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W orkmen pounded in the upstairs, working their modern plumbing magic in the second-floor rooms. The plans Kate had received from the local architect were all coming into fruition.

Each guest room would have its own bathroom.

When she’d bought the inn, there had been three bedrooms on both the second and third floors, with only one bathroom per floor.

Some creative designing by Langford Architectural Enterprise had revolutionized the space.

There were even balconies for the second and third-floor rooms facing the courtyard. But boy, were plumbing costs expensive.

When she’d bravely purchased the inn, Kate knew she’d need extensive funds for remodeling, but she was blowing through her savings way faster than she was comfortable with.

And you couldn’t cut costs on plumbing. Walls and doors had been rearranged to make the existing baths part of the two largest guestrooms. And smaller baths with no tubs and only shower stalls were added to the other rooms. The third-floor plumbing was finished.

The second floor, with one last bathroom on the schedule, should be done by the end of the week.

What she loved most were the fireplace guestrooms on each floor. Those added ambience and charm. She wanted to turn those into gas fireplaces that you could turn on with just the flick of a switch. Oh, the plans! She had such amazing ideas for the inn.

Amidst all the pounding, she thought she heard a knock on the front door. Kate headed that way. Not all the deliveries came to the back entrance, and she didn’t want to miss anything important. She might need to sign for it.

Kate hurried her way to the front. Upon opening the door, she blinked at a young woman in a red power suit with a sturdy Samsonite suitcase at her feet.

“Can I help you?”

The platinum blonde gave her a luminous smile. “Yes, I’d like to rent a room.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, we aren’t open for business yet.”

The woman tossed her curls. With an eye roll a teenager would have approved, she added with confidence, “Surely, you have at least one available room.”

Just the one Kate slept in, and she was not giving that up.

“No, I’m sorry. We don’t have furniture yet, and we’re still remodeling the bathrooms.” The pounding recommenced.

The blonde frowned, her raspberry-painted lips curving in a childish pout.

Kate continued, “I don’t plan to be open until after the first of the year. Can I ask how you heard about us?”

“From everyone.” The woman waved a hand out at the town green in the square.

“Everyone I’ve met in this,” she paused, as if choosing her words carefully, “ charming … little … community …says this is the only place to stay in town.” They were the right words, but her emphasis belied their truth.

Kate wondered why she wanted so much to stay in town.

Still, she did have a point: Kate’s Mayfield Inn would be the only place to stay in the center of town.

“There are a couple of motels on the edge of Hazard near the coast. I’m sure you can find something there.

They usually aren’t overbooked. Or, if you’re looking for a more vacation-type experience, you can always try Newport.

They have some beautiful inns. I can make a recommendation.

If you’d like to wait a moment, I have some information I can give you. ”

“I want to stay here in Hazard.” She stomped her Tory Burch-booted foot. “It’s better.”

Better than Newport? Kate was baffled. She expected that tempting tourists away from Newport would be a difficult feat. “Do you know someone in town?”

The woman’s eyes widened in manufactured affront. “That’s none of your business.”

“Of course, forgive me. Let me just go get those pamphlets for you. I’ll be right back.

” Kate left the door open because shutting it in the woman’s face would be rude and hospitality was everything, but she prayed the woman would not follow her inside.

She stepped back toward the kitchen and grabbed the pamphlets off the counter.

As she rounded the doorframe to the hallway, she almost bumped into the woman. “Oh!”

The blonde stepped back, frowning, even as she peered around Kate to get a peek at the kitchen.

Kate stepped forward. Step by step she moved her pushy visitor back to the foyer.

The woman kept glancing around, peering first into the dining room and then the parlor, trying to see as much as she could.

But she wouldn’t see any furniture. That was yet to come, and Kate was glad not to be caught in a lie.

She kept up her relentless forward motion to herd the woman back to the front steps.

Once there, she handed her the pamphlets. “Here you go. Thank you for thinking of us,” she said brightly and then, all hospitality aside, shut the door in the woman’s face.

Kate leaned her back against the door and took a breath.

She slipped over to a window and watched the woman tug her luggage down the walkway to the curb, where she looked to be requesting an Uber on her phone.

Good luck with that! Hazard didn’t have much in the way of Lyft or Uber drivers.

There wasn’t enough money in it, so it would be a long wait.

In annoyance, the woman tromped across the street and over to the bench next to the statue of the town’s founder.

Certain she’d be okay even if she had to wait, Kate continued to watch her from the window and thought about her reaction to the woman.

Kate frowned. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for the hospitality business.

That had been just one maddening person, and she’d had an immediately negative response.

How was she going to handle real guests who turned out to be truly annoying?

Or demanding and infuriating? Had this career move been a good idea?

Kate loved the idea of owning a B&B, but would the reality of dealing with strangers—and possibly really aggravating strangers—dim her enthusiasm?

What about creepy guests?

Kate shivered. Her dad’s words rolled through her brain.

“You have zero experience with this. If you don’t like it, where will you go?

You can’t leave them and go home. You’ll be in your home.

It’s not like you can afford to hire enough staff to give you time off.

You’ll be sleeping where your guests are sleeping. ” He’d let out a disparaging snort.

Kate had held her tongue. His negativity came from his life’s experience as a fixer for celebrities. Kate had worked for him for several years and hated it. But he was one to talk. All of his clientele were annoying. And demanding. And maddening. And rich.

Would her clientele be so different?

Yes, of course, she would host honeymooners and couples on vacation.

Maybe, occasionally, a family, although her rooms were mostly on the smaller side.

If she was really lucky, she might host a wedding party.

Her gaze turned wistful as she imagined a wedding in her courtyard.

She sighed in happiness at her little daydream.

An inn would be so much easier than repairing scandalous celebrity faux pas . Wouldn’t it?

His father’s philosophy of “stick with what you know” had always grated on Kate.

If you stuck only with what you knew, you never got to experience anything better.

And she wanted better. She’d wasted too many years working for her father, solving all kinds of problems that were only brought on by absurdly bad choices.

She hated spending her days embroiled in other people’s problems. Yes, it was a service, and yes, it paid ridiculously well—which is how she could afford the inn to begin with—but the constant spinning of actions that landed rich clients in scalding hot water…

well, most of them deserved the scandals they found themselves in.

Fixing everything for them didn’t help them learn their lessons.

Clearly not, because most of her dad’s clientele were repeat customers.

After eight years of working for her father, Kate hated celebrities. She hated their arrogance and their preening. She hated their privileged expectations and, especially, their disrespect. She was so over fixing their mistakes.