He didn’t say them.
Carson was speaking again, and Lucas had to force his attention back to his brother. “I’ve already told my friends on the team that they can stay at The Riverside Inn when they come in for my wedding. I’ll let you know how many rooms I’ll need.”
Lucas nodded and made a note of it.
“Besides the weekend of our wedding, the inn will be slow through the winter. You’ll have lots of time to learn the ropes before the busy season. Should be a cakewalk until then.”
Hopefully Carson was right about that. Lucas needed time to learn everything so he could be the best manager possible. He wasn’t about to take a job from his brother and glide by on nepotism. If he was going to do this job, he was going to do it right.
He’d show everyone in town and himself that he was more than capable of running a business successfully.
CHAPTER 9
Riley walked around in a fog for the next week, counting down the days until December seventh when the sale was final, and Lucas Clark strolled through the front door as her new boss.
This was what she got for not going to college to get a useful degree like accounting, engineering, or some other math job that sucked the soul from your body but paid well.
Who needed a soul when you had a hefty bank account?
But no, Riley had loved the outdoors. She’d first started working at the inn during the summer to take the guests white water rafting and kayaking. Mr. Ross had noticed her organizational skills and offered her a job as his assistant. She’d agreed, as long as she could still spend summer mornings doing the boating activities. She’d even filled in as a horseback riding guide when that group was busy. It had been a good balance of work and fun. And owning the inn would have made it all perfect.
And now, not only was that dream gone, her ex-boyfriend would be her new boss.
She vacillated between angrily determining to find a property near the river and building her own bed and breakfast tocompete with The Riverside Inn and just wanting to disappear into the pantry with a sheet of brownies from the kitchen. Really, they were the best item on the menu and the reason she wasn’t five pounds thinner.
Once, in a history class, Riley had learned about a group of people who’d been forced from their homes by their enemies. The women had cleaned their houses before the invaders came to take possession of them.
That odd fact was why she remembered the story. Who made things nicer for the enemy who was taking your stuff? The natural response would be to trash everything. Give them nothing. But the women had wanted their enemies to know that they were clean, tidy people.
Riley understood that sort of pride now. She had a desperate need to fill as many rooms as possible by December seventh, when Lucas became her boss. She didn’t want Carson and Lucas to think she was running the place in the red, totally incompetent, and the inn needed the Clark brothers to step in and save the day.
Without consulting Mr. Ross, she ran social media ads with special winter rates and month-long rates so low that they competed with apartment rent. What could her boss do? If he fired her, Carson would hire her back. He’d already promised her a raise.
Her ad showed an idyllic-looking picture of the inn surrounded by snow and the phrase:The Riverside Inn is where memories are made!
And then in what was clearly a brilliant move, she decided to waive their no-pet policy for room number ten. The inn was going to have to replace the carpet there anyway, so why not rent it out to people with pets first? Who cared if a dog had an accident? The extra money they earned on the pet deposit would offset the cost of new carpet installation.
Granted, advertising the specials would eat up their marketing budget for the entire season, and they might have to hire part-time cleaning help to supplement Wendy and Mariah, the full-time housekeepers, but the important thing was that when Lucas became the manager, the inn would be decently occupied. Riley would look like a capable assistant manager.
Riley was happily surprised when she came to work the next day and found a note from Sara, the evening desk clerk, telling her that they already had some new bookings. More trickled in through the day. By the end of the week, they had so many reservations that she took down the promotion.
The inn would be almost full. No, scratch that, Riley knew that the churches in the area had some guest singers coming into town to perform in the community’s Handel’s Messiah concert. Riley called the choir leader and offered fifty percent discounts on the remaining rooms.
They’d have a full house when Lucas took over.
Success.
Riley’s first inkling that the new guests weren’t the high-caliber sort was when Pastor Curtis showed up with three bedraggled men. They all had long, unwashed hair, scraggly beards, and carried dirty backpacks. The pastor was a stark contrast to the crew. He was a tall, soft-spoken man with boyish features that made him look perpetually young.
“Welcome to Riverside Inn,” Riley chimed. Her eyes darted from the pastor to the group. Pastor Curtis frequently picked up the inn’s leftover food to deliver to a homeless shelter. Perhaps he was bringing the men along this time to say thank you in person for their support?
“I have a check-in for you,” Pastor Curtis said. “The shelter is full, and the temperature is only getting lower, so the congregation took up a collection to use your month-long rate. I really can’t thank you enough. Where do I sign?” He handed herhis credit card. “One room, three guests.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “Since our congregation hasn’t authorized any minibar purchases, can you make sure the fridge is always empty?”
Mr. Ross was not going to be happy about this clientele. Lucas was going to be even less happy. A bunch of scary-looking men hanging around the inn all day might drive other guests away.
“I’ll need to see valid IDs.” She was probably going to hell, but at that moment, she fervently hoped the men didn’t have IDs, and she could refuse them on that basis.
“Sure thing.” The pastor motioned to the men to step up to the counter and give her their IDs. “I’m so glad there’s room at the inn, eh? That’s how I was able to raise the money from the congregation. Every Christmas when we hear the nativity story, no one wants to think of themselves as the innkeeper who turned Mary and Joseph away.”