“Oh good. I’m so glad you picked up, Sunflower. Are you at home?”
“Yes, I was actually just taking a ba—”
“Good!” Her mother interrupted again. “He’ll be there any minute.”
“He’ll? He’ll who?”
“Axel Vaughn.”
Brynn wasn’t sure if that name was supposed to mean something to her, but it didn’t. And since her mother didn’t elaborate, Brynn figured a follow up was in order. “Who is Axel Vaughn?”
“He’s my new tenant.”
“Your new tenant?” Brynn repeated. “I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to be doing Airbnb anymore since you’re not here to deal with things.”
Shea had been renting out the vacant apartment above the garage since she’d moved to Arizona. Which would’ve been fine and dandy if she didn’t tell all of the occupants that her daughter lived in the main house and to “let Brynn know if they had any problems or questions.”
Guess what tourists had a lot of? Yep. Problems and questions.
It had been nothing but a headache. The water pressure up there was non-existent. The stove worked only about half of the time. A fuse would blow if you had the coffee maker and a hair dryer plugged in simultaneously. All things that Brynn had grown used to over the decade that she’d lived there, but vacationers weren’t too keen on.
“It’s not Airbnb, Sunflower. Axel is renting the apartment for the next few months.”
“Few months?”
“Yes. And he’ll be there any minute.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Brynn saw Lucy stand up and turn so she was facing the door. She began grunting and snorting a second before there was a knock at the front door.
So much for a quiet evening alone.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was coming sooner?” Brynn set the caddy to the side and stood from the bath.
“I tried but you never answer my calls.”
That was B.S. and her mother knew it. She’d only ignored two texts and those had come in the past ten minutes. She wished she could argue with her mother but another knock came at the door. She stepped out of the tub and deciding to forgo drying off she reached for her robe. After securing it in place she blew out the candles.
“I think you’re really going to like him,” her mother continued. “I explained the issues that the apartment and house had, including the landscaping, and he agreed to do the repairs.”
Shea Daniels was a dangerous combination of believing herself acutely intuitive while also being acutely naive. Brynn’s mother trusted her instincts about a person rather than that person’s actions, and she’d been taken advantage of more than once.
“Mom. Are you letting some guy live in the apartment for free because he promised to do the repairs?”
“Of course not. He already paid for three months. It is at a lower rate than we originally discussed.”
Of course it is.
“I offered to let him live there for free—”
Of course you did.
“But a man like Axel would never accept that.”
A man like Axel?
“How well do you know this guy, Mom?”
“Very well. I read his aura. He is grounded, strong-willed, and survival orientated—”