Page 18 of There I Find Hope

“Rodney. He’s...just graduated from high school. He might be going to college, but yeah. He loves the horses.”

He nodded. He heard stories, but they were rumors. So he didn’t want to mention it. But it seemed like Rodney maybe had a tough time, and the horses were good for him. Regardless, it didn’t really apply to the subject at hand. He was talking about the hotel.

“We want to help the people of Strawberry Sands. I mean, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that we’re going to do it at a loss. We’re not. We want to make money. But drawing people in, giving them a place to stay should help with the tourism aspect. But we don’t want to take business away from your mother.”

“That’s a relief,” she said, but her words were guarded.

“One of the things that we were thinking that would help would be to have a brochure in the lobby with all of the information about the bed-and-breakfast. Your mom has a great story, a story of overcoming. It’s a story of achieving the American dream, pretty much. Without the romance aspect, I guess.”

Sunday snorted. “A lot of us don’t have the romance aspect.”

She sounded a little bitter, but Noah didn’t comment on that. He wanted to. Wanted to ask her if the right man came along, if she would consider trying the romance thing again.

He wanted to try for the first time. But only with her.

He shook those thoughts away. He was supposed to be focusing on the brochure and the hotel.

“Anyway. We wanted to give it a prominent place in the hotel. Personally, in my experience and to my business knowledge, the people who stay in hotels are different than the people who stay at bed-and-breakfasts. The hotel shouldn’t be taking business away. But my partner and I agreed that we won’t be offering free breakfast at the hotel. If people want breakfast, they’ll have to stay with you.”

“I like that,” she said cautiously.

“We’ll also have the brochure, and that was what I wanted you to help me design. Or Lena. One of you.”

“Well, Mom’s in charge, but she often delegates to us kids. I’m pretty sure that one of us will be doing it, most likely me.”

He laughed and was gratified to see her smiling. She had a beautiful smile. Not necessarily because she had perfect features, but more because it lit up her face, made her eyes glow, and warmed his heart. That was what made her smile so amazing.

“All right then. I just told you my ideas, you’re welcome to come up with something else. I can have my people design it with your ideas, or you guys can design it yourselves. It’s totally up to you.”

“All right.” Her eyes went to the paper in front of him where he’d typed out the information he thought should be on it. “I assume we have some time to think about this? Considering the hotel isn’t even built?”

“I’m hoping to have it done by the end of the summer. It should go up fast, now that we’ve cleared all the hurdles with the state and local authorities. We have everything lined up, and construction began last week.”

“Wow. I thought it would take years to build. Shows what I know.”

“It takes years to get permission to build.” He loved the glow in her eyes. And he loved that she wasn’t afraid to admit when she didn’t know something. Again, it showed a humbleness that he didn’t always see in people. But he appreciated.

“You know, I never saw you as a businessman. I guess I thought you’d stay around Strawberry Sands. Although, you have a point. I don’t know what you would have done to earn a living.”

“Me either. My parents ended up with some property that brought in a lot of money. My grandparents weren’t exactly rich, but they were well off. My dad was able to work from home, back before it was something that everybody did. So, I guess that’s how I was able to grow up here. But there wasn’t anything for me to take over or step into, so I had to make my own way.”

“So many of us do. But I guess I was blessed.” She looked around the room. “I had this to fall back on. Thankfully. Since my candy shop isn’t doing very well.”

“We’ll put a brochure for your candy shop in the hotel too. We want to do all the businesses that are in Strawberry Sands. Like I said, we’re promoting the town, not just the hotel, because what benefits Strawberry Sands benefits us.”

“That makes sense to me. I guess... I haven’t been back in my candy shop because I live above it and...”

“I heard about your loss. I’m sorry.”

He hated to bring it up, although she really had. Because she’d gone from smiling with her eyes sparkling to looking down at her hands on the table and seeming sad.

“Thank you. I’m not over it, not by any stretch. But every day, I feel a little better, you know? Mom said time heals everything; I didn’t believe that could be true. It’s funny, when you hear that, you want a whole lot of time to pass really fast. But that’s not the point, is it?”

“I think maybe sometimes we have to go through grief so that we can help other people who are going through grief.”

“I know God has a reason. Maybe that’s it.”

“I hope not. It’s hard to watch others suffer. I know for myself, I’d rather go through it for them than watch people I love be miserable.”

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