“You could have easily passed for royalty,” he said, unthinkingly uttering the first thought that had come to mind.

She looked surprised for a moment, then glanced away again, blinking a few times.

He sat his spoon down and crossed the kitchen, laying his hand over her wrist until she put the knife down, then turned her into his arms and tipped up her chin. “I always thought you were.”

“Would that be when I was hanging from a tree, or when I had a kitten attached to my midsection?”

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her. “Always.”

When he lifted his head a few moments later, she had that bemused look on her face again. Like she was trying hard to figure out if it was okay or not. If he was okay or not. He knew, without doubt, she was attracted, and she’d made it clear, up in the shower, that she was happy he was going to stick around a while, but since they’d come down to start making dinner, he’d catch her looking at him with this considering look in her eyes.

Which made the anxious knot in his stomach only wrench more tightly as he imagined telling her the rest of the news he’d only begun upstairs. She wanted him, but maybe only temporarily. And his thoughts were already racing well past that.

But maybe, given what she’d just revealed, and how her last love affair had gone, maybe she simply refused to think in anything but temporary measures. What she’d started here, what she’d built was clearly meant to last, to be a solid future. But perhaps she saw that future alone. She’d said as much, early on.

Would she take a chance? Play the hand despite the odds?

“I have a pretty unconventional background, too,” he reminded her.

“Did your parents run a casino?” she asked, smiling as she rephrased his earlier question.

“Actually, my mother was a showgirl. I haven’t a clue who my father was.” Her gaze sharpened on his and he suddenly realized why she’d gone back to chopping vegetables as she’d told him about her childhood. Clearly she’d long since come to terms with how she’d been raised, and she had even spoken about it pretty fondly. But that didn’t mean it was easy to share with someone else. Perhaps someone whose opinion might matter to her.

And as much as that thought brought a little unknotting to the anxiety he was feeling, it didn’t help that he had to bear his soul in the same way with her. He’d also come to terms with it, but it mattered to him what she would think. “She was also a prostitute. And a drug addict.”

Kirby’s mouth shaped a little “o” and her eyes filled with sadness. “Was it just the two of you?”

He nodded. “Until I was about nine. Then we moved into the boarding house, the one Vanetta runs, that I told you about. Vanetta couldn’t do much at the time, but she went easier on my mom when she couldn’t come up with rent. She’d stopped performing by the time I was twelve. Her lifestyle was taking a toll on her body and her looks, at least by her bosses’ standards. By then I was already playing cards, working odd jobs at the casinos to make money. Mom, uh…well, there were more men coming around. Vanetta put a stop to that when she found out, but that just meant that Mom was gone all the time instead. I’d have to go find her…” he trailed off, realizing that Kirby didn’t need to hear the gory details. It was bad enough that he’d had to deal with finding a parent who’d oftentimes been left beaten up, or was strung out. He didn’t think back to those days much, if at all, anymore. “She died when I was fourteen. Overdose. Vanetta kind of did what your friends at the resort did. Made sure I had food, clothes, that I went to school, though that was never a chore. I loved school.”

“Me, too,” Kirby said, the light of true kinship in her eyes. “It was the most normal thing in my world. And taught me how big the real world really is. It gave me such a better perspective of what my possibilities were. I would have stayed there twenty-four-seven if I could have.”

“That’s exactly how I felt. Well, there and at the casino. Even though I knew the latter part probably wasn’t healthy, it was home for me.”

“Maybe the resort wasn’t quite the same, in terms of not being so great an environment for a child. But I know what you mean, it was home to me, too.”

“Except I never left the casino life, while you grew up to build your own version of home.”

She laughed. “Right, where people still come and go and nothing is permanent. But a permanent home for me, I guess.”

He leaned back to look into her eyes. “We do what we know. I know cards. You know resorts.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Makes sense, I guess.”

“If things had gone differently with…what was his name?”

“Patrick.”

“Right. Say he had married you, been partners at work, partners at home. Would you still have wanted this?” He gestured to the room around them, and what lay beyond.

“You mean did I want the more traditional home? Babies, a puppy, nine-to-five day job, that kind of thing?”

“Yes. I know the resort was never going to be nine-to-five, but you know what I mean.”

“I do, and I don’t know. Patrick had other properties, but the resort was his baby. We lived on premises, very nice premises, but…that was home. A very familiar one to me, of course, though certainly more posh than the one I grew up in.”

“Were you happy? Doing that, I mean?”

“I was certainly good at it, given my background. But…I don’t know that I yearned for the white picket fence world, really. We never really got that far and my life didn’t really ever seem suited quite for that. But I did know that if I could do whatever I wanted, I wanted to take what I knew about running hotels and run my own smaller place. Intimate, personal-mine. I think it was maybe my way of combining what I knew with what I wanted to have.”

“And now you have.”

“Trying to, anyway.”

“Is it what you wanted?”

She didn’t answer right away. “Yes, and no. Yes, Pennydash Inn is exactly what I wanted, and I love the place. I had pictured being in the West, because my vision didn’t extend beyond that, but being here feels very right to me. Possibly because of how things ended out west, starting over truly fresh was not only practical financially here, but emotionally a good move, too.”

“And the no part?”

“I’m finding there are things I’m not as personally good at, I guess, as I thought I might be. But I suppose that’s to be expected. At least I tell myself that.”

“Like?”

“Well, I do like running my own ship, and I like being out from under any kind of corporate presence, both business-wise and personally. So, small, intimate, mine, is definitely the right thing for me. And I’m good with people, though I know I haven’t had the chance to prove that so much yet, but I know that’s going to be a good fit with me. That’s not something I doubted.”

“Folks in town like you; you have earned respect here. At least from what I’m hearing as I’m putting together the event.”

She smiled more brightly. “Really? That’s nice to hear. I’ve felt very welcomed here, but it’s always nice to know I’m not just imagining that part.”

“Definitely not. So…what’s the no part, then?”

“Maybe I’m not as, I don’t know…proprietary isn’t the right word, because I feel that and am that in all senses of the word. Maybe more maternal? That doesn’t seem like the right term, either, but…I think it’s more like…when you talk about Vanetta, she sounds nurturing. My ‘aunt’-Frieda-is the same. Did Vanetta have kids of her own?”

Brett shook his head. “Married a couple of times, but no. Her boarders are her babies, so she is fond of saying.”

“See, I guess I thought it would be that way for me. But despite feeling strongly about this being my place and putting my stamp on it, the business part is really just business to me. I love having guests, making them happy, getting to know them…but I don’t know that it goes beyond that. Not sure what that says about me, but…”