Enchanted Spring by Josee Renard Page A

and at the women around him, and said yes without really thinking about what that might entail. He could figure out a way to make their lives easier—even though, at this point, he didn’t have a single idea; if there was one thing he hated, it was romance. Still, because they reminded him of his mother and aunt, he’d figure something out.
    An hour later, he was walking in the front door of his house, shaking his head at the idea of Jamieson Smith working on a dating Web site. Oh, sure, he went out with women, had sex with them, even, occasionally, spent a weekend with one. But there were rules to which he faithfully adhered:
    Never use the word love .
    Never date the same woman more than three times, that being the magic number when they wanted more than sex.
    Never get involved with a romantic.
    Never introduce dates to a friend, and never ever introduce dates to family.
    The rules had helped him stay single in the past, and they would help him stay that way in the future. He liked it that way.
    * * * * *
     
    Connie grimaced at her reflection in the mirror, but not because she looked bad—how could she? She had all the time in the world to experiment with her hair and her makeup, all the time in the world to primp and preen…and nowhere at all to go.
    Losing her job hadn’t been a surprise, just the timing. She’d expected to have another six months before the place imploded. She’d seen it coming, had even started to update her resume and make a list of the businesses she might apply to, but she’d been shocked and—she had to admit—scared to death when she’d arrived at the office six weeks ago to find the doors locked.
    Peering in the windows had shown an empty space with only electrical outlets and faded spots on the carpet to indicate that a thriving—okay, maybe not thriving , but surviving—business had once been there.
    They’d owed her so much vacation pay that she knew she’d never get even a quarter of it (no time to take a vacation working for those guys), a month’s back pay ( There’s a big check on its way and we’ll pay everybody when we get it ), and the current month’s pay. She’d also figured out they hadn’t paid any of their employee taxes for months, which meant her medical was going to run out in a week and she owed the IRS money she didn’t have.
    God, could it get any worse?
    Well, yes, it could. Because her rent was due in a few days, and she didn’t have it, and she didn’t have a chance in hell of getting it. With the economy a disaster, it was taking three to six months to find a job, or so said every one of the employment agencies she’d trekked around to in the past ten days.
    She was going to have to settle for a service job, at least for now. So she’d spent the morning on her laptop revising her resume to ignore the years she’d spent working her butt off as a technical writer, and emphasize the years she’d spent cleaning, making beds, doing laundry, cooking, serving, taking reservations, solving problems, and just about anything else needed helping her mother run a ten-room family hotel aka bed and breakfast.
    Gratitude , that’s what she needed.
    Connie should be grateful for those credentials, knowing they’d ensure she got a job in some hotel, bar, restaurant or coffee shop in the city. As long as, of course, they were looking for someone.
    Time to get out there and walk the streets.
    After she told Deborah and Dorothea that she was going to have to leave.
    Connie loved the old Victorian, loved her suite of rooms tucked up under the roof, the bathroom with the big clawfoot tub and skylight, the bedroom where her bed just fit under the sloping ceilings, the combined kitchen and living room with the old-fashioned fireplace and the windows overlooking the city.
    And she loved her landlords. They made her smile, made her think, even made her feel as if she was, in some small way, part of the family. They invited her to dinner with their daughter Delia, who