Saving the Lakeside Hotel (Escape to Switzerland #1)
Chapter One
Chapter On e
Saturday, 27 th May
S tacy Townsend pulled both her case and Emily’s into their hotel room and promptly abandoned them in the corner.
‘Oh, wow, Emmy! Look at the view!’
The French doors were open, and she stepped out onto a dark brown wooden balcony and gazed over the vast blue expanse of Lake Constance stretching from right to left in front of her. Far in the distance was a hazy green shimmer – the German side of the lake? She shaded her eyes and looked to the east; some of those mountains must be in Austria, too. Three storeys below, people were enjoying drinks on a lovely sunny terrace, and look, they even had pink and white geraniums dripping from window boxes all the way along each balcony, their perfume heavy in the late afternoon sunshine. It was picture-perfect Switzerland, but yikes, it wasn’t half hot. Stacy shrugged out of her denim jacket. A quick dip in the lake would have been perfect, but her cossie was still in the drawer at home. Somehow, she hadn’t associated a holiday in Switzerland with boiling hot weather. Switzerland was alps and snow, wasn’t it ?
‘Come and see, Emmy!’ She glanced back into the room, where her friend was sitting on the nearest bed, her head bent low and both hands cupped around her left knee.
Dismayed, Stacy went back inside. ‘Oh no. Is the pain back?’ It hadn’t been the best journey for someone with a wonky knee; in fact it had gone wrong right at the start, when a problem loading the luggage meant they had to sit for nearly an hour in cramped economy class seats before the plane even took off from Manchester. Poor Emmy had been stiff as a board when they eventually landed in Zurich, and then they’d had to rush for the train.
‘Not really. I’m just tired after the journey.’
Emily’s pale face and the two little lines between her eyes were telling a different story, though, and Stacy winced. The accident last December had left its mark on Emmy in more ways than one, but they were here to do something about that. She tucked a few stray blonde curls behind her ears and hoisted Emily’s case onto the stand beside the wardrobe. Time to be mum as well as best mate and head nurse.
‘You have a lie down while I unpack for us both, then we’ll investigate the hotel bar and celebrate our first evening on the continent. How’s that?’
Emily lay back and closed her eyes, and Stacy reached for her phone. Better send David a quick message first. Her thumbs moved swiftly. We’re here! Fab hotel . Add a nice pic of the lake… and send. She touched David’s photo on the screen. Her childhood sweetheart. The gangly fourteen-year-old who’d taken her to the school Christmas disco had matured into what you could only call rugged good looks. He was brainy too, at the end of his final year at medical school, so he was Doctor David now, at the start of a new, exciting phase of his career. Stacy kissed her engagement ri ng. David’s long hours of training meant they were apart more than she’d like, but medicine had always been his dream.
For a moment she stood still, David’s face on her phone grinning up at her, and an uncomfortable little worm of apprehension wriggling in her middle. Emily wasn’t the only one who needed fixing, was she? David’s course meant they had hardly any time together as a couple, and somehow, they weren’t communicating the way they used to. Not having time for a social life was a hazard of the profession for med students, she got that, but the niggly feeling that she and David were growing apart worried away at her every time she thought about it. And she thought about David often…
Stacy shook herself. He was through med school now, and there’d be plenty of time to fix things when she got home. Meanwhile, thanks to Emmy’s dad’s generosity, she had a whole week in Switzerland in front of her. Bring it on.
Back inside, she busied around transferring the contents of the two cases to the wardrobe and bedside tables. Emily’s brown curls were damp on her forehead and her mouth was tight. Heck. They’d have to be careful not to do anything too physical this week. Emmy was so good about doing her exercises and taking care of her knee, which had been badly smashed when her then-boyfriend skidded on a patch of black ice and upended the car into a ditch. Scumbag Sam hadn’t even stuck around long enough to help Emmy recuperate from the series of operations that followed. Who needed enemies when they had exes like Sam? At least the crutches were things of the past now; Emily could manage with one stick, and hopefully she’d soon be able to ditch that too.
Depositing the last pair of sandals into the bottom of the wardrobe on her way past, Stacy took their toilet bags into the bathroom, and laughed out loud.
‘What is it?’ Emily sat up, and Stacy beckoned her into the en suite. Thank heavens, Emmy had a bit more colour in her cheeks now.
‘There’s a French door out to the balcony in here too. You can go outside to dry off after your shower!’
Emily limped over to look. ‘I will if you will. Wow. Do you suppose we have to water all those geraniums?’
‘I guess not. Why don’t you grab first shower, now you’re in here? Yell if you need anything.’
The shower started, and Stacy made a cuppa from the hospitality tray and went back to the balcony. A shiver of excitement fizzed through her as she gazed across the lake. A week was plenty of time to pamper Emily and get her back to something more like her former self, and they’d see a bit of Europe, too, with three different countries all within a stone’s throw of their accommodation. International was trending at the Lakeside Hotel.
As for her and David… Well, if absence made the heart grow fonder, coming here was the right thing to do. Stacy flipped her phone open. Still no reply to her message.
***
Rico Weber slid the indicator up and eased his foot off the accelerator. Motorway, adieu – in ten minutes he’d be back home in Grimsbach, and see for himself what was going on at the hotel. According to Stefan, an old friend who’d taken his girlfriend there for a meal last Tuesday, the Lakeside Hotel was falling to pieces now, in comparison to what it used to be.
Guilt thudded into Rico’s gut. He should be doing more to help Dad run the place. Losing Mum had knocked the feet from under them both and fifteen months later, poor Dad was still struggling. So was he, to be honest. He’d go for days thinking his life was back to normal, as Mum would have wanted, and then – wham! The senselessness of her death would hit him all over again. He’d been in the middle of his IT degree in Berne when the cancer struck, and the single good thing was that Mum’s suffering had been so short. Diagnosis in January, gone in March. That was pancreatic cancer for you, and jeez, it was tough.
A picture of his mother standing in the entrance of the hotel flashed into Rico’s head, and he blinked rapidly. Mum had loved Lakeside the moment she set eyes on the place back when she first came to Switzerland for a summer job. She’d met Dad, the owner’s son, and the rest was the usual kind of boy meets girl thing. Everyone’s favourite fairy tale, but they could have done with a happier ending.
Off the motorway, Rico rolled the window down and inhaled deeply. Spring grass and lakeside air filled the car as the road wound through green countryside. On round the roundabout and down towards the lake, then he was driving past the ‘Welcome to Grimsbach’ sign. Home. He slowed down to drive through the old town part, dominated by the newly whitewashed church with the green onion dome on the tower. Rico glanced up as he passed it; the clock was still the usual two minutes fast… The village was picture-postcard Switzerland, timbered houses in this part, even, and he’d lived here all his life until he’d gone to uni. The bachelor was under his belt now, military service done and dusted, and September would see him back at uni in Berne doing a master’s degree in IT. Plenty of time before then to sort out whatever was happening at the hotel .
Further on, a few early tourists were wandering along the drowsy main street, with more down on the lake path and at the harbour. Rico grinned. This was such a great location for a hotel. His grandfather had run the big wooden chalet as a guest house before handing it over to Mum and Dad and escaping to the old family home in the Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland south of the Alps. Nonno was long gone now, bless him, but Dad’s brother and his family still lived in Lugano.
And here it was: The Lakeside Hotel, brainchild of Mum and Dad. Swiss efficiency and comfort, English hospitality. As well as the usual kind of guests here for a holiday, they had the cycling tourists. Hundreds of enviably fit people did the three-day – or two, if you were really energetic – bike run all the way round Lake Constance every summer. Quite a few sailing folk came in, too; they’d park their yachts in Grimsbach harbour and have a night or two of comparative luxury on land before sailing on. The combo of short and longer-stay guests was ideal for a hotel in this part of the world. Business was booming – or it had been.
Rico’s stomach dropped like a stone as he turned in the hotel gates and pulled up in a ‘staff’ space. Bloody hell – what was going on? The car park was more than half empty. This was all wrong for a Saturday afternoon at the start of the summer season, when guests for the new week should be arriving en masse. He gaped up at the building – four storeys of dusky larch wood plus the obligatory terracotta window boxes. At least the geraniums looked okay – a bit sparse, but it was only May. Rico eased long legs from the car, grabbed his case from the boot and hefted it inside.
Reception was deserted, and he stood still. It was Saturday afternoon, the main changeover day. Where was the beaming receptionist and the queue of happy holiday guests? All you could hear was silence. Stefan was right; the hotel was like an echo of its former self.
Rico dumped his case in the office and stuck his head into the restaurant, where two strangers were laying tables for dinner. The terrace bar outside was busy, good. People still came for a drink by the lake. And the absence of the family cabin cruiser Lakeside Lady from its mooring place at the little jetty might explain Dad’s absence too. But on Saturday afternoon… It was hard to know what to think about that.
The bar staff were all strangers, but then they always had extra summer season workers in. They were bustling around with drinks and ice cream, so Rico left them to it and returned to the still-deserted reception. Why was no one on duty? This wasn’t good enough. He pinged the bell on the desk, staring grimly at the luxurious – but dusty – leather sofa and smoky glass coffee table at the side of the entrance hall. There weren’t even any flowers. Mum had always seen to that, but Karen, the head receptionist, had taken it on after Mum’s death. What had happened to that arrangement? Rico pinged the bell again. He’d been neglecting Mum’s hotel, hadn’t he? Well, he was here now.