In the Heart of Windy Pines Read online

  “Who knows?” said Myrtle. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  “But if he can’t help me right away, do you know another…” the man’s voice trailed off when he realized Myrtle was looking at him with an expression on her face that seemed to imply that she wondered whether this shiny city slicker was turning out to be a dim bulb.

  “What I’m trying to tell you,” she said, “is that if you need a mechanic, Derb’s your man, but he can’t do it just yet. So, in other words, it looks like you may be spending a couple of nights here in Windy Pines.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Thanks for spelling it out for me.”

  “My pleasure! I hope you didn’t have anywhere you had to be in a hurry,” said Myrtle.

  “I suppose another day won’t make a difference,” he said.

  “Oh, it could be more than that,” said Myrtle. “Coming to Windy Pines is easier than leaving.”

  “If that happens, I’ll have to call the folks I’m meeting. I’m sure I can reschedule with them if I have to.”

  “Good, good.” She didn’t have to check the appointment book to add, “The gray room is yours as long as you need it.”

  “Thank you. Though I can’t imagine that it will be more than a couple nights,” he said.

  “You know a blizzard is coming, don’t you?” asked Myrtle.

  “No, I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “We just got over one—they haven’t even had time to clear away the snow from it—and another’s on its way. We get dumped on this time of year. Especially the last few years. The weather’s been wild up here. A few years ago, in fact…” Myrtle shook her head.

  “Yes?”

  “Quite the storm.”

  He nodded. “Am I just up these stairs here?” he asked, gesturing toward the staircase by the front door of the inn.

  “That’s right. When you reach the landing at the top, take a left and go all the way down the hallway. Then your room will be on your left. I hope I didn’t talk your ear off!”

  “Nope,” he said, grabbing his ear. “Still here.”

  Stop. Stop with the dad jokes, he silently begged himself as he trudged up the stairs. Like his heartburn and tension headaches, they’d become another constantly recurring infliction he couldn’t shake.

  As soon as he got inside his room and closed the door, he sat down on the bed and buried his face in his hands. He’d been afraid she was going to comment about his driver’s license; the address on it didn’t match the address he’d given her. But that aside, he’d been even more concerned that she was going to react to the coincidence that his birthday and today’s date happened to match one another. Yes, it was this man’s fifty-seventh birthday and he was spending it alone, at an old inn, with a broken-down car, no hope for the future, an incarcerated wife, a dead son, a daughter who wasn’t speaking to him, and a broken heart.

  Chapter 3

  The man in the blue room of Mistletoe Manor was named Earl. Earl Morn. It was such a silly name that folks often guessed it was a joke or a nickname, but it was as real as the scratched up, weathered wedding band that hadn’t come off his finger since it had been placed there by Tabitha Hamilton in 1972.

  When John and Betty Morn’s firstborn son came into the world just after six a.m. on a crisp October morning back in 1953, the pink ribbons of color washing over the Iowa sky outside Des Moines General Hospital inspired the Morns’ decision to give their baby a name that sounded more like someone in a hurry describing the break of day than an actual name. John Thomas Morn—the name they’d just about signed in ink as he lay there in his bassinet, swaddled in the hospital-issued blanket, wearing a small blue knitted cap on his bald pink head—instead became Earl Thomas Morn. They decided the next boy they had would be his father’s namesake instead. So, from day one, Earl was destined not to be his father’s favorite.

  Decades and eleven sisters later, and this truth hadn’t changed, even if he did have an optimistic name that made people think of sunrises and fresh, new days ahead. And, despite his tough upbringing and feeling of being second best to a better version that never arrived, Earl Morn grew up to be an optimistic man leading a glass-is-half-full life. At least, once he swapped out his original, huge, overbearing family for teensy, tiny Tabitha and started his own little family.

  But these days, there was nothing optimistic about Earl Morn. Not since Tabitha had been diagnosed with breast cancer three years earlier, and especially not since she’d passed away in July. Nope, Earl Morn was straight-up miserable and he no longer bothered to hide it.

  He got up to check that the door of his room was locked, and then he took a peek out the window. To his disappointment, the parking lot now had a couple of cars in it.

  “Damn it,” he whispered. He swore constantly now, even though he used to say it was a sign of having a limited vocabulary. Hating the world and expressing that hatred gave him morsels of bitter satisfaction. He’d been expecting this place to be deserted. He sneered out the window for another moment, hoping his misery could somehow penetrate the owners of the vehicles in the parking lot, and then let the dusty lace curtain fall back into place.

  He sat down at the small desk in the corner of the room and took out the newspaper clipping he’d been carrying around for almost two years.

  So Much Tragedy in One Remote Inn read the headline. The story went on to cover a series of murders that had happened here at this inn a few years earlier. Tabitha had come across the story when they were sitting in a waiting room—so many hours spent in waiting rooms, and then, one day, all the time in the world on his hands. No one ever talked about the aftermath of caring for a loved one, and all that brutal, aching, echoing time.

  “I’d like to visit this place,” she’d said. “This Mistletoe Manor place.”

  “But why?” Earl had asked her. As if he didn’t know. Tabitha had always liked embracing her dark side. She’d been blonde and plump, only five feet tall, button-nosed and red-cheeked. The posterchild for being underestimated. She’d liked to surprise people with her edginess.

  “It looks creepy,” she’d said.

  “Exactly,” Earl had agreed.

  “I’d like to spend the night there.”

  “If you’re feeling better, we will,” Earl had told her.

  The little gleam had gone out of her eye at that. Not just because he was wrong, but because his telling her such a thing felt like a sort of betrayal. A breach of trust. She knew that, barring a miracle, there were no more dreams coming true. And didn’t he know that too? Trips to the doctors’ office exhausted her. She couldn’t even make dinner anymore. Unless the impossible happened, there would be no more trips beyond Des Moines, much less across the country.

  Aside from one other wish, this was the only thing Earl could remember Tabitha wanting. A visit to Mistletoe Manor. A chance to experience this remote inn perched high on a mountain in a state far from Iowa that neither she nor Earl had ever set foot in.

  And so—he patted the gold urn that contained her ashes—he was making it happen. Dying wish number one had already come true. Dying wish number two: To rest eternally in her husband’s arms, would happen tonight. It was just a question of whether Earl was going to use the gun he’d brought or the capsule of poison.

  Chapter 4

  Just as Klarinda Snow had reached the Five miles to Windy Pines – A little piece of paradise in Idaho! sign on the old logging road outside of town, the sparse hints of snow that had been teasing her throughout her ride back from Winter River had turned into the large, feathery snowflakes that she loved. By the time her old truck crossed the bridge by the Windy Pines Public Library, it had become a winter wonderland outside.

  “It might be treacherous to drive in, but it sure is beautiful,” she said to herself as she reached the top of the steep Mistletoe Manor driveway and her inn came into view. “And that’s beautiful too,” she added, her jaw dropping at all the cars in the parking lot. There were license plates from Oregon, Montana,
Kansas, Colorado, Iowa… Even as far away as Connecticut. Operating an inn was expensive and stressful. Being surprised by a full house was always a good thing. Well, not always. But usually.

  She realized that folks passing through this corner of the state must have been forced to find emergency lodging since the blizzard was coming. Amazing what those old, peeling billboards were capable of. She’d nearly convinced herself that they looked so worn out that Mistletoe Manor would be better off without them and had been ready to quit paying the measly $120/month it cost to keep them up. Myrtle, on the other hand, had been advising her to accept the Big Signs Inc.’s salesman’s offer to replace them with newer, bigger, nicer billboards and to install two additional Mistletoe Manor billboards ten miles from either end of town—all for $550/a month—and she hadn’t been interested, but now she reconsidered what a little more advertising could do for the inn.

  She’d been so consumed in thoughts relating to her profit margins as she’d driven past all the out-of-state license plates and parked inside her garage that, somehow, she hadn’t realized that Mistletoe Manor now had a huge lit-up sled, Santa Claus, and reindeer up on the roof. When she’d left that morning, hadn’t there just been a few strings of icicle lights? Now, as she walked across the snowy parking lot to the inn’s front door, the bright, colorful lights reflecting on the snow were all she could see.

  “What has Myrtle gone and done now?” Klarinda asked herself, closing her eyes and forcing herself to count to ten. Ever since her Jill-of-all-trades and handywoman had won a certain battle of wills a few years ago over whether it was necessary to deck out the inn for Christmas or appropriate to just set out a few knickknacks and save some money, Myrtle now took it upon herself to raise the holiday decorating stakes every year.

  Klarinda spent a moment breathing in the crisp mountain air, enjoying the huge snowflakes and the view of the twinkling lights of Windy Pines down below. “It’ll be okay,” she told herself. “Probably at least one of these guests is here because of that ridiculous sleigh, and the rest are probably here because of those billboards. Just… trust her.”

  As soon as she stepped through the front door of the inn, Myrtle was on her.

  “Klarinda! There you are. Would you look at that parking lot? Every room but one is full. Almost all of them showed up within the last thirty-five minutes. I just got off the phone with Kaitlyn and Meribeth. They’ll be up here soon so Lucas doesn’t have to wait tables alone tonight.”

  “Good thinking,” Klarinda said, taking off her scarf and hanging it on a hook above a radiator to dry. It was almost time for the inn’s restaurant to open. “Thank you for being so on top of things.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.”

  “Actually, it’s everything. In case I haven’t said it lately, thank you for doing such a great job around here.”

  “Pssshaw. Don’t mention it,” said Myrtle, shaking her head. Then she lowered her voice, glanced left and right, and whispered, “We’ve got a couple of saddies on our hands. The most miserable looking fellow I’ve ever seen showed up around 3:30. I wonder what his story is! Then, wouldn’t you know it, another fellow who looked just as glum showed up an hour or so later. What are the odds?”

  Of two people being sad in one day? Pretty high, Klarinda decided. But she just nodded and said, “Interesting.” Myrtle loved gossiping about the guests, and, as long as she kept it on the downlow, Klarinda let her have her fun.

  “Saddy number one is in the blue room and the other one’s in the gray room,” Myrtle reported. “I put the hot one in the ‘fifty shades of gray’ room.” She winked. Even now that she’d finally landed her man, the local plumber Rod Showers, Myrtle was still the most guy-crazy person Klarinda had ever met.

  “Good thinking,” Klarinda said.

  “So, blue and gray for the glum-chums. I thought I’d make it easy for you to remember.”

  “Thanks. Hopefully their stay here will bring them lots of joy.”

  “That’d be something. Did you notice anything… special outside?” asked Myrtle.

  “Do you mean the enormous Santa Claus, sleigh, and reindeer up on the roof?” Klarinda asked.

  “Well… yes. What do you think?”

  “It’s a really festive display… and it certainly dresses up the place… But Myrtle, I hate to even ask how much it cost.”

  “It was a good deal. A real bargain,” Myrtle said.

  “What does that mean?” asked Klarinda.

  “Free, in a way,” said Myrtle.

  “I doubt that.”

  “You know Charlotte, that lovely party planner?”

  “Sure,” said Klarinda.

  “She’s branching out to handle holiday decorating as well.”

  “Okay. That’s great, but how much?” Klarinda asked.

  “Well,” said Myrtle, “since I told her she could put up some trees for us this year, and decorate the whole inn, she threw in that roof display for free.”

  Klarinda crossed her arms over her chest, waiting.

  “Nine ninety-nine,” Myrtle whispered.

  “As in nine hundred ninety-nine dollars?” Klarinda exclaimed.

  “Yup,” Myrtle said, nodding.

  “Oh, Myrtle. That’s too much. Way too much. I like Charlotte as much as you do, and I’d like to support her, but we simply don’t have that much money to throw around. Why did I even buy those artificial trees and ornaments if we aren’t going to use them every year?”

  “Hers are so much nicer, though. Have you seen her website? Her trees all have themes.”

  “Our guests are getting so spoiled,” said Klarinda. “Some fake trees with a little tinsel thrown on top would be more than enough.”

  “This isn’t just about pleasing our guests. You spend almost all your waking hours here, including Christmas.”

  Klarinda looked down. It really wasn’t necessary for Myrtle to point this out.

  “I’m just saying,” said Myrtle, “doesn’t being surrounded by some pretty holiday décor make you happy?”

  “Not as happy as having enough money to pay the bills.”

  “Hear me out, Klarinda. I chose a gingerbread theme for the little Douglas fir that’s going to be up here by the front desk, a white and navy angel theme for the balsam fir that will be in the parlor, and a Twelve Days of Christmas themed white pine for the one that will be in the dining room. Charlotte will get it all set up tomorrow. There’s really no way out of it at this point. Stop looking at me like that! Here’s the best part: Charlotte said she’ll take a lot of pictures and use us for her website. She even said she might be able to get us featured in Idaho Inns magazine!”

  “And what about our whole basement full of Christmas decorations? Most of them are only a year or two old,” said Klarinda.

  “We’ll use them to decorate the guest rooms. Or we can use them to decorate your apartment. I’ll help you someday soon when we’re slow. I almost forgot to mention: One of the shutters fell off. I put it in the garage for now.”

  “Oh. I didn’t even notice it.”

  “And,” Myrtle continued, though she looked like she didn’t want to, “that little snag in the carpet of the orange room got caught in the vacuum cleaner yesterday…”

  “So, are you saying the carpet is ruined or the vacuum cleaner is ruined?”

  “Yup,” said Myrtle.

  “This place is such a money pit!” Klarinda said. “Masonry work on the chimneys last fall. A new boiler last winter. A new industrial stove for the kitchen this spring. I swear, Myrtle, no matter how much money comes in, it always seems there’s more going out.”

  “Oh! Would you look at that,” said Myrtle, picking up her phone. “My ride’s here. I’d stick around a little longer and help you with all these guests, but Rod’s excited to get me back home so we can finish the jigsaw puzzle we’re putting together. It’s a lighthouse!”

  “It’s fine. You’ve been here all day,” said Klarinda, yawning. “Go ahead.” Her night manager,
Josephine, would be there soon to take over for the evening.

  “Thanks. You have a good night, Klarinda. And I hope you’re not too mad at me about all the decorations.”

  “It’s okay. You have a good night, too, Myrtle. If we actually get featured in Idaho Inns, I guess it’ll all be worth it.”

  Chapter 5

  “You can’t sit up here all night,” Neil Prescott told himself, setting aside the self-help book he’d been staring at and standing up to stretch. He looked around at the guestroom he was in. That lady at the counter hadn’t been kidding; this room was as gray as it could be. Light gray walls. Dark gray comforter. Bluish gray carpeting. Even the furniture was all painted gray.

  He stretched a little more and patted his slight tummy, if it could be called that. His ex Vivienne certainly would think it was a problem, even if no one else on the planet would agree. It was a new feature and he kind of liked it. Vivienne had demanded he stay at a trim one hundred sixty pounds at all times. Without her around to enforce his daily weigh-ins or monitor his diet, he’d ballooned up to his highest weight ever: One seventy-four. Honestly, he thought he looked better with a little weight on him. Even if it meant going up to a size 34-36 jeans instead of the 32-36s he’d been wearing all his life.

  “City slicker,” he mused to himself, checking out his butt in the mirror.

  Although he was tempted to order room service—that is, if a place like this even offered it—instead of being part of civilization, he re-read the last lines in the book he’d just set down:

  “The most important step in recovery is to find the balance between the calm quiet of solitude and self-care, and the lively, inspiring energy of human connection. Too much or too little of either is unhealthy for the soul and will slow your healing process.”

  “I think it’s telling you to leave your room,” he noted to himself. He sighed. Perhaps if he kept reading, it would tell him something else he’d rather hear.