But she could work with it. Gram had given her the phone number of a carpenter in Pinecone Falls who was an old friend and ready to come out to the inn as soon as she called. She would load the porch with Christmas lights. The party was at night and in the dark, so no one would notice the need for a fresh coat of paint. All she had to do was decorate the house and confirm the catering that Gram had already set up. No problem.
Weary from the drive, Julie opened the door and jumped down into snow that came up to her knees. She yelped as the cold seeped around, into, and through her expensive suede boots. What had been adequate footwear for the shoveled sidewalks of Boston wouldn’t last her thirty minutes in Pinecone Falls. Shivering, she rounded the truck to get her suitcase.
As she ducked under the low-hanging branch of a pine tree to get there, a heap of snow plopped off the branch, hit her neck, and then slid down the back of her jacket.
“Great. Just great.” Julie fervently hoped that this wouldn’t be an omen of her trip. One way or another, she was stuck here in the middle of nowhere, with questionable cell phone service, for the next ten days.
Her trip was not off to the best start.
Chapter 2
The well-packed snow of the drive crunched beneath the wheels of Nolan Miller’s truck as he pulled into his customary parking spot in front of Barrington Lodge. The rustic bed-and-breakfast, run by his family, could have been an old-world hunting lodge for an American tycoon. In fact, it might well have started out that way. The mansion, built in the 1850s by a railroad tycoon by the name of Homer Barrington, was built of hand-hewn cedar logs and river stone, with sprawling stables nestled behind it. Nolan had grown up here over summers spent with his grandfather, who had inherited the property from his grandfather. Someday, Nolan would carry on that family legacy.
For now, he hopped out of the truck and grabbed the sack of dog food he’d gone into town to pick up. Despite its bulk, he hefted it easily onto his shoulder and walked along the shoveled stone path to the side entrance of the house. This was the entrance the family used, far removed from the more impressive lobby with its decorations of antlers, taxidermy trout, landscape oil paintings of old Vermont, and the dark-wood desk for greeting guests.
The side entrance was narrower, barely wide enough to accommodate Nolan’s shoulders with the bag of dog food. By the time he shut the door behind him and kicked off his snow-crusted boots, the hall was made even narrower by the enormous dog running to greet him. The husky was almost entirely white, had more fur than muscle or fat, and thumped the ground with her tail as she sat politely to wait for Nolan’s attention.
“Hi, Snowball.” Nolan greeted his dog with a scratch around the ears. “Come on, now. I need to get to the kitchen.”
Kitchenjust so happened to be one of the words that made the husky’s triangular ears perk up in delight. The dog turned on her heel and bounded down the hall. Nolan stopped by the storage room just off the kitchen to deposit the dog food. When he straightened, Snowball was standing in the doorway, giving him a disapproving look.
He laughed. “Come here, girl.”
Wagging her tail, she trotted over to him so he could give her a proper scratch. She wiggled as he did. Despite the fact that it was winter, he still somehow ended up with a handful of dog fur. He stuffed it in the grapevine nesting ball that he would put out in spring. It was filled with hair and lint for the birds to use for nesting material. Nolan was always careful to only use natural shampoos on Snowball’s fur so it wouldn’t be toxic to the birds.
“Don’t worry. You know I brought you a treat.”
The husky nearly managed to trip him as he backtracked to the door to remove his outerwear and the package he’d put into his pocket. She danced in front of him the entire way to the kitchen, making the trip double the length it should have taken, but he didn’t mind. Her excitement made him glad for his forethought.
In the kitchen, he found Gramps sitting at the table with a newspaper open in front of him and his reading glasses perched on his nose. Klaus Miller was less of an imposing man than he had been twenty years ago, with his receding hairline and his shoulders bowed from age. He would be eighty next year, and although he still commanded just as much of Nolan’s and his father’s obedience in running Barrington Lodge, Nolan had started to notice the way Gramps’s clothes were fitting looser over his once-prominent belly.
Nolan paused. The tightening of his fingers around the brown paper wrapping made it crinkle. Nowhere in this house were any signs of the impending Christmas season, aside from the snow. The décor was the same as the rest of the year—no evergreen boughs or decorations hanging from the ceiling, and definitely no Christmas tree. After the passing of Nolan’s mother, Mary, on Christmas Day three years past, Gramps pretended that the Christmas season didn’t exist. So did Nolan’s father, Stan. He’d destroyed years of family Christmas photos in his grief, photos that Nolan still mourned. He’d loved his mom as much as the two older men, but unlike them, he blamed cancer, not the Christmas season, for taking her from them.
A whine from near his knee reminded him of Snowball’s patience. Feeling awkward, he hastily unwrapped the treat, a dog cookie decorated like a Christmas wreath, and offered it to her. She gobbled it down, but not before Gramps caught sight of the contraband holiday treat and gave a disapproving grunt.
Nolan rolled his neck to free himself of the tension climbing into his shoulders. “I saw a truck turn into the drive of the Cozy Holly Inn. Are you expecting an inspector today?”
With their longtime business rival having closed the business, Gramps had decided to purchase the property to expand Barrington Lodge. The two properties neighbored one another, albeit with a forest of evergreens in between and only a forest path joining the two, but they could widen that for vehicle use.
Gramps folded the newspaper and set it down next to a cup of coffee he’d probably reheated a half-dozen times already today. “No. We’re finished with inspections on the property. Must be a tourist. Maybe they got lost looking for our place.”
Snowball finished the last crunch of her cookie and hunted on the floor for crumbs she’d missed.
“The driveway’s snowed over. Even GPS won’t accidentally turn one of our customers down that way.”
Gramps shook out the newspaper, a clear indication that the conversation was at an end. He’d been like this ever since his daughter—Nolan’s mom—had passed, not talking much except when he had something he wanted to prove. In some ways, Nolan suspected he made things worse—he had his mom’s eyes and her black hair. She had been the glue holding their family together, and all his attempts to fill the hole she’d left only worked halfway.
Dismissively, Gramps said, “Don’t worry about it. Whoever’s at the inn will find their way here before long. They’re closed. Even if they make it through the door, the place is falling off its hinges.”
Nolan sighed. “I guess I’ll go check that we have a room, then.”
Gramps didn’t answer, but Snowball trotted after him as he left the kitchen.
Chapter 3
The interior of the inn was dark, cold, and dusty. Julie decided not to remove her boots. Her feet were like ice, but she suspected that the floorboards wouldn’t be much better. She left her suitcase by the door and fumbled for the light switch, thankful that her grandmother had made sure the water, electricity, and heat were turned on before her arrival.
The first switch her hand found didn’t work. She flicked it on, then off, then on again before cursing under her breath. A grope farther along the wall found a second switch near the first. This one brought light crackling to the small light fixture over her head. Thank goodness! If the inn hadn’t had electricity, Julie really would have run back to Boston.
