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It sounded so simple in her head. Like she just needed to sweep out the kitchen, put new bedding in the master suite, and settle down in her reading nook as guests flocked to the inn. She’d been coming here every day for a solid week, and she knew better.
Her determination had her marching across the weed-filled parking lot—which made no sense to her. There would be no cars coming here—and toward the construction workers on the north side of the island. The lot wasn’t big, and Clara could see them eventually repaving it, repainting the lines in bright pink, and having a fleet of golf carts.
On this north side of the island, they’d have sand volleyball courts, swimming pools, and playgrounds. At least three on-site restaurants would be needed, as well as a little market, all housed within the inn.
Clara had no idea how to staff something like that, but with just over sixty-five rooms, no regular services, and people coming to stay for a while, they’d need food, amenities, and activities.
You need regular ferry services, she thought, and she needed to talk to people who’d lived here and came here while Friendship Inn had been open.
She immediately thought of her mother’s Seafaring Girls. They were all several years older than her, and she knew they’d once rowed out here, gotten stuck, and had to spend the night in the nearly condemned inn.
Clara’s fingers fisted, and she told herself she’d have to get past her stubborn streak. She’d been added to the group text with all the women her mother communicated with all day long. All—day—long. Sometimes at the end of the day, Clara had over two hundred messages to scroll through on the boat ride back to Sanctuary Island. Sometimes, there were only fifty, but she hadn’t seen less than that yet.
“Lance,” she called, catching sight of the tall, dark-haired man. He turned toward her and raised one hand. He said something to the man next to him, and then he came toward her. “What on earth?” she asked. “It sounded like the whole building was going to come down.”
He grinned like a little boy on Christmas morning. “We blew the wall between the old and the new,” he said. “We’re sifting through anything we need to, and then we’ll have the debris gone in a bit.”
“Gone?”
“Yes,” he said.
She glanced around, but she didn’t see any trucks. Of course she wouldn’t. How this place had been built, Clara had no idea. “How are you going to do that?”
“Put it in the ocean,” he said.
Her mouth dropped open. Her eyelids fluttered as she tried to keep them open for too long. “You can’t do that,” she said. She wasn’t exactly sure what he could and couldn’t do, but she knew there were regulations for what a person could dump into the ocean.
“We have a permit,” he said. “We have a list. We’re sifting through things, and then whatever we can put in the ocean, we will.”
Clara didn’t know what to say. She surveyed the mess of walls and floors and windows. Friendship Inn only stood three stories tall, so it wasn’t one of those big Los Angeles building blow-ups. Still, it felt like a lot to sift through. “How long will this take?” she asked.
“Couple of weeks,” he said, and she instantly felt better for some reason. He’d made it sound like they’d sift through a few pieces of rebar and start splashing by lunchtime.
“Okay.” Clara looked over to Scott as he arrived.
“Morning, Lance,” he said. His grin was too wide for Clara’s liking, and she barely caught herself before she frown-glared at him. The two of them shook hands, and Lance proceeded to repeat himself.
Clara turned away, collected Lena by the hand, and led her toward the main entrance of the inn. The doors didn’t lock, and Clara wasn’t sure what she’d be trying to protect inside if they did. “All right, Lena-Lou,” she said to her daughter. “Today, we’re going to clean out all of section D, okay?”
She’d sectioned off the remaining half of the inn into quadrants. Each one had between five and eight rooms in it, and by breaking down the huge chunks into manageable pieces, she could keep Lena motivated and see real progress on the inn.
“What floor?” Lena asked. “I don’t want to do anything on the second or third floors.”
Clara smiled at her daughter. “I know, sweetie. It’s on the first floor, section D.” She had no idea what she’d do once this section was cleared. It was the last one on the first floor, and it sat on the west side of the inn, overlooking the ocean. It only had five suites in it, the rooms larger and intended for higher-end clients or families. The windows took up whole walls, and Clara had discovered that her mother’s concoction of vinegar, CLR, and hot water could get them clean enough to call new.
That would save them a lot of money, and Clara had vowed to scrub every pane of glass herself if that was what it took.
Inside the inn, the lobby took up two floors and spread to her right, with vaulted ceilings and a grand staircase that Lance had said only needed minor repairs. He hadn’t done those yet, and a sense of impatience brewed inside Clara.
She swallowed it back, because she’d given herself and her family a year to get this inn open. Nothing here happened quickly or all that efficiently, as neither she nor Scott really knew what they were doing.
To her left would be two of the on-site restaurants. One space was in decent condition and needed a lot of cleaning to be functional. All new appliances were required too, as laws had changed over the years. The other space… Well, Clara was considering using it for more of a deli-type restaurant, or a grab-and-go option.
Go where?she asked herself, but she squashed the thought. She planned to have kayak rentals, boat rentals, jet skis, and more. Families would definitely need a grab-and-go option.
She envisioned senior parties here, and weekends with the inn full of teenagers. They didn’t want to sit down in fussy restaurants. They wanted cups of pretzel bites, cold sodas, cheese fries, and to get back out to the beach.
Clara had walked the perimeter of the entire island, and it had taken her about three hours. She’d noted places that needed to be cleaned up, and drawn a map of where they could put picnic tables. The west side of the island was rocky, very much resembling Rocky Ridge’s cliffs, but there were paths down to the sand there.
