“It’s all your fault,” she said lightly.
“Mine? It’s totally yours.”
She held his gaze in the dark for a long moment. “What are we going to do?”
His lips inched upward. “More of that, I hope.”
When their mouths met again, she was smiling against his lips.
Chapter Thirty
Saturday morning Grace was so distracted by thoughts of her date she’d completely forgotten that a prospective buyer was coming. She grabbed a stack of fresh towels from the cleaning cart when she heard Molly leading them up the stairs. Grace was glad she’d just finished cleaning the last vacated room.
“The Bluebell Inn has the distinction of being the town’s very first inn,” Molly said. “It was built in 1905 and featured ten bedrooms. Early on it was even a stagecoach stop. And starting in 1957, it housed the post office. We actually uncovered the old mail slot when we were renovating and found an old love letter—there’s a long story there, but I’ll spare you.
“The inn’s been several things over the years, including a saloon, if you can believe it. In the sixties—the lake’s real heyday—other hotels opened, but the Bluebell Inn remainedtheplace to stay.
“In 1978 it was bought by Governor Jennings and turned into his family lake home. Then my parents purchased it, and my siblings and I had the pleasure of growing up here. Our parents dreamed of turning it back into an inn during their retirement. But sadly, that wasn’t to be. They passed away unexpectedly four years ago. But my siblings and I took it upon ourselves to fulfill their dream.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” a woman said.
“That’s some mission you took on,” a man said. “This place has quite the history.”
“That’s only the tip of the iceberg, I assure you.”
They reached the top of the stairs and rounded the corner, and Grace smiled as the attractive middle-aged couple came into view.
“This is my sister, Grace,” Molly said. “Grace, these are the Wellingtons—they’re from Charlotte.”
They exchanged greetings and made small talk for a moment, then Molly led them past the cart and continued the tour.
Grace put the towels in the room, closed the door, and pushed the cart up the hall toward the supply closet.
“This is our suite.” Molly’s voice carried down the hall as she unlocked the door and ushered them inside. “All of our rooms feature an en suite bathroom, but as you can see, the suite also features a sitting area, fireplace, and a generously sized walk-in shower. This room functions nicely as a honeymoon suite—we have a lot of destination weddings here in Bluebell.”
“It’s quite charming,” Mrs. Wellington said. “I love the décor.”
“This particular room was updated two years ago when we had a small flood.”
Grace aimed a frown at the end of the hall even though her sister couldn’t see her.
“A flood?” Mr. Wellington asked. “What happened?”
“Well, we had an old pipe burst, unfortunately. But no worries. We got it all cleaned up and had all the piping replaced.”
“How extensive was the damage?” Mrs. Wellington asked.
“The water covered most of the upstairs, but we cleaned it up quickly, cut away the drywall, sanitized... You know the drill.”
The floor squeaked as they moved across the hall to another room. “This is the last vacant room I can show you, but the others arevery much like this one. As you can see, each room is equipped with a mini-split to heat and cool the rooms. We like their high efficiency, and the guests enjoy the ability to control the temperature. Each room also comes with a large closet, a top-of-the-line mattress, luxury bedding, a thirty-two-inch flat-screen TV, a Keurig machine, and plush robes.”
Grace finished stowing the cleaning cart and slipped across the hall into her room. She left the door cracked so she could eavesdrop.
“It sounds like you’ve done a lot of work to the place, getting it up to code and all,” the man said. “But the house is quite old. How’s the foundation?”
“We did discover some foundation issues when we renovated, but we had those fixed.”
“What kinds of issues?” he asked.
