Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Audrey sang quietly to herself as she tidied up the tiger lily room.
It was the next morning—a beautiful, sunny day with the tang of fall in the air—and their new guests had left the hotel early that morning to go on a long autumn hike.
Audrey was wearing comfortable clothes, which she considered to be one of the best perks about working for herself.
She had on an oversized sweater, stretchy jeans, and a pair of squishy socks on her feet instead of shoes.
She’d brought in an armload of fresh, fluffy towels, and she folded them and placed them in an artful arrangement on the bathroom counter.
Once that was done, she dusted the mantlepiece and the desks, dressers, and windowsills.
She was just going to the bed to make it up when she felt her foot come into contact with something cold and wet.
“Agghh!” she yelped, jumping backward and staring at the floor.
There was a puddle of water under the bed. It wasn’t a round puddle, and it looked more like a stagnant, miniature river. She did a double take between the puddle and her soggy sock a few times, feeling dazed.
What on earth? she wondered. Where is that coming from? Did the guests spill water this morning and just not bother to clean it up?
She felt inclined to grumble. Most of their guests were considerate people, but every once in a while they got guests who did thoughtless things like leave their dirty laundry all over the bathroom floor or let dirty tissues pile up in the bedsheets.
She followed the length of the puddle with her eyes, crouching as she looked under the bed. Frowning in confusion, she realized that the water snaked its way underneath the whole length of the bed.
“What on earth?” she mumbled, circling the bed and picking up the trail on the other side.
The long, narrow puddle led her to the closet, and before she opened it, she felt a flutter of dismay.
She had a feeling that she had a worse problem on her hands than some inconsiderate guests who had spilled one of their water bottles.
She opened the closet door and gasped in alarm. The whole closet was soaked with water, including the guests’ suitcases and tote bags.
“Oh no. Oh no no no no no,” Audrey moaned, staring at the damage. She saw a trickle of water leaking out of a crack in the paint on the wall of the closet.
Wasting no time, Audrey yanked the suitcases and bags out of the closet and placed them on the rug near the fireplace, where everything was still dry.
The bottoms of all of the bags were soaked, but they seemed only damp on top.
She bit her lip, hoping that nothing that belonged to the guests had been damaged.
These feel pretty light, she thought, trying to reassure herself even though she felt frantic. Hopefully our guests took most of their stuff out of them already and placed them in the dressers and the wardrobe.
She noticed that there were a couple of laptops resting on the desks in the room and she breathed a sigh of relief. At least those hadn’t gotten damaged—hopefully there were no other expensive electronics in the wet bags.
Feeling panicky, Audrey hurried out of the room and dashed downstairs.
She could hear voices coming from the parlor, and she recognized one of them as Michelle’s.
She stumbled into the parlor and saw that Michelle was sitting on the couch with Harper.
Both of them looked happy and relaxed, and they were munching on scones as they sipped coffee and chatted.
Audrey thought for a split second that she hated to ruin their morning, but it didn’t stop her from blurting out, “We have an emergency.”
“What happened?” Michelle asked, immediately setting down her coffee cup and standing up.
Harper stood up as well. “Are you okay? Can I do something?”
Audrey felt tears spring into her eyes, but she was determined to hold them back. “There’s a water leak,” she said. “It’s coming through one of the closets upstairs. In the tiger lily room. There’s water all over the floor and all over the guests’ suitcases.”
“Oh no,” Harper murmured as Michelle bellowed, “Oh NO!”
“What do we do?” Audrey said, starting to pace. “It’s got to be a busted pipe. I have no idea what to do about that. We’ll have to call a handyman. Do we know anyone who deals with that kind of thing?”
“I don’t.” Michelle ran her fingers through her hair. “That’s what we heard last night, I’ll bet you any money. That rumbling noise? I shouldn’t have dismissed it when it got quieter. Shoot.”
“It’ll be okay,” Harper said, wrapping her arms around Audrey. “We need to turn off the water and then call a handyman.”
“We can’t turn off the water,” Audrey groaned. “I passed by at least two bedrooms that had people using the shower right now on my way downstairs.”
“Ah, yeah.” Harper wrinkled her nose. “Can’t very well take away their water with no warning while they’re all sudsy.”
“We’ll figure this out,” Michelle said. “We’ll make an announcement as soon as possible.”
In a flash, Audrey thought of the best next step. “Call Evan,” she said to Michelle. “He’ll know what to do. I’m going to go upstairs and start mopping up all that water. I don’t know if we can catch any of it in a bucket since it’s running down the side of the wall, but I’m going to try.”
“On it,” Michelle said, racing to the rotary dial phone that was resting on the reception desk. Audrey had a brief moment of thinking that it was cute that her daughter wanted to use that phone instead of her cellphone.
“I’ll come upstairs with you,” Harper told Audrey. “Where do you keep your towels?”
“Down here in a supply closet,” Audrey said. “We’ve got a few old dirty ones, but I think we’re going to have to use some of the good ones too.” Her voice caught, since she hated the thought of using their beautiful new towels to mop up dirty old water.
“It’ll be okay,” Harper assured her.
Together they raced to the closet and gathered up armloads of towels. Audrey found herself wishing that the mansion was equipped with an elevator as they hurried upstairs. By the time they reached the tiger lily room, she was out of breath.
She and Harper threw the towels onto the floor and started to mop up the water. Once they’d gotten it off the floor, they piled the wet towels in the closet, forming a barricade against the trickling water.
“Hopefully this stops it from coming out for a while,” Audrey said, sitting down on the floor and running her fingers through her curly auburn hair. “But we can’t do this for long. That closet floor is going to be totally destroyed if it stays wet for too long.”
She was fighting off another bout of tears when Evan stepped inside the room. As soon as she caught sight of him, she immediately felt better. She jumped up and hurried toward him.
“Don’t worry, I know just the guy,” Evan said, striding across the room and taking Audrey in his arms. “I’ve already called him. He’ll repair the leaky pipe for a fair price.”
Audrey took a deep breath, feeling greatly comforted by Evan’s steadiness. He squeezed her tightly and rocked her back and forth a little.
“There’s no need to worry,” he assured her, his voice low and soothing. “I know it seems like a disaster right now, but it can all be fixed.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, resting her cheek on his shoulder.
“You came over here in the middle of your workday to help us out. I really appreciate it, Evan.” She stepped back so she could look into his eyes.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you. How can I repay you properly for everything you do for me? ”
He gave her a peck on the cheek. “It’s my pleasure,” he told her. “And you repay me every day without even trying. Being in a relationship with you makes me feel like I need to repay you for all the happiness you bring me.”
They shared a kiss, and Harper let out a good-natured “Ahem!”
“Hi, sorry, still here,” she said with a laugh. “And so is Mr. Nasty the Leaky Pipe.”
“Very true,” Evan said, stepping back from Audrey gallantly. “My apologies, Harper. And as far as Mr. Nasty goes, my friend will be here in half an hour.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” Audrey let out a huge sigh of relief.
“We should knock on all the bedrooms and let guests know we’re going to be turning the water off in fifteen minutes or so,” Harper said.
“We should.” Audrey felt a knot in her stomach.
“And I need to call this couple and let them know about the leak. We can move them to the violet room, and we’ll have to offer them a refund, obviously.
I hope none of their stuff is damaged.” She felt her voice crack again, since she felt worried the couple would be upset and leave The Birchwood House a bad review.
One of the other guests might do so as well—no one liked to be told that they were going to be without water in the middle of their vacation.
“You can do it,” Evan assured her, taking her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes. “You have a wonderful hotel here, and your guests love it. They’ll understand that it’s an old house and life happens.”
Audrey inhaled, feeling immediately comforted by his reassurance. “Okay. Thank you. I hope you’re right.”
“I’ve got to get back to the town hall for a meeting,” Evan said, glancing at his watch. “I wish I could stay.”
“Psh, you’re only the mayor, don’t you think you could flake out on a meeting just this once?” Audrey teased.
Evan chuckled. “No, but as soon as it’s over I’m going to come back and help my friend fix your pipe.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” He smiled at her.
“How can I ever thank you enough?”
“You just did by calling me sweetheart.” He gave her a quick kiss and then disappeared with a wave.
Audrey stared at the empty doorway for a second, wondering how on earth she’d gotten so lucky.
“He’s pretty smitten with you,” Harper said with a chuckle. “I’m still not a big fan of men overall at the moment, but I have to admit, you seem to have found a good one.”
The corners of Audrey’s mouth tipped upward. “They’re out there, you know. And I have to confess, I’m pretty smitten myself.”
“Come on,” Harper said, squeezing her shoulder. “You call that couple, and Michelle and I will knock on people’s doors and give them the bad news.”
“Thank you so much for helping.”
Harper placed her hand on her heart and pretended to swoon. “Just call me sweetheart and it will be all the repayment I need.”
Audrey laughed and Harper grinned and darted through the doorway.
She’s right, Audrey thought with a chuckle. That was a dramatic statement he made. But he means it. How did I end up with him? I feel like I live a charmed life, and I can’t imagine what it would be like without Evan.
For a moment, she allowed herself to forget all about her current troubles and focus on the future. Despite the threat of potential bad reviews and the looming cost of repairing the pipe and drywall in the closet, the future looked incredibly bright indeed.