The main lodge rises against the backdrop like something from a winter fairy tale, all timber and stone with soaring windows that catch the morning light. The building that had been a disaster a few weeks ago now looks solid and welcoming, with fresh paint gleaming on the wraparound porches thatLogan rebuilt and new copper gutters that Xavier specified gleaming in the sunrise. Griff's business magic had somehow made the permits and inspections happen faster than should have been humanly possible.
But instead of the picture of rustic elegance it should be, it looks like a scene from a disaster movie.
Cars are parked at haphazard angles in the newly graveled lot. The massive front doors, gorgeous reclaimed wood that Logan installed just days ago, stand wide open despite the December chill. I can hear raised voices carrying across the air, echoing off the slopes that surround us. Someone's car alarm is going off in a steady, ear-splitting rhythm that nobody seems to be addressing.
I park and sit for a moment, gripping the steering wheel and watching my breath fog in the cold air. Through the enormous windows that Xavier fought to preserve during the renovation, I can see people moving around with the frantic energy of ants whose hill has been kicked over. A woman in a pink dress, one of Emma's cousins, runs past carrying what looks like a bouquet of wilted flowers, her heels clicking frantically across the stone entry.
One weekend. I can handle one weekend.
The first sign that this is going to be worse than I imagined comes before I even make it through the front doors. Aunt Dolly Brooks, Emma's great-aunt and a sixty-seven-year-old omega with a reputation for trouble, stumbles into me as she exits the lodge. Her silver hair is already falling out of its careful updo, there's lipstick smeared across her cheek, and she's clutching a flask in one hand and what appears to be a coffee mug full of something that definitely isn't coffee in the other.
"Savannah!" she shouts, as if I'm across the ski slopes instead of two feet away. Her breath could strip paint, and it's not even seven in the morning. "Perfect timing! You need to try Rita'scontribution to the morning beverage service. She brought the good stuff from her private collection."
She thrusts the mug toward me, sloshing liquid onto my shoes. The smell hits me immediately. Coffee, yes, but also rum, whiskey, and what might be vanilla extract. It's like someone tried to turn a dessert into a weapon.
"Dolly," I say carefully, steadying her elbow as she sways slightly on the stone steps. "It's six-forty-five in the morning."
"Precisely!" She beams at me with the enthusiasm of someone who started celebrating yesterday and never stopped. "Such days require proper preparation. Can't face all this romance and happiness without a little liquid courage, can we? Besides, this place deserves a proper christening after what those boys pulled off!"
Before I can respond, she's off again, weaving toward the parking lot with the determination of someone on a very important mission. I watch her go, calculating how many other family members might be in similar states, and feel my first real spike of panic.
Inside, the main hall is a carefully controlled chaos of people in various states of dress and undress. The morning light streams through the massive windows that Logan somehow managed to restore in record time, casting golden rectangles across the wide-plank floors that Griff's crew had refinished just days before. Xavier's architectural vision is everywhere. In the soaring timber beam ceilings that they'd preserved, the stone fireplace that dominated one wall, the way the space flowed seamlessly from the main hall toward the smaller rooms that would serve as getting-ready spaces.
It should be gorgeous. It is gorgeous. But right now it looks like a tornado hit a bridal magazine that was attending a construction convention.
I spot Rita Castellano immediately. She's hard to miss. The honorary aunt is holding court near the gift table, which sits beneath one of the massive chandeliers that Xavier had somehow convinced them to keep during the renovation. Her silver hair is coiffed despite the early hour, and she’s wearing a beautiful burgundy dress. Her omega presence fills the space like expensive perfume, commanding attention from the cluster of family members gathered around her.
"And that's when little Emma got her head stuck between the porch railings," she's saying, gesturing with a champagne flute that's definitely not filled with champagne toward the windows that overlook the deck where the ceremony would take place. "Lord, you should have seen her face. Red as a beet and screaming bloody murder while we tried to work her loose with dish soap and determination."
The family members laugh on cue, but I can see the slight glaze in their eyes that suggests Rita's been holding this audience captive for a while. Emma's teenage cousin Tyler is edging toward the staircase that leads to the second floor, moving with the careful precision of someone trying not to draw attention to their escape.
I approach the group with a confident smile and my tablet clutched like a shield, my footsteps echoing slightly on the restored floors. "Rita! Good morning. I was hoping we could go over the timeline for..."
"Samantha!" she interrupts, because she's been calling me the wrong name for fifteen years and I've given up correcting her. "Great timing. I was just about to check on the programs."
My stomach drops. "Check on them?"
"Well, you know. Make sure they turned out all right. The printing, the paper quality, all those important details." She waves her hand dismissively toward the entrance where guestswould be receiving their programs, and I notice her fingers are slightly unsteady.
"Rita," I say slowly, feeling the air seem to get thinner, "please tell me you picked up the programs yesterday like we discussed."
The pause that follows is long enough to confirm my worst fears.
"Well, funny story about that..." Her laugh has a slightly manic edge that echoes off the timber beams above us. "You see, I was planning to pick them up right after lunch, but then Paula Hutchins mentioned that O'Malley's was having a special on their afternoon cocktails. Two-for-one martinis, can you believe it? And I thought, just one drink to celebrate Emma's big day and this miraculous renovation..."
"Rita!”
"One drink turned into two, and then Helen Bennett showed up, and you know how she gets when she's talking about her son's divorce, and before I knew it..." She spreads her hands in a helpless gesture that encompasses the entire restored lodge around us. "Time just got away from me."
I close my eyes and count to ten. Then twenty. Then I start mentally composing her obituary.
"It's fine," I lie, making a note on my tablet with hands that are only slightly shaking. "I'll handle it."
"That's the spirit!" She raises her champagne flute in a toast toward the soaring ceiling. "You know what they say. It takes a village to raise a celebration!"
"That's not how that saying goes."
"Isn't it?"
