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She wasn’t going to get anything done if she stayed out here on the balcony all morning acting like a forlorn Juliet. Instead, she showered and dressed in a lightweight pink-and-green sweater and jeans. She took a couple of extra minutes to dry her hair, smooth it into a high ponytail and apply makeup.
She felt more like herself as she walked down to the kitchen, greeting several guests that she passed on the grand staircase. In the lobby, she paused to admire the stately Christmas tree decorated with beloved family ornaments. It was standing sentry in its usual place of honor, the same spot it had occupied for as far back as Elle could remember.
As usual, her mother and grandmother had transformed the inn into a tasteful Christmas wonderland with wreaths and red flower arrangements, gold beaded garlands, large nutcrackers and boxes wrapped to resemble large presents.
No one was in the kitchen, but a large foil-covered serving pan from the Chat Noir waited on the kitchen’s long trestle table. The aroma of breakfast food made Elle’s stomach growl. After she washed her coffee cup and saucer and put them away, she lifted a corner of the foil that covered a large aluminum pan. A waft of steam carried the delectable scent of homemade biscuits. She inhaled deeply and replaced the lid. She needed to get out of the kitchen before the temptation to help herself got the best of her.
She pushed through the double doors and into the butler’s pantry, which connected the kitchen to the private dining room. Surely there was something in there she could do to help finish setting up for the breakfast meeting?
With its oversize windows and wall of French doors, the inn’s dining room was one of her favorite places in the ten-thousand-square-foot house. The room was light and bright and offered a gorgeous view of the inn’s garden. This time of year the garden was still green, but the springtime bounty of roses, pink blossomed cherry sage, white pincushion flowers and cheery black-eyed Susans were replaced with voluptuous poinsettias and whimsical Christmas decorations.
While most of the floral paintings that hung on the walls in the dining room were originals Elizabeth had painted while she was in art school, the scene through the French doors looked like a wall-sized holiday-themed painting that changed with the light.
Her wedding reception would have been in that garden. She hadn’t even thought about it in all the times that she’d come home over the past six years. All it took was seeing the guy who’d instigated the breakup to make it all come flooding back.
Now he knew she was home, and if he was any kind of gentleman he’d stay in his neighborhood—wherever he was living now—and out of hers. Forsyth Park was a huge green space. All he had to do was stay away from the Whitaker Street side.
A memory flooded to the forefront. It was the day of the wedding, after Jane had helped her escape to the bride’s room. Daniel had had the nerve to come to the door. Of course, Jane, her protector, had shifted into full-on attack-dog mode. She hadn’t given him a chance to speak, or to explain or gloat or whatever he’d come to do.
Elizabeth had been surrounded by her mother, her grandmother and her younger sister, Kate. They were fussing over her, each one doing her best to console her, while Jane played gatekeeper, answering knocks and taking messages and assuring the well-wishers she would convey their condolences.
Then Daniel had knocked.
Elle hadn’t even seen him, but she knew it was him by the how-dare-you tone of her sister’s voice. She’d swiftly stepped outside and the rest of the conversation had been muted, leaving Elizabeth to fill in the missing pieces. Her favorite version had Jane chasing Daniel away—literally. Striking a fear in him so raw that he’d turned and hightailed it away.
It hadn’t really happened that way, of course, but on the rare occasion that she felt blue over the way things had ended, Elle imagined her sister chasing away the monster.
Elle had even gone so far as to paint a picture of the scene in her art journal, a private book of sketches, doodles and experimental paintings that she showed to no one. The art journal was her catharsis. It was a private place where she could leave what was haunting her on the page and close the book.
She took special care to ensure the painting of Jane, in her pale pink maid-of-honor gown, hadn’t looked like a bride chasing a groom in a church.
