Page 30 of When You Got a Good Thing (Misfit Inn 1)

Kennedy wrapped an arm around her. “We’re not getting rid of anything. We’re just rearranging. You agreed that having a room for your massage clients to come here makes the most sense for now.”

“I know, but...”

“And the guys are going to be here soon to help move furniture, so we need to clear things out as best we can. Plus, I have a plane to catch, so this is literally the last thing I can help with before I go,” Athena added. “Chop chop.”

Pru sighed. “All right. We’ll shift things to Mom’s room for now.”

They all pitched in, packing up the books, the knitting supplies, the prodigious supply of yarns, and all the other detritus that made up their mother’s personal space. Often with so many children in the house, she’d needed a room to get away from all the noise and chaos. This one, at the back of the house, looking out over the mountains, had been her retreat. Kennedy remembered many long conversations, where she’d curled up on the floor at Joan’s feet helping to ball yarn. Pru stared at that same spot on the floor, her hands hesitating over the contents of the little writing desk, while Athena and Maggie carried the ottoman out of the room.

“I don’t know how my clients are going to take to this. They’re used to me coming to them.”

Determined to be positive, Kennedy continued to load the contents of the bookcase into boxes. “It’s a good room for relaxing. That’s what your clients ultimately want, right?”

“Of course. But I don’t know how well they’ll relax if I can’t. I don’t know if I can work in here.”

“Is it that everything in here reminds you of Mom?”

“Doesn’t it you?”

“Sure. I will forever see her sitting in that chair with her knitting needles. But she’d want the space to be used. You know she wasn’t the kind of woman who was into having a shrine.”

“I know. I just...this is hard.”

“We need to make you think of something else when you come in here,” Kennedy declared.

“How?”

“We’ll make it look different. Once we carry out the furniture that’s in here, we can have the guys haul in that cabinet from upstairs. You can use it for towels and supplies. We’ll put up some gauzy curtains, set up a little sound system so you can play relaxing music. Maybe get one of those little water feature things. How much better might people be able to relax if they aren’t looking through the hole in your massage table to see that one random toy they didn’t get kicked out of the way before you showed up. We should really play up the idea of a sort of mini-spa.”

Athena came in on the tail end of that. “A spa? Really? Because anybody would come to Eden’s Ridge for that? Maybe we’d like to hook it on to the Snort and Curl and make a real high class establishment.”

Kennedy glared. “Don’t be a snob.”

“Not a snob. A realist.” She plucked up another huge basket of yarn. “I’ve been to high class spas. Nothing about the Ridge is high class.”

Kennedy bit back whatever retort she might have made. This was about making things easier on Pru and Athena wasn’t helping. “Whether you’re in the French Alps or in Tennessee, massage is a luxury.”

“My kind of massage is physical therapy,” Pru said.

“It can be both. Athena’s right that we aren’t crazy and high class. We’re not trying to be. That doesn’t mean you can’t still give clients an experience that takes them temporarily out of their lives, out of their worries for a little while.”

“I do have at least some clients who would probably be into that.”

“And it’s possible that kind of setup could attract some more clients.”

“More business would certainly not be a bad thing.”

“If you’re not having to add in travel time, you would actually have more time available to book extra clients,” Maggie added.

“Not to mention the savings on gas,” Kennedy added.

“I’ll get used to it. And having the room look different would help,” Pru conceded.

Happy she seemed to have made things at least a little better for her sister, Kennedy threw herself into packing, half her mind on how they could redecorate the room. Filling one box, she reached for another. The top shelf was full of albums. As Pru came back in, she asked, “When did Mom get into scrapbooking?”

“About the time you started sending postcards home.”

Curious, she opened one at random and found postcards and letters she’d sent from Prague. There were also emails and printed pictures.

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