Homecoming Reunion Read online

  Uncle Baxter was quiet a moment before clearing his throat. “Speaking of being caught in the past, how did you and Garret get on?”

  Larissa squeezed her hands tighter together. “Fine.”

  “I shouldn’t have snapped at you two, but I was under a bit of a time crunch. I’m feeling pressured right now.” He reached over and covered her clasped hands with his. “Forgive me?”

  She pooh-poohed his question. “Nothing to forgive. We’re fine. It was just a bit awkward, but no, we’re fine,” she added, patting him on the hand.

  Uncle Baxter leveled her a curious glance. “That’s good to know, because I’m sure he’s buying the inn. He just told me outside.”

  Larissa could only stare at her uncle. No. This wasn’t good. This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t work with Garret.

  But what other option did she have?

  Chapter Four

  “Of course you have to buy Morrisey Creek Inn,” Hailey squealed, clapping her hands in delight, her green eyes glittering in the overhead lights of Nana Beck’s dining room. “Shannon and I want to have our wedding there. What do you think, sis?” Hailey asked turning to Shannon. “Maybe he could give us a discount.”

  Garret grinned at his cousins as he leaned back in his chair. Only he, Shannon and Hailey had come to the little get-together. Hailey’s fiancé, Dan, was away at a conference and his daughter Natasha was staying overnight at a friend’s place. Shannon’s fiancé, Ben, was working at the hospital. Garret’s brother Carter and his wife had other obligations as well. Garret had hoped to tell the whole family at once, but he knew whatever he said here would be repeated to the rest of the family, posthaste.

  He had waited until Hailey brought out dessert at the end of their little family dinner before letting loose with his plans. Hailey had almost dropped her plate of squares and cookies, she was so excited but Shannon had looked at him with her steady gaze, as if she knew the deeper implications of what he was doing. “What is your advice, Nana?” he asked, looking over at his grandmother.

  Nana folded her arms, rocking in her chair as if thinking. “You know I’d love more than anything for you to settle down here.”

  “We could have family get-togethers there,” Hailey added.

  “The last thing we need is yet another place to get together,” Shannon said. “Between the ranch and Nana’s oversize house here in town, I think we’re covered.”

  Hailey shrugged. “But still. That would be so cool. Though it could use a bit of sprucing up.” Her eyes got big and a smile split her face. “We could have a painting party. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Only you would consider painting fun,” Shannon groused. “Besides, Garret would have to run that idea past his partner.”

  Hailey frowned as if finally realizing what Garret knew Shannon had figured out a few sentences back. “That’s right. Larissa Weir’s dad owns that place now, doesn’t he? Since Mrs. Weir died?”

  “Larissa’s father and her uncle are equal partners,” Garret said, reaching for a cookie. “I would be buying out Baxter Lincoln’s share.” He didn’t tell them about Larissa’s two percent share. No sense complicating matters.

  “So that means you would be working with Jack Weir?” Shannon asked, her quiet question underlining his own qualms about his business plan.

  “To a point. I understand he’s left most of the day-to-day running of the inn to his daughter, Larissa, who manages it.”

  “Would you be able to work with your old girlfriend?” Nana asked.

  “Yes. Emphasis on old,” Garret mumbled around the cookie he had just taken a bit of. “Almost ten years ago.”

  “I can’t believe she’s still single,” Nana was saying.

  “I heard she was dating Pete Boonstra,” Shannon said.

  “Property Pete?” Hailey laughed. “That’s been over for months.”

  “That’s funny. He came into the hospital the other day and when I asked him about Larissa he made it sound like they were still an item.”

  “He wishes,” Hailey retorted, inspecting a cookie she had taken off the plate. “I’m fairly sure Larissa was the one to break things off. I heard her say something to her friend Alanna about it at Mug Shots when Dan, Natasha and I were there awhile back.” Hailey and her fiancé Dan frequently took Dan’s daughter, Natasha, out for lunch at Mug Shots which kept them current on local news.

  “But now, Garret, when you first came to town I understood you were buying part of the sawmill,” Nana said, touching his arm with her hand, corralling the conversation. “I didn’t think you were interested in running an inn?”

  Garret gratefully pulled his attention away from his cousins’ hashing out of the whys and wherefores of Larissa’s love life. He was more interested than he should be. “Baxter changed his mind about selling me the mill shares and offered this instead,” he said to his nana. “The inn is a good investment. It needs a lot of work, but I think with some improvements and a bit of publicity, business could pick up. I could turn around and sell my share for more than I paid for it if that happens.”

  “And then what would you do?”

  “Baxter said he might be willing to sell his shares in the mill in the future. I wouldn’t sell my shares of the inn until that opportunity comes up.”

  Nana’s deliberate nod accompanied by a frown seemed to say she wanted to understand what he was planning, but wasn’t sure she liked it. “So have you prayed about this?” she added.

  Her gentle question dove into his soul, laying bare the emptiness of his spiritual life. “No. I haven’t.”

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to bother the Lord with his business dealings when he hadn’t spoken to Him about any other part of his life.

  Nana reached over and laid her hand on his arm. “Then I will,” she said quietly. “You know I’ve always prayed for you? Ever since your mother came to the ranch, rejected by your father, expecting you and your brother, you’ve been in my thoughts and prayers.”

  He looked into his grandmother’s blue eyes so like his mother’s and he nodded. “I know, Nana.”

  “And I’ll continue to pray for you,” she said, squeezing his arm like a small benediction.

  The thought warmed his heart.

  Because he knew, if he bought this inn and had to work with Larissa Weir, he would need many prayers to keep himself from making the same mistake he had when he was younger.

  His mother crying in the kitchen after she had gotten fired from working at the mill, Larissa choosing her father over him. And later, letting people take advantage of him on some of his jobs—all of that had taught him one important lesson.

  You couldn’t depend on other people. You had to take care of yourself.

  And when it came to Larissa Weir, he had to be extra careful. Because, somehow, she had managed to maintain her hold of a piece of his heart.

  * * *

  “So looks to me like the inn has been posting steady losses,” Garret said, glancing up from the statements sitting on the table in front of him. “I’m surprised. It seemed to be busy all the time when I lived here.”

  Larissa nodded, his comment underlining her own concerns about the inn. She could probably recite the profit and loss statement by heart. She and Orest had gone over them extensively before she went to the bank.

  Garret drew his lip between his teeth as he rolled up the sleeves of his blue chambray shirt, as if getting ready to do some hard work. “So what do you think needs to change to make the inn stop bleeding red ink?”

  “Win the lottery,” she said, resting her elbows on the large wooden table of the inn’s office.

  It had been only been four days since Garret had come to the inn, looking to buy it.

  Now he was her father’s partner and no sooner had the ink dried on the agreement than Garret called a meeting with her. As a result, she and Garret had been sitting in the inn’s office since 6:30 a.m., looking over the financial statements. Orest couldn’t come though, citing a previous
obligation.

  It was only 7:30 a.m. and Larissa was already rethinking the silk shirt, pencil skirt, panty hose and high heels she had put on when she got up at the ridiculous hour of 5:00 a.m. to make it here on time. Most of her morning had been spent deciding what to wear. She had wanted to project a businesslike demeanor.

  Impress the new boss.

  Instead she fought the urge to push off her shoes, run to the bathroom and strip off the hose.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder and noticed that Les’s group was checking out.

  She had been worried about those customers since the first day they came in, but Garret had defused that situation and as a result they had been on their best behavior.

  Larissa reluctantly accepted that having a male partner who was involved in the business and who would be here every day was an advantage.

  “Lightning striking the inn and collecting insurance would be a more likely scenario,” Garret was saying.

  “I was kidding,” she replied, pulling her attention back to him.

  “So was I.” He picked up the papers again just as she reached for them. He jerked his hands back as she fought her own reaction. Then clenched her teeth. She had to, like her uncle had counseled her, get over it.

  Easier said than done, she thought, wondering why Garret still had such a profound impact on her.

  “I had a few ideas but my father never wanted to implement them,” Larissa said, aiming for a more casual tone.

  Garret leaned back in his chair frowning at the papers he held. “What were some of the things you wanted to do?”

  Her thoughts cast back to Garret’s reactions to the state of the inn and inwardly cringed again. Though the worn-out appearance of the inn wasn’t her fault, she still felt responsible. “Change the locks on the doors, like you suggested. Replace the carpeting, modernize the bathrooms, get new furniture and bedding for the rooms.” She had a five-page itemized list of things she wanted to do to bring the inn back to the glory days when her grandfather owned it. “When my mother inherited the inn she didn’t want to change it. She had grown up here and loved it the way it was. Then, after a long illness she died, and my father was even more reluctant to change it.”

  “Because of the cost?”

  “He has always balked at the cost. But I think changing things from the way my mom liked them was too hard.” She paused, a flicker of sorrow catching her unawares.

  Garret acknowledged this with a slow nod of his head. Then, after another moment of quiet, as if honoring her sorrow, he flipped through the sheets and stopped at one. “So we have a dilemma. Draw from the operating loan to fix up the inn and increase our expenses and hope for more business or leave it the way it is and slowly watch the income decrease even more.”

  “I don’t think it’s going downhill that quickly,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.

  “Think what you want,” he said with an absent tone as he flipped through the rest of the financial statements, “But from what I see around me and on these papers the income is decreasing exponentially.”

  “So why did you buy the place?” she snapped. Then wished she hadn’t. History with Garret aside, he was now her boss.

  “For the potential.” He put the papers down on the desk. “I think this inn could do much better than it is and I think I’d have to agree with your father. The renovations are further down the list of things to be done first.”

  She frowned, easily recalling his reaction to the general state of the inn. “You said yourself it needed a major overhaul.”

  “It does. But let’s start with the easy stuff first. Lose the cook. Anyone with a face that sour can’t possibly make food taste good. We need to actively seek new business. Are you on the Chamber of Commerce?”

  “I am, but haven’t had time to attend the meetings.”

  “That’s a place to start. We need to reach out and make connections. Drum up new business.”

  “That’s only half of the battle,” Larissa protested. “I have a suggestion box and one of the main comments is the state of the rooms. How old-fashioned they look.”

  “So we try to draw people in another way and emphasize the food rather than the rooms. As for the bookkeeping, I want us to move into the current century and set up the accounts so that we can view and pay bills online. What is more important, we need to get an external audit done on the books. So that we get a balanced view of the inn’s true financial situation.”

  Larissa felt a moment of confusion. “That makes it look like we don’t trust Orest.”

  “It’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of solid business practices.”

  “But he’s an old friend of my mother,” Larissa said in her defense.

  “Your mother isn’t running the inn anymore and friendship doesn’t balance the books.”

  Larissa blanched at his callous comment but Garret was still talking and not looking at her.

  “As for other staff,” Garret continued, making a note on the pad of paper in front of him. “I’d like to get Emily Dorval back working for us. I think for now the easiest thing to rectify is the cooking. The rest is fairly superficial stuff that will have to wait until we can increase traffic to the inn.”

  “Why Emily?”

  “She knows the kitchen. And I remember her as a good cook.”

  “She was a good cook. A great cook.”

  “I sense some hesitation.” He dropped his pen on the table and leaned back in his chair, his arms folded over his chest as he rocked back in the chair.

  Larissa fingered the edge of the papers she had in front of her, trying to formulate her thoughts. “I don’t know if she’ll come back,” Larissa said quietly.

  “Why not?” Garret prompted.

  “We had a bad fight,” Larissa admitted rubbing her forehead as if to ease away the memory of that afternoon. “It happened about a month after my mother died. Emily wanted to make substantial changes to the menu. I told her the inn couldn’t afford it. She made an obscure comment about the inn’s finances. Blamed my mother for not being more careful...” To her shame Larissa’s voice broke as she recalled the high emotions of the moment. She was still grieving the loss of her mother and Emily’s words seemed callous and uncaring. When Larissa had run the idea of changes in the menu past her father, he was adamantly opposed to spending more money. So Larissa had to go back and tell Emily no.

  “A year after she quit I was in Cranbrook,” Larissa said. “I had hoped to talk to her, to mend some fences between us, but Emily wasn’t working that day and the moment was lost.”

  “So I have to do some major sweet-talking to get her back.”

  “And give her a raise and be looking at a large increase in costs none of which we can afford according to the financials.”

  “We have an operating loan,” he said.

  “We’re fairly deep into it already.” Larissa said.

  “So we go to the bank and make it bigger. It looks like there’s still enough equity in the place to give us some wiggle room.”

  “We still have to pay it back.”

  “Part of the challenge.” He shoved his hand through his thick hair and shot her a crooked grin.

  His expression yanked her so quickly back to the past, it took her breath away. How often, as a young girl, had that very look sent her heart beating just a little faster?

  She repressed the faint flutter she felt now, recognizing that Garret was as good-looking as he was then. Better-looking, if she were honest.

  Then he was just a young man, tall, gangly, his long, dark hair perpetually falling into his wary eyes.

  He had filled out, his shoulders had broadened and the unruly hair had been tamed, as had his attitude.

  To a point.

  “I am sure we can turn this inn around,” he said with a note of confidence that encouraged her but, if she were completely honest with herself, nettled her at the same time. �
�But we have to be willing to take some risks.”

  “You’ve never run an inn before,” she said allowing a tiny note of asperity to creep into her voice.

  He shrugged off her comment. “I’ve been involved in enough businesses to be able to step back and be analytical about the bigger picture.”

  She wanted to agree with him, but the niggle of annoyance grew. “An inn is more than a business,” she said, looking past him through the window behind him, struggling to keep her voice even. “It becomes people’s home away from home. They come here to rest from a journey they’re on or they come here to be away from their ordinary life. It’s a place where people trust us to take care of them and that requires more than a good business mind to do properly.”

  Her voice had risen slightly on her last words and when she was done she realized she had clenched her fists on the table in front of her.

  In the silence that followed she faintly heard the plaintive wail of the train’s horn sounding through the valley, as if it echoed her own state of mind.

  “You have a real heart for this place, don’t you,” Garret finally said, breaking the quiet.

  “It has been in my family for decades and I know it’s old and needs work, but it is still a part of this town’s history.” She finally glanced away, thankful to see a serious expression on his face. “It has a lot of potential.”

  “I agree about the potential,” Garret said quietly. “I just hope we can agree on how to realize it.”

  “Do you still think rehiring Emily is the way to go?”

  He nodded and Larissa sensed he wasn’t wavering on this. She tapped the edges of her statements into a neat pile and picked them up. “So is there anything else we need to talk about?”

  “Not for now. I’ll take care of Emily and our current cook and let you deal with Orest and the audit. If you could take care of that in the next couple of days, then we can get moving on some other changes.”

  Larissa released a sigh, wondering what her father would say about the situation.

  But then she looked up at Garret and caught his frown, as if he sensed her hesitation.

  “Will that be a problem?” he asked.