Page 15 of Searching for Sunshine

“Oh, that’s comforting to hear,” I say with a nervous laugh.

“Well, now that you’re here, come on over and let me show you the books,” Miss Clara says, reaching out and taking my hand to pull me over to the counter. To be so old and on a cane, she’s surprisingly fast, and I have to hurry to keep up with her.

“Okay, here we are,” she says, grabbing a bright pink book off the side of the check-in counter. “So, all of the bookings for the summer are recorded in the front. And then in the back, there’s a list of monthly expenses and the staff members we’re currently employing. And in this little lock box down here is all the hotel room keys and a few extra master keys for the stock rooms.”

“Thank you, Miss Clara. Do you know how many guests we currently have?”

“Oh, dear, maybe one or two? Definitely not more than three.”

I blink at her in surprise. “Wait, that’s it? I knew we were down on reservations, but there’s over fifty rooms in this place. And it’s the summer season,” I say, feeling my panic start to rise. I hadn’t expected much, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad. “What about the pool and the restaurant?”

“Honey, your grandmother closed down the restaurant almost two years ago. It’s turned into a storage room for right now. But the pool is open if any of the few guests we have want to use it.”

“Wait, really? I can’t believe she left all of this out of our conversations,” I admit, and Avery pats my back in comfort.

“It’ll be fine, babes,” she tells me before we turn back to Miss Clara. “Thank you for keeping everything going in the meantime, Miss Clara. How have y’all been handling bookings here? Are there any websites, social media logins, or anything like that we should know about?”

“Oh, darling. The High Tide Hideaway doesn’t have any of that new-fashioned tech stuff. There isn’t a website. All of our reservations are done over the phone.”

Avery and I both pause, waiting for her to tell us that she’s joking, but she just shrugs. “It worked for your grandmother for years, so she never saw any need to go through the trouble.”

“So wait, how do guests find out about this place?” Avery asks.

“I don’t know. Most of the people that I’ve seen come through here have been coming here for years. But like I said, I’ve just been standing in as a favor to your grandmother since she passed, so I don’t know enough to help you there. But enough of all this talk, I’ve got an hour until I have to meet the girls for bingo. Now that you’re here, I’m going to leave you with it. Good luck, darling,” Miss Clara says, hugging me again and leaning over to pet Duke’s head before heading out the door.

I look over at Avery, and I see the same look of shock on her face that I’m sure is on mine. “Uh, so this might be a much bigger undertaking than we planned,” I tell her.

“Yeah, you’re right, but we’re gonna make it work,” Avery reassures me. “Let’s find me a room and figure out where I’ll be living.”

“That we can do,” I say before looking down at the mostly empty list of guests. “The good news is I’m pretty sure we have plenty of options.”

“Hell yeah.” Avery laughs, pointing at a random room number. “Let’s go with this one for now.”

“Perfect. Let me finish showing you around and then we can walk around town while we wait on the guys if we have time. Wyatt’s brothers and a friend offered to help us move our stuff in when they get off work, but I’m not exactly sure what time that’ll be.”

“Hell yeah! We don’t have to move all our shit by ourselves this time? See, if you ask me, there are some real perks to this whole marriage gig.”

CHAPTER 9

WYATT

“Okay, I think that’s everything for the day. Are you ready to go see your new wifey?” Trent asks me as we finish rinsing off the boats for the last time today.

“God, you’re having way too much fun with this,” I groan.

“Hell yeah, I am.” Trent laughs. “If it was anyone else, I don’t know that I’d think too much about it. But since it’s you? This whole situation is too damn good not to have some fun with.”

“Sure, whatever. Let’s just go get them moved in. There’s so much shit I need to take care of before tomorrow evening, and I don’t have time to deal with you,” I grumble, stepping off the boat and starting to walk down the pier.

“You know, as your newly ordained favorite brother, I don’t appreciate the way you’re talking to me,” Trent jokes.

“Yeah, yeah. I already told you thank you,” I say defensively.

“Yeah, I can feel the gratitude radiating off you as we speak.”

“Whatever. Are you ready to go?” I ask as we walk into the office to grab our keys and shut down everything for the day.

“Sure. I just need to answer a couple emails and make sure the schedule for tomorrow is finalized. You go ahead and I’llmeet you over at the hotel in a few minutes,” he answers, and I wave at him before heading out to my truck.

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