Chapter Two --

 

“Well, you shouldn’t be!” my mother shot back. “For one thing, it’s time you thought about hiring help for the inn. You’ve managed to successfully book more rooms in the last six months than in all of last year. And if we used Lacey’s house as an event venue, we could control the kinds of parties that are held there and make sensible rules about the number of guests. Did you know the fire department recently was called there because there were too many people in the house at one time? It’s a violation of the fire code to have more than fifty people in there.”

“How many were there?” I teased. “Fifty one? Let me guess, one of Lacey’s friends called to complain, all in anticipation of kicking Karin out?”

“There were more than seventy people, Scarlet, and some of them were smoking. You know that there’s a no-smoking rule!” It took me a moment to realize how upset Laurel was about the situation.

“So, why doesn’t Lacey just kick Karin out and rent the house to some nice family?”

“Like the last time?” Leave it to Laurel to remind me of the Jordan family’s terrifying ordeal at the hands of a couple of creeps. “And have you forgotten how close you came to being killed, Scarlet Wilson?”

I winced at the reminder, knowing how frightened she had been while I was among the missing. Not that it was a day in the park for me...far from it.

“We could have Kenny do a thorough background check on any new tenants, Mom.”

“You’re impossible!” my mother sniffed haughtily, whirling her wheelchair around and rolling away, on her way back to the house. As we watched her disappear, my assistant shook her head.

“Oh, Miz Scarlet, you’ve done it now,” Jenny warned me ominously. “Your mother is not happy with you!”

“It’s hardly the first time I’ve disappointed Laurel,” I assured the young college student. “I doubt it will be the last.”

“But you don’t understand. They really have their hearts set on this wedding business. The Googins girls have been talking about it for weeks.”

“For weeks and you didn’t warn me?” I pretended to glower at her. “That’s the thanks I get for all the many wonderful things I’ve done for you, you rotten little twit?”

“I know,” she grinned sheepishly. “I should have told you, but they swore me to secrecy. That’s because Edna....”

“Edna Rivera is mixed up in all this?” Those words were the equivalent of mental alarm bells ringing off the wall. My best friend’s mother, better known as the Queen of Clean, had stayed at the inn over the Christmas holiday and the only person more relieved than me when she left was her daughter, Laurencia, better known as Larry.

“Well, she said Wallace’s house had so much potential as a wedding venue, but it needs better management. Lacey and your mother agreed that you should take over.”

That was just what I didn’t need -- three determined ladies giving me business advice. Sure, Edna had been head of the housekeeping staff for a small nursing facility in Atlanta for years, but that’s hardly the same thing as running an inn, is it? And as for Laurel and Lacey, the closest they ever got to being innkeepers was to mix the cocktails in the living room for guests and handle the odd task now and then. I was the one who did all the heavy lifting and schlepping.

“Does Larry know about this?” I demanded, turning my disapproving gaze on the co-conspirator next to me. Jenny gave a quick, embarrassed shrug of those tiny shoulders of hers. I was pretty sure that Edna had kept it a secret from her daughter. That’s because Larry would have put the kibosh on it right away.

“I only found out about it by accident,” she admitted, “when I overheard them talking.”

“I’m missing something,” I said. Obviously, the ladies had been at this for some time. The plan had evolved beyond the speculative stage, especially if they were talking about expanding the Four Acorns Inn staff and bringing Edna onboard. “Spill the beans.”

“Well, don’t tell them I told you, but Edna still wants to get back together with Big Larry.”

“That’s hardly a secret,” I replied, still trying to make sense of it all. “What does this have to do with the Four Acorns Inn?”

“Edna got laid off last month, so she decided to move to Fort Meyers, Florida, where the Red Sox do their spring training, and rent a small place while she looks for work. But it gets really hot there in the summer....”

“Whoa!” I held up my hands in protest. “Wait, wait, wait!”

“What?”

“Edna is selling her place in Atlanta?” I suddenly understood my friend’s concern when her mother recently announced she would be coming up for a month-long summer visit. Larry wasn’t used to the Queen of Clean staying at her condo, especially with teenage daughter, Michaela, in residence. It was a recipe for disaster. “What does Edna plan to do when the Red Sox are in Boston?”

“She wants to find a new job up here.”

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me!”

“Well, that’s why the Googins girls thought we could open up Wallace’s house for the wedding season. You know, Miz Scarlet -- May, June, July, August, and September.”

“Edna wants a job at the Four Acorns Inn?” Suddenly, stunningly, the pieces of the puzzle all fell into place. This wasn’t so much about creating an annex to the Four Acorns Inn as it was about getting Edna remarried to the assistant coach for the Boston Red Sox, and the three escapees from a regency romance novel were willing to create all this subterfuge to get the job done.

“You have got to be freaking kidding me,” I growled through clenched teeth.

“Don’t tell your mother I told you all this,” the teenager begged me. “I don’t want her to be mad at me.”

“Kiddo, that’s the least of my worries at the moment. Do you have any idea what Larry will do when she finds out Edna is selling her place in Atlanta and following Big Larry around on the baseball circuit?”

“She’ll be upset.”

“There’s an understatement.”

“Are you going to tell her?” Jenny studied me, nervously fiddling with her fingers. I understood her anxiety. Larry didn’t like surprises, especially the unpleasant ones involving her mother. Decades after Edna divorced Big Larry, the couple had the chance to reconnect over the recent Christmas holiday. While improving their relationship, the unexpected reunion didn’t solve the major problem between the couple. Edna is an opinionated, demanding steamroller of a woman, crushing everything in her path -- even the man she loves. I sighed, resigned to my fate.

“What choice do I have? Larry’s my friend; I owe her that much.”

“Boy, what a mess this is,” the teen remarked.

“It is indeed. And so ironic, considering Edna is the Queen of Clean.” I rolled my eyes, gazing up at the heavens. “I wish she’d spend less time on her cockamamie intrigues and more time on tidying up her love life.”

“What happens now?” Jenny wanted to know.

“I honestly don’t know, but if the Googins girls already have a plan, maybe we need to find out whether it’s viable, Jen. If we let them get any farther with this and Larry finds out we didn’t tell her, she’s going to lay someone out in lavender and I’d prefer it not be me. Maybe it’s time to talk to Bur. Want to join me?”

“It depends. Is your brother going to yell at me?”

“Bur? The guy who’s spent more time in the naughty corner as a child than anyone else? I doubt it. But I’ll tell you what. We’ll approach it from a purely business standpoint. We won’t mention Larry, Big Larry, or Edna just yet. All Bur has to know is that Laurel informed us that Lacey wants to get rid of her tenant. I’ll act like the wedding business is an idea I’m considering if and when Wallace’s house is available.”

“You’re going to trump the Googins girls and Edna?” Jenny’s shocked expression was priceless.

“I guess I am,” I laughed. “That ought to put a crimp in their bonnets!”

“Wow, Miz Scarlet. I never knew you were so sneaky!”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Aren’t you stealing their thunder right out from under them? They’re the ones who want to start a wedding business.”

“Hold on there!” I held up my hands in protest, interrupting her. “Let’s review the facts. You don’t want the ladies to know you told me about their ‘dum-dum-da-dum’ idea, anymore than you want Larry to find out you kept her mother’s humdinger of a secret, correct?”

“I sure don’t,” the teenager agreed readily.

“Then work with me. If I withhold some non-essential information that could get you into extremely hot water, I am hardly concealing the crime of the century. What I’m doing is preventing your proverbial goose from being cooked in that boiling water bath.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“You guess? Wow, there’s a big vote of confidence.”

“Um,” she gulped, scrambling to cover her verbal fumble. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Me? No, no, kiddo. The right question is: ‘What are we going to do about it?’ We have to pull the carpet out from under the ladies and get control over their whack-a-doodle wedding plan. This is the best I can do on short notice,” I told her. “Unless you’d prefer to confess your role in this debacle to Larry....”

“No way!”

Laughing, I grabbed her by the shoulders, twirled her around, and gave her a gentle nudge in the direction of the carriage house. “In that case, we’d better hurry, because if she finds out what her mother is up to, the Connecticut State Police Major Crimes squad will be arresting one of their own on homicide charges.”

In less than a minute, the two of us climbed the stairs to the carriage house residence and stood in front of Bur’s door. I took a deep breath and rapped on it with far more confidence than I felt. Knock, knock, knock.

A moment later, the knob turned and the door opened. My brother stood there in his gym shorts and his favorite Yankees tee shirt. As he stepped aside to let us in, I noticed there were papers strewn all over the coffee table, a few books stacked up on the sofa, and his laptop was open -- evidence that suggested Bur was working on a report, something he usually dreaded. That was a good sign. He might welcome the distraction we offered. This was confirmed by his jovial greeting. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? You’ve come to rescue me?”

Twenty minutes later, I had actually managed to sell my brother on a prospective plan to rent out Wallace’s house as an event venue and money-maker with one caveat. He wanted in on the business end of things.

“I’m sorry. Did I hear you correctly, Bur? You actually want to participate in this wedding enterprise?”

“What we’re really talking about is renting out the house a few times a month for a chunk of change that will help pay for the upkeep. I think it’s got some potential. The property is self-contained and we can control the number of guests. We’ll probably need a permit to serve alcohol.”

“And?” Knowing him, I figured there had to be a catch.

“Well, if you must know, I’ve been thinking lately that the Four Acorns should expand. If we reconfigured the carriage house, we could....”

“You want to give up the carriage house?”

“Someone has to live in Wallace’s house. Security-wise it makes sense. I can play the role of groundskeeper there too. I’m rather crowded in here,” he announced, waving his arms at the mess awaiting him. “I could use the extra space for a proper office.”

“Score one for Colonel Grey Poupon,” Jenny grinned, using my brother’s childhood nickname. “It looks like the Wilsons are about to go into the wedding business.”

I looked from my overly confident brother to my smug assistant and gave an amused snort. If my brother was willing to consider the idea, it meant he already envisioned himself living in that mansion of Lacey’s.

“What’s so funny?” Bur wanted to know, suddenly suspicious.

“Nothing. I’m just relieved. I thought I’d have to work harder to convince you this was a good idea,” I replied, smiling. Now that I was no longer in the line of fire, I was beginning to enjoy myself.

“It’s only a good idea if it makes money, Miz Scarlet.”

“Touché.”

With my brother in charge of the financial aspects, things were definitely looking up. As stubborn a foe as the day was long, Bur was a stickler for the bottom line. The Queen of Clean, assisted by sidekicks Laurel and Lacey, no longer had any Four Acorns Inn rope to use on the unsuspecting spitball king. No lasso of love would grab Big Larry, drag him down the aisle, and tie him to the altar while he kicked and screamed. No, if we launched a wedding business, it would be a profitable venture, one that was responsibly managed by professionals. And if Edna and Big Larry decided to remarry, it would be -- unlike the last time -- by choice, not by deceit. How could Larry possibly object to that?

Bur continued talking as the plans took shape in his head. “I’ll talk to Boynton and get his thoughts on the subject. There’s no reason we should get the ladies all worked up if we’re not going to get him on board.”

“Fine, but just out of curiosity, you do realize I can’t run the wedding business all by myself, don’t you? We’ll need to hire some help.”

“Count me in,” said my teenage assistant.

“You’re already working at the inn and you’ve got to keep up with your college studies,” I pointed out. “That’s a full load, Jen.

“Yes, but I’m taking the summer off. No classes, Miz Scarlet.”

“Aren’t you visiting your grandparents in California?”

“I’m going for three weeks in August. That leaves the rest of the summer.”

“You might as well say yes,” my brother advised me. “The fact is she’d be an asset.”

“Thanks, Bur.” Jenny gave him a wide grin.

“Anything for you, kid,” he told her. “Now, if you two will excuse me, I’ll give Boynton a call.”

“Let us know what he says,” I called over my shoulder as I opened the door and shooed Jenny through it.

She and I walked back to the inn, arm in arm, plotting our next move. I could tell she was excited.

“Just remember, it’s not a done deal yet,” I warned her. “Like Bur said, if we’re going to do it, we actually have to turn a profit.”

“I know, but I was just thinking, Miz Scarlet,” she confided, that charming gamin face brimming with excitement, “about how much fun it will be to host weddings.”

“Will it?” I wasn’t so sure. “You know how irrational and high-strung some brides can be.”

“But why would those kinds of brides come to the Four Acorns Inn?” Her question caught me off-guard. I turned to face her.

“What do you mean?”

“The only people who would come here to get married are those who really care about each other.”

“You believe that?”

“Absolutely. The Four Acorns Inn is all about the love.”

“My heavens! You’re a romantic!”

“Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

“Ah....”

“This is why your mother worries about you,” Jen chided me. “You’re rather cynical when it comes to love, Miz Scarlet.”

“Am I?” I asked the earnest teenager, humoring her. “Maybe I’ve been an old maid a little too long.”

“Way too long,” she agreed impishly. “Way, way, w-a-y too long.