Made For You (Balsam Cliffs #1)

1. Chapter 1

The ocean waves crash into the cliffs below me. The perfect backdrop for my morning as I drink my scalding cup of coffee. The first one anyway. The soundtrack to my morning is calming and my siblings are coming to the inn today.

So why is my mood still so shitty?

Over the summer my sister spearheaded a plan to get this inn restored back to its glory with my brothers after I had a small breakdown from feeling overwhelmed with it all.

It’s the help I’ve wanted them to give since I took over the inn. But they were always too busy, out living their own lives, while I was stuck here trying to grow the inn with our father, who didn’t want to change a damn thing.

But when he refused to listen to me, he ended up falling off the porch roof and breaking a hip. Then of course he listened to my brothers that he shouldn’t have been on the roof, despite the fact I spent weeks begging him to let me, the actual owner, hire someone.

Ever since then, the shitty mood I’m in has stuck around.

People in town have actively started to avoid me to escape my attitude, but I can’t change it. Or won’t? I’m not sure anymore. What’s the point in trying to change their minds?

I’m the youngest son out of five, and the only one younger than me, is my sister, Emma. So of course she’s the baby and the princess of the family.

I’m just the youngest son who never got into sports and fell in love with an 1800’s Victorian farmhouse inn that my grandfather opened. Working in the barn building furniture with my grandfather was much more preferable than baseball or football with my brothers.

As the sun rises higher into the sky my time to relax is coming to an end. Pushing my chair back, I rise to head back inside.

I toss my mug into the sink, grab my tool belt, and the four wheeler keys before heading out the door. Time to face this day.

My mental to do list before the Keaton crew shows up is a mile long and then some. First up is to get all the furniture out of room one at the main inn, then deep clean everything so we can start with repairs and painting.

Our property is made up of cabins and the main inn at the old farmhouse. Over the summer a majority of the cabins got completely renovated. Now, it’s time to tackle the biggest part, the individual rooms.

I have my brothers for one weekend and I’m going to take full advantage and make sure they get all the heavy duty work done before it’s just me again.

Emma comes home every weekend, and I feel so guilty that she is losing her last years of college to help me play maid and balance books. She should be out partying, but we can’t afford to lose her, so I need to suck up that older brother guilt and swallow my pride.

I toss my tote of cleaning supplies into the back of my four wheeler, and start it up to head over to the inn. We only have two rooms booked this weekend, but I made sure they were on the opposite side of the inn from the construction.

Looking over at the cliffs once more before leaving, I see that the sun has barely peeked over the clouds but I’m ready to start my day. Every morning it’s just me and the sunrise over the cliffs.

The cold winter air stings my face as I ride across the property.

Parking the four wheeler, I groan as I throw my leg over the seat and hop off, grabbing my tool belt and tote and head inside.

Putting my airpods in, I lose myself in moving furniture, and cleaning the room.

“Liam!” Wyatt slaps my shoulder.

“The fuck?” I turn around and use the broom as a sword to fight off the intruder.

“Whoa. Just us, Lee.” I sigh inwardly at the nickname from Hunter .

Did I really want my brothers’ help? I might be rethinking that.

“You shouldn’t just touch someone who is in the zone!” I narrow my eyes at the two of them. “Where’s Coop?”

My middle brother, fourth in line to my fifth, is a travel photographer. He was supposed to end his last job in Scotland two days ago and be home this morning.

“The asshole signed on to do another assignment in Edinburgh, then up to The Highlands. Apparently the behind the scenes posts he made from Glasgow were so popular they extended his trip.” Wyatt lays out two boxes from Sweet Violets packed with fresh donuts.

I reach into the box and pull out my favorite Boston Creme donut before Hunter can beat me out for it.

“Hey! Wyatt got that for me!”

“Sucks to suck big bro.” I eat half the donut in one bite, savoring the flavor of the custard on my tongue.

“Where are you fuckers?” Gunnar yells from the hallway. He came from Lupine Valley with his fiancée, Willow.

Willow is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and us. She helps me with the social media for the inn, using her platform as a star in the country world to help us advertise. She jumped right into our special brand of Keaton crazy last summer and hasn’t looked back.

Hopefully soon we will have more rooms at the inn ready for all the attention she’s getting us. Hunter and his crew of workers helped get the cabins ready to open before the weather got bad. Now that we’re fully entrenched in winter weather, the inn is keeping them employed .

“Wow, you got three rooms cleared out and cleaned?” Gunnar looks around the room we’re all standing in now, room number three.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you don’t sleep until ten in the morning.”

“Hey now, we were up well before the sun and on the way here.” Willow emphasizes how long they’ve been up with a yawn.

“That’s why you’re my favorite.” I pull her in for a hug and glare at my brothers over her shoulder.

“Um excuse me, I was the one driving at four thirty in the morning, and making a hundred pit stops for someone to get coffee, and pee, on repeat.” Gunnar acts offended, but he’d do anything for her.

I reach my arm out to Gunnar, “Aww, does someone else need a hug too?”

He crosses his arms over his chest and pouts for effect. “Maybe I do.”

Wyatt and Hunter jump on him at the same time, pulling him in for some wrestling hug type of move that I never enjoyed partaking in.

“Come on, Wy brought donuts, we can take them down to the kitchen and eat them all before they finish.” I reach over to the table and grab the donuts before Willow and I run down the stairs.

She follows after me giggling.

We hear a loud, “Shit! They stole the donuts!” come from upstairs and then what sounds like a herd of elephants follows.

After two days of working, we ended up getting four rooms completely done. We’re just waiting on some decorations to come in and new bedding that Emma ordered, then we can officially open them for bookings.

The guys are working on moving furniture from rooms five, and six while I meet with Emma to review the books. Without her, I wouldn’t even know what we were making. I was never interested in taking the books over from Pops. I just wanted to run the inn and build my furniture at the end of the day.

“Hey, big brother,” she looks up from the books she’s pouring over.

“Are you ever going to give us our own nicknames?”

“No. Because this way I’m never wrong when I hear footsteps coming.” She smirks at me.

“Okay, hit me with it. How bad is it this week?” We haven’t operated in the black in years.

When I took over, I had so many plans for renovations, for events, for packages, but Dad didn’t have the same grand plans and I got tired of fighting with him over it. And so the money just wasn’t there. And without the renovations, no one wanted to book here except our regulars, or those desperate enough for a room.

“I don’t know if you’re ready for this,” her lips purse together.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Just kidding! For the first time, I’m happy to report that we are in the black! No red for us. The cabins being rented out consistently each weekend have finally put us over the edge into actually making profit.”

I stare at her, in complete disbelief. She can’t be serious.

“Yeah right. Until all those deductions for the decor you and Willow bought come out.”

I shake my head at the idea of how many boxes are coming my way. I am however under strict directions not to open, or decorate until I’m under the supervision of Willow and Emma.

“Nope. They’re already accounted for. You, my brother, are officially in the black.” She smiles so big, proud of herself for her work.

“No shit.” I whisper to myself, still not believing what she’s saying.

“I think you should probably go down to Sweet Violets soon and ask her to add in a breakfast rotation for the main inn too instead of just the cabins’ arrival boxes. Maybe even afternoon snacks to put out?”

“Sure. I can add that to my list. I’ll go by tomorrow when I’m in town.” I shuffle my feet, kicking at the legs of the desk she’s working on.

“Got something else you want to ask me?” She raises a brow at me.

“What do you think about doing a package for Valentine’s Day?” I ask sheepishly. I tried to bring this up to Pops years ago and he actually laughed at me.

“Who would want that, son? You think the men are going to book for their women and want to add on that feminine shit?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, maybe a discount on the rooms, we can have add-on packages for a picnic in the cove. Roman has the extra igloos we could buy or rent from him for cheap, set one or two up on the cove for private lunches or dinners. I could get Roman to cater the meals. Maybe he could even cater one at the main inn and fill up some tables with locals.” I shrug my shoulders.

“Liam! Who knew you were so romantic. I love that idea! Let’s grab an igloo today and shoot some content with Willow and G before they leave tomorrow. Then we can make up some graphics and posts for you to use.” She pulls out her phone and starts typing away. “I can run down to see Rome in a bit. I’ve got to grab some invoices from him anyway.”

I assume she sent a text summoning Willow since she walks through the door not thirty seconds later.

“What’s this I hear? We have a little romantic on our hands?” Willow places her arm around my shoulder.

I grunt back in return. But internally I’m beaming with pride that they love this idea.

“Come on girl, let’s go. Roman is at the bar so we can go grab that igloo.” Emma closes her books and stands.

“You know Gunnar is going to brag about what a good idea those were right? Are you prepared for the gloating by asking him to participate?”

Emma and I both roll our eyes, Gunnar doesn’t need anymore bragging rights.

“He’s not the only one to think of those.” I say defensively before leaving the office in search of coffee. My time of waking before the sun, coupled with my brothers’ need to work late into the night has me struggling.

When the girls get back from Rebels, our local brewery owned by our friend Roman, Emma comes to find me in the barn. I built some stuff for my cabin, and she convinced me to make the headboards for all of the rooms. They’re all made of reclaimed barn wood from the area in varying shades cut into a herringbone pattern with a frame surrounding it. We can place them directly onto the walls, preventing people from slamming into them and saving us the headache of more repairs to the walls.

When we started moving beds out of the rooms for renovation we found holes in most of the walls right where the headboards were hitting. Gunnar and Willow were the ones who told us to look into that. That raised a few brows and made Willow’s cheeks redden. When Emma agreed, I was ready to punch whoever the fuck was touching her that she would know about that and under my damn roof!

Emma runs her hand over the final product, “Wow, Liam, these are so beautiful.” She inspects each piece of wood that I placed. “Why didn’t you ever go into woodworking full time instead?”

“It’s just a hobby. I just haven’t really made time for it lately until we needed stuff for the inn and we couldn’t afford new furniture. I was too busy just trying to stay afloat.” I put my safety goggles up on the shelf, along with the saw.

“Well, you should make some more furniture and place price tags on it for the inn. People would love that and they would for sure buy the pieces.”

“I’ll think about it. You're the only one who knows where the furniture comes from. Let’s get through the renovations first and then we can think about it.” I lug the piece that I stained yesterday over to the other table for me to coat with polyurethane .

“You know you’re amazing right?” Emma places her hand on my forearm when I’m done washing my hands, looking at me with her sad doe eyes.

“Sure.” I don’t want her pity. “Come on, let’s go find these two before they decide to test out the igloo for something we can’t post online or want to see.” I crinkle my nose at the thought.

Emma hops on the back of my four wheeler and we get to the steps leading to the cove much faster than if we trekked across the property. We have fifty acres sprawled across the cliffs. So getting from one end to the other can take some time on foot.

Willow and Gunnar are cuddled up in the chairs at the top of the stairs by the fire pit for the main inn.

I furrow my brows at the sight of them snuggled under blankets and leaning in close together.

I want that . I want to find someone to share my life with. But where do I meet them? I rarely leave the inn, and if I do, they’re here on vacation. Not that the occasional vacation one night stand doesn’t work in my favor at times.

“Stop growling at the couple in love,” Emma whispers before walking over to them.

“Whatever. Let’s get this done so I can finish the headboards and get them inside,” I grumble.

I pretty much have nothing to do with this content. I don’t know why Emma insisted I be here. She keeps asking me about the vibe. Like I know what that is.

I’ve never gotten to plan a Valentine’s Day date, so how am I supposed to know if she created the vibe? I just saw the idea on social media, and I know Roman had a lot of requests for private meals at his brewery last winter.

I just want to get this done so I can get back to my to do lists. Everyone else leaves tonight or tomorrow morning, and I’m back to being the only one trying to get stuff done around here. In the cold and snow. And now I have to go meet Margaret at Sweet Violets too.

Just one more fucking thing that falls on my shoulders.