Because I’ve been perpetually single for the last five years and there’s literally not a single soul left to date in Evergreen that isn’t either already married or someone I’d sooner allow myself to get hit by a bus than marry. But I have to do something or else Grams is going to sell the inn and I can’t let thathappen. This place is my home. It’s where I feel the most like myself and has been in the family now for more than a hundred years.
I can’t be the Holly who is the reason the Holly House Inn ceases to exist.
Iwon’tbe the reason Holly House ceases to exist.
This is simply another challenge life is throwing at you,I remind myself.You’ve figured everything else out that it’s thrown at you. This is no different.
You can do this.
You can do this.
“I can do this,” I whisper to myself.
“Where do you want these?” the voice of one of our innkeepers asks. He’s carrying a bin labeled ‘CHRISTMAS DECOR’ in his hands and looking in on me from the front door.
“You can put it in the storage room in the kitchen for now. Thanks, Ron,” I direct with a smile. As he goes, I watch him walk down the hallway a little longer than normal.
“Uhh, why are you checking Ron the innkeeper out?” Belle sneers, coming up beside me from the kitchen.
“I wasn’t,” I protest, scrunching up my nose at the thought of looking at him like that. Ron is nice but he’s almost fifty and has been working at the inn since I was a teenager. Checking him out would be like checking out my own dad.
“You were definitely checking him out,” she says, pushing me out of the way of the computer to check this week’s schedule. On top of being a part-time manager when I’m not around, Belle is also our events coordinator. I’ve lost count of the number of compliments she’s gotten from both our staff and guests on some of the events and parties she’s hosted in thepast.
“Who are we checking out?” It’s Eve who asks this time, coming from around the corner and plopping down on the stool we keep behind the front desk. Her chef’s coat has a massive red splotch on her right shoulder that I can’t help but wonder how it got there.
“We aren’t checking anyone out,” I say with a huff. “Why aren’t you in the kitchen?”
“My dough needs time to rest and my marinara sauce is currently being scraped off the ceiling. I figured I’d come out here and see what you two were doing in the meantime.” She pulls her hair out of her signature buns and redoes it.
“Why is there marinara sauce on the ceiling?” I question, pinching my eyebrows together.
“Who was our girl checking out?” Eve asks, ignoring my question.
“Ron,” Belle says flatly.
“Eww! Ron is old, why are you checking Ron out?” she gasps.
“I wasn’t, I was?—”
“You were definitely watching him walk down the hallway. Leering, almost.”
“Gross, Noey. I had no idea you were into older men.”
I bring my hands and massage my temple. “Oh my god, I work with three year olds.”
“I know you’re desperate to save the inn, but you don’t have to bethatdesperate,” Eve laments, giving me the side eye.
“If only there was some sort of ‘rent–a–husband’ program,” Belle comments lightly. She laughs at her own idea. “Rent–a–husband, that’s funny.”
“It would save me a whole lot of headache, that’s for sure.” I pull my lips into a tight line and wish that such a thing actually existed. The more I think about it, the more I wish it really did exist.
Grams only said that I needed tohavea husband to get theinn. She didn’t say anything about needing tokeepa husband. If only there was a way for me to find someone who would marry me long enough to become the legal owner of Holly House. Then I could change whatever family will there is to say that a woman doesn’t need to be married in order to own the inn and divorce whoever it is that’s my temporary husband.
“You want the rest of the Christmas stuff brought inside, Noelle?” I look up from my thoughts to see Ron has manifested once more in the hallway and is looking at me.
“Yes, please. Thank you, Ron.”
“You got it, sweetie,” he replies with a friendly wave.
