An idea suddenly came to me. “If you want, I can run the motel for you,” I suggested.
Martha frowned, looking at me like I had just said something in a language she couldn’t understand. “What?”
“I don’t have business during December and January anyway,” I said. “I’m probably better off doing something useful, of it’ll give you and Chuck some time off.” I paused. “Besides, I might need the money anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Martha asked. “You don’t think it’ll be a burden. Sweetheart, I’m sure you can use some time off, too.”
I waved the remark away. “It’ll be pretty much the same thing as staying at home,” I said. “And who knows. Maybe someone else wants to escape somewhere to find a little solitude. You might actually get a few guests.”
Martha chuckled. “I highly doubt that,” she said. “Then again, you never know whose truck could break down on the interstate near us.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, knowing exactly what she was trying to do. For the whole time Chance had been gone, she had not stopped trying to get me to talk about it all. I had been nice enough to divert the conversation to something else, and she had been sensible enough to let the matter drop when she knew I didn’t want to talk about it. It didn’t stop her from trying to open it up every now and then.
“If someone’s truck does break down, I hope Hank decides to ignore them,” I said.
Martha only looked at me, then nodded and gave me a knowing smile. “Well, I’ll definitely talk to Chuck about it when he gets here,” she said. “I know he’s been looking forward to Christmas with the family.”
“Really?”
Martha shrugged. “I really don’t see why not,” she said. “Besides, we can probably show you the ropes in a day or two. There really isn’t much that goes into running this place anyway, and as long as you just have to take care of Mr. Bestseller in there, you should be fine.”
“That’s great,” I smiled. “We’re in agreement, then.”
“Thank you, Ashlyn, although you really didn’t have to.”
“Honestly, I could use the distraction.”
Martha glanced at me, sighed, then leaned over the desk and looked me straight in the eye. “How long are you going to keep this up, baby girl?”
“Keep what up?”
“Ashlyn. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
I winced and shrugged. “I don’t know, Martha,” I admitted. “I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I just want to brush it all off and get on with my life.”
“But you can’t.”
“No, I can’t,” I shook my head. “I try so hard, and he still pops up in my head. And other places…” I put my hand over my heart. “Why won’t he just stay out of there?”
Martha smiled. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“I do, sure, but it’s stupid,” I said. “It’s been a stupid idea from the get-go. I never should have even let it happen.”
“Sweetheart, these things don’t need your permission to happen,” Martha said. “They just do.” She leaned back. “Do you think I planned to fall in love with Chuck? The man was a mess when I met him, and is still a mess, in a way. He used to be this scrawny young man working in my daddy’s garage, without a dollar on him. He was charming, and funny, but he was definitely not relationship material. But I fell for him anyway, and the rest is history.”
She paused, her eyes briefly glazing over as she reminisced, then she looked at me again. “That boy’s truck broke down right outside Ludwig, and he came across the most beautiful flower girl in Texas right here at this motel. He was the solution to your living up at that house all alone, to your problems with that disgusting Greene boy, and you want to call that coincidence?”
“Are you trying to tell me it’s fate that brough
t us together?” I asked, half-smiling.
“Call it whatever you want,” Martha shrugged. “Fate, blind luck, the devil playing a little game of chess with the big man upstairs. What I do know, Ashlyn, is that I have never seen you like this before. And if it’s Chance Ridder that’s got you like this, then that’s got to mean something.”
I thought about what she said, and although I saw the sense in what she was saying, I couldn’t quite bring myself to agree with her. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” Martha smiled. “But, then again, it’s your life. I just don’t want to see you make a big mistake and regret it for the rest of your life.”
I was about to answer her when two cars drove past the office and into the motel. I gazed out the large window and watched them park close to where Chance’s old room was. Four men stepped out of the vehicles, stretching and yawning, immediately going for the car trunks while one of them broke away from the group and made his way to the office.