CHAPTER ONE #2
Tara glanced at the family of four still waiting near the desk, the boys flopping around on one of the worn sofas, whacking each other with throw pillows. “I’ll show them to their room so you can check in the next family.”
Caleb reached behind the desk and grabbed two oversized brass keys from the row of hooks. He handed the keys to Tara. “Appreciate the help. Room 203.”
The room with the worst view and the ugliest 1980s décor.
She grimaced a little then recovered. “Sure about that?”
“It’s my last clean room.”
“Then it’ll do. By the way, good idea to bless the guests with the cookies and fudge.” Tara gave him that too-cheerful smile that always meant she was trying to walk by faith, not by sight. “But you need to decide where to put Miss Dahlia and Ariel.”
Tara was right, even if he didn’t want to admit it. “Miss Dahlia always demands the Grand’s presidential suite.”
She grinned. “Better get yours ready. After I get this family upstairs, I’ll come back and check in the rest of the mob, and Sarah can go with you to the third floor to get those rooms ready.”
“Can you handle our outdated reservations system?”
She waved her pink-fingernailed hand. “It was outdated when I worked here twenty years ago, so yes. I’ll put the next family in 301 and go from there.”
“Stall them as long as you can.” Caleb took off for his office, where he grabbed the heavy ring of extra keys for the third floor and texted Michelle Riley in the laundry room, asking her to bring up fresh linens for the entire floor and start making beds.
Running up the employee staircase, he tried to formulate a plan.
When he reached the top of the stairs, the speakers piped out the vintage jazz he’d selected earlier in an attempt to set a calm atmosphere in the chaotic lobby.
But while he’d accomplished that objective downstairs, the tunes felt too laid-back for the pace he set for himself now, and he half wished he’d changed it to something peppy. Old ragtime, maybe.
Starting with room 301, Caleb propped open doors and raised the windows. The sweet scent of lilacs wafted in with the breeze and soon filtered into the hallway like a natural air freshener. Then he grabbed a fully stocked cleaning cart and a commercial vacuum from the storage room.
When fast footsteps fell on the stairs, he called out, “Want the cart or the sweeper?”
“Cart,” Sarah puffed out, stopping to draw a few deep breaths, a sheen on her face.
Caleb pushed the cart into 301 for her, plugged the extension cord into the wall, and turned on the vacuum.
Before he’d finished sweeping eight months’ worth of dust from the wide hallway’s dark-green carpet, Michelle’s linen cart came flying around the nearest corner, swaying as if it could topple over at any moment.
“Mr. Caleb! Where you at?” she yelled in her heavy Deep South accent from behind the giant cart.
He flipped off the switch and waited for the next disaster.
“Josh called from the Grand.” Michelle’s long, dark ponytail swayed as she steered that flying linen cart toward him like a NASCAR driver. Young, slender, and toned, she managed to skid to a stop, dangerously close to Caleb’s vacuum, her tennis-shoe heels digging into the carpet.
“That gossipy old Miss Annabelle was right. The presidential suite flooded too.” Michelle’s eyes grew wide, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Caleb. I shouldn’t have said that about your aunt.”
He somehow held in the groan that wanted to escape. “You said only what everyone in town knows.”
“Josh called and left a message at the airport, asking them to tell Miss Dahlia Denton and Ariel Sullivan to come here instead.” Michelle grabbed a giant stack of sheets and ran toward 301’s door.
“I gotta make all these beds. That’ll take eighteen minutes.
Then I’ll go back downstairs to the suite and get it ready.
Send Sarah to help me as soon as she’s done here. ”
Caleb nodded, then flipped the vacuum switch and again attacked the carpet.
Accommodating all these people would have presented enough of a challenge, even if he didn’t face humiliation in front of two country music greats.
One of whom was Ariel Sullivan—the near stranger he’d never managed to get out of his mind.
He’d been in over his head before he knew Ariel would soon walk into his inn. Now he was full-out drowning.
Where could a girl go to return a legacy that didn’t fit?
Ariel was no closer to an answer than she’d been a few months ago, when she and Great-Aunt Dahlia had walked away from the Country Music Awards with six Italian crystal trophies. Or today, during a two-hour pep talk from her aunt as they flew from Nashville to Jonathon Island.
Or maybe the legacy did fit but Ariel didn’t yet know how to wear it.
“A legacy is a gift—and I’m giving it to you.
” Her little blonde aunt had sat in her leather recliner with her high-heeled feet up, her East Tennessee accent as twangy as ever, when her jet lifted off from Nashville International Airport.
Ariel had heard it all before. But since their record-setting CMA haul, Aunt Dahlia seemed more determined than ever to make Ariel Sullivan one of country music’s all-time greats.
Smart, business-savvy, and the most brilliant soprano on the music scene, Aunt Dahlia knew Nashville and she knew music. But since her sixtieth birthday on New Year’s Day of this year, her aunt seemed to care more about setting up Ariel as her musical heir than she did about the music itself.
Aunt Dahlia never did acknowledge that eternal blind spot of hers where Ariel was concerned.
“We’ll have a great month,” Aunt Dahlia said, her blue eyes wide and her smile big. “We’ll relax at the Grand, get inspiration, and choose some new songs. By the time we play at the Jonathon Island Beachside Music Festival in four weeks, we’ll have a whole new, reimagined band.”
Which seemed like an impossibly short window of time.
“Hitting a big low isn’t the only time to make changes.
” Aunt Dahlia lifted the lid from a little wooden bowl of pumpkin seeds and took a bite from a sterling silver spoon.
“Whenever a band has a huge success, like breaking the record for CMA awards, they should mix things up a little. Or, in this case, mix them up a lot.”
“The audience needs to hear us improving and growing with each song.” Ariel parroted her aunt’s famous line, even though it brought a wave of panic to her middle every time Aunt Dahlia spoke about this new change in the band. In their lives.
Ariel gazed out the window, watching for the familiar sight of giant Saginaw Bay from her champagne-colored cashmere sofa. Having a superstar aunt might mean the niece could someday succeed on her own. But in Ariel’s case, probably not.
The thought scared her more than her first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry.
She reached into her hot-pink tote and picked up her hardback idea book with a picture of a rocky beach on the cover and turned to her current page. She uncapped her vintage fountain pen and wrote in lavender ink.
By the end of our month on Jonathon Island, I intend to find out whether or not I can make it on my own in the music world.
She slid the idea book and pen back into her tote bag—the one that said I don’t always sing. Oh, wait…yes I do. Jonathon Island would provide the perfect atmosphere for Ariel to form a plan for her own new music, her own new style.
Of all the luxury hotels and resorts Ariel and Aunt Dahlia had enjoyed through the years, none inspired her like the Grand Sullivan.
Although she hadn’t stayed there since the Grand’s fire years ago, she remembered the presidential suite with its pictures of past and current presidents and first ladies, her big pink bedroom, and the wide balcony overlooking Lake Huron.
Mostly, she recalled the room’s effect on her.
Creativity flowed there like the clear-water spring running through her father’s Jonathan Island pumpkin farm.
If any location could inspire a new vision for the future and give her direction and a path, the Grand Hotel was that place.
“They loved you at the Country Music Awards,” Aunt Dahlia said.
Honestly, did she always know exactly what Ariel was thinking?
“I heard Molly criticizing you that night. You still stew about it.” Her aunt swiveled her recliner and leaned forward, took Ariel’s hand.
“I know from experience that a bad word from a peer feels worse than a bad review from a stranger. But Molly did not take home an award. You’re still the best alto in the biz. ”
“Seems like every time I get on a stage, she’s there to throw me off.
” Molly Banks. One of Ariel and Aunt Dahlia’s competitors for the coveted Single of the Year award.
Ariel had let the insult slide at the time.
But the woman’s voice, smooth as milk gravy on a biscuit, came back and haunted her at all the worst times, just as it had the first time she’d said it, back when they were both child stars.
You’re good, but you’d never win anything if Dahlia Denton didn’t prop you up.
Three years ago, when Molly had slammed her in public, another musician defended Ariel and had impacted her so much, she’d all but forgotten the insult.
Until her latest failure, which she’d kept from even dear Aunt Dahlia.
Ariel had selected new music, recorded a solo album, and sworn their manager to secrecy as he sent it to their record label’s producer last month.
He’d rejected it quicker than an eighth note.
It’s good, but it doesn’t offer anything you and Miss Dahlia don’t already give me.
The producer’s words never drifted far from her thoughts.