Chapter 17 #2
“Anyway. Maggie has told your uncle twice that, the moment the divorce is final, she wants to put the proceeds from her building into the hotel. She has a specific proposal. She wants to clear that overgrown strip of land along the south fence of the property, the thorn jungle, and build a small pavilion of boutique shops along the road frontage. Five or six small spaces. She wants to relocate her bridal boutique into the largest of them, making it the anchor. Lease the rest to small independent local businesses. Tie the whole development into the hotel.” Martin laid out Maggie’s proposal for Linda.
Linda’s eyebrows lifted. “The thorn jungle.”
“The thorn jungle.” Martin nodded in confirmation.
“My uncle always told us that strip was cursed,” Linda laughed. “That was why the thorn trees were so gnarled, and the path through them was always overgrown. When I was very little, I was convinced it was where Sleeping Beauty was.”
Martin laughed at that. “I can see why that would seem like that to a young girl.”
“What did Uncle George say to Maggie’s plan?” Linda sat back.
“The same thing he told Tom and me when we offered to invest. That he’d have to think about it.” Martin told her. “And yes, he’s still thinking about it.”
She let out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.
“Michael’s been after Uncle George for years to expand the hotel,” Linda replied. “He’s said for as long as I can remember that there is enough land along Bay View Drive to do something proper without ever touching the reserve.”
“Michael’s right. The hotel owns most of the land along the town’s most prominent road. We are sitting on a goldmine,” Martin pointed out.
“And the goldmine is going under.” Linda closed her eyes for a few seconds, trying not to let the dire news about the hotel’s finances get to her.
“Yes.” Martin agreed.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I’ll find a way to bring Uncle George around, Martin. I will. Michael will be here in a few days. The four of us will sit down with him together. He won’t be able to say no to all of us at once.”
“Let’s hope not,” Martin said.
“Pull together your proposal. Maggie’s pavilion. Your investment offer. Tom’s. The whole thing as a single integrated plan,” Linda told him.
“I’ll have it ready by the end of the week,” Martin assured her.
She nodded slowly. Her eyes drifted, unbidden, to the cream envelope still sitting in the open drawer beside her.
She drew a slow breath. “Martin.”
“Yes.” He looked at her expectantly.
“How much time do we have before we lose everything?” Linda looked at him.
Martin didn’t answer immediately. He held her eyes for a long moment, the way a person did when they were about to give an honest answer that they did not want to give.
“Not enough,” Martin replied at last.
Linda felt the small cold thing in her chest tighten. “Tell me what happens if we can’t fix this in time.”
“A few things could happen,” Martin told her honestly.
“The bank could foreclose on the property. That would be the cleanest version of the worst case. They would take the hotel, sell it at auction, recover their losses, and your uncle would walk away with nothing but the small clause in the original mortgage that protects the family living quarters. That’s Heart House.
He’d keep that. He’d keep his pension. Everything else would be gone. ”
“Is there another version of this?” Linda felt sick.
“The bank could choose to restructure the debt and bring in a partner of their own choosing to keep the hotel operational. That’s worse, in some ways, because your uncle would still hold a paper share, but he’d have no real control over anything.
Some faceless investor would sit in this chair every Monday morning and decide what he ate for breakfast.” Martin’s eyes flashed with anger at the thought of that happening.
She closed her eyes.
“Or,” Martin continued.
“There’s another option?” By the look on his face, it wasn’t a favorable one either.
“Or a development company could quietly buy up his debt from the bank. That happens more often than people realize. The bank has a non-performing loan on its books. A developer offers to take the loan off their hands at a discount. The bank gets cash today and doesn’t have to manage the foreclosure.
The developer becomes the new creditor. The moment your uncle defaults on a single payment, which he is one bad month away from doing, the developer forecloses on their own debt, and the hotel is theirs.
Legally. Quietly. With almost no ability for the family to fight back. ” Martin’s words echoed through her.
Linda’s eyes widened. “You mean a development company like...” She didn’t finish the sentence. She reached across the desk, pulled the cream envelope out of the open drawer, and slapped it down between them. “Like this,” she finished, her cheeks flushing hot.
Martin’s eyes boggled. He snatched the envelope up and ripped the letter out so fast Linda thought he’d torn the paper. His face went through three colors in five seconds as he read the document.
“Son of a...” he hissed. He glanced at the postmark on the envelope. “When did this arrive?”
“The day before Uncle George’s accident,” Linda informed him. “He hid it in the locked drawer.”
“Linda, this is not good. This is not good at all.” Martin’s eyes shone with worry.
“I didn’t think it was.” Linda’s voice was soft and heavy.
Martin let out a long breath and folded the letter back along its original crease.
“Wayne Group International,” he read off the letterhead.
“I know this name. I worked alongside one of their senior people about ten years ago on a deal in Charleston. The principal is a man who’s been quietly buying up coastal property for forty years.
He’s good at what he does. He’s also very, very patient.
When he sets his sights on a property, he doesn’t usually let go. ”
“How does it usually work?” Linda swallowed, her throat suddenly feeling dry as she realized the vultures had started circling over her family’s hotel.
“They start with a polite letter,” Martin explained.
“Just like this one. Expressing interest. Naming a figure. Asking for a conversation. If the owner ignores the first letter, a second one follows. The second one is usually more direct. If the owner ignores that, the company starts making quiet inquiries. They speak to the bank, the suppliers, and the local community. They find out exactly how stretched the owner is. Then the offers escalate. The figures change. The tone changes. By the time the third or fourth letter arrives, it isn’t really a request anymore. ”
“And if the owner still won’t sell?” Linda had a feeling she knew what was coming.
“Then they wait. The owner defaults eventually. The bank gets nervous. The company offers to take the debt off the bank’s hands.
The bank says yes. The owner is foreclosed on by the people he refused to sell to in the first place, and the property changes hands at the auction for a fraction of what it was originally worth.
” Martin went over the third option he’d explained to her before.
Her stomach lurched, and a cold feeling slivered down her spine. “How long does the whole process usually take?”
A soft knock at the office door interrupted them. Rosa stepped through.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she apologized. “The engineering company has arrived. They are at the pool deck. They are asking for you.”
“Thank you, Rosa,” Linda answered. “Tell them I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Rosa left.
Linda stood. She slid the letter and the bills back into the drawer and turned the small brass key.
“Will you come with me?” Linda asked, needing some support at the moment.
“I’d hoped you wouldn’t try to do this alone,” Martin replied.
They walked together through the small back corridor of the hotel, out through the staff door, and along the path that led around to the pool deck. Two men in dark blue polo shirts and clipboards stood at the edge of the pool with the head of the maintenance team.
The younger of the two looked up as Linda and Martin approached. “Miss Heart?”
“Yes,” Linda nodded
“I’m Peter from Coastal Engineering. This is my colleague Daniel.” He introduced them.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Linda told them.
She let Martin take over the conversation. He explained what he’d observed about the water level. He walked the engineers through the maintenance records. He answered their technical questions with ease. Linda stood beside him, listened carefully, and tried very hard not to let her hands shake.
The two engineers worked the deck for the better part of forty minutes.
They took readings. They tested the tiles.
They ran a small handheld instrument along the pool’s edge and the bottom of the deeper end.
They conferred with each other quietly. Then they walked back over to where Linda and Martin were waiting.
“All right,” Peter began. “Here’s where we stand.
You have a leak. It’s not in the pump system.
It’s in the structure itself. The hairline crack runs along the inside wall at the deep end, about a third of the way up from the floor.
From the readings we’re taking, it’s narrow at the surface and wider as it goes down, which suggests there has been some settling or movement in the foundation beneath the deep end. ”
“Movement,” Linda repeated. “What does that mean?”
“That it could be groundwater. It could be a soil shift or even a tree root from one of the older oaks. We’d need to drain the pool, dry the structure, and do a full inspection before we could give you a final cause.
” Peter told her, and all Linda saw were dollar signs with wings flying away from the hotel and into Coastal Engineering’s pockets.
“How long would that take?” Linda kept her voice steady.
“The draining and drying takes about ten days. The inspection takes one. The repair, depending on what we find, takes anywhere from two weeks to two months. If it’s a simple crack and the foundation is stable, you’re looking at a quick reline and reseal.
If the foundation has shifted, you’re looking at potentially excavating around the pool and stabilizing the substrate before any patching can happen. ”
“And the cost.” Linda swallowed as her throat started to feel dry once again.
He glanced at Daniel. Daniel handed him the clipboard. Peter wrote a figure on the top sheet, tore it off, and handed it to her.
Linda looked at the number. Her stomach dropped. She didn’t let her face change.
“That’s the low end?” she asked.
“That’s the low end if it’s a simple crack. The high end, if we have to do substrate stabilization, could be three or four times that,” Peter warned her.
“I see.” Linda nodded, and the winged dollar bills suddenly tripled as they flew away.
“I’ll send a formal quote through to you this afternoon,” Peter continued, handing her a small business card. “Take a day or two. Talk it over.”
“Thank you, Peter.” Linda gave him a tight smile.
The two men packed up their equipment and walked back through the gardens toward the front of the hotel. Linda and Martin walked them out. Peter shook her hand again at the gravel drive, climbed into the passenger seat of a small white work van, and they drove off.
Linda stood at the edge of the drive, watching the van disappear down Bay View Drive.
The morning sun lay quietly and warmly on her shoulders. The bay glittered beyond the line of palms. A pelican drifted across the blue.
Her stomach had been at her feet since the moment she’d read the figure on the slip of paper.
A small white delivery van pulled into the drive.
Linda blinked.
The driver climbed out, walked over with a clipboard and a slim cream envelope, and held both out toward her.
“Is Mr. George Heart here?” The man asked.
“No, but I’m his niece,” Linda told the driver, who nodded. “I can sign for this.”
She signed. The driver handed her the envelope, smiled politely, climbed back into the van, and drove off.
Linda turned the envelope over slowly in her hands.
The same heavy cream paper. The same discreet logo. The same return address.
Wayne Group International. 1 Brickell Bay Drive. Miami.
Her hand began to shake.
“What is it?” Martin asked from beside her.
She didn’t answer. She slid one finger under the seal and pulled the heavy, folded letter from inside.
She unfolded it.
She read.
The blood drained slowly out of her face.
Mr. Heart,
We write further to our previous correspondence, neither of which has received the courtesy of a reply.
Our offer for the acquisition of the property known as Hearts Hotel, together with the adjoining bayside reserve and Heart House, has remained on the table for the better part of a year.
The terms are generous and, given the hotel’s well-documented financial position, more than fair to all parties involved.
We must now insist on a meeting. Our representative will be in Sweet Blossom Bay within the next forty-eight hours and will expect to be received. We are prepared to substantially increase our offer in person, on the condition that an immediate agreement to proceed is reached at that meeting.
We trust you understand the seriousness of the position you are in. The window for a voluntary sale is narrowing. We would strongly prefer to conclude this transaction on cordial terms. The alternatives, as I am sure you appreciate, would be far less favorable to the family.
We look forward to your prompt reply.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. D. Wayne
Wayne Group International
Linda read it twice. Then she lifted her head.
“What is it?” Martin asked again. His voice was very quiet now.
She handed him the letter, feeling sick inside. “I think our time to save Hearts Hotel is running out a lot faster than we anticipated.”
A note from Amy Rafferty:
Welcome, beautiful readers, to another series!
I put a little bit of myself into every book that I write, but I found this one especially close to my heart. The magic of fresh starts never gets old, and I hope that you will find a little more of that magic here at Hearts Hotel :)
If you can’t wait to find out what happens next, don’t miss book 2, Second Chances at Hearts Hotel!
Yes, I want to read Book 2 — Second Chances at Hearts Hotel!