| |
Nicole was surprised to find a twenty-five-person team of Bar Harbor residents the next morning, armed with trash bags, ready for heavy-lifting, fully aware of the hard work it took to clean up a celebration like the Halloween Festival and willing to take the reins. She thanked them all warmly with freshly-baked muffins and many pots of piping-hot coffee. More than one of them told her the Halloween Festival had been a “huge success.” “The Keating Inn had better be around for a long time,” an older woman said. “I remember when your daddy and his brother opened the place. They wanted to be entrenched in the community for a long, long time. And here you still are. Making it work.”
Back at the front desk, Casey, Heather, and Abby crunched the numbers from the previous night and discovered that they’d made almost enough to keep them in business till February.
“We just have to keep booking ourselves solid till then, I guess...” Heather said, her brow furrowed. “And that article in Maine Monthly has already helped.”
“I booked several families over New Year's Eve this morning,” Abby told them tentatively.
Casey rubbed her eyes, which still had the slightest black tint around them from her Queen makeup. Fatigue enveloped them. Nicole felt she could have slept for the next week after the flurry of energy it had taken to create the festival itself.
“How did it go last night?” Casey asked.
Heather and Nicole exchanged glances. Ultimately, they’d left Evan Snow at the police station, piled into Luke’s truck, and returned to the Keating House a little bit after the festival had cleared out. By then, Casey had been fast asleep on the couch.
“Complicated,” Nicole offered.
“Just glad nobody was hurt,” Casey said.
On cue, the phone rang with yet another reservation request. Abby slotted the names into the computer while Nicole attempted to make peace with a heavy session of work ahead. If there was anything she knew, it was that when Keating Inn residents were hungry, they had to be fed. They were like little kids in this way.
As she half-slept-walked toward the back hallway, the phone rang again. This time, Casey answered it, then hollered out, “OH! Hi, Bob.” The family lawyer, Bob Hawkins.
Nicole stiffened. She recognized Casey’s tone as one telling her to stay put. She turned back to find Casey beckoning her back, wide-eyed.
“What do you mean, Bob?” Casey grabbed a pen and began to scrawl information to herself onto a spare pad of paper. “Is that so?” she asked.
Heather and Nicole exchanged curious glances. Casey’s eyes continued to widen. Bob Hawkins seemed like he had a lot to say. Nicole’s pulse quickened.
“Okay. We’ll call you back today, Bob,” Casey countered. Her voice jumped the slightest bit with excitement. “I can hardly— yes. Okay. Thank you.”
Casey dropped the phone with alarm after Bob hung up. She gripped the edge of the front desk, found her sisters’ eyes, and announced, “Apparently, the Snow family lawyer got in contact with Bob and said— well, an unidentified person paid off all of our debts for the Keating Inn.”
Heather’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“No. But that’s not everything. Apparently, the Snow family is interested in selling the property we’re standing on back to us. Their offer is— well, it could be covered completely with what we made last night.” Casey’s eyes shone with tears.
“What the hell?” Heather demanded. Her voice echoed with shock and alarm and intrigue. “Why would they want that...”
Nicole remained silent. She turned her eyes toward her tennis shoes, which were slightly scuffed, and analyzed her fingernails, which hadn’t had a proper manicure in something like seven years. If the thing that had happened was really what she suspected, then why had it happened? She was nothing like the sort of woman men like Evan Snow went after.
Or maybe it wasn’t a romantic thing. Maybe it was just gratefulness. Maybe he finally saw Bar Harbor for what it truly was.
“Did he say anything to you about this?” Heather asked suddenly, pointing her attention toward Nicole.
Nicole shook her head.
“It must have been him. Right?” Casey demanded. “After last night...”
Nicole gripped one of the stools toward the side of the front desk and collapsed upon it, placing her elbows on the counter.
“You okay, sis?” Casey asked.
“Just a little overwhelmed,” Nicole breathed. “I felt those debts like this impossible weight. And now...”
Heather placed a hand on Nicole’s back and massaged it evenly. The three sisters and Abby held the silence as they considered what this now meant.
“No more dealing with the Snow family after this,” Casey murmured.
“And we could do whatever we want with the property...” Heather countered.
Casey’s face brightened. “You know, I’ve thought about different ways we could use this space...”
Both Heather and Nicole ogled her with curiosity. She’d given up her profession as an architect years before; did she still crave that kind of creation?
“I mean, come on. If we’re all going to live in Bar Harbor together, it’s not like we can just live in the Keating House,” Casey offered with a playful shrug.
“You’d design another house for us?” Nicole asked. “I mean, it could be for you and Grant— if you decide, well...”
“To stay? Honey, it’s not like I’ve made a run for the exit,” Casey said. “I think the Harvey girls might be here to stay.”
Nicole leaped from the stool and wrapped her arms around her older sister, overwhelmed with excitement. In her wildest dreams, she never could have imagined that she’d have her favorite people in the world there alongside her, operating her father and uncle’s greatest dream.
Now, because of the generosity of a tortured man, a once-evil and now terribly sad man, they would have full operation of the land on which the Keating Inn and Acadia Eatery stood. It meant the world.
“Oh! And Grant can come live here with us!” Nicole offered brightly as she dotted a handkerchief across her cheek.
Casey’s face was difficult to read. “Yes! If he ever comes back.” Her laughter was ominous, but she immediately launched into a scheme she had about another house close to the line of trees, off to the left of the Keating House, which would allow them a bit of privacy and a huge garden in-between. Apparently, she didn’t want to touch the issue of her husband with a ten-foot pole. They’d spent so much of their life apart.
Nicole wondered why. But these moments were too delirious, too happy for her to press into the darkness and demand answers. The sisters and Abby made a plot to meet up after the lunch rush to discuss plans all the more.
“Oh! And call Bob back,” Nicole said brightly. “Tell him it’s a go on our side.”
“I can already tell that he thinks it’s all his doing,” Casey said with a laugh as she grabbed her phone. “He doesn’t know one of our own got a little cozy with the likes of Evan Snow.”
“Not cozy,” Nicole corrected. “I just... He let me see something about himself. Something he can’t take back. And I think, for whatever reason, he’s grateful to be seen. I don’t think anyone has really seen him for who he is in years and years.”
Casey nodded, her eyes shadowed with the seriousness of the story. Heather, however, countered, “Yes. And it doesn’t hurt that you’re one of the most beautiful women of Bar Harbor and you gave him a little attention.” She then winked as Nicole blushed.
“You have a way with words, Heather,” Nicole said, rolling her eyes.
“Never forget! I’m a writer,” Heather returned with a silly laugh.