Page 1 of Making New Plans

1

Chloe

Nothing screwed up my morning faster than a broken coffee machine. Especially on Thursdays. Pine Grove Lodge was always in massive prep mode every Thursday. Which meant I, as the manager, spent the day running around like a maniac in business yoga pants trying to turn over each room before the weekend guests arrived. But this time minus my caffeinated smile.

I glowered at my empty mug, trying to think of a way to fill it before I had to face the world. My mug offered zero answers. Same with the sad, silent coffee machine. I turned to the morning kitchen crew as if to confirm a beloved relative had indeed passed away.

Mable, who was older than most of the fifty-foot trees on the property, shook her hair-netted head while she chopped tomatoes for omelets. “Sorry, Chloe. I pushed every button I could find and re-plugged it five times.”

My chest deflated. If the coffee machine hadn’t been dead before, Mable had probably buried it six feet under. She firmly believed any mechanical malfunction could be solved with methodic fiddling and coaxing.

I tried to smile. “It’s fine, Mable. Did you call Carter to check it out? He resurrected our stove after George’s deep-fried lobster tragedy.”

“I heard that,” said George, the other morning cook and likewise aged, from where he washed Mable’s dirty pots and pans. He’d been born and raised in our sweet little town of Tangled River, Minnesota, same as Mable and me. But he’d been working for Pine Grove Lodge since he could hold a job and had never looked back. “And yes, I called Carter. But the sheriff needed him for some computer problem. Didn’t say how long it’d take. We can manage fine with the Little Dripper over there.”

He jerked a soapy thumb toward the ancient coffee machine that sat in a cluttered corner of the kitchen. It had earned its nickname from its lovely ability to drip acrid coffee one cup at a time.

A headache wormed its way behind my left eyebrow, but I commanded my sagging smile to stay put. “Okay, only a handful of guests need breakfast this morning. Set out a big pitcher of orange juice, and if they insist on coffee, provide a lot of cream and sugar.”

“Will do, boss,” said George with a pearly-denture smile.

Struck by an idea, I abandoned my mug and hurried through the kitchen doors into the lobby.

“Sarah? Sarah!” I winced at the panicky note in my voice as I whipped my gaze around the old hunting lodge-style lobby.

I spotted a ladder leaning against the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace the same time Sarah’s voice reached me from above.

“First of all, you sound like an overexcited terrier when you haven’t had enough caffeine. Secondly, I’m trying to concentrate, so give me a minute.”

I looked up and gaped when I saw Sarah Weaver, my best friend since kindergarten, my roommate, and the owner of a successful coffee shop, standing at the top of the ladder and leaning out over the fireplace while trying to unhook a Christmas wreath from Morton the Moose’s head. Three thoughts whizzed through my mind like bullets:

Crap, she’s going to fall! On a Thursday!

I should’ve taken those wreaths down months ago.

I may never get my coffee now!

The ladder tottered as Sarah stood on her tippy toes and slid the ribbon-bedecked wreath from one of Morton’s antlers.

I jolted forward to hold the ladder steady. “You know, when I asked you to do this, Sarah, I thought you’d have, I don’t know, tools for this?”

Sarah huffed. “You thought I’d have a special hooked pole for decorating with things like wreaths?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then you’d be right. But I forgot it at home and knew you were in a time crunch today—”

“—don’t remind me—” I muttered, the image of a devastatingly handsome and angry man and his imperious grandmother at a funeral flickering in my memory.

“—so I figured why waste those awful yoga classes you forced me to take with you.”

I glared at her brown ponytail bobbing above me. “They’re not awful, and they’re supposed to be relaxing.”

Sarah guffawed. “Give me one second so I can give you a properly sarcastic eyebrow-raise. Got it!”

She planted her heels back on the ladder, pulling the wreath with her. One of the ribbons caught on Morton’s antler, and a loud crack echoed in the wooden rafters.

My mouth opened in a silent scream as Morton pulled free of his moorings and tumbled nose-first into the sooty fireplace. Another crack sounded, and the offending antler snapped off.

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