Page 19 of The Grump Who Stole Christmas
It hadn’t been a choice. Ihadto take the mug.
When I left her room, mug in hand, I’d been smiling. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. Just smiled because I was having fun.
On paper theexecutive VPof a Fortune 500 company was the last person I had any interest in getting to know. That was a world full of people I wanted to leave firmly in my rearview mirror. Except Kristen Kringle wasn’t on paper anymore. She was in the flesh.
When she’d squirmed in her chair after I told her I had skills…
Yeah, this was going to be fun.
And that was something I hadn’t had in a long time.
FIVE
Kristen
This was a disaster. Worse than I could have imagined. I stared at the computer screen and couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.
“Dad, why didn’t you tell us?” I asked the screen.
The inn had been losing money for years. Since mom died, but these past two years had seen a particularly sharp drop-off. The tree farm was the only income that had remained steady, but it wasn’t enough to support the entire operation.
Hell, it was barely enough to cover any salary we might be paying to an arborist. Although for the life of me I couldn’t find a salary on the books for Paul. Just the expense of the cabin that was located on the edge of the property behind the farm.
Last I knew of that cabin, it hadn’t been livable. Given its distant location from the inn and the other cabins, it hadn’t made sense to use it as a rental. It’d been there when Dad bought the property, but he’d never used it like it was intended, as a caretaker cottage.
For years it had been our hideaway fort while Ethan, Matt, and I were growing up. When we outgrew it, Dad had boarded it up. He was afraid the roof and floor were no longer safe, and he didn’t want anyone getting hurt.
Now the arborist, who drove a Tesla, who was living in my brother’s bedroom temporarily, was planning to live there.
Permanently, or at least as long as eight years when the crop of trees he’d planted would be harvested.
There was a story there. Pieces of a puzzle that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Only I couldn’t let that distract me from what clearly was a serious problem for my dad.
I could confront him, demand that he tell us why he didn’t let anyone know what was happening to the business, but what was the point?
Haranguing him for keeping secrets didn’t fix anything. Blaming him for letting the business go didn’t feel right either. Dad wasn’t a frilly guy. The small things were not his forte and a place like this, it was all about the small things.
How the rooms were decorated. The smell of pine trees. Fresh apple cider and homemade baked goods. You take that stuff away and it was just a big old house with a bunch of cabins out back next to a Christmas tree farm.
Mom had always made it magical. I bet my dad’s only concern had been making sure housekeeping kept up. It wasn’t enough for a place like this. Not to make a profit.
And what about advertising? I found what amounted to a marketing budget but the numbers would barely cover the printed brochures my mom had made up years ago. If we were even still printing the brochures.
It was a hot mess. One thing was for certain, we needed a plan. My first thought was to seek out Ethan at his office and tell him what we needed to do. Then I remembered how busy he’d said he was. He thought I didn’t pay attention, but I did.
Dad need to rest and heal. Ethan needed to help shoulder the burdens.
I was theboss lady.Fixing operations. Making things more efficient. Eking out a profit. Those were my skills. That’s what I did.
There were a thousand problems to fix at the inn and immediately my mind started whirring. Something like this could overwhelm people, but I thrived in this type of working environment. The key was to take on the biggest problem and fix that.
The inn was only half full leading into the Salt Springs Christmas Jamboree. We could fix that. Change the direction with an effectively targeted promotion. A way to bring people back to Salt Springs and remind them how much they loved it here. Or a way to bring new customers and give them an impression of the inn as it used to be.
There was no way I was going to be able to tackle all the other issues and handle the promotion. That was another skill I had. I knew when to own something and when to delegate. Trying to pull together a campaign at this late date was going to be full-time work.
Who did I know in the area who could handle a job like this with short notice?
