Read Flirting with Felicity for Free Online

news, and I just had to hear it from you myself.” She stopped walking, forcing
Felicity to do the same. “Did Vern really leave you the hotel and restaurant in
his will?”
    “News travels fast,” Felicity said with a chuckle. “Who told
you?”
    “Hans texted me.”
    “It’s true,” Felicity admitted, pulling Mary Beth over into
the entrance of the alley behind the Bancroft Hotel so they could talk more
privately.
    “Oh my God,” Mary Beth whispered. “This is the best news
ever. It’s about time something good happened in your life.”
    Memories of Felicity’s past tiptoed into her mind. She saw
the shoddy trailer park in the south end of Puget Sound she’d once called home.
She saw her father, sitting in his chair, the same chair he sat in every day,
all day, staring out the window as though waiting for her mother to return.
    Luck had not smiled upon them then. Her father had been
placed in a run-down nursing facility. It was all they could afford. And,
because she was sixteen and had no other relatives to rely on, she’d been
placed in foster care for a short time until she could legally declare herself
an emancipated minor and return to the trailer, taking her father back home
with her.
    “I still can’t quite believe it’s true.” Felicity shook off
the memories and looked past Mary Beth, to the seventh-floor windowsill where
five pigeons perched together, cooing softly to one another as they did every
day. Nothing had changed in their lives, even though the very foundation of
hers had shifted.
    “You signed papers, right?” Mary Beth asked.
    Felicity nodded, bringing her gaze back to her friend. “Several
of them.”
    Mary Beth grinned. “Then it has to be true.”
    Instead of joy, fear rushed through Felicity in a chilling
wave. “Vern’s nephew is here to challenge me for ownership.”
    Mary Beth’s smile vanished. “That doesn’t matter, does it?”
    “I wish I knew for certain. Vern might have wanted me to
inherit the Bancroft, but Blake doesn’t look like someone who will back down
easily.” Felicity clenched her hands together, not only at the thought of
losing something that had suddenly become vital to her life, but also at the
fact that she once again had to pretend she was indestructible.
    She’d tried so hard to keep her fears at bay in the days and
months after the accident, when it was determined her father would never be
able to work again. His pension was all they’d had to keep their small family
out of poverty, and it had just barely covered their expenses. Felicity had
learned how to make the money stretch from month to month, and it was then
she’d taught herself how to cook, not because of a burning desire, but out of
necessity.
    During those years, Felicity had created a special world for
herself and her father. The fear of losing even the run-down trailer or the
ability to pay the bills threatened to destroy her daily, while she focused on
finishing high school. But the fantasy of keeping everything as it was in case
her father miraculously improved had given her something to cling to in the
darkness—a reason to keep believing, to keep up the pretense that no one and
nothing could harm her.
    “Blake Bancroft might finally be the one who breaks me.”
    “No,” Mary Beth said, emphatically. “He will not. I won’t let
him. You’ve worked so hard for me, for so many people. You’re a good person,
Felicity. Vern knew that. With his gift he obviously wanted to see the goodness
you give to others flow back to you.”
    Mary Beth was referring to Felicity’s Hungry Hearts program,
through which she brought the homeless into her kitchen during the off hours
and taught them not only how to cook but gave them the skills and the
references they needed to search for employment in the food service industry.
Mary Beth was a recent graduate of her program, and Felicity had hired her to
work with her in the Dolce Vita. Mary Beth had a talent for baking that rivaled
many