Page 12 of The Accidental Innkeeper

“Right.”

Her gaze flicked briefly to the bronze statue of my great-aunt and then back to me. “You met Edna.”

I nodded. “I met her when she was alive too. Now she’s very… present,” I said. “In multiple mediums.”

Becca laughed lightly. “Yeah. Bet she did that on purpose.” She stared at me a moment. “So you’re the writer? Write anything I know.”

And there it was. The dreaded question all authors faced. I swallowed. “Probably not.” I wasn’t in the mood to have a polite conversation about my writing. I wasn’t famous, not by a long shot. But I did make enough to live, and so far, that was good enough for me.

I rubbed the back of my head and immediately regretted it because, yep, cartoon-level bump happening. “So,” I said slowly, “why are you inside my inn?”

“Oh.” She said it like the answer was obvious. “I’m a realtor. Edna asked me to assess the place. Prep paperwork. Be on standby.”

I blinked. “Standby for what.”

She hesitated just a fraction. “Options.”

Ah. “No one told me about options,” I said. “What kind of options?”

“I assumed,” Becca said carefully, “that you’d sell.”

I laughed—a short, slightly unhinged sound. I totally sounded crazy. “Wow. Okay. I’ve been in Maplewood Falls for…” I checked my watch. “Maybe forty minutes, and already the town has plans for me.”

She raised her hands slightly. “I’m not pushing. I’m just… here. Our aunt wanted everything ready in case you didn’t want to deal with it.”

I glanced around the den at the wallpaper, the furniture, the statue that was definitely watching me.

Deal with it.

That’s right. Dear aunt Edna thought I was a loser. And what did losers do? They bailed out of complicated situations. That’s what.

Becca followed my gaze. “That wing’s been closed for years,” she added casually. “Don’t open the door by the stairs unless you enjoy mold. The boiler screams sometimes, but only at night. And the roof over the east side leaks when it storms.”

My traitorous brain immediately drifted to Dust-guy. To his perfect face. Then to his very fine ass. Then, annoyingly, to what he’d said about the condition of the inn. And then, because I had no self-control, right back to his scrumptious ass.

Yeah. I needed therapy.

My eye twitched. “I get the feeling this inn’s been closed a long time. There’s a lot of dust.”

Becca nodded. “Six months.”

“Six.” I repeated because sometimes my brain needed subtitles. “Months.”

“Mm-hm.”

Six months. That was long enough for spiders to unionize. Long enough for dust to form its own ecosystem. Long enough for the inn to develop a personality disorder.

Damn. I looked past her, down the hall, as if I might spot the exact moment the place had given up. “So… it’s been sitting here. Empty. And pink.”

“Yes.”

“And no one thought to mention this little detail in, I don’t know… the letter. The will. A smoke signal.”

Becca gave me a sympathetic smile. “Our aunt wasn’t big on… communicating.”

“That is an understatement.” I glanced back at bronze Edna and her cigarette of judgment. “She communicated exclusively through intimidation and decor.”

Becca’s eyes flicked to the statue. “She commissioned that after the town put up a plaque for her. She thought it was too small.”