Page 6 of Coastal Reflections

“Oh, from Townsend’s, huh?” Michelle asked with a touch of glee in her voice.

“Yes,” Elaine said primly.

“You made an excuse to visit the shop, huh?” Audrey said, also sounding a little gleeful.

“Well, I was walking right past it,” Elaine said.

“How’s Shep doing?” Michelle asked, grinning widely.

“Um, he’s doing fine—how did you know I saw Shep?”

“Isn’t that why you stopped?” Audrey teased. “I mean, we have plenty of baked goods here at home. You didn’t need to stop there for that.”

“I—well, I did want to mention something to him briefly, but—” Elaine started to protest, feeling slightly flushed in her cheeks, when they all heard a strange sound. Each of the Sutton women froze and listened carefully. Audrey’s brow furrowed and Michelle cocked her head to one side as she concentrated on the noise.

“I think it’s one of the pipes in the wall rumbling,” Audrey said.

A moment later, the sound faded to a low murmur and then stopped.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Michelle said. “Maybe it’s something playing from inside one of the guest rooms.”

All three of them put the finishing touches on the room—they spread out the rust-colored quilt and arranged the bouquet of flowers that was placed on one of the windowsills. They set the welcome basket on the bed so that it would be more obvious when their guests first arrived.

“I know Grandma isn’t hungry after that bear claw,” Michelle teased, “but I sure am. What do you say to going downstairs and making some dinner?”

“Sounds great to me,” Audrey said. “We said we were making tacos tonight, right?”

“Yes,” Elaine said. “Nice and easy.”

They served the guests of the hotel breakfast, but dinner and lunch were still just the three of them. Making meals together was a chance for them to unwind and catch up on their days. Sometimes if a guest happened to wander into the kitchen while they were making food, they would offer to share the meal with them, but for the most part they usually had the kitchen to themselves.

They turned out the lights in the tiger lily room and made their way downstairs, chatting about something that one of their guests had said the other day. Elaine put her hands in her pockets and felt the wax paper wrapper from the bear claw, feeling a surge of contentment. Everything seemed to be going beautifully.

CHAPTER FOUR

Audrey sang quietly to herself as she tidied up the tiger lily room. It was the next morning—a beautiful, sunny day with the tang of fall in the air—and their new guests had left the hotel early that morning to go on a long autumn hike. Audrey was wearing comfortable clothes, which she considered to be one of the best perks about working for herself. She had on an oversized sweater, stretchy jeans, and a pair of squishy socks on her feet instead of shoes.

She’d brought in an armload of fresh, fluffy towels, and she folded them and placed them in an artful arrangement on the bathroom counter. Once that was done, she dusted the mantlepiece and the desks, dressers, and windowsills. She was just going to the bed to make it up when she felt her foot come into contact with something cold and wet.

“Agghh!” she yelped, jumping backward and staring at the floor.

There was a puddle of water under the bed. It wasn’t a round puddle, and it looked more like a stagnant, miniature river. She did a double take between the puddle and her soggy sock a few times, feeling dazed.

What on earth? she wondered. Where is that coming from? Did the guests spill water this morning and just not bother to clean it up?

She felt inclined to grumble. Most of their guests were considerate people, but every once in a while they got guests who did thoughtless things like leave their dirty laundry all over the bathroom floor or let dirty tissues pile up in the bedsheets.

She followed the length of the puddle with her eyes, crouching as she looked under the bed. Frowning in confusion, she realized that the water snaked its way underneath the whole length of the bed.

“What on earth?” she mumbled, circling the bed and picking up the trail on the other side. The long, narrow puddle led her to the closet, and before she opened it, she felt a flutter of dismay. She had a feeling that she had a worse problem on her hands than some inconsiderate guests who had spilled one of their water bottles.

She opened the closet door and gasped in alarm. The whole closet was soaked with water, including the guests’ suitcases and tote bags.

“Oh no. Oh no no no no no,” Audrey moaned, staring at the damage. She saw a trickle of water leaking out of a crack in the paint on the wall of the closet.

Wasting no time, Audrey yanked the suitcases and bags out of the closet and placed them on the rug near the fireplace, where everything was still dry. The bottoms of all of the bags were soaked, but they seemed only damp on top. She bit her lip, hoping that nothing that belonged to the guests had been damaged.

These feel pretty light, she thought, trying to reassure herself even though she felt frantic. Hopefully our guests took most of their stuff out of them already and placed them in the dressers and the wardrobe.