Chapter One
The time had come to face the facts. Caleb was in over his head.
He stood at the top of the old circular staircase of Island House Inn and scanned the early evening crowd below. For the first time in years, the spacious, slightly shabby lobby of Granddad’s vintage hotel—make that Caleb’s now—felt alive. Felt viable. Felt profitable, with forty or fifty people milling around with various degrees of patience while waiting for their accommodations.
Which would have been great if most of the guests hadn’t come here against their will. More accurately, against their preference.
It should have been his moment to shine.
As it was, he sped down the stairs toward the timeworn mahogany reception desk, having delivered a cartload of clean towels and washcloths to each vacant second-floor room.
“We’ve filled all the first-floor rooms and half of the second, and the lobby’s still packed with guests waiting to check in. Plus you have two more carriages coming up the street.” Pushing a loaded luggage cart, Caleb’s great-uncle Augo Kennedy, in his late sixties with short white hair and an impressive mustache,approached him on the way to the elevator. His little dachshund, Lucy, followed at his heels.
With those powerful forearms and biceps bulging under his green Island House Inn Henley, Uncle Augo could easily have carried the suitcases and tote bags to the third floor if he wanted.
“Where am I supposed to put all these people?”
“You’re the boss now.” His uncle’s basso voice reverberated in the high-ceilinged room. “Better figure it out before the rest of the Grand crowd arrives.”
It would’ve helped if the nearby Grand Sullivan Hotel of Jonathon Island, Michigan, had given them more than thirty minutes’ notice to come up with a plan. And if Caleb had more than six employees, not counting the restaurant staff.
However, nobody could have predicted the water break that flooded the sole renovated, occupied section of the Grand—the only other hotel open after the fire that had all but shut down the island eleven years ago.
The lobby’s front door creaked open. A gray-haired couple stepped inside, their wooden canes tapping the pine floor, and took in the lackluster lobby. Frowning, the woman shook her head and whispered in the man’s ear. He nodded, and they turned and walked out. “In my third week as full-time hotel manager.”
“Hospitality industry’s fickle,” Uncle Augo said over his shoulder as he punched the elevator call button.
Well, his uncle should know.
Any other innkeeper would consider today a win, with more guests pouring into his northern Michigan harbor-view hotel than they had in years. However, those innkeepers would have had training. Filling in for his grandfather for a while last year, back when Granddad had his first stroke, didn’t count.
“We can’t use the third floor. We haven’t aired it out since last fall, let alone spring cleaning.” And they couldn’t evenconsider the old parlor wing, the one Granddad had locked twelve years ago and vowed never to reopen.
Caleb raised his voice over the din of a few dozen couples waiting for rooms, soft jazz playing over the sound system, and children running on the wood floors. “There’s nowhere else for them to stay, so we have to figure out something. Got any suggestions?”
“Not unless you can fix the Grand’s broken water pipes and dry up their guest rooms real quick.”
The flooding of the Grand Hotel and the horde of unhappy guests detouring here this evening had confirmed his suspicions. Truth was, Caleb Kennedy had run from Island House Inn—his run-down, six-generation, seventy-eight-room legacy—too long to bring it back from the brink of failure.
At the moment, the hotel didn’t look remotely like a legacy. It felt familiar, comfortable, a little worse for wear, and homey—the faded glory of his childhood. But its legacy aspect, its lasting significance for future generations? That part didn’t resonate. At all.
And since his boss had given him six weeks to decide whether to come back to the job he loved or save this tired, worn-out inn, Caleb seriously needed to turn the fuzziness into clarity. Fast.
For now, duty bound him to Island House Inn—his childhood home, the family relic. And the setting of his deepest grief.
He cast a quick glance out the wide front windows down to the harbor, its waters a deep Caribbean blue in the Jonathon Island summer. He still thought the pink flowers lining the half-circle drive and crowding the front lawn, along with the deep, still waters of the northern Michigan straits and the Port Joseph shoreline in the distance, held the best view on the island.
A view he’d wished never to see again.
A view he wished he didn’t have to see now.
“Look over there.” Uncle Augo tilted his head, gesturing toward a family of five at the reception desk. “Keep your eye on the guy in the orange shirt.”
Caleb shifted toward a thirtyish man leaning against the reservations desk and wearing knee-length denim shorts and flip-flops, his “Great Minds Drink Alike” T-shirt stretched tight across his ample abdomen.
Other than the bad T-shirt slogan, he looked like an ordinary dad. However, knowing Uncle Augo’s sense of discernment and his lifestyle prior to his ministry calling, Caleb watched the guy anyway.
The woman with him had a grip on two small, squirming redheaded boys and yelled to another child who ran across the room. Her high-pitched voice bounced off the high ceiling and echoed through the lobby, making Caleb wince.
