Page 6 of Under The Christmas Lights 6

“Good,” Heidi replied, nodding. “I’ve got Cynthia coming in to take your place at the front desk for today, and Lorrie’s agreed to work a double. You need all the time you can get to practice your speech.”

Birgit winced, and shook her head.

“Don’t do that to Lorrie; she’s already done so much for us. Giving her a double shift isn’t exactly saying thank you.”

Heidi laughed softly. “Who do you think suggested it?” she asked. “You know Cynthia and Lorrieloveworking together.”

She paused, her smile dropping a little. “Besides, a good portion of our guests left once we announced the shutdown of the hot springs. They’ll both get a lot of time to relax. I even told them Tucker and Pierce could come in and hang in the lobby.”

Birgit bit her bottom lip and nodded. It was a harsh fact, but it wasn’t a surprise. Their hot springs were their biggest draw, and now they were ruined. They had been able to stave off most cancellations before then despite their many strange problems, but once they closed off the pools, people started leaving in droves. The only positive to come of it all was that only a handful of their guests requested a refund. Otherwise, they would have been in huge trouble.

“Okay,” Birgit agreed, pushing the intrusive thought away from her. “You’re right. I need to practice my speech. I think I’m going to see if Chris is free to come over. It might help me to start practicing aloud to an actual person.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Heidi agreed.

“I just want this all to be over,” Birgit sighed, hugging her youngest sister.

“Me too,” Heidi agreed, squeezing her tightly back. “And it will be. If there’s one thing about Frieda, it’s that she’s determined. Whatever she has to do to pull this thing off, we both know she’ll do it.”

“That’s true.” Birgit laughed softly, pulling away. “So we’ve got this?”

Heidi smiled as she nodded affirmatively back at her sister. “We’ve got this.”

* * *

“You deserve a Grammy,” Regan praised, his green eyes bright with triumph.

“You weren’t so bad yourself.” Frieda laughed, feeling her cheeks grow warm. “Even I have to admit that that was quite a performance for us. Not bad for our first time.”

“Not bad at all,” Regan agreed. “And Erik and I had a hunch Jimmy would be there. He’s growing more paranoid, so he’s going to grab for more control.”

It might have been predictable to Regan, but it had really thrown Frieda off when she spotted Jimmy blending in among the many men seated at the restaurant’s bar. She almost hadn’t spotted him because he’d been so well disguised, but when Regan pointed him out to her, she knew right away it was him.

It had startled her so much that she thought it was going to ruin her performance, but instead, it only made her better. Regan and her imaginary breakup had gone beautifully. She finally had a place and reason to project some of her pent-up feelings toward men, and it had feltreallygood. It also gave Regan a solid platform to act as the heartbroken, bitter, rich boy toy who just got dumped. The scene had Anita and Jimmy both playing right into their hands.

As soon as Frieda had stormed off, Jimmy came over to introduce himself to Regan and Anita immediately began to ask Wendy for details. Wendy, who’d strengthened her constitution, had played her part perfectly and gave Anita all of the details Erik and Regan had rehearsed with her.

Just like they had planned, Frieda had stormed off and pretended to leave but had gone around the block to wait for Regan in one of the town’s many small coffee shops where they’d parked the car. Inside, she quickly changed back into her regular clothes and scrubbed the makeup off her face. It was a nice look, but it wasn’t her.

Now, they would all reconvene at Davis’ place since it was still daytime. So far, Wendy had not only been able to text them some details about her and Anita’s conversation, but also wrote that there was much more to share. For the time being, she was still with Anita and would join them later.

“So, give me the details,” Frieda urged as Regan pulled his black Jeep Gladiator onto the road.

“Like I said, you deserve a Grammy.” Regan laughed. “Jimmy practically leaped into your seat the moment you left and started talking about the heartache of losing a Strauss sister. He immediately tried to play into my emotional side.”

“I would have loved to see that.” Frieda laughed.

Regan smirked at her.

“I think you’d be surprised how emotional I can pretend to be,” he teased. “I can actually play the broken boyfriend pretty well.”

“Because of your job?” Frieda asked.

“Because of my experience,” Regan admitted, turning to her with a “but what do you do?” shrug.

Frieda grimaced, knowing the feeling all too well.

“That sucks,” she replied, “I’m sorry.”

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