Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Shelby’s first day helping out at the inn had gone smoothly, but Caroline couldn’t help hovering.

She knew she was hovering too. And she knew she should just give Shelby a tour and give her space to prove that she could do all of the tasks without issue, but Caroline felt like a mother hen. She’d never let anyone who wasn’t a part of the family help out before, and it made her unaccountably nervous. Even the maintenance was usually done by her and Donovan, unless it was something truly out of their skill set like repairing the roof. And even then, Aiden, her brother-in-law, had been the one who had headed up that project.

It just felt extremely difficult to let anyone she didn’t know and who wasn’t a part of the Stoker family—or part of it by extension—help with the running of The Mistletoe Inn. She couldn’t wrap her head around just being okay with it.

Shelby turned up bright and early at eight a.m., when Caroline had requested, just in time for Caroline to come in from feeding the animals. She gave Shelby a tour of the kitchen first, showing her which refrigerator was for family and which was for the guests, and gave her a rundown of the usual schedule.

“Breakfast starts being served at nine in the morning,” Caroline told her, showing Shelby an example of the pretty menus that were on the inn’s website and also given to each guest as they checked in, as well as being available to view in the guests’ dining room. Right now, for the Christmas season, they were printed on rustic brown paper with holly decorating the edges. “The menu changes weekly, and it’s based on the season and what’s available locally. That’s important if guests have questions. The fact that all guest meals are sourced locally is one of the selling points of staying here, so it’s important to remember that.”

Shelby glanced down the menu, which at the moment offered options of steel-cut oats with cranberries and dried orange slices, pumpkin cream cheese or cinnamon chip muffins, maple brioche French toast with local sausage links, eggs Benedict with local ham, homemade Hollandaise and eggs from the inn’s chickens, and a breakfast wrap made with local chorizo, local vegetables, goat cheese, and again, eggs from the inn.

“I think I’d stay here just for the breakfast,” Shelby declared when she was done looking it over. “I’ve kept my figure from my running days, but this might just put an end to that.”

Despite her nerves, Caroline couldn’t help but smile a little at that. “My mother is exceptionally good at cooking,” she agreed.

“And you should come over for a meal sometime,” Rhonda said from behind them, bustling into the kitchen. Caroline had known she’d come in since breakfast started to be served in thirty minutes. Rhonda was starting her usual routine of checking the orders that guests would have put in the night before and getting them plated as everyone came down. She sometimes let Caroline help with the cooking, but breakfast service was her favorite part of running the inn, and always had been. She was attached to handling that, as Caroline was with so many other parts of the inn. “I’d be happy to cook for you. Shelby, right? Now that you’re working here, you’re practically part of the family.”

Shelby smiled, and Caroline cleared her throat. “Well, I should finish showing you around. Especially the dining room, since guests will be in there soon. We’ll take the place settings and get them on the table.”

It was clear that Shelby was excited to be at the inn, working in hospitality again, and she was taking to it wonderfully. But Caroline couldn’t help correcting her. It felt like an impulse, from how Shelby set out the place settings, to how she arranged the welcome packets for the guests. She put the tourism pamphlets, inn information and menu in a different order, and Caroline quickly took the folder from her, reorganizing them. “The sheet with Wi-Fi passwords, meal and event times, and all of the other inn information goes in the back,” she explained again. “Largest sheet to smallest. Then the tourism information, and then the menu in the very front, since it’s the most aesthetic part of it.”

She knew she was being nitpicky and set in her ways. But she had always had a very certain way that she liked things done, cultivated over years of running the inn full-time. It didn’t help her mood that Margo was puttering around in the kitchen, clearly dead-set on making lunch for herself and Nora today of all days. Margo always made a huge mess when she cooked, using too many dishes and spreading them out everywhere, and Caroline gave the kitchen a wide berth so that she didn’t accidentally get irritated with her sister. She knew it wasn’t Margo’s fault, she just wished her sister had picked any other day to decide to go all in on making lunch.

A little bit before lunchtime, Caroline came downstairs after showing Shelby how to make the beds and clean the guest rooms. She’d given Shelby a checklist, hovering the whole time, and Shelby had done all of the tasks well, but she hadn’t been able to help redoing the beds. They just hadn’t been quite the way she liked them to look, the way Rhonda had always taught her to fix them.

Through it all, Shelby had been cheerful and patient, redoing everything that Caroline had asked her to, and making notes of all the things that Caroline had corrected her on. It was clear that she very much wanted to keep the job, and was eager to learn, which made Caroline feel a little guilty that she was being so hard on her.

“Shelby, why don’t you take a break for lunch with me,” Rhonda said when they came back downstairs. “I have herbed chicken wraps for us, and some of that butternut squash soup that Margo is taking leftovers from for lunch too. Caroline, as much as I’d love to have you join us, why don’t you go down and fix lunch for Rhett and Toby? Jay will be coming in with his friends too, I bet. You could use some time at home after the long morning.”

Caroline started to protest, and her mother linked her elbow through hers, steering Caroline away for a moment.

“I know you mean well,” Rhonda murmured. “But I think Shelby could use a little break from all the hovering, and I’d like to get to know her better. And I think you could use a break too,” she added firmly. “Get some time to breathe at home. We can handle everything here for now.”

Caroline wanted to argue, but she could tell that her mother wasn’t going to let her get away with not taking a break. “Okay,” she agreed reluctantly, glancing once more at Shelby before heading out of the backdoor and down to her small cottage further back on the property.

Rhett had been watching Toby all morning, and she heard her son’s happy coo as soon as she walked into the house. She took off her boots and coat, hearing Rhett call a greeting from the living room, and walked into the warm space to see him on the floor with Toby, pushing a large wooden car back and forth.

“You’re so good with him,” she said with a smile, and Rhett grinned.

“I didn’t have as much time with Jay when he was little. The fire station in Cleveland took up a lot more of my time. I’m glad I get to do all of this with Toby.” He pushed the car again, much to the little boy’s glee, and then scooped him up to bring him to Caroline. “How did it go today?”

Caroline shrugged, biting her lip. “She’s eager to learn,” she said neutrally, scooping Toby into her arms and kissing the top of his head as she walked into the kitchen to see what they had for lunch. She’d made a hot bacon and broccoli salad the night before and venison burgers, and she thought that she had some left over. She had been too stressed out all morning to be very hungry, and she thought that one of her favorite meals might help.

“Is she still there?” Rhett asked, taking Toby back after Caroline had snuggled him for a minute, so that she could make lunch.

“Yes.” Caroline took the containers with the leftovers out, divvying them up onto plates to reheat, and looking for the bag of buns she’d gotten from the local bakery. “Mom wanted to eat lunch with her and get to know her a little better. And Margo is tearing up the kitchen trying to make sandwiches for herself and Nora for their meeting to work on wedding planning, so it was all extra chaotic today. Mom insisted I come down here and see you guys for a little while, and make lunch for you and Jay.”

“I wouldn’t have minded making lunch. But I’m happy to see you for a bit. That’s the perk of working for yourself, isn’t it?” Rhett reminded her, and Caroline blew out a sharp breath, giving him a pointed look. He knew very well that working for herself had only ever meant that she had absolutely no work- life balance. Hiring Shelby was supposed to change that, but right now the thought of letting go enough to actually have that balance made her feel so alarmed that she didn’t know if it was possible.

Just then, Jay burst in, preventing her from going further down that train of thought. He had two of his friends with him, excitedly asking if they could stay for lunch, and Caroline agreed, since there were enough venison burgers for all. Her mind immediately calmed as she started to go through the motions of making lunch for five, and she knew that it was because she had something to keep her busy.

She couldn’t always be busy though. She needed time for herself, she knew. She needed to be able to relax, to read a book, and make herself her favorite candy cane tea, and spend time with her family. Needing to keep her hands busy at all times was something she’d been working on all her life, and it was long past time for her to really put effort into conquering it.

With a long sigh, she put together the plates of food, bringing the burgers and broccoli salad to the table. She had a distinct sense of satisfaction as she watched the three pre-teen boys tear into the salad as well as the burgers. It was hard to get them to eat their vegetables, and it felt like proof that she’d mastered her mother’s recipe.

“This is delicious,” Rhett told her, and Caroline smiled, holding Toby with one arm as she dug into her own lunch with the other.

The kitchen smelled warmly of food and the warmth of people gathered together, the faint fir smell of the Christmas tree from the living room and the leftover woodsmoke from the fireplace the night before, and she felt her shoulders relax slightly. Staying busy usually calmed her mind, but her family did too, and having Shelby at the inn would give her more time with them. It really wasn’t something she could argue wasn’t good for her, and for everyone else who really mattered to her.

Still, when lunch was finished and Jay and his friends had gone back out, she couldn’t resist going back up to the inn after a short break with Rhett and Toby. She’d managed to stay home until about four-thirty, but it was getting close to when Shelby would be leaving, and she couldn’t stop herself from giving Rhett a quick kiss and heading back up the hill to check on how things were going.

She found Shelby in the guests’ dining room, putting out the place settings for the morning.

“I thought I’d get a jump on these,” she said. “And everything is prepped for the morning. I double checked to make sure all the ingredients your mother needs are in the fridge, got the muffin baskets set out, and checked to make sure there’s enough coffee, tea and cocoa. One of the guests specifically requested cinnamon oat milk creamer for their coffee, but that’s already been picked up, and it’s in the refrigerator.”

Caroline personally didn’t like to set out the place settings until the morning. She thought it felt more fresh. But Rhonda walked in just then, a bright smile on her face, and she knew she shouldn’t criticize Shelby again. There were plenty of times when Rhonda got the table set the night before. There was nothing wrong with it, and it saved time in the morning. It just wasn’t Caroline’s preferred way.

But she was going to have to let go of some of those habits, and she knew it.

“I would say the first day was a success,” Rhonda said cheerily, and Shelby smiled in agreement.

“I had a wonderful time,” she said. “I can’t wait to be back. It hardly feels like a job at all, really.”

Caroline couldn’t deny that it had been a successful day. Shelby had happily done everything asked of her, and Caroline couldn’t really find fault with any of it. Still, she couldn’t help noticing that Shelby had grabbed the plain green placemats for the table settings, instead of the ones with the holly embroidery on the edges, and she couldn’t force herself to keep quiet.

“Just one thing,” she said quickly. “The placemats should be the holly ones. They’re in the linen closet. If you can swap those out, that would be great. We start using them by this point in the season.”

Shelby grinned. “Of course,” she said easily. “Happy to do that. I’ll remember to use those next time.”

There really wasn’t anything else that Caroline needed to do, beyond going back and double-checking everything as she was wont to do. The cookies and mulled wine had already been prepared for the social hour for the guests, the rooms were done up, and everything was set up for breakfast the next day. Her parents had their leftovers from the meal prep that Caroline had helped Rhonda do earlier in the week, and the inn itself was spotless. Even with looking over Shelby’s shoulder as she’d done everything, having the extra pair of hands had helped everything move much more quickly.

Other than feeding the animals, which she could do on her way out, she was perfectly fine to go home for the evening.

She knew she should be relieved. For the first time in recent memory, her evening was open, with plenty of time to do her own house chores, get dinner in the oven, and still spend time with her family. But as she checked the food and water for the chickens and goats, double-checked the gates, and then headed back down the hill to her cottage, she felt strangely out of sorts.

The feeling persisted as she went upstairs to shower and change. Rhett walked into the bedroom just as she was pulling on her favorite sweatshirt with a print of two dachshunds in kilts on it, and she saw him notice the look on her face immediately.

“What’s wrong?” Rhett asked, looking at her with kind concern. “I thought today went well? And you’re home so much earlier than usual. I’m very happy about that,” he added with a grin.

Caroline let out a sigh, chewing on her lower lip. “I feel like I’m neglecting the inn,” she admitted. “Everything is done that needs to be, but someone else did it. I feel like someone is going to notice that something is out of place, or forgotten, or it will just feel different to the guests. To Mom and Dad. It feels like I’m not doing as much as I should.”

Rhett slipped his arms around her, holding her close. “Hiring Shelby shows that you’re doing the exact opposite of neglecting it,” he said firmly. “It shows you’re doing what any good business owner should—delegating, so that things don’t get neglected and forgotten. You can’t do it all.”

“I always have though.” Caroline sighed, leaning into him. “And it feels so strange letting anyone else help.”

“You’ll see.” He kissed the side of her head. “Having a healthier balance and more time to spend with your family will be worth it.”

She knew he was right. But still, she knew it would take some time to get used to things being different.

Now, at least, she had more of it.