Peyton leant against the steel bench of the kitchen and placed her palms on the cold top. Then she hung her head in shame. All the years she’d spent helping in the hotel and she had never done any of the hands-on jobs. Instead, she’d done the filing, booking, and anything that required technology. Working the industrial instruments of the kitchen was one of those things that Peyton hadn’t done.

“I was just...” Peyton sighed. “I don’t know what I was doing. I can’t even work a dishwasher!”

A laugh escaped her uncle’s lips as he started to adjust the buttons on the machine. “It’s all right, Peyton. I don’t think you broke it. I think you were just the first to discover the switch problem. Maybe there’s a faulty wire or something. How are you going to be able to run this place on your own without your aunt and me?”

Peyton let her head hang low. She had hardly had the job of owner for a week and she had already started to ruin the hotel.

“It would be right for you to break something.”

Her head snapped up at the kitchen door to see Jay shaking his head. She definitely didn’t want Jay’s help. She was meant to be independent, able to run and maintain her hotel on her own.

“What are you supposed to be, my knight in shining armour or something? Thanks, but no, thanks, Jay. I’d rather be in distress,” Peyton teased.

She was met with Jay’s amused grin.

Jay held up his toolbox and shook it. “Darling, I’m the only kind of knight you need in your life. Step aside, John. I’ll take a look.”

There was a muffle from her uncle before he stepped away. “Jayden, I think it may be just the switch and the wiring. You sure you don’t want me to call your father, see if he’s free? You run a busy pub, son.”

Peyton crossed her arms over her chest. It was always typical of her uncle to call everyone ‘son,’ and he was never one to call people by their nicknames. He said that it was because “a mother chose her child’s name for a reason. It is the name the child’s soul was blessed with.” Peyton was never one to argue with her uncle.

“I’m sure I’ve got this, John. You go back and make your missus a happy woman,” Jay charmed.

“All right. Well, then, I’m off. Call me if you need anything, Peyton,” her uncle said before he kissed her cheek and left her with Jay.

“I swear to God, if you fix this, Jay, we’ll never hear the end of it.” Peyton shook her head.

Jay let out a chuckle and placed his toolbox on the kitchen floor. “Actually, Peyton, it’s you who will never hear the end of it. Would you like to help me?”

Did he just bat his lashes at me?

“I broke the damn thing. Like you need my help. And don’t look at me like that.” Peyton uncrossed her arms and hugged her cardigan around her tighter. He made her nervous—though she had already been since Callum Reid had walked into her hotel.

“Like what?” Jay asked, taking out a screwdriver from the toolbox. He removed a screw from the front panel of the dishwasher and placed it on the steel bench. “Well?” he said over his shoulder.

Peyton watched his body movements as he pulled apart the dishwasher, fascinated by the way his shirt strained against his muscles. There would be no denying that she didn’t find Jay Preston attractive. Every girl did. But he was one of the rare ones who had stayed. The rest of the males had gotten out of Daylesford just before their last year of high school. Most of them had attended private schools in the city—made their résumés look impressive—before they’d attended university.

In such a small town, the pickings of a male companion were slim. Peyton valued Jay’s friendship and she’d never cross that line. In fact, she wouldn’t even consider dating anyone she knew from her town. Graham was also on her mental ‘do not date’ list. And Jay happened to be on the top of the list.

You tried the small-town-girl-and-small-town-boy love story. And in reality, it’s the worst kind of romance. Be a nun for the rest of your life. Your abstinence has prevented STDs and pregnancy. You just lack a little action…a little intimacy…a little pleas—

“I’m going to ignore that blush on your cheeks, Peyton,” Jay said, pulling her from her thoughts and waving the screwdriver in her direction.

She let out a cough. “What blush? I’m not blushing!” she exclaimed, fidgeting with her cardigan.

“Oh, yes, you are. I know a blush when I see one.” Jay grinned.

Peyton shot him a dirty look. “Fix my dishwasher.”

“How about, ‘Please, oh, sir knight. Fix thy dishwasher and release thy maiden’s duties from washing thy dishes’?” He dramatically held the screwdriver against his chest as he made Shakespeare roll in his grave. It was like he had sinned against literature. He didn’t even have to try.

“How about, ‘Please, oh, pub owner. Fix my dishwasher before I go to your pub and break yours with my skill of breaking appliances’?” Peyton said with a smirk.

Jay ignored her and removed the panel of the dishwasher, setting it on the floor. Peyton tried to peer over his shoulder and into the insides of the washer. Jay cranked his face, gave her a wink, and reached for the flashlight.

“Your uncle unplugged this, right?” Jay asked, his back turned to her.

“No, my uncle wanted you to get electrocuted. Of course, he unplugged it,” she sassed, untangling her arms and pushing off the bench she’d been leaning on.

He turned around and raised an eyebrow at her. “Got to love them sassy hotel owners.”

Peyton sang along to the song that played as she folded the laundry she’d taken out from the dryer. It was a song she knew very well. The artist, June Sinclair, had used the hotel as a writing retreat and would be returning to The Spencer-Dayle in the spring. She was from the city, and pressures from her recording company had had her in a funk. June was someone Peyton admired, and her upbeat music was what was favoured, but when Peyton had heard her acoustic—more country—version, she had fallen in love.

Now, June’s music was mixed, and Peyton had even received a mention in June’s thank-yous in the album’s booklet. Since she’d broken the hotel’s dishwasher earlier in the day, Peyton had made sure not to touch anything else in the hotel and opted to call it a day. She had gone home and looked at her plans—she had no plans on her ‘plans’ paper. So she’d procrastinated and ended up doing housework.

“I can’t help but blame myself for thinking we’d make it past all our mistakes,” she sang along with June’s voice on the speaker.

A loud knock on her front door had Peyton walking over to the speaker her iPod was plugged into and turning down the music.

Peyton stepped barefoot over the cool floorboards until she reached the front door. The stained-glass window panels decorated with Australian birds blocked the view of her visitor. Instead of looking through the peephole or asking who it was, she opened the door.

“Son of a bitch,” she said, annoyed by the visitor who stood on her ‘Spencer’s’ doormat.

“Such a warm welcome. Thank you, Peyton,” Callum said, sounding almost hurt.

Ignoring whether or not the way she had greeted him was the reason for his hurt tone, Peyton glanced over Callum Reid.

He was wearing dark-blue skinny jeans, and his unzipped hoodie exposed his tight, grey T-shirt. He’d always embraced a casual look. His dark brown—almost black—hair was tousled upwards. She remembered the times that she’d sat under the cherry blossom tree outside her window and run her fingers through it. She had well and truly loved him at seventeen. The heat and tightening of her chest returned from the memories.

Damn it, Peyton. Don’t feel. Do not feel anything towards him. Be numb. He broke your heart. Why do you keep forgetting that?

“What do you want?” Peyton asked roughly, wanting him off her property as quickly as possible.