“I hope so,” Braxton said cheerfully.
Dex only nodded, his eyes flicking toward me for half a heartbeat before he looked away.
When the door closed behind them, the house fell quiet. Then Mom took off her apron. “Well! If the men are off playing with snow and ski resorts, we shall do something useful. The dining room renovations await.”
Her energy was contagious. Within minutes, the Bennet women had turned the first floor into a construction zone again. Jane handled sanding duty while Meri measured trim pieces and Lydia filmed, providing commentary about “history revealing itself one dust cloud at a time." Eventually Kitty took away her phone and handed her a rag to help stain the freshly uncovered and repaired wood. Dad pried up the last section of loose flooring near the corner window to repair. Mom alternated between humming and filling the scars in the wood of the antique table with a woodfiller.
It was almost easy to forget about Dex until Dad’s crowbar made a strange hollow noise. He tapped again, then carefully lifted a narrow plank. I paused in my work, watching as he put a hand under the floor boards to pull out a small tin box sealed with wax and tape, edges rusted, and the top dented slightly in the middle.
Helen gasped so hard she nearly dropped her rag. “Oh, my word. Will, that can't be what I think it is.”
Dad looked equally shocked. “No. We put that there before… good grief, how long has it been?”
“Nearly forty years,” she whispered. Her hands trembled as she set her rag down and wiped them on her apron. “We were barely older than Lydia when we buried this.”
We gathered around the table while Dad found a screwdriver to pry the tin open. The lid gave with a small pop, releasing a faint smell of paper and old cedar. Inside lay a few treasures wrapped in tissue. There was a black and white photograph of a couple standing on the porch of the inn, both looking painfully young and shy. A folded letter was addressedTo the Future SnowDrop Owners. Under that wasa brittle newspaper clipping about the inn’s renovation. Then at the bottom, a single pressed daisy which was brown at the edges but it was otherwise perfectly preserved.
Mom laughed softly, eyes shining. “We were ridiculous."
She unfolded the letter and began to read aloud. “We sealed this under the floor in case we ever forget how it started. We met here when the SnowDrop smelled of pine and paint, and we were both too proud to admit we were in love. Whoever finds this, may your walls hold warmth and your work hold joy.”
“That was you in the photo?” Kitty asked.
“It is,” Dad agreed with a soft smile.
“This is where we fell in love,” Mom revealed as she gave Dad a kiss on the cheek.
“After a few misunderstandings and arguments,” Dad pointed out.
“True. What good love doesn’t have those moments? It's getting through them that makes the relationship stronger. We have a strong love,” Mom declared.
No one spoke for a moment. Jane sniffed, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.
They told us how they had met during that renovation. Mom worked the front desk after school, and Dad helped do repairs with his father who was a local handyman. She spilled varnish,he helped her clean it, and they argued for a week afterward about who had ruined whose shoes. Then came the Christmas Dance, a power outage, and a conversation by flashlight that lasted until dawn.
“By the end of it I knew he was the one,” Mom murmured.
Dad looked at her with a soft smile. It was incredibly sweet.
We spent the rest of the afternoon polishing the uncovered wood. The wainscoting gleamed like honey under the light. Everything smelled of varnish and lemon oil when we were finished.
Every so often, I caught myself glancing at the clock. The hours moved faster when I stayed busy, but part of me counted them anyway. It was ridiculous to worry. Dex was perfectly capable, and Carly’s intentions were none of my business. Dex was really none of my business. I wasn’t going back to work for him in the city, nor would he stay here at the inn. He had a life, a career that he and Braxton had built. Dex wasn’t going to throw that all away for a girl with a crazy family and a crazier dream. Nor should I care if he decided to spend time with Carly. We weren’t in a relationship. I wasn’t even certain if we were friends.
By late afternoon, the honeymooners returned rosy-cheeked from skiing, carrying a souvenir snow globe. “The lodge is gorgeous, but it feels like it was designed for a magazine instead of people.”
“That sounds about right,” I muttered before I could stop myself. The way Carly hadn't so subtly insulted the inn and the aesthetics here, I knew she wasn’t a person who appreciated older architecture.
Kelsy laughed, unaware. “Carly insisted that Dex and Braxton stay the night since the roads were icy.”
“We found the roads to be okay, but I’ve done a lot of winter driving,” Ed said.
I gave a tight smile.
“You should only drive what you feel comfortable driving,” Mom agreed, pouring cocoa for everyone. Jane met my eyes over her mug, her expression sympathetic. We didn’t talk about it. The rest of the evening flowed around us with Mom discussing menus, Meri checking the heating vents, Lydia uploading her latest video titled Love Under the Floorboards. I let the noise wash over me until finally everyone headed for their beds.
“Are you going to stay up for a little while?” Jane asked.
“I won’t be too long,” I assured her. I just needed some time alone to think and it was quiet downstairs. I wandered through the rooms feeling restless. We were making progress. We had a real chance at success here.
