“We’ll get ice cream after we talk to Aunty Tessa, remember?” Sophie told her.
Caroline let out a whiny groan, unhappy with that bit of news. “That’ll takeforever!”
“You can have whatever kind you want,” Sophie promised. “Just let us talk to Aunty Tessa first.” To Cadence, she muttered under her breath, “It would help if I had a certain T-A-B-L-E-T charger with me.”
“Any word from the airline about your bags?”
“Not yet.” Sophie pulled out her cell phone and looked up Tessa’s number. “She’s not going to be happy about the noise.” They laughed together at the joke. Their oldest sister was definitely the most high-maintenance of the three.
“Well, the only other place in town that has reliable service is upstairs in the lodge.”
A smile beamed from Sophie. “You’re selling me on this place more and more.”
They waited as the phone rang, sharing a nervous glance across the worn picnic table. The cards were all in Tessa’s hands now. If she was set on selling, they had no other option. Letting the lodge go to the historical society wouldn’t benefit Sophie’s situation at all.
“I don’t have much time. Did you get the lodge listed?” Tessa sounded like she’d been running a marathon. Her heavy pants made some of her words hard to distinguish. “I want to see the listing link. Send it to me.”
“Tessa,” said Sophie, “we want to run something by you.”
“What’s all that background noise?”
“We’re in a park,” Cadence offered.
“Wait. You two aretogether?”
“Yes,” they answered in unison.
“Long story,” Sophie offered.
They’d discussed at length this morning whether they should mention Sophie’s situation to Tessa. They couldn’t decide whether it would help their plea or give Tessa that much more reason to insist they accept the cash offer. In the end, they decided to leave it out, so their sister didn’t worry during her competition.
“We want to keep the lodge,” Cadence said. “Me and Sophie. We want to run it.”
A ding sounded in the background, reminding Cadence of an elevator. Tessa was on the move. “But we agreed we’d sell it.”
Armed with facts and dozens of beneficial reasons to keep the lodge, Cadence and Sophie launched united into their pitch. “We checked the records,” Sophie said, “There hasn’t been a summer weekend vacancy in over ten years. And never on a festival weekend. The place is still over half-booked during the weekdays and even in the winter months. The finances have stayed in the black except one winter when Aunt Patty had to replace the furnace.”
Tessa let out an exasperated sigh when they finished. “I have to get on a plane in less than three hours. Do you know what you’re asking of me?”
“You don’t have to be involved any more than you want to be,” Cadence said. “There’s enough money in the trust to float us the first year, even if we can’t book rooms. If it doesn’t work out, we go back to our plan to sell it. Sophie and I’ll handle everything.”
“Is that all?” Tessa asked. Horns honked in the background.
“No.”
Cadence felt sick to her stomach, wishing they could omit this too. But it was wrong to keep the offer from her, so she told her about meeting Mr. Maxwell. “We have to give him an answer today before he leaves.”
“We have acashoffer on the table, and you both still want to keep the place?”
“Yes,” Cadence said.
“Blake divorced me,” Sophie said, offering Cadence a helpless shrug. “I left Hawaii. This lodge is a chance for me to start over.”
“So is a cash offer, Soph.”
“Sunset Ridge will be good for Caroline. There are good people here.”
A car door closed, and Tessa mumbled something about an airport. “I feel ambushed,” she muttered. “If we turn down this offer, we might never get one like it again. The next one might cost us money with repairs and someone trying to lowball us. You both understand that risk?”
