Room at the Inn for Christmas (Second Chance at Star Inn)
Mary Connealy
Chapter One
Heywood, Oregon
Star Inn Bed & Breakfast
Thursday, December 22
Getting to Heywood, Oregon, from Los Angeles by plane had taken so long with plane delays and a layover that Amanda Star could have almost driven. But flying seemed faster . . . and Amanda’s life was all about faster.
She snapped a glance at the time on her iPhone. “Eight p.m. A wasted day.”
Snow fluttered down, fat flakes that flashed in swooping arcs into her headlights. The wintery beauty tugged at her. She hadn’t seen a single flake where she lived in LA and she missed it. But instead of letting the pleasure of it seep in, she told herself she was glad she hadn’t had to worry about winter weather anymore. And thank heavens she’d flown, so she was only on the road for an hour.
Not that the roads were particularly bad. The blizzard that had swept through the area in the last few days had left deep drifts, but the roads and streets had been scraped and salted.
She pulled her rental car into Heywood. It was a week before Christmas, and the quaint little town looked like a Thomas Kinkade painting. Warm, snowy, welcoming. The town square trees were covered with white twinkle lights that turned it into a Christmas wonderland. Her breath caught at the sight of the gazebo. It was lined with lights, all beautiful, gleaming white. It was so familiar.
Four long years since she’d been home. She didn’t want it to be as charming as she’d remembered.
And there it was. Her breath caught again.
The star.
It shone from the spire above the turret year-round, but right now, with the whole town decorated for Christmas, the glow was spiritual, like a star in the East.
A guiding light, leading her home. Leading her to the Star Inn.
Her last trip home had been Christmas her senior year of college. The year her father had made it very clear Heywood was her past, not her future. Then she’d taken the job in LA, and from then on when she got lonely for her father he’d come to her. She’d never been welcomed home again. There’s nothing for you in Heywood, her father’s long-ago words whirled through her mind as her rental car approached the old inn.
Her eyes slid down from that bright star to the beautiful front porch, rich with evergreen swags and red bows. Candles shone in the windows.
She’d grown up in that huge, lovely house. A blessed childhood where she felt like the princess in a castle. And then she’d left, and never come back.
And she wouldn’t be here now if she could have avoided it.
Amanda parked on the street, already calculating how to cut the length of her stay at the Star Inn. She was pushing her luck being gone from work this long, especially with a move into the corporate offices waiting in the wings. It was Thursday night. She’d get everything done tomorrow, then leave Saturday morning. The Beverly Halston Hotel was always short staffed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so she’d be needed at work.
Knowing that a promotion awaited her back in California helped her fight down any old sentiment. She stepped out of the rented Lexus and buttoned her cashmere Burberry trench coat. For a second a wave of embarrassment washed over her. She’d definitely dressed in her best big-city clothes.
She’d wanted to show everyone she’d made it. Vera Wang caramel wool pants and a silk blouse in the same shade, which brought out the freshly updated lowlights in her blond hair. Gucci boots just a shade darker than her clothes, and a purse to match. She’d shopped hard to find boots that didn’t have three-inch heels because that made her six one and she didn’t like towering over people, although this once, for her visit home, it might’ve been okay. She didn’t worry much about ice in Southern California. But she knew she might be walking on snowy sidewalks up here in Oregon. She held the lapels of her coat’s collar closed, not so much to ward off the chill of the weather as to ward off the chill of dread.
She left her Louis Vuitton luggage in the car and pressed the lock button. Most people didn’t even lock their cars up here, or at least they hadn’t used to. But it was a habit from her years in the big city.
She stiffened her spine and studied the inn, fighting the allure of that wide front porch; its railings, all lit up, seemed to be arms welcoming her home. There were lights on behind the windows of the grand front entrance, framed by a porch that wrapped all the way around the old Victorian mansion.
Her nerves were so bad her hand went unerringly to the bottle of antacids in her purse. A roll didn’t get her through the day, so she’d taken to carrying a whole bottle. She popped one and swore off coffee—for the fourth time this week—then forced herself to think of her other life. Her real life.
She’d walked away from a backbreaking workload in LA managing the Halston Beverly Hotel; now as she walked up the stairs she forced her eyes away from the inn and checked her phone for messages—there were a bunch of them. Three minor fires had sprung up in the eight hours since she’d been gone. Their head chef had cut his hand badly and the staff was scrambling to replace him. A concert, canceled when the lead singer was arrested, had been delayed and the whole band and their entourage, which took up an entire wing of the top floor, demanded they be allowed to stay an extra day. A billionaire’s daughter had shown up demanding a room in the fully booked hotel, and when she’d been turned away she’d threatened them with Daddy’s lawyers. There were feathers that needed smoothing on all fronts.