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“It’s the weirdest thing. They claim not to be married.”
“How is that possible?” I asked. The reservation had shown otherwise.
“Right? When I pull up their reservation on the computer, they have the same last name. The woman, Lacie, seemed so shocked when I showed her as much.
“She kept insisting she’d booked her own separate room, not a room with him. You know how fast our rooms fill up. People book a year in advance or more! There’s no way she had a room of her own.”
“Maybe she’s mentally ill,” I suggested, but even as I spoke the words, the bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“And Grace’s reservation?”
“It just appeared! I checked the computer for her name about a thousand times the day she got here, Boone.”
“Maybeyou’rementally ill.” It had to be said.
Junie pointed her finger at me in a “watch it” kind of way. “I know where you sleep.”
“Because that’s threatening,” I muttered.
“It’s the radio, Boone.”
My eyes slid to the contraption. It stared back at me, looking like a gothic window with its two long, vertical speakers and its knobs jutting out front.
I wasn’t so sure about that. Music may have played from it, but that didn’t mean anything. I’d adamantly denied the romantic speculation Junie and Aunt Meg had indulged in since I’d returned to West Hills, and I’d like to think I’d sing that tune until my dying day.
Then what did that mean about the attraction that flared in my chest any time I was in the same room with Grace? It was like she had a cause and effect preset deep within her that was fixed to trigger awareness inside of me like a light switch.
Then again, that attraction had been there from the minute I’d met the brunette woman. It’d flared the instant I’d seen her in my bed in my old room. That was unrelated to any radio.
I’d been fighting it since the day I’d met her.
“You heard the radio play,” I argued. “And it hasn’t meddled in your life.”
At that moment, the chef, Mason Devries, became visible in the office door’s window, wearing his white chef’s jacket. Junie squeaked a little noise and lowered her head.
“No way,” I said, suspicion creeping in. “You and Mason?”
Junie whirled and slammed her back against the door. “Shh. Nothing has happened necessarily. Just that every time the radio plays, we’re somehow managing to stand in that front room together without knowing how we got there.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He burned dinner the other night because he didn’t remember leaving in the middle of preparing it.”
That didn’t sound like Devries. I didn’t know him all that well. He and I kept to our own areas of expertise, but I knew how he felt about his reputation as a chef. He worked hard to ensure his food made a good impression on everyone who tasted it.
It certainly had on me. The guy knew how to cook, that was for sure. Every meal I’d eaten in the dining hall had left me wanting seconds.
“I’m sure the guests loved that,” I said.
Junie rolled her eyes. “He’s never had so many complaints about his food. Who am I kidding? He’s never any ANY complaints! That’s why we hired Mason Devries, because everything he cooks is delicious. He’s crazy frustrated by it.”
“Understandably so,” I said, straightening and resting a hand on the radio.
I examined its cherrywood color and dated design. How could it be playing now after a hundred years of silence?
The stories of music playing from the radio had been the reason my grandparents began dreaming of turning their home into an inn in the first place. According to the tales I’d grown up hearing, music began playing shortly after the radio’s arrival, and Mom had claimed an outrageous number of weddings the town had hosted because of the radio’s magic.
It was impossible. Magic wasn’t real. Santa wasn’t.
