In the Heart of Windy Pines Read online

  Jean rubbed her neck. “Okay, I trust you. I guess you’d better get that other guy scheduled for tomorrow night instead of tomorrow morning, in case you get stuck out there in… What’s the name of the town he’s staying in?”

  “Windy Pines.”

  “And where’s the other guy—Sommerset—stuck at?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “We bought him a plane ticket. I can’t believe he still couldn’t make it here on time.”

  “We can talk about all this later, Jeannie. I need to get the chains on the truck. The roads are only getting worse out there.”

  “Okay,” she said, heaving herself back up from the sofa. “I’ll fill a Thermos with coffee for you and pack you an overnight bag, just in case you need it.”

  Chapter 19

  “You call yourselves a bed and breakfast?”

  Klarinda set down the platter of melon cubes and their accompanying set of tongs and turned to face her least favorite guest. “Good morning, Dave. How’d you sleep? Actually, no, Mistletoe Manor does not call itself a bed and breakfast, it calls itself an inn. Even so, we put out a nice complimentary breakfast that our guests, in general, enjoy.” She pointed out each option to him: “Yogurt, fruit choices including pineapple—that’s pretty extravagant, if you ask me. Not that anyone asked me. Four styles of bread to choose from, a toaster for your toasting pleasure, and your choice of butter, margarine, raspberry jam, or honey. Orange juice is right there and coffee’s percolating. Don’t burn yourself, Dave, it’s hot.”

  She walked back up to the front desk as the door opened and Charlotte Smyth, the holiday decorator who Myrtle had hired behind her back, stepped inside.

  “Good morning, Klarinda! How are you?” she gave Klarinda a hug.

  “Not bad,” said Klarinda, trying to figure out how she was going to get them out of the $999 investment Myrtle had committed to.

  “Did you see the sleigh up on your roof?” asked Charlotte.

  “I think everyone in the town has seen it!”

  “Ensar and some of his friends managed that. I was afraid they were going to break their necks! He’ll be here any second with your trees. He’s been out all morning, scouting for the perfect specimens.”

  “He has?” asked Klarinda, gulping a little.

  Charlotte nodded. “And I’ve got all the materials you’ll need, including lots and lots of mistletoe! You can’t have a place called Mistletoe Manor and not have mistletoe everywhere, right?”

  “I guess not,” said Klarinda.

  “Then let’s get started. I’ll be right back.”

  “Umm, Charlotte,” said Klarinda.

  “What is it?”

  “I was just thinking… Myrtle mentioned something about Mistletoe Manor possibly getting featured in a magazine about the inns of Idaho?”

  Charlotte nodded excitedly. “Yes. Once you’re all decked out, you’ll basically be a shoo-in. It’s going to mean so much exposure for you, Klarinda.”

  “We could use some of that. The only other time we got exposure, it was the terrible kind. I thought we’d never live that down. It would be great to be seen in a positive light.”

  “It will happen,” Charlotte assured her. “You’re not even going to recognize this place once I’m done with it.”

  Chapter 20

  “Call me a cab,” Dave Sommerset told Klarinda, as soon as Charlotte had walked out the door. He smirked. Now that he was her paying customer, she was his concierge.

  “Hopefully one’s running today,” she told him, picking up the phone and dialing the number she knew by heart.

  “These hick towns. How can you stand it?” he said, crossing his arms. “I’m going to surprise my little lady by taking her to a movie.”

  Klarinda listened to the phone ringing. “Our theatre isn’t open this early. In fact, it might not even be open at any time today. It’s just a little single-screen theatre on Main Street. And no one at the cab place is picking up. It’s pretty early for them to be working.” She hung up the phone. “Someone will probably get going around ten or eleven o’clock. Noon at the latest. Or, you never know, it could be one or two.”

  “This is ridiculous. Why would anyone stay here?”

  “We’ve got a stack of board games in the parlor if you and the little lady would like to play some parcheesi or checkers.”

  “No one calls her that but me.”

  Klarinda sighed. “This is Windy Pines. We’re just a little inn in a little town. I don’t pretend to be some amazing place that’s going to change anyone’s life. We’re just a place you stay when you’re passing through. Just a forgettable little spot on the map. A meaningless blip in people’s lives. I’m just trying to get by. I can see you hate it here, lots of people do, but I don’t understand why. I picked out that cantaloupe and pineapple myself from the Piggly Wiggly. I compared them all and picked the nicest ones. Those aren’t canned pineapple chunks in there. That’s a real pineapple. I never had a pineapple until I was seventeen years old, and now I’m giving them away, left and right, and what do people say? They say, ‘Where are my waffles? Where’s my bacon?’ Well, Pierre already makes lunch and dinner. Am I supposed to ask him to cook you people breakfast now too? He’s almost sixty years old. Can’t any of us catch a break? How am I so disappointing to everyone? Can’t you see how hard I work? I’m doing my best and it isn’t good enough for anyone. It’s just me and a few other people doing everything here. What does everyone expect? Why isn’t any of this good enough for anyone?”

  She realized that, at some point, she’d stopped talking about Windy Pines and Mistletoe Manor and begun talking about herself. She cleared her throat, knowing her cheeks were flaming red, swallowing back the tears that were about to come pouring down her face. She waited for the horrible man in front of her to lash out at her again.

  Instead, he said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. This place isn’t so bad. I tried some of the pineapple. It was good. It’s stuck in my teeth, but that’s another story. And it’s not your fault if the movie theatre isn’t open or the cabs aren’t running yet. It’s not.”

  Klarinda took a step back. She couldn’t believe her ears.

  “We’ll play some parcheesi. Tiffinie would probably like that better than going to a movie, anyway. You’re doing a good job,” he added. “I guess you don’t hear that very often. Everyone needs to hear that now and then.” And then he went back upstairs and left Klarinda standing at the front desk, mildly in shock.

  Chapter 21

  Guests were beginning to fill the parlor and dining room of Mistletoe Manor, getting in the way of Charlotte’s decorating efforts. Though she was doing her best to appear patient, Klarinda could tell the setback was annoying her. To make matters worse, one of the couples had tried to drive into town, only to end up skidding off the Mistletoe Manor driveway and into a snowbank, and Klarinda’d had to call their plow guy to come and help them out of the snow. Now everyone else was afraid to attempt the quarter mile drive into town.

  “Maybe it would be better if you came back in a day or two?” Klarinda suggested to Charlotte, after one of the guests took a step back from poking at the fire and stepped right into one of Charlotte’s boxes of ornaments.

  “I’d like to do that,” said Charlotte, but the dentist office on Main Street and the Ford dealer are both having their holiday parties this weekend and I’m going to be busy from Thursday to Saturday working for both of them. Not to mention, those trees Ensar just cut down need to get in water.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Klarinda said. “We’re going to have a snowman building contest. That’ll get everyone out of your hair!”

  “You think they’ll actually go for it?” asked Charlotte.

  “It doesn’t hurt to ask,” said Klarinda. She went to the doorway between the parlor and dining room and said, “Everyone, can I have your attention?”

  They all looked her way, mildly intrigued.

  “For anyone interested, it’s time
for a snowman building contest! We’ve got plenty of hats, scarves, and mittens you can borrow for yourselves or to decorate your snowmen,” she said, picturing the huge lost and found bin that had been accumulating winter accessories since well before she’d owned Mistletoe Manor. There were even a few pairs of boots in the box. “Our chef Pierre can be the judge when he gets here in about an hour. Who’s in?”

  To her pleasant surprise, everyone standing in the two rooms, even Dave and his fiancée, expressed interest. The only people not participating were the two solo guests: the man in the blue room, who Klarinda still hadn’t met, and Neil, in the gray room, who had haunted her dreams the night before.

  “Fabulous,” she said. “The mittens and things will be in a box by the front door. I’ll have hot chocolate and apple cider ready for you when you’re done.”

  Twenty minutes later, the inn was cleared out, the Christmas trees were in their stands, and Charlotte was back to decorating in peace.

  Klarinda shoved the broken vacuum cleaner she’d been trying to fix behind the counter, and then slipped outside to take some photos of the fun and festivities for the Mistletoe Manor website and social media pages. While she was out there, she shoveled the sidewalk and the part of the parking lot the plow guy had missed, reattached the shingle to the inn, and grabbed an armload of firewood. When she came back inside, Neil was standing at the front desk.

  “Hi there,” she said, a rush of flustery excitement washing over her. After spending a whole night dreaming of him, seeing him felt like reuniting with her new boyfriend.

  “Hi,” he said. “Say, I was talking to the other woman who works here about this when I checked in yesterday; I’m having some car trouble and she recommended someone named… Derb? Do you know who she was talking about? She was going to give him a call for me this morning. I need to get in touch with him today if possible.”

  “Oh, that was Myrtle. She must have forgotten that she wouldn’t be here. Sure, I can help you with that,” she said. “Derb Dunlavy. I’ll give him a call for you. Let me just pull up his shop on my phone… Here we go.” She waited while the number of his shop rang and rang. Then she heard, “You’ve reached Derb’s Auto Repair. Leave a message.”

  “Hi Derb,” she said. “This is Klarinda Snow, up at Mistletoe Manor. I’ve got a guest here who could use some help with his car. In fact, why don’t I just pass the phone to him so he can tell you about it.”

  She gave the phone to Neil. He took it from her, a rather sheepish look on his face. “Hello,” he said. “I’ve got an SUV that’s not running well. It’s a Mercedes-Benz GLS…”

  Klarinda looked down. No one in Windy Pines owned cars like that. This made her feel extra embarrassed about her shabby inn.

  “It’s just a few years old,” the man said, “but it’s knocking and lurching along. I hope you can help me, or I might have to stay here in Windy Pines forever.” He laughed nervously. “Neil Prescott’s the name,” he added. “I’ll be here at Mistletoe Manor all day.”

  He gave the phone back to Klarinda.

  “You should hear from him today,” she assured him. “He’s a good guy. He’ll get back to you soon.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” said Neil. “I was going to meet some people about a business deal, but I’ve had second thoughts about it. If it doesn’t happen, I think it’s for the best. Where is everyone?”

  “They’re all outside, building snowmen and having snowball fights.”

  “Really?” asked Neil.

  “I’m serious,” said Klarinda. She led him into the parlor—Charlotte had just finished decorating it and had moved on to the dining room—and they had a look out the front window.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Neil.

  “Me either! It sure looks like everyone’s having fun. You want to go out there and join them?”

  “With you?” he asked, his face lighting up.

  “Uhh, no. I need to stay in here,” she said.

  “Sorry. Of course. Um, actually, I think I’ll get a cup of coffee and take advantage of the quiet time.”

  “Good idea,” said Klarinda.

  “Careful, you two,” Charlotte said, breezing past them with an armload of faux wrapped gifts to set beneath the tree. She nodded up to a green spring of foliage above Klarinda and Neil’s heads. “Mistletoe,” she said. “Naturally.”

  Klarinda took a step back. “I’d better get to work she said,” going up to the front counter to check her appointment book.

  There was one scheduled guest on the calendar for that evening. However, it looked as if every single current guest may be stuck there for another night. This put her in quite an awkward position. She was going to have to kick someone out in order to honor a commitment she’d already made. Then again, she reasoned to herself, if no one could get out of town, it was likely that no one could get in to town either.

  As she stood there chewing on her pencil and worrying, she watched as Neil took a seat on the chair by the fireplace in the parlor, a mug of coffee in his hand. The light from the fire danced over him. She felt like going in and sitting by him, but she stayed where she was.

  Today he was wearing a different pair of jeans that looked more like something from the current decade than from twenty years ago. They were paired with a black and red plaid flannel shirt. His face was stubbly and his hair was a little out of control. Klarinda has always preferred guys who didn’t take their appearance too seriously, and she had to admit to herself that this was an improvement over yesterday’s outfit of dad jeans and a pink and turquoise windbreaker.

  How could she have had such a vivid, detailed, romantic dream about a man in a pink and turquoise windbreaker? Of course, in the dream he’d been wearing a tuxedo, clothes for sledding, and… uh, oh. The kissing dream was coming back to her in detail now; they’d been doing a little more than kissing.

  As if he could read her mind, he looked up, smiled at her, and said, “Lots of good sledding hills around here.”

  “Yes, there sure are,” she said.

  “Maybe that’ll get everyone outside again this afternoon.”

  “Is it that obvious that I’m not a people person?” she laughed.

  “No,” he said, getting up and coming over to the front counter. “I wasn’t trying to make assumptions about you. I just figured you were trying to think of ways to keep all these folks entertained. After all, I would imagine that most of the time when people stay here, they’re bumming around the town, shopping or sightseeing. Having a dozen strangers all trapped in a house together puts a little pressure on you, I’m guessing.”

  Klarinda nodded. He was standing so close to her. Not that she minded.

  He took a step back, as if he’d sensed that he’d come in a little closer than he should have. He smiled an apologetic smile and Klarinda felt the urge to reach out and touch his arm. Tell him it was okay, or even pull him back to her. How could someone with such a weighty sadness to him also be so magnetic? It wasn’t logical. And what was he so darned miserable about? What in the world could have gone wrong in his life to make him look so defeated? After all, he had a fancy vehicle, he came across as intelligent and thoughtful, and he was spectacularly attractive and in great shape. At first glance, he looked like the kind of guy who had it all.

  The front door opened and two of the guests walked in.

  “Brrrrr!” exclaimed the woman, pulling off her wet mismatched gloves and tossing them back in the lost and found box.

  Neil stepped out of her way and went over to the spinning rack of travel pamphlets.

  “You got that cider ready for us?” asked the woman’s husband, adding the wet mittens and hat he’d been wearing to the box.

  “Five minutes,” said Klarinda. “I figured I’d wait until people started coming back in so it didn’t get cold. You’re welcome to warm up in the parlor while I get it ready for you.”

  “The dining room’s not open yet?” asked the man.

  “No, not for about forty-f
ive minutes or an hour. And we’ve got someone in there right now decorating a Christmas tree and putting up evergreen boughs and table displays, so she’d probably prefer a little space to finish up. I’ll bring the cider out to the parlor for you.”

  “If we do decide to go in there, we won’t get in anyone’s way,” said the man’s wife, noticing a big clump of snow in the cuff of her pants and depositing it in the cardboard box on top of the other wet things. Then she found a snowball that had landed in the hood of her jacket and set that in the box as well. “Snowball fight,” she explained.

  “We have restrooms just down the hall if you need to get rid of all that snow,” Klarinda said, pointing in the direction of them.

  “No, I’m good. I think I’ve gotten most of it. So, what do you get if you win the snowman contest?” she asked Klarinda.

  “The satisfaction of winning.”

  “Oh, come on! You can do better than that,” the woman’s husband joked. “How about a free dessert, at least?”

  “Well, maybe,” said Klarinda, remembering that they had some terrible sugar-free chocolate ripple ice cream in the freezer that no one should have to pay money for.

  “You should pick ours,” the man said, leaning in toward Klarinda and giving her a wink. “It’s a snowwoman, actually. She’s got bazoombas.” He did a curvy hand gesture in case Klarinda didn’t understand what bazoombas were.

  “Clever,” she said.

  “That’s what I thought,” he agreed, as he and his wife went into the parlor to warm up by the fire.

  A moment later, as she pulled the wet winter accessories from the box and set them on the radiator to dry, Klarinda saw the man and his wife take the Monopoly game off the shelf of games and head into the dining room with it.