Page 15 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

Collin

Collin was in real trouble with Alice Seastairs.

Alice was a consummate professional, knowledgeable, occasionally a little bit of a pain in the ass. And completely charming.

Alice seemed to know something about everything: history, art, carpentry, geography.

How did she keep track of it all? If it was anyone else, he would suspect her of googling behind his back or making it up as she went along, but Alice didn’t flatter him, even when it would have been better for her. She didn’t try to work him.

She was artless.

That didn’t mean she moved without grace.

She clearly didn’t enjoy that awful grilled-cheese sandwich, but she’d managed to hide that, eat the whole thing, and thank him for lunch.

Honestly, he’d only “invented it” as a kid to see if Chef André would do it, and she’d eaten it not to be polite, but out of stubbornness.

When she’d asked him if he was doubting her resolve, something shifted in his gut and he knew…yep. He was in trouble.

There were probably better uses for his time than seeking out old furniture for a fairly minor aspect of a big project. His days seemed to be a never-ending to-do list of little chores to close the empty hotel for the summer and start the construction. And yet, he kept being drawn back to Alice.

Alice, who was all calm, steady, obstinate humor.

Alice, who seemed content to roam the unoccupied floor of suites to get a better feel for the space, even if the sheer orange-ness of the decor should have been enough to send her running back to her shop.

Alice, who was smiling up at him with those big green eyes, because she didn’t know what a mess he really was.

“This is the Cowslip Suite,” he told her days after their lunch, as they walked into what would have probably been considered the honeymoon suite in most hotels. They were greeted by a huge bedroom with fantastic lake views opening onto a bathroom almost overtaken by a huge whirlpool tub.

“We’re going to name the suites for flowers native to Michigan. Cowslip, Apple Blossom, Dwarf Lake Iris, which doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Not exactly inspired, I know,” he said. “But it’s returning to the names Forsythe used when the place was built.”

“Better than Bloodroot or Bladderwort,” she replied. “All species found in Michigan are not particularly romantic, I suppose, but—oh, my God.”

She stood on the bright carmine carpet and averted her eyes from the horror.

The walls were coated in a shade of ginger that belonged on the heads of 1950s starlets.

The big overstuffed couch and chaise lounge were black leather, paired with chrome accent tables and a gray rubberized chair that looked like if you sat in it wrong, it would launch you out the window.

“I need to ask you a serious question,” Alice said. “Is this a prank? Haha, get the uptight girl to buy antiques for the sex room? Because I am not OK with that.”

“No, I promise.” He burst out laughing and covered his mouth. He cleared his throat. “This is very, very real.”

“How did people sleep in here?” she asked, slipping her sunglasses out of her jacket pocket and onto her nose. It only made her more adorable. “It would be like camping on Mars.”

“The previous owner was vulnerable to decorating advice based on soul-candling?” he said, shrugging. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“And impractical modernism, it would seem,” Alice mused, staring at the spring-loaded chairs.

“Online reviewers have complained of orange-related headaches,” he sighed, making her snort. “We’re going to wipe this slate clean—the whole hotel, really. You have carte blanche.”

“Are you sure you want to put real antiques in a hotel room? You’re going to have to do a lot to make them safe for guests to use.

And don’t people usually treat hotel rooms like garbage?

” she asked as she used a laser gadget to measure the wall where the bed was located.

Then she measured the space between the far wall and the french door as well as the length of the wall that led to the bathroom.

“Wouldn’t reproductions make more sense? ”

He opened his phone to show her photos of the designers’ sketches and samples of the furniture they’d selected.

“The decorators have already selected reproductions for the widely available rooms. While the rooms will be the best possible imitation of the suites, they’ll be able to hold up under a whole soccer team and still look clean and unscathed. ”

“You’re actively working not to call them the ‘regular rooms’ for the regular people, aren’t you?” she asked, smirking at him.

“No, as there are more than three hundred of them, they are widely available,” he said.

“But the nightly rate we’re going to charge on the suites will discourage most ‘disposable treatment.’ And the guest agreement makes it clear how expensive it will be for them to mess around.

They don’t want to ‘find out,’ as the kids say. ”

She nodded as he scrolled through the images. “You’ve got a sort of simplified art nouveau. Rich finishes. Long, curving lines, scrollwork everywhere, slender table legs that are a lot more stable than they have a right to be. Nice job.”

Despite not knowing anything about what she was talking about, Collin nodded. “Mm-hm. The hotel sort of peaked after World War I. I want to recapture that elegance. I want people to feel like they’re walking into an Agatha Christie story.”

“Didn’t people get murdered in those stories?” Alice reminded him. “At hotels?”

“An Agatha Christie story, minus the murder,” he amended.

When she stared up at him, all skeptical smiles, he added, “OK, that sounds like a really boring murder mystery. I just want guests to feel they’re somewhere special, the kind of trip they’ll talk about for the rest of their lives—or, if we’re lucky, they’ll make us a part of their lives and we’ll see them over and over.

That’s what I want to return this place to: a monument to our guests’ enjoyment. ”

She was staring at him again. “You are an enigma.”

His brows rose. “How so?”

“You dress like the scariest businessman in the room, but you’re just a big old ball of sentimental schmaltz.”

“I am ruthless,” he insisted, making her giggle. Oh, that sound and what it was doing to his chest. “Coldhearted and unfeeling, absolutely relentless in my pursuit of the almighty dollar. Don’t you ever forget it.”

“Yes, you’re clearly a business ogre,” she said, shaking her head.

After showing Alice some of the equally orange suites, where she took more measurements, they took a walk around the island—the prohibition of motor vehicles in certain historic areas of the island being something Collin was still getting used to—looking at some of the stock at local stores.

Collin had never been much for shopping for the sake of shopping. But with Alice, he enjoyed himself, even if she did seem very tense every time they were out on the sidewalk. Her eyes darted nervously around the crowded streets, even with the warmth of summer sunlight on her cheeks.

“Do people really travel to an island to go antiquing?” he asked, trying to distract her. “As a tourist, I would think it would be difficult to get the furniture home on the ferry.”

“Most people buying furniture from us are decorating homes on the island,” she said as she opened the door to Tremont’s Treasures.

“But we do occasionally sell to tourists. We have some sweetheart deals with the Perkins ferry line to help offset the shipping costs. Not that my grandparents pass those savings along to the customer.”

While Collin had trained himself to accept the orangescape of the hotel’s interior, the chaos of Tremont’s made his brain jam for a few seconds.

There was simply stuff everywhere : large stained-glass panels that looked like they belonged in church windows, rusty tricycles hanging from the ceiling by piano wire, silverware, moldering ladies’ hats, costume jewelry, dented musical instruments.

“Willard Tremont thinks his ‘styling’ of the store dazzles the eye. It’s more of a punch to the optical nerve.” She murmured as she took his hand and squeezed. “Breathe. It will pass in a second.”

“What’s that smell?” he asked of the sweet-moldy scent that invaded his nostrils.

“Old stuff,” she said. “Willard is a bit of a pack rat, but he has a much better eye for authentic pieces than Nick.”

She paused as her eye seemed to land on a waxy-looking imitation fruit pie displayed on glass cake stand. “And I kind of owe him a favor. Willard! I brought you a customer!”

Over the next hour, Mr. Tremont was thrilled to point out several dressers that might fit the hotel’s needs.

All of those dressers were currently being used to display figurines in every medium.

Alice took note of each one, unwilling to negotiate pricing until they had a place to store the pieces.

She measured them, inspected them for scratches and, at one point, she pulled open the top drawer of a particularly handsome specimen, cocking her head so…

she could listen to how smoothly it opened?

Alice reached into the back of the drawer, tapping and frowning at the noise she heard.

She stretched her arm farther into the dresser, until she was almost shoulder deep in the drawer. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but a couple of seconds later, he heard a pop, and she pulled out a thin board the full length of the dresser.

“Did you break it?” he asked quietly.

“It’s a false back,” she told him. “You find it sometimes in pieces like this. People didn’t always trust banks after the crash. And they didn’t have the document storage options we have today. Not a lot of space in this one, considering the size of the drawer, just big enough to…wow.”