Anything You Can Do

By Christiane France

As teenagers, Devon and Julian denied their feelings for one another by becoming fierce competitors and sworn enemies, even engaging in physical fights on occasion. After finishing school, Devon went to live and work in New York. Julian took his dreams of becoming a movie star to California and disappeared from view.

Now, years later, they’re both back home in Bayview and those old feelings are still very much alive and well. But Devon needs to focus all his efforts on bringing his family’s beach resort back to life. Julian has to decide what to do with his late grandfather’s house. Should he turn it into a B&B, or should he sell the property and move on?

It wasn’t the right time for them when they were in high school, and now, with problems to solve and decisions to make, the timing seems no better...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christiane France
• Release date: Jul 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533718044

Book preview

Anything You Can Do

Back in a flash, I told Petey, the night clerk, hoping that’s all it would take, as I zipped my fleece-lined winter jacket and opened the main door of The Bayview Beach Resort Motel. A gust of wind sent an empty soda can clattering its way across the empty parking lot, emphasizing the fact it was almost midnight. The restaurant had closed hours ago and, except for Petey and a skeleton staff to cover housekeeping and maintenance, all the other employees were long gone. The only sign the resort wasn’t completely deserted were the lights in some of the rooms and the occupants’ vehicles parked in the adjacent slots.

After leaving the cozy warmth of the office, I braced myself against the biting cold and stepped outside.

It had been one of those dark, gloomy October days, the kind that make it clear summer is over and the first snowfall just around the corner. I glanced up at the sky. The temperature was down around the freezing point and if there were a moon and stars, they were hidden away somewhere high above the clouds.

I turned toward the lake. The icy wind blowing off the water brought the first taste of winter, buffeting my body and assaulting the exposed skin of my face and hands like razor blades. I shivered and stepped back into the shelter of a doorway to put on gloves and pull up the hood of my jacket. These late night checks to ensure everything was locked up tight were a necessary pain in the ass in this lousy economy, but if I got a move on, it wouldn’t take me long.

Keeping my head down, I left the main building and headed toward the dozen or so two-bedroom rental cottages strung at intervals along the beach. With summer just a memory, the pipes had been drained and the doors and windows boarded over. At one time, that would have been enough to keep them secure until spring. These days, with kids and vagrants always on the prowl for a quiet spot where they wouldn’t be disturbed, I couldn’t assume a sturdy lock and a few strips of two-by-four lumber would keep them out. It was easier for me to brave the cold and keep a close check than go to the bother of throwing intruders out and picking up the costs of the damage they’d caused getting in.

I checked each unit in turn. Operating the resort was a twenty-four-seven proposition that left me with almost no time for a life of my own. It wasn’t the future I’d envisioned for myself, but shit happens and I’d managed to hit the mother lode in that department. My parents had owned and operated The Bayview for years, until my dad’s gradually worsening heart condition and my mom’s arthritis made it too much for them to handle. Around the same time they made the decision to find a manager and retire, I lost my job on Wall Street.

I’d been unable to find a job even close to the one I’d had before it disappeared in a corporate merger, so when they suggested my taking over The Bayview, it appeared to be the perfect answer. Dad had put away enough money for them to enjoy their retirement years in comfort, and that meant The Bayview, or the money resulting from a sale if that’s what I preferred, was my inheritance.

I’d known up front that anything in the way of normal maintenance had been neglected due to my parents’ failing health. There was a whole laundry list of small stuff that either needed painting or fixing. But I had ambition, energy, and a more than fair severance package, so what better place to invest it than in what I now saw as my future? With jobs disappearing, money being tight, and everyone looking to spend less on their vacations, I figured if I worked hard, I could turn The Bayview into the number one go-to place for miles around.

I also knew that if I wanted to keep the regulars coming back and attract new business as well, I had to show good faith by getting the resort back up to par and running smoothly ASAP. I just hadn’t bargained on the extent of what needed doing or the expense involved. By the time I’d finished the most urgent of the repairs, turned six of the rooms into efficiency or housekeeping units, and bought a few items of desperately needed new equipment for the restaurant kitchen, a good chunk of my severance money was gone. Including the money I’d earmarked for giving the cottages an overdue facelift in time for next season.

Money was a little tight right now, but it wasn’t a problem. I had enough in reserve to cover emergencies and I had my own personal savings. What I didn’t have was the money to do everything at once the way I’d hoped.

I rubbed a gloved fingertip over a couple of spots of sun-blistered paint to the side of one of the cottage windows. I could have taken out a loan. The bank had offered me a very favorable rate when they heard my plans to update and modernize, but I’d said no. I’d spent too much time in the world of high finance not to be aware of the very real dangers of borrowing—such as the false sense of security that comes with the money and the knowledge of what will happen if anything goes wrong.

It wasn’t all bad. The most urgent items on my list had been taken care of and everything else would be done as business improved and money became available. The best I could do for the cottages was slap on some paint and hope that sufficed for now. The real facelift would come later. But rather than the boring beige and green combination they’d been for as long as I could remember, I was