“How far into the wall?” My shoulders go rigid, bracing for the answer.
He stands, braces his palms on his knees, and shuffles seven feet to the right, rapping knuckles along the wall. “As far as I can tell? ‘Bout to here. Header, studs, probably a bit of the sheathing. She’s spread out.”
My gaze tracks the line he just measured. Window, wall, seat.
That damn seat.
Where my mother read the first Christmas book of the season to me each year when I was little.
Where Grammie Bea drank her nightly hot toddy and knit monstrosities she forced me to wear in family photos.
Where I nailed the mistletoe to fuck with Chance, the final push that had him climbing up, ripping it clean out, and finally following his heart straight to Holly.
Where Sierra?—
Nope. Not going there.
“We talking emergency?” I ask. “Or ‘keep an eye on it and pray it doesn’t implode on Christmas Eve’?”
John grunts. “Could wait ‘til spring if you like living dangerously. But if she fails before then? You’re replacing more than a header. Window, wall, maybe some skulls if someone’s sitting there when she lets go.”
I picture a packed dining room—if we ever get snow—kids piled on the bench with cocoa, all toothless grins, clutching letters to Santa. The film crew with cameras rolling in every direction. The wall fucking me clean up the ass with no lube when it a long-suffering creak and then?—
Yeah. No.
“We don’t have enough bookings to risk that kind of lawsuit,” I mutter.
We don’t have the bookings for anything, really with the profits on a slow-motion cliff dive. “What’s the fix?”
“Open her up from the inside.” He points. “Strip the trim, pull the window, cut out the rot, replace the headerand frame. Seal her up tight. You’ll want the seat outta the way while we do it.”
“How long?”
“Four, five days if she’s not hiding any surprises. Week tops.” He scratches his chin. “We’ll need to throw up a false wall across here so guests aren’t getting a front row seat to the open guts. Dress it up pretty. Garland, wreaths, even better, a couple of those big gold bows. Hell, I’d slide the wishing tree dead center. The more you line the wall, the more it’ll muffle the noise.”
So open heart surgery in the heart of the whole damn lodge, under the microscope of a reality TV crew.
Perfect.
“We need every table we’ve got if…”
“Yeah, if. But right now, you’re not filling every table. This is the best time you’re gonna get. Less folks, shorter wait times. Strikes me as good business. Besides, what's worse—losing a few seats for a week, or losing half your wall and your good name when something gives?”
He’s not wrong.
God, I hate that he’s not wrong.
“We do it with the least disruption possible. Early mornings, mid-day when people are on the mou—doing whatever they’ll be doing. No saws past four.”
“You want me to call that crew from town? Could have two extra bodies here tomorrow.”
I nod. “Do it.”
“And the seat?” He ticks his chin toward the built-in. “Are we ripping her out clean or you wanna salvage what you can?”
The solid-wall version of the alcove unfolds in my mind. The way it looks in the sketches on my desk upstairs. Clean lines, more floor space, better furniture layout.
No drafts from old glass.
