Snowflakes & Sweethearts (SnowDrop Inn #1)

Chapter One The Dreamer’s Purchase

Chapter One: The Dreamer’s Purchase

Lucy.

I looked at my mother with what I hoped was enthusiasm, though my smile felt like it had been glued on.

She stood in front of the old inn with her mittened hands pressed together under her chin as if she had just been handed the keys to Buckingham Palace.

My father was next to her, squinting at the crooked roofline with the same expression he used when reading repair bills.

“Isn’t it perfect?” Mom breathed, the words fogging in the cold air.

“It’s... something,” I managed. The “something” being a three-story monument to bad decisions and green moss.

The once-white trim had turned the color of weak tea.

A shutter dangled at an angle that made my eye twitch.

The hand-painted sign read The SnowDrop Inn, the D half-flaked off so it looked more like Snow rop .

“It has character,” Dad said in the tone of a man determined to stay married as he patted Mom’s arm.

Character, sure, if mildew counted as personality. I pulled my scarf tighter and tried to see what they saw. A cozy mountain getaway for a family business. Instead, I saw the last of my savings disappearing into a bottomless pit of repair invoices.

Mom clapped her hands together. “Come on. Wait until you see inside.”

The foyer smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and more strongly of wet wood.

A green shag carpet stretched from the door to a sweeping staircase, each step worn thin in the middle as if ghosts had been jogging there.

A brass chandelier leaned to the left, like it was tired of hanging around.

The banister’s varnish had been rubbed to a dull, sticky shine that collected dust like a hobby.

“Imagine this with Christmas decorations,” Mom said. “Garland, twinkle lights, guests sipping cocoa by the fire, carols—”

“Fire code violation,” Dad murmured, eyeing the ancient hearth. He tapped the stone with his knuckle and frowned at the hollow sound.

I tried to stay positive. “There is potential,” I said, and then under my breath, “buried somewhere beneath the paneling.”

We drifted into the reception room. Dark wood paneling boxed in the walls.

The furniture was a time capsule of mismatched couches and chairs with upholstery that had once been fashionable around the same time bread makers were considered cutting edge.

Through a pair of French doors I could see the hills outside.

They were soft and white, the trees powdered with fresh snow.

It really was beautiful, like a postcard pretending everything inside the frame was perfect.

Mom crossed to the French doors and pressed her palms to the glass. “The view alone will sell out winter weekends, and in summer there is a pool out back.”

“The one full of snow?” I dryly asked.

She ignored me. My mother had mastered selective hearing long ago.

“Here is what I am picturing,” she said, pivoting to face us and gesturing with the full flourish of someone announcing a Broadway show. “Wreaths on every door. Candles in the windows. A tree that goes right here."

She spun, pointed at a corner, then pointed somewhere else. “No. Here. William, which corner says ‘I am festive but tasteful’ to you?”

Dad squinted again. “The one that doesn't block the heating vent.”

“Practical,” Mom said, as if that were a charming flaw. “We will do both.”

My phone chimed from somewhere deep in my purse, a sound muffled by receipts and breath mints and two pens that didn't work but lived there out of habit.

I dug it out and saw the name on the screen: Dexter Fitzwilliam, my former boss.

The man who had never smiled once in the five years I had worked for him.

The man who ran his architecture firm like a monastery where fun went to die.

Decline.

“Was that one of your sisters?” Mom asked, misreading my face.

“Something like that." I shoved the phone away before guilt could sneak in. I had left Dex Fitzwilliam and his color-coded life behind for good. I was done being the woman who fetched lattes and scheduled other people’s dreams. I was here to take a risk on mine. Or, at least, on my mother’s.

We toured the ground floor. A dining room with heavy chairs, a second sitting room with a fireplace brick-painted the wrong red, and a hallway that paused dramatically at a line of ceiling tiles, as if the building had tried to switch personalities halfway through construction.

Every door we opened carried a new scent from old paper to dust, and a hint of cinnamon that made me suspect someone had tried to bake the smell of home back into the walls.

Mom narrated as we walked. “We will keep the paneling in one room to be ‘heritage,’ paint the rest. The front desk will be darling with a bell. Meri can run the desk until Lydia finishes her schooling. Kitty can help with social media and bookings. You can do books with your father.”

Dad perked up at the sound of delegation. “I can do numbers. Numbers are obedient.”

“Numbers are only obedient if you don't look at the cost of renovations,” I said, laying a palm on the wall. The texture under my fingers felt like a relic of someone’s good intentions that had gone bad with time. “Mom, do we have a budget that exists outside of your heart?”

She smiled, which wasn't an answer. “We have a small renovation loan to start off. I’m sure we will figure it out as we go.”

Small was a word with flexible meanings.

A car crunched up the drive outside.

“Jane is here!” Mom squealed with happiness.

Seconds later my sister appeared in the doorway, pink-cheeked from the cold and smelling like sugar.

She enveloped me in a hug that felt like home.

Jane was soft edges and cinnamon rolls in human form.

She wore her blonde hair in an easy twist and had flour on her sleeve from some past baking project.

Some people simply radiated butter and comfort.

“You made it,” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“It is... definitely an inn,” I said, and she laughed as if that were the compliment she needed most.

“We can share one of the two upstairs apartments,” she offered, eyes bright with plans. “Unless you would rather stay with Lydia and Kitty when they get here.”

I didn't even pretend to hesitate. “You and me, always.”

We headed into the kitchen together. It was large but dated, all avocado appliances and cracked tile.

The industrial mixer looked like it had seen two wars and survived both by stubbornness.

The oven door hung off one hinge in a posture of surrender.

Someone had slapped a sticky note on it that read "don't open fast,” which wasn't confidence inspiring.

Jane’s eyes sparkled anyway. “Once I get this cleaned and organized, it will be perfect for baking. Imagine a pastry case over there, and a coffee station here. We could have hot chocolate taps in winter.”

“Hot chocolate taps?” I asked in confusion.

“Like a beer tap,” Jane explained.

I gave her a slightly disbelieving look.

“Okay, we will use practical carafes even if a girl can dream,” she said, unfazed.

I smiled. Sometimes Jane was a little fanciful when it came to how she wanted her dream kitchen.

Dad tested the water faucet and winced as the pipes groaned like an old man getting off a couch. Rust sputtered, then water ran clear. He looked mildly impressed, which for Dad was the same as cartwheels.

“Plumbing is alive,” he commented.

“Being alive isn't the same as being usable,” I mentioned, reminding myself to have a professional look at the water system.

Mom flitted through the space, opening cupboards. “We can sand and paint these. Maybe a white or a soft blue. Something that says, ‘Jane’s pastries live here.’”

Jane grinned, and I felt the familiar mix of protectiveness and envy.

She knew who she was. Jane wanted to bake and feed people.

My own what-do-I-want file had been blank for a very long time.

Be indispensable, my old job had said. Be quiet.

Be precise. Be invisible. I had been all of those things, and at the end of each day I had walked home through city crowds of people who didn’t know my name.

I had put up with it until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

The invitation to be an entrepreneur with my family had been a daunting but welcome one.

“Do you think we can really do this?” I asked, lowering my voice as Mom launched into a speech about twinkle lights to Dad’s back.

Jane looked at me with that steady kindness that made everyone trust her. “We will make it work. We always do.”

I wanted to believe her. I really did. Yet as I stood in the middle of the dusty old kitchen, I couldn't help picturing the faces of the people who had walked away from here before us, each one certain they would make it work too.

My phone buzzed again. I didn't need to look to know the name.

Decline.

“He’s persistent,” Jane said with amusement.

“You have no idea." I rolled my eyes.

We climbed the back stairs to the staff apartments.

The hallway smelled like old carpet and the sound of memories.

Our apartment had two small bedrooms off a narrow living area, a postage-stamp kitchen, and a bathroom with tile that had once been white and had now resigned itself to beige.

It wasn't much, and yet when Jane opened the curtains and winter sunlight poured in, the room felt slightly fresher.

“I brought new sheets. Blue for you and green for me,” Jane revealed.

“You are an angel." I had forgotten such a simple basic . Thank goodness for my sister’s mindfulness.

“You say that now. Wait until I set a baking schedule and ask you to be my helper at seven in the morning,” Jane teased.

“ I take it back,” I said with a grin. “You’re a menace.”

We unpacked a few bags. Jane set a small framed photo of all five of us sisters on the dresser.

Our arms were tangled around each other and we were trying to fit into the frame and failing in the way that made it better.

I ran my fingers over the glass and felt the old ache of missing them even before they were gone.

We hadn't all lived in the same place since we were teenagers.

Mom had promised me this would bring us back together.

That promise was what had pulled me out of a cubicle in the city and into this drafty old dream.

“I am going to start cleaning the kitchen. Do you want to come down or have a look around first?” Jane asked.

“I want to walk through the rooms again and make a list,” I decided.

She squeezed my hand and headed for the door. “Call if you need me.”

“Always,” I said, and meant it.

I wandered back downstairs with a notebook.

I took inventory of what needed to be done like a general.

Carpet removal, paneling decisions, wall color, and lighting.

There were fire extinguishers that had expired before I had graduated high school.

The front desk needed a computer system.

The website needed booking software that didn't look like it had been coded on a potato.

A big chalkboard menu might be cute. A smaller one for daily events.

Did we have daily events? We could have daily events, I mused.

The French doors drew me again. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and looked out at the land rolling down to the treeline.

A bird left a thin call in the air. Snow fell in soft flakes that rotated slowly downward.

The city had been crowded with sirens and the sound of other people’s lives. Here, quiet was welcome.

A soft thud echoed behind me, and I turned to see Dad standing under the chandelier with a ladder.

“Bulbs,” he said, and gestured at a box as if that explained the entire universe.

“You shouldn't be up there by yourself,” I gently scolded, crossing to steady the ladder. The chandelier swayed with the subtle menace of a toddler on a swing who believed in no consequences.

“I am nimble,” he remarked.

“You are not nimble so you had better be careful.”

“That too." He twisted a bulb free and held it up, the blackened filament a little scribble of history. “Your mother is very happy.”

“I know.”

“She is also very scared,” he mentioned as he looked down so his eyes met mine through the crystal fringe. “I am too. However, happiness wins today.”

“We will make it work,” I said, borrowing Jane’s certainty because mine was still doubtful.