Page 33 of The Accidental Innkeeper

Hard lines. Clear rules.

I was doing this for the inn—for Dottie, for Edna. That was the story, and I was sticking to it.

I wasn’t getting involved. I was just going to help, and then I was out.

The road curved, trees blurring past. Main Road opened up ahead, and the closer I got to the coast, the more that familiar salt smell crept in. I drove faster than I meant to. I didn’t like that either.

The inn appeared on the cliff like a punchline you couldn’t avoid.

That pink. Jesus Christ.

I slowed as I turned in, my tires crunching over gravel. Becca’s white BMW was gone now. Good. It meant New York wasn’t being managed by someone competent. Which was… not good.

I spotted a couple of cars out front I didn’t recognize. The porch looked the same as always, sturdy, wide, dramatic with rocking chairs lined up like witnesses. Window boxes were dead as hell from total neglect.

I killed the engine and sat there, my hands still on the wheel. The truck ticked as it cooled, the sound loud in the quiet.

A soft opening.

People didn’t make decisions like that unless they planned to see them through. Unless they were stubborn enough to fight a losing battle just to prove someone wrong. I knew that type. Hell, I was that type.

I should’ve left. I could still leave. Throw it in reverse, tell Dottie I took a call, tell myself I’d done my part just by showing up.

Instead, I stayed.

Because I was already here. Because walking away now would stick in my teeth worse than staying. Because the idea of New York trying to wrangle an old inn and a soft open without someone keeping the place from falling apart rubbed me the wrong way.

I didn’t want to be responsible. Didn’t want to be involved. Didn’t want to care.

Yet, here I was, parked in front of a pink building that had no business pulling me in.

I exhaled hard through my nose.

Shit.

I opened the door and stepped out, gravel crunching under my boots. The inn loomed above me, bright and stubborn and alive, like it was daring me to turn back.

I shut the door harder than necessary.

This wasn’t going to be ten minutes.

And I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be the last time either.

8

SARAH

Writing a book is hard. Trying to run an inn, well… that’s a full-contact sport.

Yesterday, I’d woken up blissfully unaware of how much one’s life could detonate in twenty-four hours. If you’d asked me then whether I’d ever run, let alone own, an inn, I would’ve laughed directly in your face. Not politely. A full snort-laugh. Maybe even a bit of spit. Then I would’ve told you to go screw yourself and possibly questioned your mental health.

Me? Run an inn? Never in a million years. Never in a million organized years.

Yet, here I was, standing behind the front desk at the Hartwell Inn doing exactly that. Or trying to. Mostly failing.

I squinted down at my aunt’s booking ledger, which looked like it had been written during a séance by someone who hated vowels. Beside it was a towering stack of books I was apparently supposed to have read by now.

There was Innkeeping for Dummies, which felt a tad judgmental. How to Run an Inn and Not Have a Nervous Breakdown, aspirational at best. The Inns and Outs of Inns, which told me nothing except that someone really loved puns. And my personal favorite: How Not to Turn Your Inn into a Money Pit.