Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Everett
No man wants the words, “Ah yeah… she’s lookin’ a little soft,” to be the first words he hears in the morning.
There are exactly two things that sentence should never apply to, and one of them is load-bearing lumber.
John crouches in the alcove off the great room, flannel bunched at his shoulders, tool belt dragging his jeans south like gravity’s got a personal vendetta. He leans closer to the big picture window and pokes the trim with a screwdriver.
The wood gives.
My stomach does the same.
“See that?” he says. “She’s puffin’ up. Swelling like a tick in July on a Maine coon.”
“Why are your metaphors always a hate crime?” I rub a hand over my face. I’m on my first cup of coffee and already regretting consciousness. “Tell me we’re talking about cosmetic damage.”
John snorts. “Cosmetic my ass. She’s taking on water. Been doing it awhile, too. Rains, soaks in, freezes at night, thaws in the day. Over and over.” He wedges the screwdriver deeper. “Inside this frame’s splitting like my cousin’s tux pants at his second wedding.”
“Okay, so what I’m hearing is that I’m fucked. Do I have that right?”
Up close, the frame isn’t just warped, it’s… tired. The top corner bows. There are fine cracks in the paint where moisture’s seeped in, a faint dark stain along the sill.
It’s hard to believe just four hours ago, I kissed the hell out of Sierra in this very spot.
When he shifts the weight of the glass, the header gives a tired little groan. Otherwise known as the sound of my savings being dragged clean out of my bank account.
The caffeine does nothing to soften the consequences of my early-morning whiskey binge and what generously could be called a nap.
My coffee is top notch, but top notch or not, it can’t stand up to either of those things let alone combined.
“How far into the wall?” My shoulders go rigid, bracing for the answer.
He stands, braces his palms on his knees, and shuffles seven feet to the right, rapping knuckles along the wall. “As far as I can tell? ‘Bout to here. Header, studs, probably a bit of the sheathing. She’s spread out.”
My gaze tracks the line he just measured. Window, wall, seat.
That damn seat.
Where my mother read the first Christmas book of the season to me each year when I was little.
Where Grammie Bea drank her nightly hot toddy and knit monstrosities she forced me to wear in family photos.
Where I nailed the mistletoe to fuck with Chance, the final push that had him climbing up, ripping it clean out, and finally following his heart straight to Holly.
Where Sierra—
Nope. Not going there.
“We talking emergency?” I ask. “Or ‘keep an eye on it and pray it doesn’t implode on Christmas Eve’?”
John grunts. “Could wait ‘til spring if you like living dangerously. But if she fails before then? You’re replacing more than a header. Window, wall, maybe some skulls if someone’s sitting there when she lets go.”
I picture a packed dining room—if we ever get snow—kids piled on the bench with cocoa, all toothless grins, clutching letters to Santa. The film crew with cameras rolling in every direction. The wall fucking me clean up the ass with no lube when it a long-suffering creak and then—
Yeah. No.
“We don’t have enough bookings to risk that kind of lawsuit,” I mutter.
We don’t have the bookings for anything, really with the profits on a slow-motion cliff dive. “What’s the fix?”
“Open her up from the inside.” He points. “Strip the trim, pull the window, cut out the rot, replace the header and frame. Seal her up tight. You’ll want the seat outta the way while we do it.”
“How long?”
“Four, five days if she’s not hiding any surprises.
Week tops.” He scratches his chin. “We’ll need to throw up a false wall across here so guests aren’t getting a front row seat to the open guts.
Dress it up pretty. Garland, wreaths, even better, a couple of those big gold bows.
Hell, I’d slide the wishing tree dead center.
The more you line the wall, the more it’ll muffle the noise. ”
So open heart surgery in the heart of the whole damn lodge, under the microscope of a reality TV crew.
Perfect.
“We need every table we’ve got if…”
“Yeah, if. But right now, you’re not filling every table. This is the best time you’re gonna get. Less folks, shorter wait times. Strikes me as good business. Besides, what's worse—losing a few seats for a week, or losing half your wall and your good name when something gives?”
He’s not wrong.
God, I hate that he’s not wrong.
“We do it with the least disruption possible. Early mornings, mid-day when people are on the mou—doing whatever they’ll be doing. No saws past four.”
“You want me to call that crew from town? Could have two extra bodies here tomorrow.”
I nod. “Do it.”
“And the seat?” He ticks his chin toward the built-in. “Are we ripping her out clean or you wanna salvage what you can?”
The solid-wall version of the alcove unfolds in my mind. The way it looks in the sketches on my desk upstairs. Clean lines, more floor space, better furniture layout.
No drafts from old glass.
No structural headache.
No teenage ghosts.
The window seat stays.
That’s what I told her and I’m standing by it.
“Not today. Today we’re fixing what has to be fixed so the place doesn’t literally come down.”
He watches me a beat too long. John’s not stupid. He knows this isn’t the only thing on the chopping block in my plans.
But he just nods. “Temporary false wall it is.”
“Make it look like a Christmas postcard,” I add. “If we’re going to hide a crime scene, it should at least be photogenic.”
He chuckles. “You’re your grandmother’s boy.”
“Yeah.” The sentiment still aches. Maybe it always will.
“Everett.”
My father’s voice snaps down the hallway, almost ahead of him, as if the sound is clearing the way. He steps into the alcove like it’s a courtroom he owns, eyes going straight to the open trim, then to John, then to me.
“What,” he says slowly, “are you doing to my wall?”
And here we go.
“Your wall?” I ask lightly. “Pretty sure the county courthouse says it’s mine now.”
He doesn’t smile. “Don’t be a smartass.”
I could point out I learned that from him. I don’t.
“Storm damage. Header’s taking on water. John says we need to open things up, replace the bad wood before it fails. We’re going to put up a false wall in front of it so guests don’t see the mess.”
Dad steps closer, runs his fingers along the frame. Ignoring the way it squishes is apparently a family trait.
“This window’s been like this for seventy years,” he says.
“Yeah, and for sixty-nine of those, the weather cooperated.”
He shoots me a look. “You always did like tearing things apart.”
Well that’s going to leave a mark. “I like keeping them standing. There’s a difference.”
His jaw flexes. For a second I see the man who stayed up all night shoveling during blizzards, who fixed pipes by headlamp because calling a plumber was too expensive and too slow. The man who loved this place so hard he forgot to take care of himself—and a few key joists—along the way.
“Can’t we patch it?” he asks. “Sand it, seal it, call it good?”
“You make it a habit of sanding and sealing cotton balls?”
The sound from my father's throat confirms that yes, I did say that out loud.
“A patch buys us maybe a season,” John says quietly. “Maybe.” He taps the wood again. “But she’s already gone soft. If that header lets go when someone’s sitting here, you’re lookin’ at more than a repair bill.”
My father’s shoulders slump a hair, a crack in the armor most people never see. “And the preservation society? They won’t like you tearing into the original structure.”
“They don’t have to explain a broken neck to a lawyer,” I say. “They don’t pay our insurance, either.”
His gaze snaps to mine. The air between us tightens, full of all the things we never say out loud.
Like how he thinks I'm not ready for this after staying away so long.
And how he'll never believe this mountain means as much to me as it does to him.
I exhale. “We keep the look, the feel, the story. We fix the bones. Preservation doesn’t mean letting the building rot so everyone can admire the corpse.”
“And what else do you plan on ‘fixing’ while you’re at it?” he asks, already suspicious. “You’ve been eyeing this room since you got back.”
He’s not wrong.
But I am so goddamn tired of having every idea treated like a grenade.
“We stick to this repair for now,” I say. “We’ll talk about the rest later.”
“We will,” he says. It’s not a promise. It’s a warning.
He pats the top of the frame like he’s comforting an old dog I just suggested putting down, then turns and walks off toward the office without another word. Like he still owns the place. Like he still has the final say.
My molars ache from how hard I’m clenching them to keep every fucking thing I want to say locked behind my goddamned teeth.
“Could’ve gone worse,” John offers.
“How?” I ask.
“He coulda yelled.”
“He was yelling.”
“Nah.” John tugs his screwdriver free. “That was his indoor disappointment voice. Whole different animal.”
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Great. Love that for me.”
He slides a pry bar under the first strip of trim. “Should I start pulling this while you’re not watching? Spare your delicate feelings?”
“I’ll live.” I step back to give him room. “Just take it slow until I get the snowmen moved out of there.”
He nods. “Ayuh.”
I’m halfway to the coffee urn to refuel when the front door opens and cold air knifes through the foyer lobby.
My body reacts before my brain catches up. Spine straight. Jaw tight. I don’t even need to see her to know. Her timing… absolutely impeccable.
Our tentative truce, or whatever the hell we’d arrived at last night quakes the minute she steps into the dining room and skids to a stop when she sees John working on the window.
When she sees the missing trim.
And the hairline crack in the wall above the seat.