His gaze shifted and then stuck on the day-by-day calendar to his right. A present from his other sister, Jessie, it offered up the kind of syrupy, “life-affirming” quotes that made him nuts—exactly why she’d gifted him with it, the brat. “Damn,” he said, for the first time noting the date, and tapped the tear-off sheet. “It’s Friday the thirteenth. That explains it.”

  “Huh?”

  “We better keep on our toes,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “Who knows what else will go wrong today?”

  Amber made a choked sound.

  He looked up to find her green eyes sparkling with amusement.

  “What?” he demanded. First the crack about his age and now this? There was only so much disrespect an older brother should have to bear. “What do you find so funny?”

  “You.” She pointed to him with both index fingers, a laugh bubbling out. “Okay, everybody knows you have that weird superstitious streak, but how could I not realize you are also friggatriskaidekaphobic?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Did you make that word up?”

  “It’s real,” she assured him, her lips curled in a definite smirk. “I
t means you’re afraid of—”

  “I assure you I’m not scared of ‘frigging.’ As a matter of fact—”

  “No!” She was laughing again. “Since a very young and impressionable age I’ve been well aware of your interest and aptitude in the ‘frigging’—” her fingers curled in air quotes “—department.”

  He refused to let a burn of embarrassment crawl over his face. “You and Jessie shouldn’t have been hiding in the bushes behind the gazebo when I was dating Lindsay Muir in tenth grade.” They’d made their presences known in a flurry of giggles just as he’d rounded second base.

  “It wasn’t only Lusty Lindsay. Jess and I have been inundated for years with stories of your exploits and with appeals to be the subjects thereof from our girlfriends and other female acquaintances. You have quite the rep, big brother.”

  Okay, this was awkward. “Amber—”

  “You might not stay, but the play is first rate, I’ve been told.”

  “We’re getting far, far off topic,” he said, shifting in his seat, the conversation reminding him of another he’d recently had with his second cousin and good friend Alec Thatcher. Kane had made some impromptu quip about having a fear of being stuck with one woman for life. It had been said as a joke. But Alec had frowned at him, despite the light tone of their conversation. You know, he’d said. That makes you sound like an asshole.

  Shoving the memory away, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Is there anything else?” he asked his sister. “That involves the hotel?” Clarification seemed necessary.

  She was studying him with that smirk still fixed on her face. “A friggatriskaidekaphobic is someone who’s afraid of Friday the thirteenth. I didn’t know until now that day gives you the willies.”

  It was a quirk he’d kept private, same as his thoughts about leaving the family business. “Everybody looks over their shoulder on Friday the thirteenth,” he said, dismissively. “Now, moving on…”

  “All right, all right.” Apparently done with needling her big brother, Amber turned toward the door. “Moving on—” She halted, her hand going to the small device nestled in her right ear. “Uh-oh,” she said, swinging around.

  Friday the thirteenth, Kane thought, resigned. “What now?”

  “No big. Housekeeping’s reporting some leaking faucets in the bungalows on Hibiscus Hill. But we’re short maintenance staff today…either a wicked flu or Thursday night partying took half of them out.”

  Kane was already standing. “I can handle it.”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  “What are there, six bungalows out that way?”

  “Yes.”

  Getting a little dirty might improve the day. He breezed past his little sister intending to hit the maintenance department for some tools.

  “Watch out for black cats,” Amber called after him, saccharine-sweet.

  Big brothers didn’t give their younger siblings the finger, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. She was laughing again as if she knew what was going through his mind. Both his sisters could be brats.

  But his mood improved as he walked through the extensive grounds toward the troublesome faucets. The resort occupied twenty seaside acres that were landscaped into tranquil gardens, verdant jungles, and quiet lagoons surrounding standalone residential structures as well as buildings housing more traditional hotel rooms. He breathed in the fresh air laced with a hint of salt from the Pacific Ocean and his headache waned. Amber’s teasing warning—watch out for black cats—still grated in his ears, so he strode confidently between the veed rails of a tall ladder set up for some roof-work, refusing to surrender to his compulsion to walk around the thing.

  As he took a shortcut through the deck surrounding the main pool, however, his gut took over when he bumped into an empty bistro table by the bar and knocked over a salt shaker. Without a thought, he tossed a pinch of the spilled white crystals over his left shoulder. It only made sense to distract the devil who was always standing behind you so he wouldn’t cause trouble. Old Val Soros, the family handyman, had told Kane that long ago, and he’d always listened to Val, who had paid him a hell of a lot more attention than Kane’s own parents. And the old man was a thousand times wiser than anything that could be learned from the “Advice for Achieving Your Best Life” calendar sitting on his desk.

  He passed a housekeeper trundling a cart between buildings and smiled when she did a double-take. “Mr. Hathaway? Is that you?”

  “Dolores.” He nodded at her. “Having a good day?”

  She stared at his get-up. He’d found a pair of abandoned coveralls in the locker room at maintenance HQ and slipped the lightweight khaki cotton over his dress shirt and slacks. The Hathaway logo was stitched on the right side of the one-piece garment and a patch with the name “Jones” was sewn below it. Holding out his arms, he grinned at the older woman. “Will I do?”

  She bobbed her head. “Of course, sir. Of course.” Her glance took in the metal box dangling from his fist. “You’re going to fix something?” she asked, doubtfully. “Can I call—”

  “Dolores, I can handle it.” He wasn’t going to take offense, but it irked that she didn’t consider him capable of anything outside the office. Definitely time to get out from behind the desk. With his free hand, he ruffled his hair, mussing the usually crisp layers. “Better?”

  “Certainly, sir,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t convinced.

  With a smile, he let her go on her way, but decided that yeah, he’d been holed away in his office for too long. Getting out and getting his hands dirty would be good for him. Maybe different tasks and a different environment would provide clarity.

  A sign to point him in the right direction.

  First, though, he saw one pointing him toward his destination.

  The bungalows on what they referred to as Hibiscus Hill were situated on a knoll far from the main buildings and each was tucked in a lush, jungle-like setting. Kane pulled his phone from the side pocket of the coveralls and paused to survey which dwellings he was scheduled to check. A leaky faucet didn’t spell disaster, but the number one Hathaway priority was the guests. Even a small annoyance shouldn’t impinge on the quality of a visitor’s stay.

  Running his gaze down the list that Amber had texted him, he saw she’d included the name associated with each booking. One stood out immediately.

  Audra Montgomery.

  Mysterious Audra Montgomery, who had checked in almost two weeks before but who had not been seen on the grounds since. Fact was, hotel staff members were notorious gossips—among themselves anyway—and he’d heard she called room service for all her meals and hadn’t stepped out to take a single one of the many exercise classes or avail herself of any of the spa services offered by the resort.

  Kane might have an inkling as to why. She’d arrived after being jilted just hours before her scheduled beach wedding and had come with the maid of honor for some R & R. The maid of honor had gone on to hook up with best man, also staying at the resort for his parents’ anniversary celebration. The best man was none other than Kane’s second cousin, Alec Thatcher.

  Alec and his Lilly were now back in LA, presumably turtle dove-ing their way into a happy future. Before Alec had left, he’d mentioned the reclusive would-be bride might need an intervention.

  All right, then. Kane strode briskly down the path to her door. He’d suss out the situation for himself, in his guise as resort maintenance man.

  And maybe meeting a woman at her own life’s crossroads would shake something lose in his psyche, allowing it to finally aim him in the right direction just in time for his thirty-first birthday.

  His knuckles rapped on the wooden door and he couldn’t squash a sudden surge of curiosity. One of the reception staff had mentioned she was extraordinarily beautiful. He might not be capable of a long-term commitment to a woman, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a connoisseur of the female form and face. Shoot him, he was a guy.

  When the door swung open
, he just stared.

  Audra Montgomery—if this creature was indeed she—looked half-awake, or maybe half-dead. Gray sweats, size XL he guessed, hid most of her body, though the neck hole had stretched toward her shoulder to reveal a slice of a lacy undergarment, or…

  Oh, hell. Was that her wedding dress under there?

  Her pale hair straggled around her face, which was mostly camouflaged by those messy strands and a black satin sleep mask that she’d flipped down over her nose instead of up over her forehead. Her eyes were heavy and the bags beneath them were larger than the set of luggage brought by the couple who’d checked in for a month this morning. Her lips were chapped and when she licked them it didn’t help.

  Good God. If this woman represented some kind of personal sign for Kane, he was heading toward shit.

  Audra blinked, groggy from her mid-morning nap. A man stood on the other side of her door, but the bright sunshine hurt her eyes so she squinted against the pain, taking in just a sliver of him. “Yes?” She noted she sounded groggy too.

  “Ma’am.” The man nodded. He carried a small toolbox and was dressed in manual worker’s wear. “I’m here to check on your faucets. Housekeeping has reported a problem.”

  “Oh.” As she watched, he shifted nearer, his extra-wide shoulders blocking out some of that infernal bright light. “Um…”

  “May I come in and check?”

  “Um…” Her brain continued to operate at a sluggish gear, a state she’d been welcoming, because it put a fog between her and the reality of her messed-up life.

  “Ma’am?” the man prompted. “May I come in?”

  She could ask him to come back in a couple of hours. Once she went for a walk or out to lunch or…something. But she hadn’t left the bungalow since her arrival almost two weeks before and today didn’t seem the day that she felt inclined to change that. She took an assessment of herself. No, there was no will to put something on her feet besides the thick socks she was wearing. So, there was no way she’d be venturing beyond the threshold.