Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
What if this wasn’t such a great idea?
Minutes later, Caleb stood at the door of room eight, nearest the parlor, and handed the keys to Ariel. “You open it. I’m afraid of what we’ll find.”
“We should have asked Michelle whether she cleaned the guest rooms regularly along with the parlor.” Ariel gazed down at the key ring in her hand and selected an unmarked key, inserted it into the antique lock, and turned.
She opened the door to a room with thick, vacuumed carpet, a stripped four-poster walnut bed, and a dust-free like-new sofa and upholstered armchairs that matched the style in the parlor.
It smelled clean too, although he missed the parlor’s lavender scent.
“It’s as big as the bedrooms in the Grand’s presidential suite. ”
Caleb propped open the three-paneled door, then stepped inside and laid the keys on the polished walnut side table.
“I liked these rooms when I was a kid. The 1980s remodel in the newer part of the hotel never did much for me.” He opened the windows to bring in the fresh scent of lilacs, as he’d done in the inn’s garden wing the day Ariel and Miss Dahlia arrived.
“It must have been exciting to grow up here, with people checking in and out every day.”
“I pretty much terrorized the entire hotel.”
Ariel laughed. “I can imagine the mischief a boy Harry’s age could get into here.”
“Harry the driver?”
She nodded. “When he’s in his carriage, he’s in his element. Quite the little businessman.”
“He has to be.”
She moved closer, brows furrowed. “Is he okay?”
Caleb drew in a breath, his muscles tightening as he thought of the boy’s dilemma. “His mom passed away two years ago. His dad’s a fishing guide in northern Lake Michigan. From what I hear, he pretty much drinks everything he makes. Harry’s grandfather supports the boy the best he can.”
“So Harry has to be a good businessman.”
He stepped into the bathroom.
Ariel peeked in at the antique tile floor and spotless vintage fixtures. “You’re doing well in your business too. Other than linens, this room is ready for occupancy, and you can have the rest ready in no time. It’s a shame to waste such a beautiful, comfortable room.”
The inn’s latest profit-and-loss statement agreed with her. But yes, he’d learned a lot since he got here. “I plan to reopen this wing as soon as possible.”
Ariel’s little squeal and lightning-fast hug threw him off balance, emotionally and physically.
“It’s too early to celebrate. When I tell Grandfather what I’m doing, he could say no, and I’ll have to override him.”
He couldn’t describe how much he dreaded that.
“Want me to go along when you tell him?”
Yes.
He shook his head. “If I can’t make a difficult decision then follow through on my own, I have no business trying to run this hotel.
” Maybe the Lord was telling him to go back to his band.
Or maybe Caleb was taking the coward’s way out.
Either way, he couldn’t decide until he knew the direction He wanted him to go.
“Thanks, but I’ll need to handle this myself. ”
“Sure.” Ariel started for the door. “Where will we find the sheets?”
“Good question. We had linen closets on the third floor, back when we all lived there, so there’s probably one down here too.”
“If we find one, it’s probably not stocked. Want to get some sheets and towels from the main inn to save time?”
“I don’t want anybody telling Granddad that I sneaked linens into an empty hotel wing. Let’s look here first.”
He grabbed the ring of keys and quick-walked down the nearest hallway to an unmarked door, found the correct key on the third try.
Empty.
A search of all the first- and second-floor closets turned up no linens. “I’m going upstairs.”
He took the wide marble steps at a run. On the third floor, he rounded the corner to the left and flung open the closet door.
The neatly stacked sheets and towels there could have lasted the whole family a month.
Ariel reached in, grabbed a stack of washcloths.
And wrinkled her nose. She returned them to the closet.
“Musty?”
She nodded. “They’ve been in here a long time. Your grandfather must have instructed Michelle to leave this floor alone. Which makes no sense, with both lower floors nearly ready for occupancy.”
It made perfect sense to Caleb. “Let’s see how the four apartments on this floor look. If they’re untouched and dirty, Granddad is making a statement.”
He tried each key, but none of them opened the apartment where Caleb and his parents had lived. They tried his grandparents’ door, Uncle Augo’s, and Aunt Annabelle’s.
“No luck. Not a big deal. Michelle probably has them.” Caleb fired off a text to her.
Michelle answered immediately.
“She doesn’t know where they are.” He shoved the phone back into his pocket and started for his family’s old apartment.
“That means Granddad doesn’t want anyone up here.
Including me, since the keys aren’t on my ring or Michelle’s.
So why did he make her clean all the first- and second-floor rooms every week and leave these in who knows what kind of shape? ”
He rattled the doorknob, taking out his frustration on it, as if that would do any good. “I have to know. I’m going in there.”
“No, I’ll sneak to the laundry room and get the linens without anyone noticing.”
He turned from the door and faced her. “Ariel Sullivan, one of the most famous women in America, carrying a stack of linens around a hotel like a laundry worker won’t attract attention?”
“As far as I can tell, there’s not another way.”
Another way…
“Come on.” He took off down the hall at top speed to the stairs. “Hurry, before the lunch crowd gets here.”
“Lunch crowd? Wait. What are we doing?”
Caleb pounded down the stairs, his mind racing like his heart rate.
“Here’s how Granddad thinks. First-floor guest rooms are clean. Ready to rent.” He jumped down the last two steps to the second floor. “That means the hotel will always stand—always be our family legacy.”
“And the locked apartments?”
Breathing a little harder, he took the second flight. “No going back as a family.”
They reached the parlor, raced across it. Barreled through the now-unlocked entrance and into the inn’s garden wing.
“This way—the waitstaff’s exit to the patio.”
At the door, he caught sight of the wall clock near the entrance.
Good. He had almost ten minutes to get inside the apartment before customers would come out for lunch.
He looked behind him, then out to the patio, making sure no one would see.
Clear. “Ariel, if anybody tries to come out, tell them to wait until I get inside.”
“Inside where? What are you doing?”
“I’m breaking into my family’s apartment.”
At the base of the ancient maple tree, he looked up. It still had enough branches to get him to the window.
Caleb jumped, grabbed the lowest limb, and pulled himself up. Hugged the trunk then reached for the next branch, and the next, praying Granddad hadn’t repaired the broken window lock in his old bedroom.
“But what if somebody—oh no…” Ariel’s voice called out, then trailed off into silence.
He looked up. Two more limbs, then—
“Caleb Kennedy! What the blue moon are you doing up that tree?”
He froze.
Miss Dahlia, standing outside on her suite’s private porch, yelled up at him in her East Tennessee twang as if he were her wayward son.
“You get down from there. You’re gonna fall, and I’m not going to catch you.”
The breath he let out sounded like a growl. He took the next branch. Then he heard his name again, called from two or three different areas of the patio, the voices unfamiliar.
Fine. Let them talk. Let them look.
Almost at the window now, he glanced down.
Just in time for a dozen or so guests to get a great candid shot of Caleb Kennedy, lead guitar in the famous Drake Hamilton Band, climbing a forty-foot tree and breaking into his own hotel.
Maybe he should have prayed differently. Because the moment he saw Miss Dahlia on that porch, he’d realized what a fool he was. And he had no choice but to keep going.
He raised the window and climbed inside. With no time for nostalgia or sentiment, he strode to Mom and Dad’s room, opened her cedar chest, and grabbed his mother’s fresh-lavender-scented sheets and towels. Then he took the steps to the ground floor at a slower pace.
From a young age, he’d known how to miter sheet corners and roll washcloths and towels. So within half an hour, he had the beds made and linens ready, called a locksmith for the third-floor apartments, then ushered his old friend Isaiah Mackay into room eight.
“What’s this I hear about you climbing a tree, man?” The Jeff Bridges look-alike had barely walked into his room and sat in a burgundy leather chair, his ever-present glass of iced Earl Grey tea in his left hand and a stack of books under his right arm, before he brought up the touchy subject.
Great. Apparently, word had spread about his impulsive encounter with the old tree. How long would it take for Granddad to hear too and make his opinion known? Caleb also didn’t look forward to facing Miss Dahlia and hearing a lecture from her.
“I don’t know. I didn’t stop and think. It’s all because of that eccentric grandfather of mine. I had to get into my family’s old apartment, but he hid the key.” He took the chair opposite him. “I just wanted to get the job done before my grandfather found out I’d opened this wing.”
“Dude. What was so all-fired important in a room you haven’t stepped into for the past twelve years?”
“Sheets for your bed,” he grumbled.
“I smell something. What did you do, spray perfume on them?”
“Lavender. My mom kept fresh lavender in her cedar chest.”
“Huh.” Isaiah placed his books and glass on the round walnut side table between them.