Page 18 of Sandbar Summer (Summer Cottage #3)

The only thing anyone in Hollywood wanted Goldie Hayes for right now was to roast her over an open pit.

“Forget the messages. Put an out-of-office reply in everything, tell ‘em I’m traveling, on an extended trip, and you’ll answer only urgent requests.”

“Got it. Do you still need the car?”

“Forget the car. For now. Put Myrna on the phone.”

Goldie heard the soft snerfle sound of Myrna breathing into Tally’s smart phone.

“Hello darling, I miss you. I love you!”

Myrna barked in response.

“She totally recognizes your voice.”

“Thank you, Tally. Make sure she gets her nighttime treat.”

She ended the call.

She walked into the sitting room lobby, walked back to the kitchen, and then in a circle around the main floor. She was pacing.

Goldie processed the information from Hedda and Tally. She’d avoided the gossip sites and social media. The image of the angry horde of superhero fans was nightmare fuel, but she hadn’t really allowed herself to think about the long-term situation.

All she’d worked for really was gone, at least right now.

She’d always been in demand. And now she was, what did Hedda say? Oh yeah, her name was mud.

Having an open schedule was weird, and it made her antsy. Having no plan past the very next hour, was not her natural state.

Goldie felt jittery. She was unmoored in every sense. As she stood in the middle of the room, looking at the expanse of the lake, she watched a blue heron skim the surface near the unkempt beach. She had no idea how to be herself in this nothingness.

But the view was pretty. She focused on it a few minutes more. She stopped pacing. She took a deep breath. Goldie couldn’t honestly say she was confident that she’d figure all this out. But at least she had calmed her jitters. At least she’d stopped pacing.

Twenty years of yoga classes apparently did more that tone muscles. They helped her be in the moment, be in this moment. What came next was unknowable.

She heard a car pull into the parking lot of the Two Lakes Grove Hotel.

She walked to the kitchen service entrance and looked out. It was Joe Cassidy’s Cassidy Contractors pickup truck. The white truck was muddy, the simple black logo slightly obscured by dirt. He needed to wash it.

Goldie watched Joe for a moment. He was good-looking; she’d give him that.

He was strong and unkempt in a way no one in California was.

You didn’t just groom yourself in California.

You hired a professional groomer. Just like a dog groomer here, she supposed.

But fifty times as expensive. Joe’s touch of scruffy was sexy.

She snapped out of that line of thought. She didn’t need to fill the sudden quiet in her life with a totally ridiculous love affair.

Goldie watched as he started to unload his truck. As a distraction, more than anything else, she decided to greet him and find out what was on the plan for the place today.

She hoped he wasn’t going to need her to get out of the way. If he did, she’d have no clue how to do that.

“Hello, looks like you’ve got big plans for the day.”

“Yeah, late start too. Jared didn’t have all the cans mixed yet.”

“I love that Lil Pudding owns the hardware store now.”

“What?”

“That’s what we used to call him back in the day.”

“Ha, I forget you’ve got roots here, Hollywood.”

She brushed off the comment and watched as he made three trips with paint cans, drop cloths, and a ladder. Goldie’s curiosity got the better of her.

“What room are you painting?” She followed Joe into the hotel.

“Main room, just white. Rooms all need it too, but big project first.”

“Hmm.” Goldie looked at the room. White was fine in the main spaces, she decided. “What about the carpet?”

“I’m removing that after the paint. Less tarp to worry about that way.”

“Ah.” Out of curiosity, Goldie went to the far corner of the room. She tugged at the carpet. Joe continued to busy himself with setting up for the painting project.

“Anything interesting?”

“Oh, my goodness, yes, it’s original, I think.”

Under the burgundy floral pattern carpet was wood plank flooring. The planks were narrow and dried out, but Goldie could imagine what they looked like back in their heyday before she was even born.

“This is gorgeous, it needs restoration, but it’s gorgeous. Once this hideous carpet is off, you’ll be able to sand it, refinish, heck, even match what’s here, but you’re under no circumstances to cover this with a carpet. Whoever did it the first time should be arrested.”

“I’d love to restore the whole place, but Libby isn’t made of money. Dean said that with all she’s got on her plate, she’s strapped pretty thin for cash.”

“Hmm.” Goldie hadn’t thought too much about the financial strain her friend was in. She knew they were working to bring the town to life but hadn’t considered what that cost Libby.

Goldie thought back to her fantasy about this hotel. She remembered wondering what it would be like to run this grand hotel instead of all the little cottages they managed.

She turned her attention back to Joe.

“White works, in here, but each room should be different, a theme, each one a place that transports the guests to a different place in Michigan, or many different eras? Or an homage to the old cottage rows on Lake Manitou.” Her imagination was fired up now with ideas.

Goldie walked behind the front desk counter.

There was an old reservation book. She opened it.

Four rooms on each floor and an attic suite.

The grand dining room was set up for family-style dining.

It was suited for a bed-and-breakfast, she’d decided.

Not a restaurant as it had been in different eras.

They could have continental breakfast available and packed lunches, but then that was it.

Let the guests go to Hope’s Table. Or over to Brooklyn.

She’d been staying in the manager’s quarters and hadn’t taken the time to really explore.

“Are all the rooms open?”

“Ah, yeah, wide open. Trying to get the musty smell out.”

“Thanks.”

Goldie wandered upstairs. Each room had a private bathroom with a shower/tub combo.

She wandered in and out. The smell of fresh paint wafted into the hallways.

Goldie’s mind filled with the memory of the old cottages. Clean towels, fresh linens, and lake breezes, that was the selling point.

In one room, a TV on a stand sat, collecting dust. She ran a finger over the dusty thing.

“No televisions. Nope, not for Two Lakes. If you’re bored at the lake, you’re doing it wrong.”

That was her dad’s old saying. She said it as though it were her decision to remove TVs. She wondered if there was an old TV antenna stuck to the side of the building. That would have to come down if there. The plans started to form in her mind, and they didn’t stop.

Each room wouldn’t celebrate a region. They’d celebrate local lakes.

Lake Manitou, Crystal, Devil’s, Vineyard.

She’d make each room a little nod to the biggest lakes in Irish Hills.

She thought botanical prints of the native plants would be a pretty option for the walls.

She could name some after the old cottages.

Where could she find a list? She wasn’t a decorator but had done so many houses over the years.

Some of it had rubbed off. And she liked to think she knew what was tasteful.

“I think you’ve got company,” Joe said, interrupting her thoughts of how she would run Two Lakes.

Goldie walked to the main door. Was it paparazzo? Was it a fanboy who’d finally found her?

She had no makeup on, was dressed in workout gear—not even her best workout gear—and her hair was a mess. She could not be photographed this way. That was not how to gin up interest in her as a leading lady!

A tiny old woman was helped out of a car by a man in a business suit.

They looked pretty formal for Irish Hills.

The woman had a lovely posture. She wore a pretty pink sweater over her shoulders and a white blouse, with tailored pants and sensible shoes.

It all looked rather expensive, actually.

As they approached the house, it dawned on her that the woman looked familiar.

She flung open the door.

“Aunt Emma!”

“Oh, goodness, don’t scare me like that. I’m on nitro, but let’s not push the limits of pharmacology!”

“So sorry, here, come in.”

“Well, now don’t you look smooth as a baby’s backside!” Aunt Emma said, and the two embraced.

“You know it’s all fake, all of it.”

Aunt Emma whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry, I won’t blow your cover.”

“Thanks.”

“But I want you to know I’ve seen every single one of your movies. Oh, except Obsessed Attraction. You’re naked a lot in that one, I heard, so I just didn’t think my lady’s group would appreciate that. Talk about massive heart attacks left and right.”

“Aunt Emma, you look beautiful. I have missed you.” Goldie remembered Aunt Emma as kind of glamorous for Irish Hills. She still seemed fancy, lake fancy, if that was a thing.

“I’m glad you finally came home. It’s been too long.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Oh, and I heard you were the only one who had their head on straight about that Bubba situation during the tornado.”

“Oh, yeah, not a concern.”

“Exactly.”

The man with Aunt Emma cleared his throat, and she turned and introduced him.

“This is uh, Tate, Tate Patrick. He’s interested in buying the hotel. He’s only in town for a short while, and I promised him I’d show him around.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“I meant to tell Libby to give you a heads up. Hmm, I must have forgotten. Happens, I’m four thousand years old.”

Though she claimed to be ancient, and Goldie knew Aunt Emma was in her nineties, Aunt Emma did not seem to be over sixty in dexterity or when it came to her rapier wit.

“It’s your place. I totally understand.”

The man, Tate Patrick, looked at Goldie, and she knew he was figuring things out. Oh no, this could blow her cover.

“You look a lot like Goldie Hayes,” the man said as he looked at her with a bit of confusion.