Another squeeze from Daphne and they left, leaving me and Sage alone in the apartment again.
“Part of me wants to stay and help you get settled, but I know how exhausting the first trimester is.” Sage patted my arm sympathetically. “I took the next two weeks off, mostly because of Christmas, but also so I could help get you settled.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine, I am used to being on my own, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. But you don’t have to be on your own, not anymore,” Sage told me.
Her words struck something inside me, and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop the onslaught of yet more tears. Pregnancy emotions were no joke.
“I’ll be here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock with coffee and pastries.”
“Sounds good,” I managed, hugging Sage tightly, then she shoved her boots on and grabbed her coat.
“Do not unpack any of those boxes without me, do you hear me?” she ordered, pointing at me.
“I hear you. I’m going to stuff my face with this tantalizing meal Tabitha brought over, then probably crash.” I promised.
Chapter Three
Noah
* * *
“Jeannine is a no-show again.” My younger brother, Easton, said after popping into the main office.
“You’re kidding me,” I grumbled, pushing back in the office chair with aggravation. I’d been covering for Jeannine for the past hour. She was supposed to start at eight o’clock. I figured she was delayed from the snowstorm we’d gotten the night before.
“Yup. Texted five minutes ago, let me know that a family emergency came up and she’ll be out of town for a week or two.”
“Fucking great. Just in time for Christmas.”
Christmas was one of our busiest times of the year. Every single cottage and condo we had at Whimsical Woods Resort was booked steadily through the holidays and into the new year.
It was the worst time for Jeannine to up and decide to have a family emergency. Normally, I would give someone the benefit of the doubt—family emergencies happened, after all. But Jeannine had used that excuse over Canada Day weekend, too. Plus, she was regularly late or screwing up reservations. It seemed like I was always fixing her mistakes or covering for her when she didn’t show up.
“We’ll have to call Damien in. If one of us is managing the office, that means we’ll need more hands-on maintenance to get the snow cleared and the pathways salted.” Damien would be pissed.
“You mean while you’re managing the office,” Easton smirked. “You know I don’t do computer stuff.”
Computer stuff was handling bookings and responding to emails. It really wasn’t rocket science, but my younger brother had always refused to do any of the office work. He’d rather stay later handling maintenance issues than answer a phone call or input a reservation.
Mom used to handle the office before she and dad retired, but now it was on us to run the entire place. They were off enjoying their retirement after years of running Whimsical Woods Resort and raising us three boys.
“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed, massaging my temples to ward off the stress headache I seemed to perpetually have these days. Easton ducked out while I picked up the office phone and dialed our oldest brother’s phone number.
“Someone better be grievously injured, or something better be on fire,” he growled into the receiver by way of greeting. He sounded slightly out of breath and irritated.
“It’s nine o’clock, how are you already this pissed?”
“Because, dipshit. You’re interrupting my favourite part of the day,” Damien said. I could hear Charlotte say something in the background and the rustling of sheets.
“Damn, sorry brother. Didn’t mean to interrupt your morning nookie session, but we have a situation. Jeannine has flaked off again, and that leaves me stuck in the office and Easton to clear all the snow from the cottages, roads, and pathways. We need backup.”
“What we need is to fire Jeannine and hire someone who actually shows up for shifts.” Damien huffed.
“You’re not wrong about that, and we will. One of the things I plan on doing today is putting up an ad for a new office administrator.” I sighed, feeling every bit as frustrated as Damien sounded. I knew we couldn’t go on this way. We needed someone reliable, someone capable of doing the job. Jeannine clearly wasn’t that person.
“Good. Make sure you do that. I’ll be there in an hour and a half,” Damien said, hanging up.
