“I’m so sorry, I don’t know why it’s not working.” My cheeks grow hotter as I try for the fifth time to print out Nick’s receipt—another damn error.
“That’s all right. You have my email address. Just send it along when you can.”
I give him a wan smile, but his suggestion is probably best over him continuing to stand there while I silently freak out, embarrassed by how unreliable this checkout process has been lately.
“Sounds good, Nick. I’ll be sure to send it along as soon as the system is back up. I hope you enjoyed your stay again this year. I’m glad to see that your back is feeling better.”
“Are you kidding me? I feel like I’m twenty years old again.” He twists from side to side, demonstrating, and one of his white bushy eyebrows lowers and raises when he winks. “I’ll see you next year. Already made my reservation.”
I’m so thankful to have faithful guests like him. He’s been a guest every year since I bought the place. “I look forward to it. Have a safe trip home.”
He nods and walks toward the front door, trailing his luggage behind him.
Nick was the last of the guests to check out, leaving a strange kind of silence in his wake. For the first time since I bought the B&B, it’ll be void of guests for a while—except Carter, but he’s not really a guest, is he? I certainly don’t plan on waiting on him as if he is one.
To combat the quiet, I bring my laptop into the great room and turn onChristmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie, to serve as background noise while I work out the issue with the reservation system. Guests must pay for their rooms upfront, so I’m not concerned about payment, but I do need to fix this issue. It makes me look pathetically unprofessional.
“Damn it.” My entire platform for reservations is down once again.
“That’s not very holidayish.”
“Is that even a word?” I snap, whipping my head around to see Carter coming into the room. He’s wearing a pair of jeans and a navy-blue sweater that deepens the color of his eyes.
“Whoa, bad day?”
“Sorry… I’m not feeling especially merry right now.”
“What’s wrong?” He sits on the couch, leaving a foot between us.
“My reservations system is down, and I wasn’t able to check Nick out when he left. I’m not sure what the issue is though. There always seems to be an issue.”
He nods toward the laptop on my thighs. “Mind if I take a look?”
The stubborn part of me wants to say I can figure it out on my own, but I think back to what he told me about his job and what he’d really like to be doing, and I figure he’s the perfect person to help me. I hand my laptop to Carter.
He clicks the mouse pad a few times. “What’s the web address for the B&B?”
I tell him, and he opens the browser and types it in. He scrolls through the site for a minute, humming to himself. It’s cute, and I shamelessly watch him work a little longer. Then another hum comes out, and I’m not sure if this hum is of approval or disapproval, and suddenly I’m self-conscious about the choices I made for the website. It’s not the best, most modern website, but my guests have never complained, and they can navigate it well.
He clicks to the backend of my reservation system and performs several actions I can’t follow. His gaze veers to me. “You don’t have to watch over my shoulder the entire time.”
“Sorry.” I relax back into the couch and decide to watch Chevy Chase put up his Christmas lights.
I’m not sure how long it takes him because I get into the movie, but he places the closed laptop back on my lap. “Fixed.”
“Really?”
He nods. “Yeah, it wasn’t anything major. Just something that got messed up during an update that was pushed out this morning. Should be good to go now, but if you have any more problems with it, let me know.”
A huge relief washes over me. It would have taken me so much more time and money to overhaul the site.
“Thank you, I really appreciate it.” I open my laptop and poke around to check that everything is working. It is.
“Don’t trust me, huh?”
I quickly look at him to argue that’s not it, but he’s grinning. And god, he’s so attractive. I’ve been pushing away the part of me that wants him since the minute he arrived in town. “That’s a loaded question.”
He chuckles. “I want to ask you something, but I don’t know how you’ll feel about it…”
