Chapter Eight
Lindon
As soon as we arrived at the Heath Inn, the owner introduced herself as Alice and ushered us right inside. “You dears must be so tired. I have your rooms all ready for you.” She led us to a standing desk and moved behind it. “Now, I need you to sign in please.”
True pulled out the company card and filled out the form for the three rooms, since we had a single reservation and he was the finance guy. “Okay, I think that’s it.”
The lady, Alice, took the clipboard and read over the lines, lifting her glasses to see it better. “Yes, it’s fine. All the young people say I should do this on the line, but I’m old-fashioned. I’ve only been taking credit cards for a couple of years.”
On the line? She was adorable. Like the grandma none of us ever had. “Sometimes there’s just too much tech anyway.”
True raised a brow at me as if I’d said something sacrilegious.
“I hope you don’t mind carrying your bags upstairs,” she said. “I don’t have a bellman, and my knees are not what they once were.”
“We don’t mind at all, ma’am,” I assured her.
“It’s Alice, please. I already know how old I am, but I’m not sure I’m ma’am old.”
“Alice. We are good carrying our bags. Up the stairs, then.”
Of course, our keys were actual keys and not key cards or numbers to punch into a keypad.
But I understood that. This was a very old building and I hadn’t seen any other guests yet.
Doing a huge electronic remodel would no doubt be more than her budget could stand.
The nightly rate she charged us was at least a third less than we’d paid anywhere else in a long time as well.
The house was clean and neat but could have been pulled out of an antique store.
Every piece in good shape but definitely old.
Lots of ornate carved wood on the sofa and chairs, rich but faded carpets scattered over the wide golden oak floorboards, and the wallpaper!
If it had been green, I’d have feared it was the arsenic wallpaper popular in the nineteenth century.
But it was not. Lots of color, though. Reds, blues, golds. Authentic, faded, but gorgeous.
As we climbed the stairs, she called after us, “Please come back down when you’re settled. I have some sandwiches in the refrigerator and a slow cooker of corn chowder. I know how hungry you young men get. I’m going to sleep, but help yourselves and just leave the dishes in the sink.”
We called down “thanks,” and continued on to our rooms. I left the others at the first door, which matched the number on my key, and entered another perfectly preserved piece of the past. Huge headboard topping a bed no bigger than a double, an armoire, a writing desk, and a door that led into the one piece of modernity I welcomed.
An en-suite bath. Many homes this old would have had just one on the second floor, so I was glad to have my own.
I took the time to wash my face and hands and set my duffel on the luggage rack before leaving the room and meeting the others in the hallway.
Turned out, they were sharing a Jack-and-Jill bathroom across the hall from me, and their rooms sounded smaller, but they were satisfied with them.
We’d left a lot of our equipment in the car to keep up our tourists-passing-through facade.
“Hungry anyone?” I asked.
They were. We all were, and when I lifted the lid off the slow cooker, the scents of corn and potatoes and cheese and herbs made my mouth water.
True found the platter of roast beef, ham, and turkey sandwiches on thick fresh-baked bread in the refrigerator, along with a pitcher of lemonade and set them on the scrubbed wooden kitchen table.
“How old do you figure this house is?” Shiloh asked, a spoon in one hand and a roast beef sandwich in the other.
“Over a century, for sure,” True replied. “Heck, the fridge is at least fifty years old.”
“As long as it’s working, right?” He shoveled the chowder in and sighed. “Great soup.”
Everything was great, and we ate all of it. I hoped there were no other guests expected who might also be hungry.
After our late dinner, we washed the dishes because there was no dishwasher, and no way we were going to leave a sink full of dirty bowls and plates and glasses for our innkeeper/hostess.
We did leave them drying on a tea towel on the counter because, as True pointed out, we were sure to put them away in the wrong place, and nobody wanted that.
Then we went upstairs and into our own rooms for the night.
I slept very well, considering the bed was about an inch too short for my frame, and woke at sunrise, anxious to get going on the project at hand.
The inn was outside the town limits but close enough I could see the other buildings from my window.
It was cool and fresh outside, with a hint of fog in the air, a perfect time for a run and a good look around.
With no sounds from the rooms across the hall, I trotted down the stairs and out the front door, pausing long enough to stretch before heading for town.
The section of road we had not traversed was still treelined, making it hard to tell the sun was climbing over the horizon.
No wonder everyone online said it was spooky here.
Droplets of moisture fell from the trees, the plops audible since there were no other sounds.
Not a breath of wind or a car, not even a door slamming anywhere.
The main street was lined with shops that looked just about as old as the inn, and I wondered if it would be much busier or more crowded in a few hours.
It felt frozen in time, but I forgot about that when a scent hit my nose.
Confusing. My wolf sneezed, the oddest feeling from inside me.
I breathed it in, trying to sort it out, but that was not happening.
Each inhale began with a pleasant sweetness raising desire then tamped down under a muddy sort of sour note.
Disgusting. What the heck? I ran to the end of the street trying not to smell it any more than necessary then turned and ran back to the inn to discuss our plan for the day.