Page 22 of A Winter Thaw

She groaned. Whatever Puddle had gotten into, it was upstairs. Where all the guests were.

“Oh no,” she muttered, picking up the puppy and starting toward the staircase. “Oh no, no, no.”

She followed the trail of feathers to the first room on the top floor. The door was ajar, and she could see a trail of feathers across the whole room. In the corner, lying under the window, was a mangled feather pillow.

“Puddle, you didn’t!” Michelle whispered, horrified. She pushed open the door a little more and saw that the floor was practically covered in feathers. Mercifully, however, Puddle seemed to have left everything other than the pillow alone.

She bit her lip, trying to remember what guest was staying in that room. Her heart sank when she remembered it was a middle-aged man who was in town for an art show and who was on the irritable side. He wouldn’t be thrilled about the fact that a dog had gotten into his room and chewed up his pillow.

She glanced at her watch. The art show went until four. So he must be gone at the moment and was very unlikely to come back until after the show was over. She inhaled, trying to form a plan. She wanted to move as fast as possible, in case he came back early—or came back to the hotel for lunch!

She let out a sound that was a mixture between a groan and a squeal and darted out of the room. It took her five seconds to realize that Puddle was still in her arms. Michelle turned around and hurried back into the room.

“No,” she said, holding Puddle’s nose against the destroyed pillow. “No. Bad dog.”

Puddle’s expression became so tragic that Michelle felt bad about disciplining her.

“Hey, you know what you did,” she said, leaving the room again and heading back downstairs to Puddle’s closet. “Pillows are not puppy food.”

She found the gate of Puddle’s closet swung open. She groaned and set Puddle down before checking it. It didn’t seem broken, and she guessed that one of the guests—probably a kid—had let Puddle out on purpose.

Michelle gave Puddle more food and then shut the gate again. She hurriedly made a sign and taped it on the front of the gate: “Please Do Not Let Puddle Out, She is Still Being Trained.”

Once that was done, Michelle began to move at lightning speed. She ran to get the vacuum and a trash bag. Before darting up the steps to the room she needed to clean, she glanced out the front window to make sure the grumpy art enthusiast wasn’t coming. For a second, her heart leapt into her throat when she thought she saw him walking down the sidewalk, but a moment later she realized it was just the mailman.

Muttering under her breath, she raced to the room and started to vacuum. The feathers were difficult to clean up because they kept being blown away, but she soon had the mess eradicated. She stuffed what remained of the beautiful feather pillow into a plastic bag and took one long look around the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. She was just starting to breathe a sigh of relief when she froze.

She needed another pillow! She clamped her hand to her forehead. That was a flaw in her plans, for sure. They didn’t have any backup pillows. Since they’d just opened the hotel, they’d banked on all their pillows staying fresh for at least another few months.

She glanced at her watch. She loathed the idea of running to the store and coming back. She felt worried that the guest might return before she did, and then he would wonder why he was missing a pillow.

I’ll give him one of mine, she decided suddenly. I’ve got that extra one I hardly ever use. It’s basically new. He won’t know the difference.

She deposited the vacuum and the trash bag in a hallway closet and then darted up another flight of stairs to the third floor, where her cozy bedroom was. She rushed inside, saw her window seat with its breathtaking view of the snowy yard, and wished that she could just curl up with a mug of tea and a good book and a blanket.

Tonight, she told herself. I’ll get my work done today and then I’ll have a moment to rest.

She grabbed the pillow and hurried back down the stairs. They kept extra sheets in the hallway closets, and she grabbed a fresh pillowcase and put it on the new pillow. She returned to the room and replaced the pillow with a sigh of relief.

As she left the room, she shut the door behind her, just in case. Still feeling jittery, she roamed the hallways for a few minutes, making sure all the other rooms’ doors were shut and that there were no other signs of Puddle having done damage.

Everything seemed all right, but Michelle still felt drained and overwhelmed as she made her way back down the stairs. One thing was for sure—it was going to be a long couple of days.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Elaine’s eyes fluttered open and she blinked at the patterns of sunlight that were flickering on the wall across from her. For a moment, she thought she might still be dreaming, and then with a rush of excitement she realized that she was in Boston.

Inhaling, she sat up and looked around the comfortable hotel room. The curtains were half-closed, but they were open enough to let in a burst of white winter sunlight. The comfortable, colorful room smelled fresh and felt pleasantly clean. Elaine thought to herself with a chuckle that she was enjoying the experience she tried to give guests at The Birchwood House—a place to travel to that felt comfortable, relaxing, and exciting.

She saw that Audrey was still asleep in the other queen-sized bed. She’d arranged the quilts around herself like a cocoon, and her mouth was hanging open a little. Elaine smiled, thinking fondly of when Audrey was a little girl. She’d liked to sleep with her quilts bunched up around her back then too.

Elaine slipped out of bed quietly. She didn’t want to wake Audrey, and she moved with the softness of a cat as she gathered items from her suitcase and went into the bathroom to take a shower. The water was wonderfully hot, and the complimentary body wash smelled like citrus and sandalwood.

Once she’d dried off using one of the fluffy towels, Elaine got dressed in her white three-piece suit, then inspected her reflection in a mirror.

I feel so fancy today, she thought. It’s like getting dressed up for a wedding or a gala, but somehow it feels even more exciting than that. I feel like I’m stepping into my new role as a successful businesswoman, and I feel like I’m getting to celebrate everything I and the girls have accomplished with The Birchwood House.

She carefully applied a minimal amount of makeup, enjoying the process and feeling glamorous. Elaine normally didn’t bother with makeup, but she wanted to put some on that morning because it felt like an added ornamentation to her outfit—just like the pearl necklace that she’d put on. Thomas had given it to her, and she thought fondly of her husband as she clasped the strands together.