“I takeit back,” I said with a grin. “You’re a menace.”
We unpacked a few bags. Jane set a small framed photo of all five of us sisters on the dresser. Our arms were tangled around each other and we were trying to fit into the frame and failing in the way that made it better. I ran my fingers over the glass and felt the old ache of missing them even before theywere gone. We hadn't all lived in the same place since we were teenagers. Mom had promised me this would bring us back together. That promise was what had pulled me out of a cubicle in the city and into this drafty old dream.
“I am going to start cleaning the kitchen. Do you want to come down or have a look around first?” Jane asked.
“I want to walk through the rooms again and make a list,” I decided.
She squeezed my hand and headed for the door. “Call if you need me.”
“Always,” I said, and meant it.
I wandered back downstairs with a notebook. I took inventory of what needed to be done like a general. Carpet removal, paneling decisions, wall color, and lighting. There were fire extinguishers that had expired before I had graduated high school. The front desk needed a computer system. The website needed booking software that didn't look like it had been coded on a potato. A big chalkboard menu might be cute. A smaller one for daily events. Did we have daily events? We could have daily events, I mused.
The French doors drew me again. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and looked out at the land rolling down to the treeline. A bird left a thin call in the air. Snow fell in soft flakes that rotated slowly downward. The city had been crowded with sirens and the sound of other people’s lives. Here, quiet was welcome.
A soft thud echoed behind me, and I turned to see Dad standing under the chandelier with a ladder.
“Bulbs,” he said, and gestured at a box as if that explained the entire universe.
“You shouldn't be up there by yourself,” I gently scolded, crossing to steady the ladder. The chandelier swayed withthe subtle menace of a toddler on a swing who believed in no consequences.
“I am nimble,” he remarked.
“You are not nimble so you had better be careful.”
“That too." He twisted a bulb free and held it up, the blackened filament a little scribble of history. “Your mother is very happy.”
“I know.”
“She is also very scared,” he mentioned as he looked down so his eyes met mine through the crystal fringe. “I am too. However, happiness wins today.”
“We will make it work,” I said, borrowing Jane’s certainty because mine was still doubtful.
Chapter Two: Dust and Disaster
Dex
The town sign for Maple Ridge appeared just as sleet began needling the windshield. I eased off the accelerator, the tires hissing over the thin sheet of ice forming on the road. Behind me, Braxton hummed cheerfully to a holiday tune on the radio, utterly unfazed that visibility had dropped to a polar blur.
The man could find optimism in a hurricane which was frustrating at times and in other instances reminded me there was room for silver linings.
“There it is. The SnowDrop Inn,” he announced as we rounded the final bend.
I slowed the car, assessing the three-story structure that loomed through the snow like a relic of better decades. The shutters hung askew, green moss climbed the lower stones, and one of the porch spindles had given up on its career entirely. Even from the car I could see the faint lean of the front steps.
“What do you think?” Braxton asked brightly.
“I think it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen,” I grimly replied. The roofline sagged to the left, and the side addition looked like it had been designed by a man who had never seen a blueprint. “The proportions are completely wrong. Whoever built that extension destroyed the balance of the original architecture.”
Braxton only grinned. “You mean it has character.”
“That’s one word for it,” I muttered, leaning over the steering wheel to see better through the flakes of snow.
“I like it. It’s got good bones, and I bet there’s stone under that siding on the addition. Once it’s repaired, it could becharming. The location’s great, being so close to the ski hill and the lake. Lucy picked well,” Braxton gave his approval.
“Miss Bennet, you mean,” I corrected him. I kept my eyes on the cracked driveway, which was slowly disappearing under a blanket of snow. “Picked” implied thought. I suspected impulse. The same impulsive decision that had led her to quit her job two weeks ago without notice, leaving my schedule and my sanity in ruins.
Who knew she was excellent at her job? I certainly hadn’t. Then things simply fell apart and all the temps in the world were incompetent. It was highly aggravating.
